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Original post by Estok Quote: Original post by sunandshadow Quote: Original post by Estok Truthfully I found the idea of an uncharacterized human in an alien world unsatisfactory. I have always protested against it, if you can recall the discussion about 'speculative science fictions'. It is not difficult to envision such a game and I have already done that in the beginning of this thread. There was an ancient dispute on what I meant by sacrifice and reincarnation. I still don't know whether you understand what I meant. Whether you found it unsatisfactory or not, that is what we as a group have decided to go with. Remember that this is a COLLABORATIVE project which requires lots of compromise, and in being a member of our staff you agree to go along with whatever the majority decides - if you refuse to do this you are not only wasting all our time, you are violating the terms of being a staff member and participate in this project. I did go along with the idea that there is an uncharacterized human in an alien world idea, including the original synopsis of 13-tails. The game review version of 13-tails did not share this compromise because I envisioned the role of the game review was to explicitely declare our view prior to compromises. You don't see the function of the game review the same therefore I am redoing it in terms of Cryo. Quote: There are things the majority has agreed on which I don't like much, but a mature writer can suck it up and work within constraints, focusing on the aspects which are more palatable. If you can envision a game which fits our design decisions you need to do that and suggest ways to build on that foundation, not contradictory irrelevant things which we will just reject because they don't fit the foundations. What ideas did you suck up?

Most of the ideas I find unsatisfactory have not been marked closed in the OPRL, thus I have not added them to the game design doc yet. But I have 'sucked up' the ideas that Frequency is a Magical, Race Names will probably be meaningless rather than my preferred style, the PC will probably 'die' even though I think that it would be more fun to play if there was no death, and there were several places where I directly incorporated others' suggestions into the magical and techno race proposals. Chances are fairly good that I will not care for the working title we are about to select either.

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The notion that there is no cryogenics is not in the design document. If you were referring to the sentence in the design doc: "The PC begins the game as a human unexpectedly summoned or revived..." I consider being awaken from cryo a form of revived. For the summoning part, there is a topic that I have thought of: If the PC is summoned, does it imply that there is something that the PC was performing, but suddenly he is warped into a new world where he lost his memory and what he was supposed to do in the old world. The duties that the PC previously had was simply gone. If the PC is revived from a cryo, we can elaborate on the fact that the PC is frozen for a reason, and that reason is related to the mystery behind the initial split of the human race and the search of spirituals. In addition, this idea still support the notion that the PC is revived jointly. What is the next topic regarding the game review of Cryo that you want me to talk about?

There will be no cryogenics. Everyone agreed on this in the OPRL, and the only reason it didn't make it into the last design doc version is that you, for reasons unknown to me, have not marked the proposal closed. But "summoning by joing techno/magical effort, no amnesia" will definitely be in the next version of the design doc, so please incorporate that in your concept of the game. Don't call it Cryo, and mark the proposal closed in the OPRL. Personally, I don't think the history of the split between the three future races should be one of the important mysteries of the game - I would rather focus on why the summoning was attempted and why it resulted in the appearance of humans, at least for the beginning part of the game.

What is the next topic I want you to talk about? Well, why don't you start with just the first paragraph of my game review:

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Packaging - The first thing I liked about this game was its title. The title was an intriguing ambiguous phrase that made me very curious how it would be instantiated in the game. The pic on the cover of the box showed a cast of beautiful anime-ish characters with wild and interesting clothing, hairstyles, anthro accessories, and faial/expressions/stances that hint at them having a variety of vivid and interesting personalities. Then I turned to the back of the box, and imagine my delight when it said that I could court/make friends with any of these characters, and more than that, that it was my responsibility whether their lives would work out happily or not. This game looked so smart! Not like all those moronic pulp fsf RPGs that try to pass themselves off as qualty games; gah I hate getting intrigued by a pretty title and cover only to be terribly dissapointed by the cheesy childishness of the story! :P But this game looks like a real gem, a game I might actually learn something from playing. There were also some pics of a beautiful and very cultural slightly alien settings I was eager to walk around in, and some puzzles I was excited to try to solve.

