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Storytelling For MMO Games Discussed
Thanks to GameRifts for its interview with television and videogame scriptwriter Lee Sheldon regarding the state of writing/story in online gaming. Sheldon, who has most recently worked on Cyan's URU: Ages Beyond Myst, is asked "Do you see good, even epic story lines, becoming a core feature of MMORPGs in the future?", and responds: "Yes, and sooner rather than later... The big question of course is whether [developers will] continue to spend all their money on high quality art and programming and treat the writing as a hobby anyone can do. Without the same commitment to quality as in the other elements that make up an MMORPG the writing will continue to fail miserably."
One of the main reasons I keep going back to playing certain single-player RPG's like Fallout, Betrayal at Krondor, Planescape: the Torment and Baldur's Gate is the excellent storyline, worthy of any movie. Maybe if any MMORPG had a good storyline, I would check it out ...
With all that being said, I think that if the writing comes up in terms of quality, these games are poised to take off in popularity far greater than they currently enjoy.
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All of the MMO's lately have the same story..... 'we're cancelled before launch!' I hope one of them can break the mold sometime soon. I enjoy MMO's launchs, it's kinda like watching a car wreck.
I know a few MMOs claimed to want this. Shadowbane particularly comes to mind, they promised to hire actors to play roles and run regular events in a story arc you could control. I remember exactly 2 events actually happening.
In reality, this is fairly hard to do. You need tohire good professional writers, who follow eveyr possible branch of the story arc out for months. You need to have the content happen often enough to make it interesting for all. There's a lot of potential there, but its going to be expensive and difficult to tap.
A better solution may be to go for episodic games. Create a world, and sell the game cheaply (or over the net release) and have a series of self contained story plots. Release a new one every month or whatever for a low price (10 bucks?). Buying it in store gives 2 or 3 free episodes, web gives 1. Make it online, but not true MMO- maybe 100 people at a time to keep it reasonable. I think it would be a lot easier to do this than to create enough content to keep an MMO going.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
I've been playing FFXI pretty heavily since November. As you'd expect from a Final Fantasy game, the plot is a fairly large part of it.
However...
It isn't a "normal" Final Fantasy plot and comparing it with these is a good way of observing the limitations that going massively multiplayer puts on a game's "central" plot. The Final Fantasy series is pretty well known for its distinctive main characters. Love them or hate them, Celes, Cloud and Squall are pretty much part of the canon of classic gaming characters. By contrast, in FFXI, the player character is nothing more than the player's avatar in the game world. Sure, if you play the game's plot through to the conclusion, he's probably going to end up saving the world or something (I don't know for sure... I've not got there yet and people in-game are very good about not spoiling the story). However, the player character is far closer to what we're used to seeing in "Western" CRPGs, particularly those based around the AD&D rules; a blank-slate upon which the player can try to impose his own personality, so far as the rules of the game will allow. Of course, this is one respect in which MMORPG games go far beyond traditional CRPGs; while in, for example, Baldur's Gate, you might get three basic options for conversing with an NPC, one good, one neutral and one evil, communication between players in a MMORPG is almost completely unrestricted.
However, freedom of expression doesn't necessarily translate into a good plot. Square-Enix obviously put a lot of effort into making FFXI's plot as compelling as possible; there are a good few twists and your perceptions of some of the NPCs will shift dramatically over the course of a game. However, while a traditional Final Fantasy game will last around 40 hours, getting through the FFXI plot is likely to take closer to 40 days. Plot events are, by the very nature of the game, much more widely dispersed. For example, to do the plot mission required to gain rank 4, you'll need, at the very least, a party of characters of about level 35. To do the next mission, for rank 5, you'll need a party of approximately 10 levels higher. Moving from level 35 to level 45 will require several weeks for any player who can't stay in game every hour of every day. As a result, the plot sections seem few and far between and are never really going to form the bulk of the player's impressions of the game. There are lots of optional quests that expand the player's knowledge of the game-world, but they're not what I'd call "plot".
