The problem with mmorpgs and story...

#81 IMHO the biggest obstacle to a MMORPGs and stories are the players. Everyone wants to be the hero of the story and in an MMO everyone can't be the hero unless they all go through the same or similar quests. If you were to create an elaborate storyline in an MMO then it might as well be a single player adventure where you see other people in the middle of doing the same things you're doing. Even games such as Neverwinter which let groups of up to 4 players do an adventure aren't really suited for multiplayer.

If you create an MMORPG that relies on the MMO part then you hit issues such as when are people on? If you're questing with a group of people, do they all need to be around to continue the quest? If so, then it might as well be a LAN party game. You can't use contiguous quests with the same people or you'll screw the players.

And on player driven worlds, again we come to everyone wanting to affect the world. Even with, say, a 10,000 player user base, how many of these people will really have a significant effect on the world or a lasting one before someone comes along and changes it. How many of us really have a significant affect on our own worlds? (No offence.) The more "real" we make these games the more real life obstacles we have to deal with and the more insignificant we become in them and that's not why we play them. We play them to become legends!

#82

Quote:IMHO the biggest obstacle to a MMORPGs and stories are the players.

True, but we can't exactly blame people for being people ;) I see your point, and I think that the best way to address the issue is try and get the player to change their focus from thinking that the universe revolves around them (being a hero) to focusing on helping the universe revolve around itself (participation as part of something bigger than themselves).

Of course the best way to get this across is in the quest/raid, which is where 95% of the attachment to the world is made. Currently, most quests are canned- written out by writers rather than generated on the fly. The cause is that most development is not concentrated on dynamic content creation. What that causes, in turn, is that every player that goes through the game goes through the same game. So what you have is a room of 50 players all talking about how they beat that wizard in the enchanted wood named Blaroz at level 10.

If development was aimed at dynamically generating content, then you could have a lot more tools at your disposal to make the player feel both accomplished and at the same time not grinding away on the same quests as everyone else. Once the wizard is defeated, does another take his place, or does he haunt the area for a while? Did he have treasures, or does his clan now become a threat that is run amok and needs to be put down? Maybe his fortress becomes a ruin, and his storage room can be mined for herbs he has in crates- if you can just get past those cursed animals and plants that are now surrounding it. Or maybe something else. And for each of these consequential stories, who says that the player who killed the wizard in the first place has to go back and see it through to the end? Maybe the wizard storyline is dead for a while and then creeps back after a day or three as one of those continuances for another player to stumble upon.

So now with the quests set up like the above, you can have 50 players in a room talking about different things they encountered in that enchanted forest that are related to each other, but not the same. It gives the same feeling of a social bond with the other players without the bad taste left in your mouth by the knowledge that everyone's done the same exact thing.

The question is: How do you get there from here? The answer is to develop story-generating systems that can create stories with sub-plots to allow the server to create the quests in a semi-random way that seem coherent to the player, but internally are pieced-together "blocks" of story. And for that to happen, you'll need to improve the AI thrown at NPC's, as well as other aspects of gameplay that are almost completely ignored in MMO's.

Everyone here is talking about the story itself, or permadeath, or skills vs classes, etc. while they're missing other topics that can really innovate the genre. Things like making emotes actually matter to NPC's or mob's, or ways to converse with NPC's beyond the singled canned question in the dialog box, etc. People are still stuck on how cool it is that the Fallen burst out of someone's chest or something like that. It may be cool, but it doesn't solve the gameplay issues for you, and it's best to take the actual story details out of the equation so that it doesn't cloud the discussion of game mechanics.

#83 I completely agree and I'm sure many developers agree with you too but that quest generator and new AI are not trivial to say the least. I've written some random quest generators and played on some random dungeon generators and for what you're, or rather we're all, asking for we're talking a major jump in AI to get to what you're describing. NPCs would have to "think" through their options. Now, I'm not saying it's a bad idea. I love it actually. Is some team out there building it though?

Plus we're talking about removing instancing at that point. If every change sticks then we're talking major server support and updates. People would have to wait each time they logged in for the world (or that part of the world) to update. And if there are a lot of people on one server you can't just create a new instance of that game zone. You'd have to keep people from entering it because you can't have a place changing in two or more ways at the same time.