So, that paragraph was the answers to the followng questions:
What should the title make you think and feel?
What sould be on the cover of the box and why is this appealing to you?
The back of the box should describe the major points of the gameplay such as wooing RNPCs, solving puzzles, arcade-style combat, etc. Please list what you think the major gameplay points are and what makes each appealing.
Please describe your role (as the uncharacterized PC) in the game and why this will be fun. After reading the back of the game box, what are you particularly looking forward to doing in the game, and why?
Summing up, how did the packaging make you decide to buy the game?

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I would say that our overall story is a bilungsroman - the PC's central goal is to find his/her place in the world including political alignment, racial alignment, and romance. And to do that, lke AG says, first he/she must discover who he/she is in terms of abilities and desires. And we did indeed talk about this already.

We did talk about this but we did not settle the differences. I know that you played the sims. Do you think that this is very much like the sims?

I do not think that this is at all like the sims. If I had to pick an example game that is most similar to ours I would either pick a dating sim, FF7, or one of the few adventure games which has actual NPCs to talk to, such as _The Longest Journey_.

I told you before that the game review is supposed to be used to clarify what we all think of the game, and that I have questions regarding them. Do you still want me to ask you, or you ask me on cryo first or we do it at the same time?
You have questons regarding my game review, you mean? You might as well ask them now, the answers may help you write yours.

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We absolutely did answer these questions already. The 4 races are like cousins and present the different forms in which human societies can exist, each with its own benefits and drawbacks, showing that each type of society helps some types of people bloom while making others unhappy outcasts.

This is just your answer. It is not settled. What is the mystery related to the races and the fact that they splited? What is the significance of the split?

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As I said above, I do not think the split should be one of the significant mysteries of the game. IMO the purpose of splitting them into races is to illustrate more clearly how different types of societies are good or bad for people with different types of personalities. Thus, the magicals should have a traditional, passionate, family-oriented racial personality, while the technos have a liberal, rational, individualist racial personality. How they got divided that way is not particularly important to the themes I want to discuss in the game. Quote: The player's job is to evaluate the RNPCs' different personality types and the different possible ways of living, then help each RNPC start living whichever way is best for their personality. The significance of the humans being summoned (not frozen) is that humans represent varied, flexible, unformed potential, which can either follow the pattern of one of the three example races or forge its own path. If you allow me to summarize what you have just said: In this game, the player will sample different cultures, figure out what he wants to do, and make decisions such as what culture to follow, who to be with, and how to end up being with someone. Is this close to what you envision? Does this sum up the major motivations why a player would play the game?

Yes. Although it ignores the 'moral' of the game (Individual 'right' ways of living for different personality types), which is what I was trying to get at. There's also 5MG's nice quote: "It isn't the way the people look or the way they act that makes them different but the way they think."

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Original post by sunandshadow Most of the ideas I find unsatisfactory have not been marked closed in the OPRL, thus I have not added them to the game design doc yet. But I have 'sucked up' the ideas that Frequency is a Magical, Race Names will probably be meaningless rather than my preferred style, the PC will probably 'die' even though I think that it would be more fun to play if there was no death, and there were several places where I directly incorporated others' suggestions into the magical and techno race proposals. Chances are fairly good that I will not care for the working title we are about to select either.

Let me assure you that you have no sucked up anything from Frequency. P24 is a survey. I used it to probe our views on to what extent an animal trait is integrated to the meaning, the types of metaphors that I was envisioning, my meaning of spirituality and duality, and how these meanings are integrated with the character design. So far these do not seem to be what we value for character design.

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There will be no cryogenics. Everyone agreed on this in the OPRL, and the only reason it didn't make it into the last design doc version is that you, for reasons unknown to me, have not marked the proposal closed. But "summoning by joing techno/magical effort, no amnesia" will definitely be in the next version of the design doc, so please incorporate that in your concept of the game.

Referring to P18. I do not mark anything closed until the author declares so.

What do you mean by the PC got summoned and there is no amnesia? My arguement for cryo is not about whether there is an actual pod that freezed the human. It was about whether the human was saved for the new world on purpose. My objection to summoning however has to do with the actual notion of summoning. To me it sounds like a UFO abducting the PC. My question was is that the effect you want to get and what were your considerations. I want to understand this very clearly because this beginning might set the tone and the mood, and I am unclear what mood you are setting with a summon in which the PC has no amnesia and knows exactly that he has just got warped into a new place.

