Kate posted this, and it seemed worthwhile to me to start a new thread for it:
you know, it occurs to me that as you turn toward the idea of the non-linear story, something like The Elder Scrolls games might be interesting to explore. There is a definite story and plot... but it is up to the player to get there. In the most recent of these (Oblivion), you could take hours out exploring sub plots, tangents, and little flurries of story that had nothing to do with the main plot. Some people had trouble deciphering where that main plot started and stopped - and in several of the Elder Scrolls games, the game itself doesn't end when the plot does. You are allowed to continue interacting in a very changed world, sometimes still completing quests you had left undone for as long as you want. World of Warcraft (I know, I know) is another interesting idea when it comes to plot - every event in the story is somehow incorporated into Warcraft myth - every NPC has a past, every fight is explained. It is an ever evolving story, kept track of by players and developers alike - and you can look up any of those stories on a variety of websites dedicated to the game... and each of the instances has its own story as well (though there are occasionally gaps - characters revealed as being spies, enemies, etc... and standing around town again five minutes later, waiting for the next adventurer to discover the truth...) Each character you create has their own path they walk through the game from level 1 to 70 and beyond... if you just take the time to stop and read the quests when you get them. ;) talk about an unstructured plot!
7 comments:
On Elder Scrolls: I haven't played the series, but I think the issue of "main plot vs. subplot" is worth exploring. Why is it that game developers must put a "backbone" plot in there at all, one that (even though it may be weaker dramatically) is the sovereign plot of the game? Without it, what kind of free play might be left behind (and why is that kind of anarchic storyline so tensely avoided by gamemakers)?
There's a Gibson quote from Burning Chrome, "the street finds its own uses for things," which applies here... especially in terms of MMORPGs. I'm not a WoW buff, but I know that it's similar to FFXI in that the top-down narratives imposed by the gamemakers become vestigial pretty quickly. When given freer rein, the users develop a less top-down model of storytelling... hm.
They more or less tried that. Bethesda's MO was to make huge, open-ended games which didn't compel the player to follow a particular plot. Daggerfall was sort of boring that way. The same can be said for Morrowind when you strayed off the plot too much (though in Morrowind you could at least get back on it). When you walk away from the plot, the game is sort of dull. It's a great feeling to have all that freedom, but it's all rather repetitive. Not unlike most MMORPGs I've seen. There's only so much time one can spend boosting his fishing skill before the lack of a coherent plot makes him (or at least the people near him) want to become murderous. Calling "gather 87 monkey spleens" a "model of storytelling" is, I think, a bit generous. I suppose that's all to say: in order for a game to have a narrative worth caring about, it probably should have something in it interesting enough to narrate.
I want to read this post, but something in the styles for the right-hand sidebar is blocking the post's text.
And I have played the latter half of Elder Scrolls. :)
Fixed. Sorry about the formatting of this here thing in general... I started something I hadn't the time to finish.
In response to Alec - I think the boredom thing you mentioned is, in many ways, an issue of perspective. For instance, second life doesn't really have any plot etc. as far as I know (I know very little about second life, I admit) yet people don't seem to get bored with it... I think in those cases, it's more about the social interactions though, which saves it from what alec was talking about with regards to getting bored when you wander away from the plot. Because of the social aspect, MMORPGs don't *need* to keep you tied as closely to the plot. And because of the constant ability for devs to update the game and add new content, the plot constantly develops. It's there if you want it, but you don't actually need to pay attention to it. Back to morrowind, the most recent one of these did something similar - you could get online and download addons for the game at a small fee - something to personalize your experience. Everything from new mounts to new cities, towns, and questlines... which again, had nothing to do with the main plot. The constant addition of content to a game does interesting things to the idea of story. It makes it more real, because the world itself is evolving... (it also adds anticipation, and keeps gamers hooked... but that's another discussion entirely)
I think that much of a player's receptiveness to a main plot / subplot split has to do with expectation. When I asked two friends some years ago whether I should spend money on Morrowind, one said yes, absolutely. The other expressed a wish for rails that Morrowind cannot satisfy and does not want to satisfy. Amusingly (to me), both people claimed Baldur's Gate II as their favorite CRPG. In BG2 one has rails per "chapter," or chapter-segment, in that some side quests can be sought out and completed during a particular chapter but not earlier or later in the game. BG2 strikes a decent balance, though as someone who cut her CRPG teeth on the Ultima series, I wanted to be able to enter houses in BG2 that had nothing to do with quashing some random spellcaster....
(Er, "rails": running the player through on them, as in a metaphorical little cart in a mine from which one can interact with one's surroundings but not jump the tracks--literalized in a segment of Return to Zork.)
What I wonder is whether this is similar to when some media fans read / view only those pieces of fanfic/fanart that recapitulate the fans' favorite pairings, in a safe, you-always-know-what-you're-getting way....
Why is it that game developers must put a "backbone" plot in there at all
It helps as a progress and feedback gauge: is my character doing things that the designers anticipated and want me to do, or am I wandering? Doesn't matter whether wandering is colored positive or negative; it's akin to seeing how many pages sit under one's thumb in a paperback, or what the % value is in an e-reader, or where the vertical scrollbar is on a Web page.... After one receives that feedback, one can decide which path(s) to pursue next. Perhaps?
Btw, there's not much incentive to post comments if no one follows up. Hasn't anyone else heard of RSS feeds? ;)
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