Some of these "restrictions" in MMOs actually make the game more fluid for the players, at least until bandwidth increases even more and it becomes a non-issue. Unless of course the amount of data being sent increases with it and it always remains an issue. ;-)

Oh, and I didn't mean to insult players with my statement. I'm a player too! Just starting with a shocking statement to get your attention. :-p

#84

Quote:what you're, or rather we're all, asking for we're talking a major jump in AI to get to what you're describing

Oh yeah.

Quote:Is some team out there building it though?

I've been trying to beat up the issue for years. If I had stuck with the usual MMO methods, I probably could have something really nifty to show for all my time. But, I don't- just lot's of research, theories, and UI sketches for how things in my game should work. I do have to say that it's definitely possible if I can come up with some of this stuff- I'm far from a genius. I just don't think that the companies with the resources are motivated enough to take such a huge risk.

Quote:Plus we're talking about removing instancing at that point

Not completely. There's still a place for it, where the player would need to go into a place that would remain persistent to do something, and you don't want ten other players in there doing the same thing. I don't want to throw out a tool just because. It could still be needed in some situations, and should be applied accordingly.

Quote:People would have to wait each time they logged in for the world (or that part of the world) to update. And if there are a lot of people on one server you can't just create a new instance of that game zone. You'd have to keep people from entering it because you can't have a place changing in two or more ways at the same time.

Yeah, that's a problem to be overcome, but I don't think it's as big an issue as it seems. Bandwidth is becoming much less of an issue these days (and much cheaper on the commercial end as well), so in a year or so it will be much less of an issue to update that much more of the game world in a dynamic way. Of course, everything needs to be optimized, but that goes without saying.

Quote:Oh, and I didn't mean to insult players with my statement

I know, but it was too good an opportunity to pass up ;)

#85 Don't have time to read through 85 posts at the moment, but I just wanted to say I prefer MMOs where each player starts at the beginning of the story and plays through it at their own pace - I don't see any need for players to exist in exactly the same version of the world, instead I would consider it a virtue if over time each player's version of the world functioned as an interactive story, adapting to that player's choices and play style.

#86

Quote: I prefer MMOs where each player starts at the beginning of the story and plays through it at their own pace - I don't see any need for players to exist in exactly the same version of the world, instead I would consider it a virtue if over time each player's version of the world functioned as an interactive story, adapting to that player's choices and play style.

While I agree with the basic premise of a player's actions determining the outcome of a game, I think this is a bit miscategorized, as this applies to single-player games. An online multiplayer game is specifically designed so that players are in a single world. For multiple players to exist on the same server and not see the same copy of the world (whatever degree to which they have the ability to change that world aside) would be a very confusing experience to the players, because they would not be seeing the same reality, but would have to communicate what they see to others. That model of gameplay is best left to single-player or hosted small-party action like Neverwinter Nights or Diablo.

#87 Yeah. What he said.

#88 *shrug* I don't think it would be confusing. Everyone who had played all available content would be at the same point playing each new batch of content as it came out. Noobs would start in noob world where everyone was playing chapter one's content. People quite actively discuss their different experiences playing single-player RPGs, so they could just as easily discuss their experiences playing slightly different versions of the same RPG. You would see things lik:

Player A - Haha NPC X has a crush on me, she gave me a free sword!
Player B - Aw man, my NPC X hates me since I thought it would be funny to give her a giftwrapped frog.
Player C - My NPC X loved it when I gave her a rose, you should try giving her that if you want her to not hate you anymore.

#89

Quote:Everyone who had played all available content would be at the same point playing each new batch of content as it came out. Noobs would start in noob world where everyone was playing chapter one's content.

Well, yes and no. The problem here is that by default you seperate the players' versions of reality, and not just in the way that is represented in the dialog. If there is a world where noobs go to get the "first chapter content", and then move on to other worlds, then it's not much more than stratifying the shards by level instead of geographically, which is what is done now by MMO's. I don't know what that would do for a game, good or bad, so I don't have any comments on that.

However, if a player is not going to "exist in exactly the same version of the world" as another player, then you've left MMO territory from a design standpoint...

The purpose of an MMO is to get people to play together in a more social kind of game. The dialog in your previous post is actually a good example of an MMO with interactive storytelling as a feature, where players get different reactions to their actions by NPC's, but those actions and the world are all one copy that all of the players on that server see. And that is the difference between the dialog you used as an example, and the scenario of having players in their own copy of the world. It might be just a difference in the semantics you're using and what point you're trying to get across, but the terminology for the two scenarios are very different.