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Don't call it Cryo.

What is the need to call it something else? And what would you suggest I call my own vision of the game story? I guess I am just going to call it E01.

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Personally, I don't think the history of the split between the three future races should be one of the important mysteries of the game - I would rather focus on why the summoning was attempted and why it resulted in the appearance of humans, at least for the beginning part of the game.

This is a choice that I prefered to be settled early on in this design project. This is a high level, conceptual question regarding the role of mystery in our story design. To fully understand our views on this question we probably have to declare what scale, scope, and influence of mysteries are on our story.

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What is the next topic I want you to talk about? Well, why don't you start with just the first paragraph of my game review: Quote: Packaging - The first thing I liked about this game was its title. The title was an intriguing ambiguous phrase that made me very curious how it would be instantiated in the game. The pic on the cover of the box showed a cast of beautiful anime-ish characters with wild and interesting clothing, hairstyles, anthro accessories, and faial/expressions/stances that hint at them having a variety of vivid and interesting personalities. Then I turned to the back of the box, and imagine my delight when it said that I could court/make friends with any of these characters, and more than that, that it was my responsibility whether their lives would work out happily or not. This game looked so smart! Not like all those moronic pulp fsf RPGs that try to pass themselves off as qualty games; gah I hate getting intrigued by a pretty title and cover only to be terribly dissapointed by the cheesy childishness of the story! :P But this game looks like a real gem, a game I might actually learn something from playing. There were also some pics of a beautiful and very cultural slightly alien settings I was eager to walk around in, and some puzzles I was excited to try to solve. So, that paragraph was the answers to the followng questions:

A little note. The original suggestion of what we now call the 'Game Review' was referring to the game story, (i.e. what do you like about the final game story?) not the entire game design including the box. However your interpretation is acceptable.


What should the title make you think and feel?
The title is a simple word or juxtaposition of simple words that is related to the ultimate mystery or the central idea. I value game stories that suggest or create new meanings. The title should reflect that meaning in a metaphorical way, that cannot be understood without comprehending the story. At the same time, the title should present a dillenma or seeming contradiction that motivates the player to discover its meaning in the story.


What sould be on the cover of the box and why is this appealing to you?
The cover should be a metaphorical drawing about the central idea and mystery. Similar to my view on the title, the cover can present a contrast or contradiction that cannot be fully understood without comprehending the game. The composition can include characters, landscape, symbols. If characters are presented on the cover, they should be presented with hints of their relationships.

The title design and cover art can work together to hint for the mystery. The title and cover art can produce a seeming discrepancy that invites the player to investigate.


The back of the box should describe the major points of the gameplay such as wooing RNPCs, solving puzzles, arcade-style combat, etc. Please list what you think the major gameplay points are and what makes each appealing.
Wooing RNPC - characters with realistic personality and depth in terms of what situations they face; relevant to the mystery; different outcomes with respect to their relationship with you, their goals, and your goals.

Solving Puzzles - I favor seemless puzzles (i.e. puzzles that do not have a sub screen or mini screen that pops up) In some games, there are situations when a treasure box is locked by pieces of different size that you need to move around piece together the picture. Those and other puzzles that look apparently like puzzles are the types that I do not prefer. There was a picture that s/s selected in one of the style test (pertaining to desktop themes) that columns of balls. I do not prefer that style because it makes me feel that I am playing a kindergarten computer game.

The above type of puzzles are ok. But they are not the predominant type of puzzles in the game that I envision.

I consider puzzles to be anything that requires the player to analyze, creatively think for a solution, or to piece together information in order to get the meaning.
- The player observes events that are related, but the meaning and motivation is hidden for the player to solve;
- The related events might occur at different places, in this case the player needs to hypothesize of what is going on, predict the location and time of the next related event, and go there to progress the storyline (with respect to the mystery);


Combat - arcade style; PC customizer (over time) into different fighting styles. Fight along side RNPC that is controlled by AI or by player. Many configurations, abilities and equipments.


