BOINK!

Yeah this place has been a little dead lately, hasn''t it?

INDEED!

Yeah, why doesn''t someone start one of those forum games up again? Where everyone writes their own part of a story?

Those were pretty fun.

I guess we''ll just have to wait for S&S to return and bring back some life ^_^

Or maybe you could try and help me think of a good plot to my idea for an MMORPG, because I want to try and make a plot to they game were most others have failed. If you know wot i mean?

GRARG!
HULK SMASH USELESS POST!

quote: Original post by Fake_Impersonation
Or maybe you could try and help me think of a good plot to my idea for an MMORPG, because I want to try and make a plot to they game were most others have failed. If you know wot i mean?

Here''s why I think plots in MMORPG''s don''t work:
There are a couple of ways to do them:
1)Respawn locations and such change slowly to represent changing troop movements, monster populations, etc. The problem with this is that there isn''t really a plot. This is usually combined with the next method.
2)Have everyone participate in the same plot. This is dissatisfying for the simple reason that the plot is usually uninteresting, slow, you''ve gone through it 10 times before(with different characters), and/or everyone knows everything to do. There''s no mystery. It''s slow because you have to stretch a story throughout the many levels that characters achieve.

Plots in general don''t work because they don''t leverage multiplayer. You''re not likely to have 10 players get together and have each say:
"I shot Evil Badguy in the head with an arrow!"
"Wow, I had to sneak into their base and cut the ropes to the drawbridge so that the army could get in."
"Cool, I had to rescue a hostage from the castle. I wonder if we both snuck in the same way."
"Yeah? I was just a newbie at the time, so I just hacked everyone I could see with my battleaxe."
"I was a scout during that battle, so I only killed one orc. I was supposed to be scouting to give advance warning of any reinforcements. None ever came."
"I was a scout too! But my mission ended differently; there were about 100 orcs marching to reinforce. I knew I couldn''t take them all on, so I ran back to tell my superior"
"You were both scouts! Wow. There must be a lot of demand for scouts. I was a scout, too. While you found the flank, I found the vanguard. There were 1000 orcs in it."
"Oh, I remember that battle. I didn''t actually take part in it, but I did have some small influence on it. My task was to seduce the captain''s mistress, so that she''d come to my cabin the night before the battle, where some rebels took her away. I hear the commander had a crush on her and didn''t want her hurt."
"You killed Evil Badguy! Grarrr!!!!"
"Well. This is interesting. I WAS Evil Badguy!"

Anybody have any idea how such a thing could be implemented in an MMORPG?

Imagine having to coordinate a typical AD&D gaming group, but of 100 people strewn across time zones. Pretty difficult. Most MMORPG "plots" are just invasions of different critters that somehow ties to the "big special event". For anything as interactive as you want, your staffing levels would have to be off the charts.

My completely unsubstatiated theory about MMORPGs is that their popularity will wane in a couple of years, leading to a marked resurgence of interest in the solid single-player PC game experience.