If you're going with the inevitable "evil" prevailing, I suggest a (SPOILER ALERT) 1984-style ending. Read the book if you haven't and I think you'll know what I mean.

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Original post by Humble Hobo Sorry, I'm not familiar with Fallout. What is it I shouldn't do? The evil winning, or the procedural content?

End the game after a set time.

I really think this kind of thing has potential. A game/story idea I've been brainstorming for years is based on a similar concept, so I've given a lot of thought to how I, as a gamer, would respond to my own game if I were to play it without any prior knowledge. Here's a few vague conclusions I've drawn, based on my own temperaments.

Years of linear games have conditioned me to reload/restart if something undesirable happens that is both avoidable and has permanent consequences (such as losing a soldier in Fire Emblem). This is born out of the realization that, since the game only advances in response to the player, an undesirable outcome is my fault, and I should therefore correct my error. What's more, this determinism is a comfortable blanket of predictability that compels me even more to "get it right" and not accept any plot-related failures.

Removing this comfortable safety from the game by allowing the plot to advance on its own will make me nervious as a player, so I would want the game to be more flexible with regards to permanent failures. If a plot event is about to initiate in the area where the player is, give them a bit of warning and allow them to respond, perhaps with a second chance or two later if they fail the first time. If an event is taking place elsewhere in the world where the player would realistically have no knowledge, don't brow-beat the player with their missed-opportunities by doing cutscenes showing them what they did wrong. Instead, allow them to discover what happened later on their own, to make the world feel more fluid. In short, avoid giving the player the impression that they're constantly being judged by the plot, but are rather participating in it.

If the above is effective, I would relax and go with the flow, eventually resulting in whatever ending is the result of my various actions. This is where I think the biggest opportunity lies for this kind of game. In the ending, you can subtley hint at any important events the player may have missed their first time to entice them to play again and see what they can change. If done right, this could result in a kind of "meta game" where the player uses knowledge gathered on various playthroughs to try and be at as many important places at all the right times as possible. This would especially great for things like speedruns. I know that I as a player love to explore the possibility-space of a game, like trying to get items out of order in metroid games.

One caveat for this though, is that the longer the game is, the more intimidating it is to replay. I've played through 5-10 hour long games tons of times, but if it gets up to 20-30 hours or more, I'm much less likely to play again than to play a different game. So in this way, sometimes less is actually more. If it takes a player 5 hours to reach the "end", but there's many possibilities for getting there, I know I'd play it many times, assuming the core gameplay is good enough to sustain the experience.

I agree with the idea that the player can feel like he's won even if his character dies and evil triumphs. I'd probably keep the gameplay going for just a bit after the big evil guy shows up, giving the player a chance to sacrifice himself for the greater good.

Example:
The Player tries to stop the demon for most of the game, helping people where he can, but ends up screwing up or just not doing enough. Using the artifact that brings the demon into the world instead of preventing it would be a good one. Then, after Mr. Nasty-Demon rises and starts killing off the masses, send the Player off to go get himself killed in a terribly noble way that saves a bunch of people. Show a touching cinematic of the saved forming a rebellion because of the Player's sacrifice, and BAM! you've got a lead-in to the next game. Warm fuzzies all around, and evil still won.

You should still focus on the journey, like others have said, but the sacrificial ending allows the Player to have a climactic winning move at the end, instead of just ending up dead or hiding because he couldn't win. Also, society has an ingrained sense that giving your life to save others is the noblest of things to do. How better to end a game?

I like this concept, but I don't think it should be timed.
The progression could depend on what order you do quests, what order you complete dungeons, and which other events you trigger. But within each event, there should be no time limit. You should be able to stand in one place and leave, and come back 8 hours later and have nothing change.

Things should change when you do a sidequest instead of finding out the bad guy's plans, or sneaking around the castle instead of attacking head on, or ignoring some NPCs warnings. It would be more like a choose-your-own-adventure style of pacing, where it ends after a certain number and combination of pages, instead of after a certain time limit to read. That way the timing still feels dynamic but without the physical restriction.