Please describe your role (as the uncharacterized PC) in the game and why this will be fun. After reading the back of the game box, what are you particularly looking forward to doing in the game, and why?
The role of the PC is to uncover the mystery and to see the story that the authors have to offer. This is fun because the mysteries, questions, and contradictions of the story are intriguing. I want to know what topic the authors choose to explore in the game story, and any new meaning and inspirations that they have to offer. I am also looking forward to how that gameplay features are integrated to enhance the experience of the story.


Summing up, how did the packaging make you decide to buy the game?
I pick this game because there seems to offer a comprehensive experience of an intriguing, meaningful, and original multi-ending story.

Catagory 1 discrepancy:

If you compare the 'Game Review' I wrote and s/s wrote, there is a catagory 1 discrepancy that is persistent since the second page of this thread. It is a discrepancy that we initiated discussion several times but never settled. In the following I will try to describe what I see. The description about s/s's view is meant to be corrected if it is wrong.


My interpretation of s/s's view of what the game is about (E02):
In this game, we will offer the player a variety of romantic opportunities and cultural philosophies in a new world. The main focus of our development is therefore to provide a rich set of philosophies, and realistic or novel types of relationships that the player can explore, pursue, and enjoy. The player is invited to examine and compare the different choices in terms of lifestyle and moral values.


My view of what the game is about (E03):
In this game, we will put the player in a new world, immersing the player in a profound mystery about the worldbuilding and the history of how the new world came about. The meanings behind the mysteries lies on different perspectives on philosophy and moral standards. There are many possible truths, or one truth that is misinterpreted as different truths, behind the mystery. The philosophical and moral perspectives behind different forces that created the mystery is reflected and presented in parallel by the
philosophies, morals, and types of love of the RNPCs. While the player can directly discover the fasts about the past, the interpretation of the facts lies in the perspective on the philosophy and moral presented by the cultures and RNPCs. As the shows preferences towards a certain set of philosophy and moral, facts are interpreted accordingly, leading to a particular version of the truth.


Both views are supported by the constraints and the statement of purpose.

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The Statement of purpose (10/18/2004): We, the members of the Gamedev.net writing forum, will pool our talents to create a science-fantasy game story for a single player RPG with a branching story, multiple endings, and optional romance. The game will feature deep, complex characters and pondering of moral ambiguity, but will maintain a positive tone. The worldbuilding will be vivid, and immersive with mysteries for the player to uncover, tools for him/her to master, and abilities for him/her to learn, because the PC will not start out with any inherent special abilities. The plot will be complex. Gameplay will deemphasize combat (although it will still be an integral part of the game) and instead emphasize world exploration, puzzle solving, and social interaction with NPCs.

In a nutshell, this catagory 1 discrepancy is related our view on how the mysteries are integrated in terms of the meaning of the stories, the RNPC, and the worldbuilding.

This is a catagory 1 choice because it has nothing to do with plots, characters, and worldbuilding. Depending on the initial responses to this post, this topic can be posed as P26 so that we can gather the views on how mystery is integrated in the story, and we can vote or compromise after we understood our views. The type of responses that can prevent this topic from becoming P26 include:

1) One of the visions profoundly violates the statement of purpose; or that this topic is in fact clearly settled according to the statement of purpose;
2) There are no distinction between the two visions;
3) The discrepancy is not important to settle, it is something that we will get to and clarify eventually;
4) This topic is not important to settle because it does not affect other choices such as character design and worldbuilding of the story;
5) This resolution of this topic is dependent on another choice that needs to be settled first;

I have provided some types of opposing responses to help you if you want to go against this. My position is that there is a misunderstanding that what I called central ideas and catagory 1 choices are related to plots and are dependent on plot elements. This is a concrete example of catagory 1 choice that I think we need to discuss and settle before we move on. And I hope that this example can clarify what I consider 'upstream elements' and can dispense s/s's comment based on a misconception of what catagory 1 choices are.

