How do MMOGames tell stories? How can such storytelling be improved?

Cafe Society
1

First of all, I’d like to discuss (compare and contrast) the way all the major Massively Multiplayer Games tell overarching stories, as well as smaller individual stories.

I’ve not played many of these games, but I am currently in the research stages of designing one, so I was hoping the wider experience of the community can help me out as I’d really like to discuss what approaches work and what don’t, and what solutions are plausible.

The overarching basic problem I see is that they have to deal with hundreds of random players running around not all of which will cooperate or roleplay. Players all want to be THE hero, THE protagonist driving the story, but of course that’s not possible. You can either have a cohesive, realistic world storyline: and risk most players feeling left out of the real action, have a world without much of a storyline and just lots of monster killing/leveling up, or quests that pretend that players are the main heroes… as different groups win these supposed “quests” over and over and over again (some games, like Matrix Online, supposedly have quests that can only be won a limited number of times, but even that seems sort of silly)

How do different games deal with spoilers? What’s stopping some idiot from running around yelling “I just completed quest X and Baron von Doorstop is the traitor!” I assume a lot of them deal with it by either benign neglect or simply having stories that are borign and uneventful enough that no one cares (i.e.: “You kill Dragon #234 and it like DIES! And then you get GOLD!”)

How can stories progress collectively when people log on and off unpredictably?

Is there an ingenious storytelling alternatives out there to “standing in line waiting for quests to respawn”? Don’t things like respawning, repeating quests really break the illusion of the game world? And what is the point of having hundreds of other players in the game if they don’t really affect or play into the storylines you are playing through? Isn’t that a waste?

I hope we can have a interesting discussion about the past, and hopefuly future, or these games. I LOVE social engineering/storytelling problems. :slight_smile:

2

I’m playing World of Warcraft now, and loving it. :smiley:

I’ve gotta say though - if there’s a deep story going on, I’m not paying enough attention to notice. What I do see is dozens of little side stories (someone stole my farm, kill him), but no real cohesive overall arc. It could have the best story ever written, but I won’t really notice. Not unless they throw in some FMV cutscenes once in a while or something.

I played Final Fantasy XI for a few months a while back as well. Being a Final Fantasy junkie, I paid a little more attention to the story there, but never bothered to ask other people questions and scrounge around for details like they want you to do. I was too busy killin’. :wink:

3

Short answer is that they don’t tell a story. Rather they (MMORPGs, as shooters tend not to tell much of a story) present a world with mini-stories, and let you play through them.

The characters themselves cannot advance a story. Given two different players, and two different story options on your story tree (let’s call them good outcome and evil outcome), you are going to have one pissed-off player. Someone is going to push the story they want forward, and the other is not going to get the game he wants to play. Also, allowing players to force the story forward means that those who can log in the most and play the most get to affect a story, while those who play more casually get to know that others are affecting ‘their’ gameworld, but are powerless to help.

Some games have moved away from the spawn camping to instanced zones, where a player or team has a whole zone of spawns to his/her/themselves. City of Heroes and World of Warcraft do this for sure. As for repeating storylines, yes, they tend to break the illusion. Neverwinter Nights got around this by giving the players the tools to make their own DnD online games, complete with GMs. You may or may not consider their implementation MMO, though.

Well, that’s my start. I’m looking forward to other’s opinions.

4

Take a look at A Tale in the Desert. It’s a MMORPG that features no combat and is supposed to be about cooperative goal completion and storytelling. Story-stuff advances as the players collectivey reach certain goals. I can’t vouch for how well they do, since I haven’t played, but it has looked intriguing for a while now.

My gut impression of MMORPG’s as a whole is that if you want to have an over-arching storyline, and enforce various aspects to keep that central, you’re going to have to accept some marginalization of players who can’t play enough to be on the cutting edge of what’s going on. And that is a major aspect of why I haven’t gotten into them. I don’t have the time to play enough that I could stay abreast of what is going on. However, there are people who can do that, and those are the people you would want to market to anyway.