www.storytron.com

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Original post by Humble Hobo I guess the key principle here, is the ability to prolong the ending indefinitely. The only issue I see with this is that since the game ends when the enemy wins, you have to 'give up' in order to finish the game. I'm not sure if I'm OK with that. It would probably help if I added some of the intended plot: 1) The main bad guy is a very cruel demon named Bahimlaj. 2) There are various organizations in the world, with different motives. Some want to actually summon Bahimlaj (with the promise of positions of power in the new reign of darkness). Some want to stop it, and some are oblivious. 3) Basically, without the player's influence, Bahimlaj will eventually come forth and there will be a thousand years of darkness or whatever. The reason I would like evil to triumph, is that it keys into a larger, overarching plot that I've already developed. The world Bahimlaj takes over eventually becomes a stage for future conflicts with other worlds, and thus other games. (By the way, Bahimlaj is not the Ultimate villain, but just a part of a larger plan). - If you do nothing the whole game but explore, you can still enjoy a really deep storyline and still witness it all. - If you want to do everything there is to do, you can prolong the game indefinitely. The overall issue with a set ending, is that you have a goal that is impossible to achieve. What do you think? -Humble Hobo

Why not simply have a bad ending (the player could not stop Bahimlaj) and a.. slightly less bad ending (the player engaged Bahimlaj in some sort of boss battle and dealt enough damage for the game to determine it to be complete - then in the ending cut-scene, or whatever, Bahimlaj still wins, but is weaker or whatever). Or the player gets killed if Bahimlaj wins outright and survives if (s)he deals enough damage in the battle.
I dunno, but with some thought, I'm sure you can work in an enjoyable "you always lose, but not as badly if you..." plot.

In any case, sounds good to me, I'd play it.

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Original post by Swarmer I like this concept, but I don't think it should be timed. The progression could depend on what order you do quests, what order you complete dungeons, and which other events you trigger. But within each event, there should be no time limit. You should be able to stand in one place and leave, and come back 8 hours later and have nothing change.

I disagree. Personally, I like to feel like the game world is alive. If I wait around for minutes/hours/days/weeks/months of game time, I like when things have actually moved on without me, otherwise the world seems too static and dead to me. Theres enough games where I am the only thing making the world tick.
Having said that, I do agree that having a forced time limit is often horribly tedious. I think you can get around this though, if you are given plenty of opportunities to increase the time limit again. I don't think of the enemies continued play in a realtime strategy game as timed, so why should this be the case for an RPG.

[Edited by - issch on April 30, 2008 1:52:32 PM]

what about having said organisation have some sort of fixer in their ranks? Some guys whom they call when something is NOT going according to the plan? You get a very personal enemy that takes a liking in you, and your hero gets to chase your very personal bad guy, who has been in fact running you in circles around and after him, to a climactic battle where you finally defeat him, only to find out that he was indeed delaying you from finding the real plan of Bahimlaj summoning? You've been taken for a fool, you've been run in circles, and you finally defeated the bad guy only to discover that he wasn't the guy you should have been fighting all along.

What if that fixer tried to setup a secondary summoning of a lower demon, one you are actually able to kill, and have to fight said demon and said bad guy in a row?

The rest of the devised story, with saving people and places to organize a resistance and whatnots can be kept for advancement purpose. Just make sure you have to cover both bases: try and kill the big demon if possible, try to save as many people and organize the resistance in case you can't kill the big demon. think ahead and plan!

And that is the beauty of effect-based event generation.

Organizations, NPCs, even mobs have goals and motivations. They react to the dynamics that relate to them.

The evil organization's goal is obviously to summon the demon. The bounty hunter they hire to pick off troublemakers has the goal to kill the mark (which is probably you), with the motive of money. They stop paying (for whatever reason), the bounty hunter has no motive and will no longer do the jobs.

Even mobs have the goal of survival, and might have a fight or flight reaction to an encounter.

In this way, if you don't mess with the bad guys, you have a completely different story leading to the end. You get to choose how to act, not just follow a pre-set plot line.

Thanks for the excellent suggestions everyone.

-Humble Hobo

HH,
I've brought this idea up alot with MMO's and had never thought of applying it to a single player game. Kudo's on that.

Here's my thoughts.

Instead of the game moving forward automatically towards an inevitable END, why not move forward to an inevitable END STATE. I.E. why must the game end when the bad guy takes over the world. If I'm not fast enough playing and he does....well then I must move the game forward but now I have to do it as a rebel against the evil dictator.

The situational programming would need to be a bit more complex, but I think it would work.

I'll toss out my idea for you a bit from a strategic view a-la Civ games, not that this is how it would be played.

The main "Villan" starts in a random province, He slowly starts to expand out. If the player spends too much time killing monsters, then the villans empire expands into other provinces, eventually encompasing the whole of the world. Kingdoms that the hero may have been able to get help from have fallen, in thier place MAY be resistance movements, or instead deadly traps for him.

Depending on the level of programing and AI, starting the villan in a different "Province" could very well lead to a different game each and every time you play it.