There are other potential options for doing plot in a MMORPG. One is to adopt the Eve Online approach, and have the devs write a plot based around the events that occur between groups of players in the game. Of course, I understand that this has been known to backfire spectacularly, when a group object to how the devs have portrayed them. You can also try to let the players write the plot as they go along. However, this relies on having a large number of players willing to put time and effort into creating the story and willing to accept roles for themselves that aren't "savior of mankind, ruler of the universe" and who actually have the talent to write. I suspect that a very small proportion of the current MMORPG player-base truly fits this bill.
To sum up, a plot can add a lot to a MMORPG and can be an important factor in enhancing a player's enjoyment of the game. However, it's never going to be among the most central parts of the MMORPG experience, on the basis of current designs, and what I'd say to any current MMORPG developers is that it's far more important to get the play mechanics and the player-economy right before worrying about plot.
As long as we keep seeing users screaming "I l337! Looser! I am l337! You n00b!", i don't think there will be room for any type of immersion and storytelling.
Party member: "Shall we attack the castle now?"
You: "We shall rest here until darkness fall. We will attack after the darness has stroke."
Party member: "Yes sir."
Someone a mile away: "I l337! Looser! I am l337! You n00b!"
There was even a hub town that caused a lot lag on all servers because of the constant overpopulation...so the town (Arwic) actually got blown up into a huge smoldering crater by the shadows :)
These Devs had FUN, and they were Involved with their game, a key element missing from so many today. The storyline was also good in AC, with a few story arcs like the shadows, virindi, olthoi, and Martine / Gaerlan. Sometimes getting to converse with the characters or battle them.
ah good memories of a great game :)
(and I do remember the shadow wars, defending Fort Tethana and other towns.)
Just wanted to chime in about the story telling used in some of the MMORPG.
If you think about it, the story telling and expectancies in a universe are highly linked to this universe subject (heroic quest in med-fan, technological plot in sci-fi...). I'm simplifying, as you can have very different quests, but this is typically what the player is expecting.
Enters City of Heros. In this game the universe is based on the super heroes from comic books (but generic, no trade marks...). The way the story telling is intertweened with the universe is great: you get tips on the universe and the villains through contacts, those are "personnal" (for your character only), but you can ask for help from other heroes. And as in any comic books, your influence in the universe is actually both little and secretive (in most comics, no hero defeats an Archvillain definitly, it is just a passing victory. In the same way, your deeds are hardly known to the common person if you save the earth...).
This setup and universe is actually quite fitting to the MMO games. You have common parts (the streets, with rampant crimes as random encounters) and private parts (the missions), even some longer "story arcs" that can be completed as team only. It allows for both multiplayer, interaction and storytelling. The impact on the world can be seen as limited, but fits well in the setting.
The first MMO to really tempt me. And so far, no disapointment. I'm learning a bit more of the world every time i play and uncover some more plot. Best compromise between MMO and story i've seen so far.
I'm a game developer with degrees in both Computer Science and Spanish Literature. I know a bit about writing and have some practical experience working on my game Meridian 59.
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The biggest issue is that online games involve a level of participation you really don't find in many modern storytelling media. The closest you find are some interactive plays such as Tony and Tina's Wedding or some forms of oral storytelling, notably campfire stories or "egg timer" stories. And, while we have plenty of practice in evaluating traditional literature (I even have a degree in it!), there's less attention dedicated to more interactive forms. One of the more interesting treatments is Hamlet on the Holodeck
Personally, I think the different media are different enough that it becomes hard to really define online storytelling in traditional terms. Even the title of Lee Sheldon's new book includes the term "Character Development", which is often largely out of the hands of the developer in online virtual worlds; players will develop their own characters, and often not in the ways that would make the most interesting characters and stories. It's very difficult for traditional storytellers/writers to let the players take nearly complete control over the creative direction of the story.
Even in single-player games you run into problems, as one of the most important aspects of good storytelling is pacing, and the player's actions play a large part in the pacing of a game. Highly linear games tend to do good with pacing, but they tend to be restrictive. More open-ended games really focus on the interactivity of the game, but often at the expense of control over pacing. If the pacing isn't right, then that interesting character is going to be of less interest to the player.
That said, I don't think storytelling in online game is a lost cause. I think there will be interesting stories told, but I don't think they'll conform to the forms we've defined for traditional non-interactive media. I think we might see some cool new things, and I especially hope that some of them show up in my future projects.
My thoughts,
Brian "Psychochild" Green
MMO developer's blog