ln your opinion, what are some of the biggest challenges you've faced while writing the scripts for multiplayer games?

And if you're willing to go into it further: what do you think are some of the most time-consuming elements to write for multiplayer games?

(l'm looking at a lot of job descriptions for game writing in my area and find that they're asking for this kind of experience... and while l have game writing experience, l haven't worked on a multiplayer just yet)

Thanks in advance

Sorry, guess l wasn't clear. l meant writing in terms of story scripts

(I'm gonna hide Xer0botXer0's post because it's off-topic - no harm done though!)

The thing with writing for multiplayer games is that the structure is usually quite different from a single player, linear game:

• Different players may encounter NPCs or areas in different orders and at different times, and the story needs to make sense for all of them;
• The writing often can't assume that the plot or world progresses in some inexorable way towards the conclusion, as the world may be persistent and the game is expected to continue no matter how many quests or subquests are completed;
• Walls of text, long narrations, and big cut-scenes may be impractical because players have their friends online, waiting for them to click 'Skip' and carry on with the next part of the game.

15 hours ago, Kylotan said:

(I'm gonna hide Xer0botXer0's post because it's off-topic - no harm done though!)

The thing with writing for multiplayer games is that the structure is usually quite different from a single player, linear game:

• Different players may encounter NPCs or areas in different orders and at different times, and the story needs to make sense for all of them;
• The writing often can't assume that the plot or world progresses in some inexorable way towards the conclusion, as the world may be persistent and the game is expected to continue no matter how many quests or subquests are completed;
• Walls of text, long narrations, and big cut-scenes may be impractical because players have their friends online, waiting for them to click 'Skip' and carry on with the next part of the game.

Great points. What about conveying story in co-op PvE games (Payday 2, WoW, etc)  vs. co-op PvP (Overwatch, CoD, etc)?

That's well out of my area of expertise. What do you think?

On 7/18/2017 at 6:17 AM, BVAaron said:

Great points. What about conveying story in co-op PvE games (Payday 2, WoW, etc)  vs. co-op PvP (Overwatch, CoD, etc)?

I think for titles like these designers don't tend to go beyond the default template they've created.