5

Crap. That link should be A Tale in the Desert. I always remember it wrong.

6

And that’s exactly what happens. Literally within hours, if not minutes, of a new quest/mission/whatever being implemented into the game, the walkthrough will be posted on a website, and the players will be discussing the optimal way to get through it. Speaking as a game designer, it’s very frustrating.

What’s the solution? I think a robust, dynamic random mission generator is the key. The missions have to be a bit more detailed and interesting than the typical “fed-ex” mission, or the “kill x number of y creature” quests, though- and need to naturally lead into further quests (in effect, writing the character’s story, and thereby making him feel unique). What’s more, the world needs to keep track of all the effects of these quests being solved. Not an easy thing- but I think the game that manages to do this will kill the competition.

7

I’m having a great time in World of Warcraft.

MMPORPGs arn’t really the best place for heavy stories. Instead, you get a well designed and evocotive world to explore, some small stories that you discover and an ovearching plot that you don’t affect so much as reveal and become more deeply entrenched in. WoW is doing a good job of making each little bit of story explain part of the world and open a few new mysteries. Sometimes having a large mysterious world to explore is as fulfilling as story. “Russian Ark” is an example of a film that uses this principle. Or, to me at least, the world and places of “Harry Potter” is far more compelling than the actual goings-on.

Quests do get spoiled. But MMPORPG worlds are percieved in a different way. Once again, it’s kind of like Harry Potter. Instead of one long story you slog through, it is more like high school- everyone has to go through the same thing, but in different ways. You feel sorry for the low-levels about to embark on a hard quest (and more than a bit of nostalgia as you see level three characters killing little animals in the newbie areas) and you look up to the higher levels and the mysterious things they do- it’s exactly like hearing seniors chattering about SATs and prom and it seeming so sophisticated and mysterious.

You do not play the big hero. You spend most of the game lower-level than the city gaurds. You’re more of a working shlub who does stupid stuff other people tell him to to earn your living. You are rewarded with consumer good, new skills and discovering new areas. In this sense it is more like the Sims than Final Fantasy.

Creating your character is also a bit of a story. Think of it as more of a personal development story than a grand adventure. You learn new skills, reach new goals, find neat new stuff and advance to higher and higher levels. There are enough options and playing styles that your characters do feel very different from each other, and I am getting a lot of satisfaction from learning my trades, custiomizing my skills and discovering new ways to use my powers. I’ve always derived more pleasure from how my character is progressing than over silly cut scenes and epic battles.

I havn’t reached the higher levels of WoW, where player killing and guids play a larger part of the game. But the concepts that WoW has for us is pretty neat- a war where you fight real players of the competing faction to take towns and increase your glory. It isn’t all fully implemented, but I’m looking forward to it. It’s the sort of thing that can be perpetual, but you still feel like a part of things.

For a while I wondered why MMPORPGs were so satisfying when the actual game content is less exciting than single player games. Grouping is part of it. Grouping can be a lot of fun. The best thing a game can do is surprise the player, and when there are other people in the game, surprises are inevitable. Another thing is that it gives you a reason to care. Why would I be concerned that my character has geeky looking gloves or a cool looking new power if I’m just showing it off to a bunch of bianary? A social world and economy helps you feel like you are doing something with a purpose, not just wasting time with numbers.

