I think this is a terrific idea. I'm not sure it will find a place in your game, but I'm very impressed with what's been said in this thread. Here's my $0.02

Life Stages: This can work two different ways: Either the world can be static, and this is just a "time-lapse" to new character age or to accomodate a metaroutine, or it takes place in a dynamic world. You obviously have your sights set on the dynamic world system, and I applaud you for that.

I've always been a huge fan of having the world change around you. In my youth, I read a series of books called "Lone Wolf", which was a fun cross between PnP role-playing and Choose your own Adventure books. Here's an example:

Taking the left fork, you wander into the darker section of the forest. The deepening shadows and derelict signposts make you question your wisdom in taking Wilton's "shortcut". Suddenly, three scruffy men, apparently bandits, leap out form behind a rock! What do you do?

If you choose to fight the bandits, turn to page 138.
If you attempt to run, turn to page 167.
If you have the Wand of Illusion and choose to use it now, turn to page 38.
To wait and see what happens, turn to page 59.

There were dozens of books, each a sequel to the last, and your character levels and learns skills and so on. The world changes, as kings die or you personally slay archmages or nations crumble, and you can take part in all these events. Your character goes from snot-nosed novice to competent fighter to Kai Warrior to Kai Master and eventually becomes a legendary hero. This sort of dynamic world is just splendid, and I'm eager to see it represented in-game.

Fable had some of the character phases, but it was clumsy and tough to see happening. After a few missions, I wondered why my hair had changed color, and realized that my guy was sixty. That shouldn't sneak up on you. Although I must say I liked the idea of finishing the game as an old man. It made the whole thing more epic and satisfying.

Another game that used the dynamic world system, and might be worth a look, was Mortal Kombat: Deception. Don't laugh. The Konquest mode had a main character who wandered through a poorly designed world having fights with other characters. It spans the history of all the games, and you occasionally go through a portal and your little guide says, "Two hundred years have passed while you were in the Sea of Eternity. We feared you might never return." Not a great game, but a nice way to pay tribute to the bizarre history that the games formed, and a neat feature.

Metaroutines: I love this idea. I adore it. It makes me think of the kung-fu movies where a ten-year training stint is represented through clips of lifting, punching and falling on slippery banana peels. Great stuff. Throw in some fundamental choices. General stuff like "Stick with Yoda or go try to save your friends at Cloud City?" (this would interrupt the metaroutine and put you back into real-time play) would be fine, and huge story trees could be designed without too terribly much difficulty.

I'd like to see some basic things like training definitely included in this, but you could also have historical triggers leading to some of them. Measuring time by character age (and assuming all characters are born at Time=0), you could build your "character era" and base all your stary trees on that. At ages 12, 18, 25, 32, 40, 51 and 65 there could be wars, which you can participate in or not. The king could die between years 15 and 25, depending on your role in his life/death, and the resulting political situation could depend on the status of his heir.

These scripted events could lead to metaroutines like serving in the military, living in exile until the new ruler is situated, or being a dignitary to a foreign nation during alliance talks. These could be shown as a series of vignettes of battles, or close calls with assassins, or tough back-room discussions in which the player can participate. It would be less a time-lapse than a condensation. Well-implemented, I think this would absolutely make your game. It would be epic.

hey, very interesting idea.
If you could put the state of the world in a small structure, you could just jump between them hierarchically.

What i'd like is to be warned when such important and potentially gameplay-changing events are going to be triggered. Say a mission description reads at the end: "... this will have great repercussions in the world", this will hint me that if i choose to take this mission, the game I've been playing will be fundamentally changed (at least, after a few tries for new players ^_^)
And keeping in line with Wavinator's game idea, you could just keep almost indefinitely playing until you get bored... then you look up your journal or whatever and find that important quest/mission you put off and go do it, in order to trigger a refreshing change in the game's pacing or mechanics. Or locations. Or something.

However, playing the meta-games one after another would quicly lead you to the end of the story. Which i guess isn't too bad, if thats the only thing you're concerned about. This would suit all kinds of players (as opposed to what someone said earlier) because you can stay in a worldstate if you wish, and you can move on if you'd rather stick to the story.
Delays on triggering missions can be put in place too, if you want to set a maximum pace for the story.

Still, sounds like a very good idea, and very realistic to implement. Go! Go!

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Original post by TechnoGoth I like it alot. I think you've missed a tigger though and that is consequence. Remember the topic on being marooned? This could be the ideal way to handle that.

