Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

Ngruk said:

Is it fair to say that people love stories but that some don"t like to read, and some do? They don"t love stories any more or less than the other, but part of that group will put effort into finding a good story (aka people that read) and others will love a story only if they see it or are told?

Therein lies a problem for us gamers. I think, I THINK, I am in the minority because I love to read, anything, that"s a great book/story. I am a quest guy, I am a content guy, but I am also a click the text dialogue box to get through the "stuff" and figure out what I need to do.

I honest to God couldn"t tell you the EQ or EQ2 back story beyond very broad general stuff but Vox was an Ice Dragon, Paladin like? Naggy was a fire Dragon, they were friends? No clue, just know I wanted to kill them.

The ONLY, and I mean ONLY reason I know ANYTHING about the WoW story/lore is because I played WC. What made my experience, I think, even more fun was that I did so AFTER playing WoW for like 2 years. I had no clue what the whole deal with Thrall, or Arthas was, and to this day don"t know a ton. But learning it in WC made me go back into WoW with more intent on the locations and NPCs (never did find Haris Pilton in the WC game...)

How can we do that? How can we make readers and non-readers alike, fantasy fans, "know" our story, lore and Iconics? That"s just one of the hurdles we have that some others do not.

You need to learn it, like it and care about it while never being taken away from the "game" of it all.

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For me, I love to read. I get engrossed in novels. I love lore. I soaked up the EQ lore - but I don"t remember much of it. Same with WoW, I read the shit out of the freely available lore - haven"t read the novels.

That being said, in-game I tend to just click-through the quest texts. Which is unfortunate, because like I said, I like to read. However, I don"t have hours and hours to play anymore, so I want to be as efficient as I can while leveling. So I don"t bother to read the quest texts anymore, unless they are short, or I am just in a very casual mood.

I just had a discussion about this topic yesterday - the current crop of MMOs are almost exclusively quest-driven as far as progression. You start the game, get a few quests, then move to the next hub and get some. And you repeat this process from the start of the game, until you hit the max level - and even then it doesn"t stop. The leveling treadmill of these games is nothing more than a choose-your-own-adventure, as someone else put it a few posts ago. Your progression path is pre-chosen by the devs, and you follow it. I don"t remember ever getting into a "xp group" in WoW.

So for me, what would make me read the quests? Get more involved with the lore? Go back to EQ style quests with some additional polish. Make me actually have to figure this shit out. Stop with this quest hub madness. Stick some quests on NPCs around the world, and let me find them.

Fewer quests that are longer and actually make sense in the world. Give me a quest chain. Make it meaningful, instead of "bring me 10 monkey brains and I"ll make you a stew!!" bullshit. But then, you end up turning the game into a "grind" game. Which isn"t necessarily a bad thing. In EQ anyhow, it facilitated communication and player interaction. In most MMOs these days I can solo my way to the max level and never really have to speak to many people at all.

As for immersion - a little hard to get "immersed" when every other NPC you run by has a yellow "!" above their head. Magic indeed.

I imagine it would be more at the beginning of a long series of quests rather then at each update. Give me some exposition, my goals and then set me loose.

You don"t need to have me come back at each mini-step either. For example, I never quite got why I had to report back to Tarren Mill everytime I completed another objective in the battle against the town. Why not just say "Hey, here"s a laundry list of dudes you need to execute. Also, the apothecary said something about some dog eating his shoes and he wants revenge or something. Go see what that"s about while you"re at it."

They could take it a step further even and when you"re on that questline, you enter a phase where the town doesn"t respawn and your goal is to wipe out every last living being rather then "10 of x, 15 of y, 10 of z, 1 of A"

Zehn - Vhex said:

The problem with players telling the story in a dynamic world online is...well...the players. You give people the freedom to do anything they want and you get Second Life. You give people the freedom to do lots of things but within certain rules and limitations and you get Eve where everybody are just massive dicks to eachother.

You"re simply never going to make it work unless your game also eliminates human nature.

And don"t pull the "kids these days" card either. I stopped reading novels around the same time I started being able to guess the plot by the end of the 3rd chapter. You know it"s bad when you start noticing trends. Like most sci-fi novels written by women will have a gay protagonist.

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UO did quite nicely with an open sandbox world, although it was limited by a lot more technical issues. Second life is a great example, but it isn"t really an MMO, but a social portal.

I think it"ll take some great design, but if the hooks are in place you certainly can make it work. It might take a better karma system, superior design than AC2, and more than an EVE spreadsheet, but it certainly is doable.

In regards to your "kids these days" book reply, that"s not my point at all. In the early 80s we had pong and a few text games. No internet. No TV worth a damn.

It isn"t a matter of comparing people, just looking at my home now with it"s Wii, PS3, Xbox, Gamecube, Media Extenders, huge DVD collection, card games, Zune, ipod, etc, etc. Heck, if I had grown up with that, I doubt I"d be the reader I am today.