8

What I’ve been wanting is a Shadowrun MMORPG/Single-player RPG: one game, three play modes. You can play on your own and get a good 40-80 hour game a la Morrowind, play with a group with one of you hosting it, or log onto to Seattle-net to play with hundreds of other people. The game world would have to be very big, and characters should have to start out fairly week.
There’s so many things you can do with it. The game will happily make quests on the spot - the characters can sneak into different buildings and facilities and arcologies, recover the target. There would be various NPC’s to find and question and bribe for information about the buildings - although experienced players wouldn’t need it, since they’d have seen things firsthand, asked NPC’s already, or read it online. We’d need a kick-butt 3d engine (source!) and a lot of data compression for it to work, but wouldn’t it be cool? And in a few years, it won’t be at all bad on the size.
As an advantage, the designers wouldn’t worry about tiny numerical differences or balancing thousands of abilities: you;'ve got spell, you’ve got guns and lots of cool equipment items, and you’ve got the matrix. I was thinking it would be implemented like a side path, where the character explores the digital world and can look out to see the party proceeding along, while he opens doors for them and so forth. long-term quests would work by instanced zones, which can only be reached after you find the right NPC, get access to him/her, and proceed down doing quests. The longest of these might take 30 separate runs, and could change the world around the character (at least in single player mode).
There’d be rappelling gear, special grenades and armor, cyberware out the wazoo. Sort of like Vampire: Bloodlines, only built better and more robust.

9

What I’ve been wanting is a Shadowrun MMORPG/Single-player RPG: one game, three play modes. You can play on your own and get a good 40-80 hour game a la Morrowind, play with a group with one of you hosting it, or log onto to Seattle-net to play with hundreds of other people. The game world would have to be very big, and characters should have to start out fairly week.
There’s so many things you can do with it. The game will happily make quests on the spot - the characters can sneak into different buildings and facilities and arcologies, recover the target. There would be various NPC’s to find and question and bribe for information about the buildings - although experienced players wouldn’t need it, since they’d have seen things firsthand, asked NPC’s already, or read it online. We’d need a kick-butt 3d engine (source!) and a lot of data compression for it to work, but wouldn’t it be cool? And in a few years, it won’t be at all bad on the size.
As an advantage, the designers wouldn’t worry about tiny numerical differences or balancing thousands of abilities: you;'ve got spell, you’ve got guns and lots of cool equipment items, and you’ve got the matrix. I was thinking it would be implemented like a side path, where the character explores the digital world and can look out to see the party proceeding along, while he opens doors for them and so forth. long-term quests would work by instanced zones, which can only be reached after you find the right NPC, get access to him/her, and proceed down doing quests. The longest of these might take 30 separate runs, and could change the world around the character (at least in single player mode). Many quests would only be available to charactes with a rep as a mage, shaman, decker, samurai, etc.
There’d be rappelling gear, special grenades and armor, cyberware out the wazoo. Sort of like Vampire: Bloodlines, only built better and more robust.

10

This is sort of along what I’m thinking. The ultimate problem is the repeating event issue: if you want players to play through the same content, then you are stuck with basically breaking the realism (unless you can somehow work it INTO the realism) and making the quests a lot like a literal story: the quests are the game, the MMO aspect of the game is just a glorified messageboard to discuss the “story.” On the other hand, if you have people playing through different stories, then you are talking pretty much and insane amount of game design most of which goes to waste: absolutely unacceptable and implausible from a cost/return standpoint. I’m not really convinced, however, that a random mission generator could be robust enough to spit out stories that are actually interesting though.

What intrigues me is the Matrix Online, which from what I’ve heard will have an overarching ongoing storyline written in real time by the author of the “Concrete” comic series, and told through newspapers and public events within the game world. This sounds quite exciting, but I’m still unclear on how it will really work in practice, and of course even the creators probably don’t know how successful it will be in actually making players feel involved and important to the world.

I’m also like to hear a lot more about this “everyone gets their own city” solution with City of Heroes. Without giving away too many spoilers of my own about the particular plot of the game I’m working on, this sounds closer to the sorts of solutions I’m thinking about.

And really that’s my chief problem: I’m envisioning a story in which spoilers and twists play a fairly key role to the enjoyment of the game: exploring and mystery solving are important elements. I’d also like players to be part of the ongoing story and affect it, rather than just bystanders in watching and listening to it play out. Ultimately, this has to mean having players playing out at least some of the same content. I think I have a story/world concept (as well as a much more flexible technology backend) which accomodates that without breaking the world rules, but I’m still trying to figure out what’s really feasible in terms of storytelling.