Yes! You're right. This could also handle the weird problem I had with trying to figure out being a stowaway.

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If you could some how incorperate personality changes into the character as result of these events and find a way to incorperate character personality into gameplay that would be very interesting to see.

Funny you should say that. Increasingly, I've been wanting you to be able to answer the question, "what kind of person did I turn out to be? Was I a tyrant? A savior? A nobody?"

In order to be feasible, this requires low-cost techniques. Fable is out because of the art budget. But events, vignettes, resource shifts and commentary from news and NPCs appears (at first blush) more than doable.

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Original post by sunandshadow If the player would ever willingly skip years of normal game time, maybe that indicates a failure to make the normal game interesting/suspenseful enough? If a great story makes the reader want to read every word, a great game should make the player want to play every second.

I agree with the sentiment that every moment in a game should be enjoyable. But I think you're missing the point here by limiting how you define time. There may be no correlation whatsoever between the game's timeframe and the amount of enjoyable play time itself.

Consider the kind of over-map travel commonly used in an RPG and apply this philosphy. Many, like Fallout or Icewind Dale, simply teleport you to where you want to go. They jump right to the "good stuff." Some, like Fallout, provide encounters along the way, as a way of providing variety of encounter and immersive context (to make the world seem more real).

Not only is this an economical way of representing distance (esp. for indie games), it's a practical gameplay device that allows the player to control pacing. In Fallout, for example, you can inch over the map if you choose, but you're only going to have to deal with terrain if there's an encounter.

If you applied your philosophy of "every second" you'd have to force players to scramble over every ravine, wade through every bog and endure day and night cycles constantly just to get to what they really wanted, which is to fulfill that next quest in the next town.

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Quote: Original post by sunandshadow Not necessarily. Some great books have periods in which very little happens to the main characters, but a great deal happens on a larger (national/global/whatever) scale. In such cases, it is not uncommon to have the literary equivalent to what Wavinator is suggesting, quickly bringing the reader up to speed on the current situation, just before things get interesting again. Well, I suppose there are books like that. Not the kind of books I read or write though. I like stories about relationships between individual, deeply-developed characters, not nations or planets.

This is great criticism because it makes me focus my point. [smile]

Are you familiar with Lee Hogan's Belarus? It's sort of what inspired this idea. Belarus is a science fiction tale about a "once and future Russia." There are a handful of characters, including a heroic tsar that believes in equal rights, a blind gentleman mercenary who just oozes cool, a woman recovering from religion inspired child-abuse, and a very pathetic serial killer. Hogan creates dynamic relationships between the characters, and includes things like letting you see a marriage go cold, past wounds heal and a young boy grow to manhood. Along the way, the game blends Babba Yaga, the colonization of an alien planet, ghosts, a secret conspiracy to destroy all of galactic society, and a nearly unstoppable threat to the neo-Russian colonists once everything collapses.

The story takes place over 800 years, and of course needs to jump to develop the relationships and background events.

I mention this just to illustrate one of the many works (like Dune, or the Red/Green/Blue Mars series) that shows you can have your worldbuilding and character development, too.

EDIT: Fixed quote

[Edited by - Wavinator on April 15, 2005 2:53:36 AM]

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However, playing the meta-games one after another would quicly lead you to the end of the story. Which i guess isn't too bad, if thats the only thing you're concerned about. This would suit all kinds of players (as opposed to what someone said earlier) because you can stay in a worldstate if you wish, and you can move on if you'd rather stick to the story.

I’m not so sure about the above statement, particularly about staying in worldstate and staying fun. Why? ->



Two more cents worth:

I think, if you implement it properly, you will have a good game; however, it will most certainly appeal to those people who enjoy Strategy games with story lines, rather than FPS. Strategy is not for everyone. You are not going to get away from that feeling of a strategy game without a large database filled with content for every LOD for every situation possible. Low budget, maybe, but it may take years to do alone and do it well. I have played many attempts at Strategy games as well as Story line games. Some were good; most were not, even if the art was top notch. Many of both types suffered from what I call “Accounting Syndrome”. You spend all your time moving ‘FICTIONAL’ resources from one fictional place to another. You look up and realize eight hours have passed, feeling as though you just wasted sixteen. Then you think back and feel more like you have been working than playing. Not good, these are the games that are only half played. I have more than I want. They will be on Ebay soon. Metas can help in this case for example.