Book reading in the early 80s wasn"t an option, for many of us it was the only thing to do. Think of it like PC gaming for people growing up in the late 90s, vs teenagers on consoles now.

In reference to your dislike for reading because you know the plot, it sounds like you"re reading mostly bad rote fantasy. If that"s the case you"re probably going to be a bit jaded. There are thousands of books out there, even fantasy and sci fi, that are completely unpredictable, more enthralling than any game, and allow for downtime that gaming can"t.

Amazingly, a lot of the people bashing sci fi have never read any Asimov, Frank Herbert, Clark, or Orson Scott Card.

Heck, if you want something more recent, go read the Takeshi Kovacs Novels from Morgan. Really good stuff there.

It"s an insanely frustrating thing as I raise 4 kids with my wife.

LotR was as good as it gets movie/trilogy wise. Having said that it didn"t come close to the experience I had reading that the first time.

Imaginations are in neutral for our kids these days. There is no need to "work" to visualize, and that"s a huge part of the hook to reading and story telling, the visualization. Mordor was nowhere near as evil and vile as I imagined it...

Kids don"t believe reading is fun, and they have about 200 other options "funner" than reading in their minds.

Not sure what I would do if I couldn"t have that outlet.

One thing for me, reading "takes me away". I get immersed in the novels I read. It sounds dumb, but I"m sure you guys who read know what I mean. You get the pictures of these characters in your head - and depending on the author - a picture of everything around them. You can actually hear the dialogue in your head, see their little ticks and nervous gestures, it"s almost like you are right there with them.

We don"t get that in games. The most I think I have gotten is a feeling of empathy for the character, but not totally immersed - I don"t feel like I"m there with the characters. It"s harder to really immerse a player in a game, than a reader in a book, because the whole imagination part is removed since you see everything right in front of you.

But then, many people see it as "just a game. stfu and play".

As for sandbox games. I like them, to a point. Darkfall was actually kind of cool there for a bit - then it got boring.

I would love to see a true sandbox game with a fantasy setting. But as has been mentioned, I don"t think the tech is quite there to really allow for that level of interactivity and openness.

Ngruk said:

It"s an insanely frustrating thing as I raise 4 kids with my wife.

LotR was as good as it gets movie/trilogy wise. Having said that it didn"t come close to the experience I had reading that the first time.

Imaginations are in neutral for our kids these days. There is no need to "work" to visualize, and that"s a huge part of the hook to reading and story telling, the visualization. Mordor was nowhere near as evil and vile as I imagined it...

Kids don"t believe reading is fun, and they have about 200 other options "funner" than reading in their minds.

Not sure what I would do if I couldn"t have that outlet.

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i saw a story on nbc last year where a mother was talking about her son who couldn"t play his xbox because the power was out and she told him to go play outside. when he said there was nothing to do outside she said "use your imagination." the child responded by saying "i don"t know what that means." that is scary shit right there. i know from personal experience that my 2 nephews (11 and 7) very rarely do anything outside because all they want to do is play video games. really sad to watch. i"m still thankful to this day that my parents gave me an appreciation for reading at a young age.

In the WoW Beta next to no one returned the Mug in the Dwarf Newbie zone. Because the magical yellow quest indicator poofed from over his head during the "cut scene," so people ignored it and ran off again. It was so bad the release quest-text actually comments on people forgetting to return the mug

Gecko said:

In reference to your dislike for reading because you know the plot, it sounds like you"re reading mostly bad rote fantasy....

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It"s mostly my fault honestly. Not a lot of books can compete with my own imagination. Then again I can probably thank all the D.Aadams and Asimov books I used to read as a kid for that. Either that or all the Monty Python and Doctor Who my dad and I would watch.

If I behaved sometimes my dad would let me watch the McLaughlin Group with him. My childhood was so awesome. Our favorite game to play was "Sit down and shut up."

Anyways...

I"m not saying that reading as a kid isn"t important. It very much is. I"m just saying I don"t derive that much more joy from reading a book then I do from playing a video game so don"t blame kids for the lack of story in video games when the industry as a whole has never really been concerned about it. In fact for a very long time the most story we got was one page of exposition at the front of the game manual that we never read anyways. Because who the fuck reads the manual, right?

The "make story a cornerstone of our game!" is well-intentioned enough. But I play video games to, y"know, play them. Sitting around as a boss monologues isn"t very interesting, even with good voice acting, especially if I have to sit through it everytime (Kael"Thas anyone?). Cutscense are okay, but again, that"s a few minutes where I"m listening to other people talk and I"m not killing things.

Zehn - Vhex said:

where everybody are just massive dicks to eachother.

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That which makes them human ?

Zehn - Vhex said:

The "make story a cornerstone of our game!" is well-intentioned enough. But I play video games to, y"know, play them. Sitting around as a boss monologues isn"t very interesting, even with good voice acting, especially if I have to sit through it everytime (Kael"Thas anyone?). Cutscense are okay, but again, that"s a few minutes where I"m listening to other people talk and I"m not killing things.