I believe that there is a misunderstanding because:

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s/s: We are never going to be able to agree on the abstract 'upstream' elements unless we have some concrete, specific, 'downstream' elements to work with. I don't agree with this 'upstream', 'downstream' view

In terms of the catagory 1 choice above, what kind of characters, worldbuilding, racial/religious definition do you need to consider before you can decide whether we should lean toward E02 or E03?

Furthermore, I don't think that E02 and E03 are the only two existing views. I think 5M also has a different view.

EO2 is a good statement of what I think the game is about. As far as I can tell, the only difference between EO2 and EO3 is emphasis, would you agree with that statement? Anyway, I am going to offer a slightly revised version of EO3 which reflects my belief that all mysteries should be in the present rather than the past, with emphasis on worldbuilding but not history: (changes are in bold).

EO3.R1.S
In this game, we will put the player in a new world, immersing the player in a tangle of mysteries about the worldbuilding, especially the relationship between the four races, the PC's options and abilities withing this world, and how the humans embody "the source of spiritual power"(the answer is diversity and flexibility. The meaning behind the mysteries lies in the moral that there are different 'right ways to live' for people of different personality types; this will be explored through the personalities of the three races, the personalities of the RNPCs, and the type of personality the player chooses to give the PC. There are many possible paths and good endings to fit different PC personalities. The mysteries of each gameplay will be resolved by revealing a variation on the truth which is appropriate to the PC's personality and actions within the game. For example, a player who works hard through multiple game+es to acquire all the abilities available and become a spiritual could 'find out' that he/she is the oldest spiritual and must go back in time to save the island and the proto-magicals and proto-technos from the apocalypse. OTOH a player who worked hard to build the human settlement up as much as possible could 'find out' that he/she will go down in history as the father/mother of the 'fourth race', having accomplished the great deed of making the world more culturally diverse. The philosophical and moral perspectives behind different forces that create (in the present tense) the mysteries are embodied in the
philosophies, morals, and types of love of the RNPCs. While the player cannot directly discover the fasts about the past, he/she can form an interpretation of the facts by examining historical artifacts and records, listening to NPCs' theories, and responding to these ideas in internal monologue exchanges. As the player shows preferences towards a certain set of philosophy and moral, facts are interpreted accordingly, leading to a particular version of the truth.


I see this revised version of EO3 as completely compatible with EO2 and the Statement of Purpose. Do you disagree with any of the revisions I made?

The revision is done too early. Please wait for 5M and AG's responses. Before getting into a revision or compromise, is there anything that you do not understand about E03 or anything that you want to add to E02?

I see that there is a possible misunderstanding of E03. When I said that the player can directly obtain facts, the facts that I was referring to are hard evidences. However, the meaning and context of those evidences are up to interpretations. The interpretations are indeed from 'examining historical records, listening to NPCs' theories, and responding to these ideas in internal monologue exchanges.' In this quote, I excluded historical artifacts because I consider those to be facts and evidencs. Historical records are not facts because those are an interpretation of the events (I know that you know historical records are not facts, I am just reiterating it to clarify that what I meant by facts pertain to physical evidences).

I don't understand what you mean by mystery that is related to worldbuilding but not the history. Can you give an example?

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EO2 is a good statement of what I think the game is about. As far as I can tell, the only difference between EO2 and EO3 is emphasis, would you agree with that statement?

To be very objective and precise, no. Emphasis is a major difference, but not the only difference. The obvious additional difference is that in E03, the reason why the human race split and why they get back again are part of the mysteries package.

The reason that you don't want mystery to be related to the history was because you don't want the player to carry any baggage. Is this correct? The package of mysteries contains many items, some are related to the past and some are not. This is why I do not see mysteries related to the past is a baggage because the player does not need to solve all the mysteries. It is possible that the player can enjoy the relationship conflicts alone without engaging any items in the mystery package. The vision in E03 simply suggested that the package of mysteries including the history. The idea behind this vision is that there is a meaning to discover behind why the races split. The players does not need to pursue this meaning unless they are interested in it.

The reason to why I think that a mystery relating to the history is necessary due to these premises:

1) The magicals and technos do not know that they were from the human race;
2) The magicals and technos are unable to recognize the human PC as an ancestor species or that the human is an ancient civilization;
3) The player does not know that the planet is the future of earth;

The intuitive questions are "why not?"