In any event, I'm very in favor of trying to create systems that will allow for the kind of conversations your players a/b/c are having.

#90 Possibly it is a difference in semantics - I am thinking that if NPC X is Player C's lover in Player C's world, but no one's lover in Player A or B's world, that makes the players versions of the world different. Similarly if the evil Ice Wizard (there is only one) has been defeated in one player's world and not another, that would also make the versions of the world different.

I just don't agree with your definition of an mmo game. To me an mmo game is any game which people play over the internet including talking to each other. The live interaction between many players is IMO the only defining feature of a massively multiplayer game.

#91

Quote:Possibly it is a difference in semantics - I am thinking that if NPC X is Player C's lover in Player C's world, but no one's lover in Player A or B's world, that makes the players versions of the world different. Similarly if the evil Ice Wizard (there is only one) has been defeated in one player's world and not another, that would also make the versions of the world different.

Okay, that does clarify what you're talking about, and it goes towards a concept of what basically boils down to a "shard per user", or closely related to it. There's many problems with that approach off the top of my head- mainly on the technical side. For a shard per user approach, you're looking at hosting a copy of the game world per user, which is technically (read: financially) prohibitive. In this case, each user gets to chat with each other in a chat room, or at best some sort of neutral area where players zone-in to encounter other players. Outside of that zone, however, it's basically an online-hosted single-player RPG with a chat zone integrated into the world. It's a unique concept- but it's not an MMO by the de facto industry definition of one.

Quote:I just don't agree with your definition of an mmo game. To me an mmo game is any game which people play over the internet including talking to each other. The live interaction between many players is IMO the only defining feature of a massively multiplayer game.

Let's agree to disagree on this part from here on out. I have no qualms with your concept, and the differences between what we consider MMO's is probably debate worthy for both of us, but I think it serves all of us better to stay on topic and talk about better architectures for stories and story generation, which can benefit any genre of game that uses deep storylines.

#92 It's not a unique concept - I'm just working from MMOs like Gaia Online and Neopets where there is no PKing, so all areas are neutral enough to talk in, and the gameplay is not cooperative, players can play near each other but each does their own thing except in the special case of the battle dome which is nonfatal dueling with another player who also volunteers to fight. But yeah, I don't want to derail the discussion. I have a lot of thoughts about story generation but none of them are really applicable to multiplayer games, so I'll stay quiet.

#93 Back to the permadeath, AND having an impact on your world:

Take SWG for example
Say the cloning facilitys only work within a certain radius, and out of that radius you have a very real chance of permadeath with only a couple of chances to save yourself (medic revivals, special one time use abilities). Make players able to build cloning centers, and as the circle of civilization expands, the "safe zone" expands with it. Pioneers would be real pioneers in their willingness to adventure out and scout the uncharted lands (the cartography sounded like a cool idea, mabye a centeral map (database, for the sci-fi) that you could update or mabye charge for the new pieces of map you have). This provides a real risk and a real oppurtunity for profit (think how much people would be willing to pay to avoid permadeath...)

#94 PermaDeath in my world:
You may be saved when in town (thriving comunity of NPCs)..
You may be saved when Near an outpost (With a few NPCs)..
You May be saved when in rural areas (by other PCs)..
Alone, without medical care, you COULD perminantly die..

Death Penalties:
Thriving community: -5g
Near an outpost: -15g
Rural Areas: -2% xp
Alone: Create New Charecter with bonous stats, Half the gold, Same weapons/armor/items at half power... THIS Might be planned, cause they messed up thier build. And with these slightly weaker items could get them back to thier old level in less than half the time...

This could be very livable, in such a way that a regular player can be comfortable with, and adds just enough realism to the play to keep players from not wanting to die, or to keep many in groups. Cause if they should happen to die, and replace thier charecter with a noob. They will learn not to jump off of a cliff very quickly. And keep from fighting extreamly tough mobs...

(Noobs will always start in town, and fight things within the "Thriving Community" zones, Thus penalties are minimized... No gold, no loss) The mobs will get stronger as you move away from the cities/villages.

In a n earlier post, I totally disagreed with major DP, as I was playing an mmorpg, or so it's called. And to get mobbed and loose alot cause of being dc'ed only frustrated me to no end. My charecters do not die by my choice, I am usually in an area that my charecter can handle, yet still difficult, and without lag, I always pull through. When the server begins to lag, is when I usually have problems. I know my charecter's limitations.
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As for Quests, Since I am still learning to script, It's best if I keep them to a minimum (0), Tho will try to add a few later on...