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Again, that"s where the dynamic future of MMOs comes into play. The current crop is really a single player, single threaded story with small group multiplayer built on top. The carrot is mudflation and item upgrades. We"ve been stuck here because the tech is limited. Hopefully that will change.

My idea of a next gen MMO would be like this:

Your guild travels into the Evil Overlord X"s tower, kills his minions, defeats him.

Afterwards, he is raised from the dead by his apprentice. You learn via an anonymous messenger that at 8 PM Thursday night the newly raised lich and his servants will be attacking your guilds hall. This is a coordinated strike against all the guilds who have defied him supported by the God of the Undead.

Meanwhile, those who worship the God of the Undead or have quested for him enough are granted a position in the attack to try and please him.

Some guilds fight them off. Some hall"s are burned in siege.

After the fight, the God of Cleansing coordinates an attack a few nights later, and rallies his guild friendly forces to descend deep into the undercaverns to cleanse the unholy undead and their demi-human masters. Likewise, undead aligned characters can defend their homes there.

The key here is you add story in a seamless manner where the content is dynamic, and with the players involved in it in an ongoing manner that allows for fun, but also for real change. This way a guild has tangible goals and repercussions for their actions, be it PVE or PVP. This is far different from current MMOs which are static and limited in design.

What I want in a future MMO in a sentence: Dynamic, meaningful, interactive worlds with open and smart character designs in a sandbox setting that pushes teamwork via conflict and story, and not via repetitive laborious raiding.
{edited to fix a few annoying typos}

Well, it"s hard to have an in depth discussion about video games of the early ages.

"Do you think Ryu was driven by his desire to avenge his father or was his cold adherence to duty enough to drive him to recover the demon statue?"

"Who the fuck cares. Fuck Ryu and fuck stage 6 and fuck those fucking wall jumps."

End scene.

And you recommend video games and talk about them with complete asshole strangers all the time. Welcome to the internet sir.

Hey, Crystalis had a pretty fuckin baller storyline.

It upset me when Stom died.

Part of the problem might be that the main character is us.

The Usual Suspects was awesome because of the ending. If we were Gabriel Byrne"s character and a similar ending occurred, how many players wouldn"t be pissed?

"I did all this and I still LOST? Fuck this game."

Ngruk said:

It"s an insanely frustrating thing as I raise 4 kids with my wife.

LotR was as good as it gets movie/trilogy wise. Having said that it didn"t come close to the experience I had reading that the first time.

Imaginations are in neutral for our kids these days. There is no need to "work" to visualize, and that"s a huge part of the hook to reading and story telling, the visualization.

Kids don"t believe reading is fun

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We have 6 kids, aged 2 to 16. They love reading, though that"s mostly the girls and, even then, Jacqueline Wilson and Twlight are their favorites. Mind you, I verge on over protective and have never let them play MMOs.


I don"t know why, but I always found LotR a massive chore to read.

James said:

Hey, Crystalis had a pretty fuckin baller storyline.

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Tred said:

It upset me when Stom died.

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I skim read these posts and thought they said Crysania and Sturm. I loved the Dragonlance novels and world. I used to spend hours writing adventures for our pnp sessions. Also remember a published adventure set in Sturm"s tomb that had us all choked the whole session we played it.

Gecko said:

Again,

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I"m going to bow out of the "what is dynamic?" discussion because frankly, by the time that level of sophisticated programming is available we"ll have invented virtual reality already and the human race will have become extinct.

Bizanich said:

"I did all this and I still LOST? Fuck this game."

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I think that"s one of the few things I actually like about the EverQuest story. Everytime we as players did something we thought was heroic and saving the world all we ended up doing was making shit worse.

Zehn - Vhex said:

I think that"s one of the few things I actually like about the EverQuest story. Everytime we as players did something we thought was heroic and saving the world all we ended up doing was making shit worse.

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Phat Lewtz to wipe tears away do help, I suppose, but it also kind of negates the story.

Instead, remember how some would kill Karana after The Storm Lord because, as the old update read, "We all remember the Karanas"? What if instead after Karana died the whole raid was killed/deleveled/something traumatic happened?

A real bad ending, if you will, instead of just "Oh, you"ve started a terrible chain of events (loot while I"m talking por favor)."

The rage would"ve been epic if the penalty was big enough.

Zehn - Vhex said:

I"m going to bow out of the "what is dynamic?" discussion because frankly, by the time that level of sophisticated programming is available we"ll have invented virtual reality already and the human race will have become extinct..

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I disagree. Given what we were playing gamewise even 10 years ago, and the ridiculous computing and disk power that we can get dirt cheap now, I think it"s just a matter of time.

I think Blizzard is a lot closer to this than anyone thinks. Asherons Call 2 had some good ideas, but they were way ahead of their time.

I"d bet if Blizz weren"t limited by WOW"s legacy engine and tech, they could release something completely dynamic now. Some of the Lich King quest pieces are teasingly close and allow for amazing changes, just not at the server level, solely at the player.