Too little detail and you are left with the feeling that you bought half a game.

In many bad games interest is usually the problem, but not always.

Interesting verses fun.

They don’t have to be exclusive, but just when you think you have something really interesting, you lose track of your main objective, to make a fun game.

Interest is essential for fun, but just because you have something interesting doesn’t make it automatically fun. I remember the local mall had a ‘World of Science’ store; it had many interesting objects and novelties, but was bought up and closed. Why can best illustrated by what I shall call ‘ the snow globe micro ecosystem’. It was a shrimp, algae, and small microbes ceiled in a glass sphere. All you needed was light and not to shake it to hard as some customers did on occasion. It was interesting, but not fun. They didn’t sell too many. High budget games are easy to sell, even bad ones, if you have good advertising dollars. But low budget games need to be good the first time out, period.

Meta – routines offer a way around such boring instances like getting dressed in the morning, idle gossip, training, chores, and long uneventful journeys. This can be useful, but too much and you have a snow globe. Worse, not filled with content for every level of detail, you quickly limit the player to playing at a higher level then the player may desire. Force the player to deal with too much unnecessary detail and “Accounting Syndrome” kicks in and you get blasted by player’s “word of mouth” for coming under the bar of expectations. To make it good will take time and lots of thought. Beta test long and hard. Push the limits of review and take criticism seriously. Most of all remember P.T. Barnum’s “ You can please all the people some of the time, and you can please some of the people all the time. But you can’t please all the people all the time.” Don’t make your audience too broad, or you may not have an audience at all.

The Meta Game you propose is a good idea, but you will need writers at the very least to do it in any reasonable time frame. I have a similar idea for an RPG, but I have decided on advanced A.I., NPC interaction, and network play to fill the additional story content as well as the occasional module. Not very different from many MMORPGs, except I have a few twists on the implementation. What is nice about being a lone wolf is you have no time constraints. You can take your time to be more creative and unique. And, I wont discourage anyone from being creative. But, plan it well. Do the estimates and calculations in advance. Know how much content you are going to need. Make ten times more of it than you think you should. Cull all but the upper third then see if it is enough. Then cull it some more.

I’m not sure you can do something similar to MMORPGs with content for your idea. It seams to me you will still need a large content database to start with, a large undertaking.

The game you propose feels like it would be a deterministic, variable ending, story line type game, a simulation, or both. If you have too much fill content, people will notice, and not utilize it, skip it and meta over it. That is wasted time on your part. Unneeded content is what gets left on the cutting room floor, in the wastebasket, or the recycle bin.
If it does not add to the story line, why even include it in the game? If it does, is it really that superfluous?

You have a unique idea, and almost a paradoxical balance between actual content value and perceived usefulness of that same content. It wont be easy to get the balance right.
Again, movie transitions come to mind…. A ‘fade out / fade in’ is used to illustrate the passing of time. It conveys this without words. You simply know it without being told. You ‘ll need that level of impact to move players along and immerse them in the story even through the temporal shifts that metas are sure to cause.

P.S. > "Are you familiar with Lee Hogan's Belarus?" Nope, never even heared of it.

Babba Yaga???? Really???? In a Space Epic???? Hmmm, that is very creative.
:)

You familiar with the short story "Inside Kick" ???

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Original post by Kenneth Alexander Quote: However, playing the meta-games one after another would quicly lead you to the end of the story. Which i guess isn't too bad, if thats the only thing you're concerned about. This would suit all kinds of players (as opposed to what someone said earlier) because you can stay in a worldstate if you wish, and you can move on if you'd rather stick to the story. I’m not so sure about the above statement, particularly about staying in worldstate and staying fun. Why? ->

sorry, wrote that past midnight ^_^
about staying in worldstate: like staying in an "epoch" or setting of the game, without playing meta-games for a while (thus triggering an epoch/worldstate change)

about staying fun: if you dislike the strategy/story driven aspect of the meta-games, you can just stick in one epoch/worldstate and play there. With Wavinator's design you should be able to play there indefinitely, eschewing the bits you dislike completely. On the opposite side, you could stick to these meta-games only, without touching the more action-oriented portion of the game (if i got that idea right). So, you got the best of both worlds, and they're not mutually exclusive.

yay!