This intuitive question is a mystery and the answer to this question inevitably lies in the past. Therefore, for the completeness of the worldbuilding this piece of mystery is necessary to be included in the package. It is a design flaw (incompleteness) if the player cannot find out reasons or variations of reason pertaining to these premises.

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Original post by Estok The revision is done too early. Please wait for 5M and AG's responses. Before getting into a revision or compromise, is there anything that you do not understand about E03 or anything that you want to add to E02?

My goal in making the revision was to point out disagreements and confusions about EO3, the other team members are of course welcome to make their own comments.

The only thing I found confusing about EO3 (besides the missing word "player" in the last sentence) was this:

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The philosophical and moral perspectives behind different forces that created the mystery is reflected and presented in parallel by the philosophies, morals, and types of love of the RNPCs.

I see this as having wrong orientation or wrong priorities - The philosophies, morals, and types of love ARE the forces that are currently creating the mystery in the present, they should certainly not be mere reflections of past events. The meaning should not be behind why the races split, but behind how the races' current cultures interact with their members' personalities, and how the races are currently related toeach other.

EO2 is not as complete as EO3, but as I said, I believe EO2 and my revision of EO3 are compatible and should be combined to form a more complete description of the game.

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I see that there is a possible misunderstanding of E03. When I said that the player can directly obtain facts, the facts that I was referring to are hard evidences. However, the meaning and context of those evidences are up to interpretations. The interpretations are indeed from 'examining historical records, listening to NPCs' theories, and responding to these ideas in internal monologue exchanges.' In this quote, I excluded historical artifacts because I consider those to be facts and evidencs. Historical records are not facts because those are an interpretation of the events (I know that you know historical records are not facts, I am just reiterating it to clarify that what I meant by facts pertain to physical evidences).

Okay.

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I don't understand what you mean by mystery that is related to worldbuilding but not the history. Can you give an example?

Some examples of non-historical worldbuilding mysteries:
- How is the PC a "source of spiritual power", in terms of humans' ablity to use both magical and techno power?
- How do magic/techno powers/spiritual powers work?
- What abilities and traits can the PC gain and how can he/she gain them?
- What do various magical runes mean?
- How does the techno item synthesis system work?
- What are the racial personalities of the three future races?

Note how these non-historical mysteries make for better gameplay because when the player figures one out he/she can USE the info to accomplish new things within the game. We want "how" mysteries to be the main ones in the first game play (and thus on the back of the game box), and "why" mysteries to exist at the ends edges of the game to satisfy people's curiosity, which signals to them that they are done playing the game.

Which leads to my objection against historical mysteries - events that happened years before the present game time lack emotional immediacy (the player won't care deeply about them) and historical knowledge cannot be usefully applied within the current game story. I agree that we should, for completeness' sake, have the story of how the human race split into the three techno races be in the game somewhere, but it absolutely should not be one of the major mysteries we ask the player to solve, particularly since the logical place for historical info is in the spiritul museum which the player shouldn't even get to in the first play through the game. Of course the magicals and technos should have their own incomplete, revisionist, and half-forgotten histories, but the spirituals should have the best version because they have human artifacts and they have long lives and memories.



Oh, and while I'm posting, I wanted to respond to what you said about Frequency being just a survey. Is Frequency the ideal character you would want to court while playing the game? Because that's the kind of character you should have been developing the whole time - I really thought that was obvious from my development of Skew and comments about having different writers develop characters so that the characters appealed to our variety of writers, and hopefully therefore to our variety of players. So that's an essential question that I have for you - what kind of character would you want to court if you were playing the game?

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Original post by sunandshadow The only thing I found confusing about EO3 (besides the missing word "player" in the last sentence) was this: Quote: The philosophical and moral perspectives behind different forces that created the mystery is reflected and presented in parallel by the philosophies, morals, and types of love of the RNPCs. I see this as having wrong orientation or wrong priorities - The philosophies, morals, and types of love ARE the forces that are currently creating the mystery in the present, they should certainly not be mere reflections of past events. The meaning should not be behind why the races split, but behind how the races' current cultures interact with their members' personalities, and how the races are currently related to each other.

