I am not against design or stories, but my project fell apart because we waited too long on design and story.

And actually I''m coding a MMORPG (massive multiplayer online RPG). It is very diffucult to make a story for one of those. The biggest problem is that after you finish a mission or quest all the enemies and items must come back for the next person.

Usually the point of MMORPG''s is to kill enemies and interact with real people. A good background for the game like why certain weapons are there and a history of different races is necessary though.

I would appreciate good ideas on how to give a MMORPG a better story. And doing what diablo does by making everything come back when you start a new game is not an option since that is a ORPG, not MMORPG, and the server should rarely reboot and never lose data on a MMORPG.

Whatever the game a story is always a plus.

blue-lightning (BTW, are lightning of another color sometimes?), your design of a MMORPG is really restrictive :

"It is very diffucult to make a story for one of those. The biggest problem is that after you finish a mission or quest all the enemies and items must come back for the next person."

Why the hell do you need to do that ?
It''s really incoherent ?
A world don''t reset !

There are plenty of way to avoid having to do this, but it''s not up to me to tell you, but rather for the designer to found out new solutions.
(In fact I can''t tell you the solutions I found because I''m working on a commercial MMORPG, sorry.)

-* So many things to do, so little time to spend. *-

I think the reason why this commonly happens is because previously the industry hasn''t had much need of incredible detailed and complex story writing to keep people happy. The industry has been controlled a long time by the shere graphics and if there were any cool "features" and for this purpose it is only just now that we are starting to have a need for them and this infantile industry has yet to grasp as to the right order of things.

OK. My appologies go out to all for my posts, I am a complete RPG fanatic and that is all I speak for. MMORPG''s don''t need to be restricted like you say. They can follow a story, or even MANY stories... But you need to know how the story goes before you will EVER be able to implement it properly in a MMORPG. You need a way of every player finishing certain quests. This is game specific, and is really a hard task. It is impossible with no story. If you are all about interaction between players, and you have no story or scenario, then you have a chat-room, not a RPG (please no flames This is just my opinion ).

Everyone should feel free to create their game the way that they want, but I have to stick with what I have been posting before.

Oh, and BTW. IMO Total Annihilation sucked. It was a crap game with no story. I don''t care about graphics, so this is probably why the game did nothing for me. That is just my oppinion though. I think that a lot of people (sonsumers) out there are really dull when they find flashy graphics a reason to buy a game... Some people never learn *sigh*

-Chris Bennett ("Insanity" of Dwarfsoft)

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Doom didn''t have much of a story, but what story it did, it tied into the level design, at least for the first episode. I never actually played any of the TA campaigns myself - I just played the skrimish mode as I do with AOEI&II. Game balance matter more in strategy games than the do for story, but as for RPG/MMORPG, the story is the key. If you don''t have a good story, what point is there to RPG? The story at least needs to set up the role the player is in, if nothing else. I actually considered Privateer somewhat of an RPG since you had a story to go on, if you wanted to.

dwarfsoft sez:
---->But you need to know how the story goes before you will EVER be able to implement it properly in a MMORPG.<----

Well, I agree that in an MMORPG you need a strong and consistent theme/world developed, and it would be best if all this was sketched out beforehand, to be modified according to harsh reality =). But, the last thing I would do w/ an MMORPG is write the story *beforehand*. I think a requirement of an MMORPG should be a team of full-time content creators, actually participating as characters if possible. As such, and if it is a quality team, they should do alot of story writing on the fly, reacting to the actions of players. And if a player misses a quest because he wasn''t there for it, that would be the drawback of having a persistent plotworld. News files on a website could keep everyone up to date if it was a problem. This approach would really require a reworking of the current "quest" structure, as the quests wouldn''t really be set pieces, but elements in an ongoing plot. I''ve seen this work in MUDs, but it takes a certain kind of player.

This "certain type of player" *can* be cultivated. Here is a link to an article that explains it way better than I can.

For anyone interested in MMORPGs and/or MUDs, this article, even the whole site is worth a look.

I don''t ever consider a story to have been fully completed at ANY point in time (unless you are Feist or Tolkien or whatever ). I suggest that you need to write out THE story. The story that you have written is in NO WAY a definitive form. It should be altered on the fly to suit the engine, and to incorporate new ideas (as long as they are not too new). This is a step that I recommend. It may not be for all, but I am going to continue to say that I am right... It does not mean that anybody else isn''t right with a different system, this system works GREAT for me... ''nuff said

-Chris Bennett ("Insanity" of Dwarfsoft)

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Gotcha- Actually, I misunderstood. Thought you meant have the whole kit & kaboodle sealed and tied w/ a bow. Well, never mind then, 'cause I agree with you! Get the most important part out of the way first, right? Also agreed: "'nuff said", making this post officially "too much said". ;>

Edited by - Anonymous Poster. on August 18, 2000 11:58:14 AM

quote: Original post by dwarfsoft

Oh, and BTW. IMO Total Annihilation sucked. It was a crap game with no story. I don''t care about graphics, so this is probably why the game did nothing for me. That is just my oppinion though. I think that a lot of people (sonsumers) out there are really dull when they find flashy graphics a reason to buy a game... Some people never learn *sigh*

You know, the only problem I have with your statement is the people never learn part. It''s cool if you want a story in your RTS. Starcraft sounds like the game for you. TA sold pretty well, and I don''t think it was only for the graphics: the game had great multiplayer gameplay, fantastic automation of battle and building, a good combat model with line of sight and height, etc., etc. (You probably didn''t like the single player experience, in which case I would agree with your opinion).

I just wonder: when you talk about story are you forgetting gameplay? I can''t imagine there''s anyone who wouldn''t be able to stand a game that had AWESOME gameplay but little or no story.

--------------------
Just waiting for the mothership...

I put story and gameplay on the same level. To help portray a story the way that it is wanted, you need to have a similar style in your flowing gameplay. I am not forgetting it, but it is reliant on the story IMO (for RPGs)

I have Starcraft, though I am not really a RTS fan. I prefer Diablo/II actually (not RPG''s, but awesome anyways. Click''n''kill really doesn''t do it justice though ). I also like Might and Magic... so yeah. RTS really isn''t my Genre, and I don''t really get too many multiplayer chances (no lan, no net access from my room... Just modem-modem).

About the ''people never learn''.. Some people don''t, but here in "Game Design Corner", people ARE learning

-Chris Bennett ("Insanity" of Dwarfsoft)

Check our site:
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