11

Not so much their own city, just their own mission zones. I can’t speak to the coding behind it, but when you enter a mission zone (building, lab, sewer, outdoor mission zone, whatever) it is yours and yours only. You can invite a team to help you, and the mission scales to the number of teammates. But you don’t have to worry about another player running up and stealing your mission or your mission rewards.

In addition, there are the city streets populated by every hero, where a particularly griefing type can go and kill everything in a newbie zone leaving nothing behind for people who need low level opponents. The joy of the mission zones is that if you encounter such a griefer, you can enter a mission (given by contacts) and the griefer cannot affect you.

12

How are other players kept out of the mission zones?

13

The person with the mission (or that player’s group) can click on the “door” and get zoned into the instance. The griefer doesn’t. Even if the griefer would have the same mission, they would get zoned into their own instance.

14

That’s a programming question. I do know that other players can have the same gateway (door) into a mission, but once inside, you will not intersect (nor might you even have the same layout).

15

What sorts of worldwide events work and what don’t: I’ve heard about the great alien invasion at the end of the City of Heroes beta, the destruction at the end of Asheron’s Call, and so on: are these generally limited to “everyone kill all kinds of crazy stuff we’re throwing at you” or “hey look, we spawned a million invincible fire giants that all bash your skulls in, thank you goodnight!” Has any game pulled off major storyline developments that are more character driven, like say, a mayoral election in the City of Heroes (complete with corruption and ballot tampering that folds into the smaller quests). Are there any major storylines that are generally determined by the collective effort of the players?

I’ve still not heard many examples, even on MMOG websites of what overarching stories there are in various MMOGs: certainly some games must have progressions and so forthow are these presented? What’s effective, and what’s not?

I’m also interested in the concept of multiple servers. This is generally a technical need: you can’t have a central server because of both latency and CPU issues. But how does it work storywise game to game: do the worlds have any impact on each other? Does the story acknowledge them in any way? Should it?

16

Apos, forgive me if I’m being presumptuous, but you sort of sound like a baker who wants to design a new cake recipe without having eaten many cakes, or a new Mercedes worker who wants to create the next generation sportscar without having gotten behind the wheel. There’s no substitute for actually getting into a game and playing it in order to figure out what works and what doesn’t.

That said, I wrote up my own take on World of Warcraft awhile ago:

Daniel

17

I agree. I also suggest reading some of the forums associated with different games. You’ll see the impossible demands real players make. But more importantly, read the comments and posts of the game developers to see the type of decisions they make.

You can try the websites of different developers. Raph Koster (of Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies) has a good amount of game design philosophy posted.

18

Well, I don’t have the money it would take to sign up for all the MMOGs out there: that would quickly get me up into the hundreds of dollars range just to play even a month or so of each major one. I have played a few, and am going to subscribe to another selection of the best of the major ones pretty soon, but in the end, my personal experience is not as relevant as the opinions of other players: especially since what I enjoy may not be what other people enjoy and I don’t just want to please or understand my own desires. The sheer size and breadth of these games prevents any one person from having a good take.

I’m also interested in a lot more than just “what’s been done” but also hearing lots of different opinions.

19

Yeah, I’ve read a good deal of this stuff, and it does help quite a lot. But Dopers tend to be a much more discriminating bunch with a much wider view than a cavalcade of 12 year old gamers. :slight_smile:

20

Okay, I was confused; I thought you were doing this as a job, not as a hobby. Naturally companies who have any hope of getting into the MMOG market are going to have a research budget, and I was thinking you could tap into that. Are you doing this as a class project or something?

I disagree here: when a game is designed by someoen who loves the game, it shows just as much as a cake baked by someone who loves food. While the opinions of other peoplea re important, the creator’s vision is absolutely indispensable, and you really need to play other games in order to get a vision.

Daniel