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about staying fun: if you dislike the strategy/story driven aspect of the meta-games, you can just stick in one epoch/worldstate and play there. With Wavinator's design you should be able to play there indefinitely, eschewing the bits you dislike completely. On the opposite side, you could stick to these meta-games only, without touching the more action-oriented portion of the game (if i got that idea right). So, you got the best of both worlds, and they're not mutually exclusive- Madster

I don't disagree on that point.

I just think he may be biting off more than he can swallow, alone.

This would entail a whole series, not just a book.

Remember Remo Williams, “The Executioner”, that is the amount of work you would be doing.

Tolken spent a life time on LOR. He would have to do the same.

[qoute]
TechnoGoth
....over a series of vinegrattes covering your surival on the planetoid....
[/qoute]

So what type of vinegrettes do you think would be valid for this. I personally prefer a rasberry vinegrette although honey lemon is nice also.

Sorry couldn't resist.

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Original post by Iron Chef Carnage There were dozens of books, each a sequel to the last, and your character levels and learns skills and so on. The world changes, as kings die or you personally slay archmages or nations crumble, and you can take part in all these events. Your character goes from snot-nosed novice to competent fighter to Kai Warrior to Kai Master and eventually becomes a legendary hero. This sort of dynamic world is just splendid, and I'm eager to see it represented in-game.

I never read this series, but was a huge Choose Your Own Adventure fan, too. I wanted to say that your examples remind me of how important it is to be able to chronicle events in order to get the feel of "epic." I'm imagining the game occassionally taking snapshots of your activities and saving them in a scrapbook so that you can reminisce.

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It spans the history of all the games, and you occasionally go through a portal and your little guide says, "Two hundred years have passed while you were in the Sea of Eternity. We feared you might never return." Not a great game, but a nice way to pay tribute to the bizarre history that the games formed, and a neat feature.

Are you saying that having characters reference the passing of time helps increase the sense that your journey has been epic?

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Metaroutines: I love this idea. I adore it. It makes me think of the kung-fu movies where a ten-year training stint is represented through clips of lifting, punching and falling on slippery banana peels. Great stuff.

I was thinking of the time The Bride spent with Pei Mei in Kill Bill Volume 2. [smile]

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Throw in some fundamental choices. General stuff like "Stick with Yoda or go try to save your friends at Cloud City?" (this would interrupt the metaroutine and put you back into real-time play) would be fine, and huge story trees could be designed without too terribly much difficulty.

What about an approach like this: You have the situations you get into, which last as long as you have resources or until you meet a goal (you're now a Jedi, for instance).

The interesting interrupts come about because of events triggering in a manner similar to the drawing of "story cards" (more complex than that, but let's keep it simple for now).

So the "stick with Yoda or save friends" really comes about because the game secretly drew "friends captured by worst enemy" card. This could have happened while on patrol, it could have happened while you were traveling, but it just happened to have occurred this time while you were with Yoda. The choice is harder, now, perhaps because by training with a master you've invested certain resources (trust? respect?) that you'll have to risk walking away from.

The choice to help, then, comes about because of the card-spawned situation, and isn't tailored to the specific meta-routine. (Meaning they can be much more diverse).

Generic, yes, and the buildup for story events would need a more logical, less "out of the blue" way of occuring, but in theory you'd have both choices for a meta-routine and choices for a situation. They wouldn't be welded together and prescripted, meaning they could be mixed and matched.

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I'd like to see some basic things like training definitely included in this, but you could also have historical triggers leading to some of them.

You know, this opens the door to prophecy and prediction, the former a nice way of creating mystery in the universe, the latter a great way to make NPCs look more intelligent. You could then become active in trying to impact the coming events.

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These scripted events could lead to metaroutines like serving in the military, living in exile until the new ruler is situated, or being a dignitary to a foreign nation during alliance talks. These could be shown as a series of vignettes of battles, or close calls with assassins, or tough back-room discussions in which the player can participate. It would be less a time-lapse than a condensation. Well-implemented, I think this would absolutely make your game. It would be epic.

Thanks, you see right to the intent here. What probably makes sense is that you have a wide variety of metaroutines, which impact resources; and a wide variety of situations, some of which get excluded from certain routines due to content of the routine, environment or other factors (i.e., no "avenge your master" situation if you never trained). The situations provide the choices, with the most generic being ignore (keep doing the routine) or choose the options the situation provides.

The situations can probably be made generic and tailored with text strings to sound more specific: After all, a kidnap or assassination is, at the highest level, always going to be a kidnap or assassination.