#95 I had an idea to make my game a little more interesting story wise (this kinda goes off the death subject though...)

Basically, it's a simple online RPG, but every now and then what I call an Event happens. These Events have the possibility to change the game world depending on the outcome.

In my story, there are two sides, Chaos and Order. About 10,000 years before the game thanks to some powerful magic, Chaos managed to get itself an army with the help of a human. The basic premise is that when a person dies before their time through an accident or war, murder, that sort of thing, Chaos was the cause. Their soul is then trapped in the Realm of Chaos and is given a false body to inhabit. These are the Destati and the Lord of Chaos (the one who created the first Destati) uses them to consume whole worlds and thus increase the power of his army. All the worlds are linked by the "In-Between", the No-Man's land between Order and Chaos, and the Destati use the In-Between to travel from place to place as they please (so too do the players).

Now, one idea for an Event I had would be this: Seven of Chaos' most powerful servants died before the game began. Since they died for something other than a natural reason, their souls returned to Chaos. Rather than make them mere Destati, the Lord of Chaos is trying to bring them back, and until they are complete they are weak and easily killed. Easily being a relative term. So, the Players who play for Order have to seek the "Shards" (as I called them) and destroy them within a certain time limit. When a Shard is destroyed, he/she is gone forever, meaning you have one chance to get the exp. and glory. On the flipside, Chaos is trying to protect them and their targets are the "Guardians", assassins sent to kill the Shards. They are basically Shards, but on the side of Order so same rules apply.

Let's say Chaos wins and either all the Guardians are killed or some of the Shards are still alive after time is up. Then the next Event would be something like a major Destati attack on the Worlds, and Order players would have to co-ordinate so the Gateways (where the Destati come from) are not overrun. Chaos have to break through the Gateway defences. If Order had won, maybe they could launch an attack into the In-Between to try and drive the Destati away from the Gateways and establish stronger defences. If Chaos managed to get through the Gateways, maybe the Order side would lose one or two cities and if Order beat the Destati in the In-Between, the Gateways would have larger fortresses.

I think something like that would keep people interested. Each time an Event comes around they have a chance to change the world. The coding would more than likely be a nightmare, but it's just a thought.


Onto Death though, I thought maybe I'd have something similar to an Insurance system, the Soul-Stones. A person can buy a Soul-Stone and use it as a sort of save point. If they died, they'd respawn after some time at the Soul-Stone with the stats they last "uploaded"(for lack of a better word) into it. If they didn't have a Soul-Stone, or they didn't have one but it decayed (to add some more danger to dying, the Soul-Stones decay after a certain number of uses) they'd be lost forever and a new Destati mini-boss would be born similar to the player when they'd died. Alternatively, they'd be forced to play as a Destati and I'd give them a way to free themselves for a cost. The Destati would obviously be far too weak to play as easily, else everyone would be committing suicide.

#96 I think that these ideas are all great but there is a major point everyone is missing out on.

Many attempts have been made to make the online worlds more interactive and dynamic. Most of these efforts have been thwarted, not by limits of the software or user hardware but by the players themselves.

The experience that 90% of MMO players seek is that of playing an arcade game (albeit a complex one) with a few thousand other people at the same time.

There is very little "role-playing" in these games and the story and setting of these games is mostly just a backdrop for the competative and social aspects of online gaming. Spend a few minutes reading the chat logs from anyone playing these games and you will see a lot of talk about "mobs" and "drops" but very little talk of the significance of any one NPC or storyline.

nothing ruins immersion like the chat message: "44 emp/psi def lfg" or "WTB SBD will pay 50k plat"

My suggestion would be to remove the multiplayer element from these games completely. That is basically what happened with the Elder Scrolls series. Oblivion is basically a fantastically detailed MMORPG with only one person on the server: you. The idea worked GREAT and I would suggest that anyone who finds themselves disenchanted with MMOs in the market today try making one minus the multiplayer element. You can't lose!

#97 I agree with that Nick, to some degree. I mean, I know the majority of players want an arcade experience- but completely cutting the role playing experience (by only developing role playing games for soloist) is throwing the baby out with the bath water.

The designer should reward role play- there are a number of ways to do this- so that even the arcade player will play his avatars role in order to get the "Ding" he would playing the arcade game.

Now granted, you can't control speech without being so restrictive you ruin game play completely for arcade players but therein lies the compromise.