I think what you refer to as present mystery is the following:

The PC discovers that Lion and Skew hates each other. The PC is curious to know why (thus there is a mystery). Then the PC explores and figures out the philosophical differences between the magicals and technos, and now the PC understands why Lion and Skew hates each other (Mystery is solved). Is this correct?

What I meant by 'forces that were behind the mysteries are reflected by the RNPC' is this: If the original split of the human race was based on an argument on whether the humans should fight or flee from a disaster, then the story (the present story) can feature the PC facing a crisis (a parallel version of the disaster), where one RNPC urges the PC to fight, and another RNPC urges the PC to flee. The inter-personal, romantic conflict in the present is a mapping of the global, political conflict in the past. This parallelism is meaningful in two ways. First, it allows us to add personal and emotional value to what is otherwise impersonal, political conflict through the juxtaposition with a romantic metaphor. Second, the reflection of the conflict gives the idea that problems not resolved in the past is bound to reoccur. This gives a deeper layer of satisfaction of solving an ancient mystery because, while the PC cannot change what happened in the past, the PC is in fact solving a problem that the ancestors were unable to solve.

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Quote: I don't understand what you mean by mystery that is related to worldbuilding but not the history. Can you give an example? Some examples of non-historical worldbuilding mysteries: - How is the PC a "source of spiritual power", in terms of humans' ablity to use both magical and techno power? - How do magic/techno powers/spiritual powers work? - What abilities and traits can the PC gain and how can he/she gain them? - What do various magical runes mean? - How does the techno item synthesis system work? - What are the racial personalities of the three future races? Note how these non-historical mysteries make for better gameplay because when the player figures one out he/she can USE the info to accomplish new things within the game.

When I read your list, I do not immediately identify those as mysteries (except item 1). They are more like the process of gaining knowledge and learning about the world. For the 'magical runes' mystery, I see it more as a puzzle. I have some guesses and elaborations on why those might be implemented as mysteries. But I want you to define what you mean by 'mystery', and how does 'solving a mystery' differ from 'gaining knowledge' and 'solving a puzzle'. We want "how" mysteries to be the main ones in the first game play (and thus on the back of the game box), and "why" mysteries to exist at the ends edges of the game to satisfy people's curiosity, which signals to them that they are done playing the game.Wile I agree with your view about what you like on the list of questions, and E03 does not exclude these questions, some items on your list I do not consider to be mysteries. For example, your second point:

The PC intially does not know how magics and technology works. Do you simply mean that the PC has not learned any spells and techniques? If so, what is the process of learning them? Why is such learning process equivalent to solving a mystery?

For your point five, do you expect the player to have the following throught process?:

"I have no idea how the techno item synthesis work. It is such as mytery I am going to solve it. There are so many possible truths behind this item synthesis, and each one of them seem to bear philosophical and moral values. Which RNPC should I trust? What strategy should I pursue the truth meaning of item synthesis? This mystery is profound, and intriguing, I know that I am heading up to some great revelation. "

There is a mismatch to what you called mystery. Right? If not, can you explain why you called those points mysteries?

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Which leads to my objection against historical mysteries - events that happened years before the present game time lack emotional immediacy (the player won't care deeply about them) and historical knowledge cannot be usefully applied within the current game story.

I unintentionally answered this in the explanation of what 'reflection' means.

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I agree that we should, for completeness' sake, have the story of how the human race split into the three techno races be in the game somewhere, but it absolutely should not be one of the major mysteries we ask the player to solve, particularly since the logical place for historical info is in the spiritul museum which the player shouldn't even get to in the first play through the game.