#98 I honestly don't think that most developers think of story beyond what was written during development- certainly not about the story evolving through role-playing. The most you'll get is "events" here and there, which is just new content to keep people playing.

Case in point: These bug things in WoW. I completely missed out the big "event" of the battle and such, and they pumped some back-story into the world, which is great, but now, the areas are there, but the areas don't grow or shrink with the success or failure of the enemy or allies. Execute quest X and Y, and you have absolutely no impact in the world, no matter what you're told by the quest-giver.

While Nick's sentiment about today's MMOs is pretty dead-on, I have to agree with Kimmy. Developers need to figure out how to build role-playing into games in a seamless fashion. Creative use of controls and representation and creation of data needs to be developed.

I know for a fact that my science-fantasy world is not anything groundbreaking, or even special. Same goes for everyone else. What makes an impact is how people can play your world. If you want to go the same route as WoW and the rest, then fine. They make more than enough money to justify what they've developed. If you want something closer to an actual RPG, then that will require creativity in database design, AI, gameplay mechanics, gui controls, and gameworld modification.

#99 People don't want your game.. they want their game.

The trick is making so that each player believes that he has contributed something unique to the gameworld and has a lasting memorial. Only then will they believe it to be a success :)

Our job is to make a framework that whilst appearing to be complete allows for every aspect of individuality to occur and be preserved.

Or I may be completely mental:)))

Regards

Graham

#100 Alright, i've come out of hiatus to give my final two cents...

i have read all of the posts here, from the beginning (a monumental task, i assure you). i will attempt to put forth my final opinions on story.

contemporary quest structures piss me off. a world where reality simply personalizes itself around me is not my idea of fun, especially when i can just go ask some level 60 dude how he managed to defeat the evil ice wizard that i'm about to go fight (gee, the ice wizard is at the ass-end of every beatdown, huh?). how does that happen? did frodo ever ask some super-powerful warrior how he managed to get rid of the damn ring? no. it was a one-time, independant event that had dramatic consequences on the rest of the world.

can a mmorpg sustain interesting stories like this?

i think so. but stories in mmo's lose thier flavor because the player is never pressured by the story itself. there's no real reason to kill the evil ice wizard except for drops. and to advance to other bosses to get more drops. the story never forces you into the action, because it'll always be there at your convienience. like a book. pick it up and read it at your leisure. lamelamelame!

why doesn't the evil ice-wizard lead raids on the main town with a giant army of ice-squids? that would force the players to gather up a force and kill him at his evil ice pad. then he would be gone. you accomplished something. no more ice wizard. a guild would probably move into his pad. what's more, that wouldn't take very much GM intervention.

the story, whatever it is, needs to be simultaneous between all characters. you need to walk down the street and hear rumors.

"did you hear that NanaMaster117 found the ancient doodad of power?"
"No, you're shitting me. where?"
"he won't tell anyone."
"is he going to use the doodad at the temple of magicalness?"
"i don't know. but he'd better watch out for GUIld Pwnz0r. they want that thing bad."

there can be quests, and quest rewards, but they need to be singular, independant incidents, obscure enough for people to stumble across things accidentally.

i think it's possible. give the server an objective(s) and see what happens. lay down a pvp system and some quests (lots of quests) some unique treasures and a set amount of currency. do some random ass dungeons and areas, and just watch the chaos.

permadeath haters piss me off. i think permadeath is essential. you have to put the fear of great loss in people to get them to be cowardly. it's easy to charge into battle when you can respawn at the inn. stories need heroes, and the only way to have a hero is to have a madman who charges balls-first into combat that he has little chance of winning.

npc's piss me off. npc's are horrible examples of story elements, once again, because of the 'book' effect i explained earlier. you need to be taking orders from players, since players can lie, cheat and steal. or, players can be heroic and genuine. an npc is incapable of this duality. even if they have quaint little habits and AI. still not clever enough to motivate a good story.

high level characters piss me off. there's always such a dimorphism between the vets and the n00bs. you have to make the footsoldiers important. any general will tell you so. freelance adventuring is still possible, just limited. make the most power antoher player can get over another about 3x and you'll see a whole new level of cooperation. players won't just want a party, they'll need one. they'll need battilions for bosses. armies for mobs.

basically, you can't hold the players' hands. create anarchy get it as realistic as you can while preserving a fun factor, and see what happens in the aftermath. at the very least, it would be a good study in sociology.