Caution here. The spiritual museum does not exist. Early on in this thread I expressed the view that our set of premises are flawed to begin with. We tried to gather ideas too quickly, and I see that the mystery of the history is indeed for completeness' sake if we do not retain the original notion that it is the main mystery. I don't remember whether I said this verbatim, but that mystery is a plague that we can't ignore, unless we change the premisses. (By the way the person that suggested these premisses had not engaged in this thread for 30 pages.) The second option is that we can vote to handwave it, in that case the story will probably lose a lot of blood in terms of being a serious story constructed with considerations. The third option is that we exploit this history. We give it meaning and significance, and we make it personal, emotion, and relevant to the present relationships. This is the option that Ii have been trying to take. Do you think that the presentation method I menstioned above can pull it off? If not, I think you must have seen story telling techniques that achieves the goal of introducing immediate, intimate meaning to a distant,historical event. It is a technique that allows historical events to be unfolded vividly before the player's eyes, and an experience that the mystery is still interactive eventhough in reality it already occured. It is a type of techniques that is does not rely on the cliche, imature notion that the player would need to travel back in time and change the past in order to vividly present a historical mystery.

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Oh, and while I'm posting, I wanted to respond to what you said about Frequency being just a survey. Is Frequency the ideal character you would want to court while playing the game? Because that's the kind of character you should have been developing the whole time - I really thought that was obvious from my development of Skew and comments about having different writers develop characters so that the characters appealed to our variety of writers, and hopefully therefore to our variety of players. So that's an essential question that I have for you - what kind of character would you want to court if you were playing the game?

I am not particularly excited about the idea that we can court the RNPC. I am simply stating my personal preference, I am not objecting to the fact that the player can court the RNPCs. However I think that Frequency is good character to include for the set of RNPC, because she is not stereotypical, her personality is realistic, she is connected to the story world, and she has metaphorical values to the overall meaning of the story. Again, there is probably no character that would be appealling to me because I am not interested in the romantic stage of courting. There are a set of characters that I can suggest, the set that I think is appealing and realistic, but I don't think that I should divert the discussion now.

Dear God, I left for a day and see what I missed...

I think I'm going to wait until tomorrow morning until I reply to all of this - its a considerable bundle of information.

AG, I'll be happy to hear what you have to say. :)

While we're letting people get caught up, this would be a good time to do a small roll call. Besides me, Estok, and AG, who is reading this post? 5MG, are you managing to stay caught up? OnyxFlame, haven't heard from you in quite a while, are you still interested in this project? Any lurkers?

I know people have finals and Christmas preparation taking up all their spare time this month, the rate of posting in this thread will probably slow down a lot until after new years - slow is fine as long as nobody forgets about the thread entirely. "Slow but steady wins the race," right? :)

I'm just going to have to reply to each of the posts in turn, so be ready for it...

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Original post by sunandshadow, re: AG I agree that those sound an awful lot like plot to me. Conflict is the essence of plot; when you talk about conflict you are automatically talking about plot. I would say that our overall story is a bilungsroman - the PC's central goal is to find his/her place in the world including political alignment, racial alignment, and romance. And to do that, lke AG says, first he/she must discover who he/she is in terms of abilities and desires. And we did indeed talk about this already.

She's right, if this isn't a coming-of-age story, I don't know what is. We're finding romance, discovering our own self, meeting friends and deciding paths. Bildungsromans it is.

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Quote: AG: I was under the impression... s/s: We absolutely did answer these questions already. The 4 races are like cousins and present the different forms in which human societies can exist, each with its own benefits and drawbacks, showing that each type of society helps some types of people bloom while making others unhappy outcasts. The player's job is to evaluate the RNPCs' different personality types and the different possible ways of living, then help each RNPC start living whichever way is best for their personality. The significance of the humans being summoned (not frozen) is that humans represent varied, flexible, unformed potential, which can either follow the pattern of one of the three example races or forge its own path. This is why it is absurd to suggest that they all mature into spirituals, because it destroys the moral of "different strokes for different folks". Variety and diversity should be at the heart of any story about social interactions such as romance, but they should ESPECIALLY be at the heart of a game where the PC is customizable and we want to have an RNPC to appeal to each different type of player.

I couldn't agree more. Well, maybe, but it would have to include lots of money. This is really a pretty good summary of the races' purposes, actually. And I completely agree that not everybody can become a Spiritual! If everyone became Spirituals, our PC would find out that there is, in fact, absolutely nothing special about him/her and get depressed and not enjoy the game at all. I sure wouldn't want to play it.