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Dual faction games - poor story?
I'm sure this has been discussed before but I can't be the only one getting tired of the mmo setup that uses two opposing factions to create the setting and premise for the game. Sure, WoW has shown it to be a successful model in terms of game mechanics, but even in that game it seems like a weak storytelling device. It strikes me as a cheap attempt by devs to create the illusion of depth in their game's lore by having one "good" and one "evil" faction, then having the good faction have a few rotten figures and the evil side have a few good figures (or casting their decisions in the opposite light, etc.).
This happened a lot in WoW, where it seems like any time you talk about the lore of the world, people were attempting to portray the Horde as the real "good guys" and the Alliance as the true evil. This while the horde harbored a race of undead bent on total extinction of all living things. Pardon me for not buying it. Anyway, that particular subject has been debated on countless other forums, and I'm not trying to reopen it here. What I'm saying is that does anyone who cares about story and lore in their games find the two faction system compelling?
Aion is the newest example of this. After reading through the "lore" section of NA site from both interpretations,
http://www.aiononline.com/us/lore/book_of_the_elyos/
http://www.aiononline.com/us/lore/book_of_the_asmodians/
it seems to me that the Elyos are clearly more in the right, if you had to choose which side has the moral high ground in the situation. The leaders of the Elyos wanted peace instead of continuing what may have been an endless war. This war would have eventually taken it's toll on the world population, especially since the enemy force was slaughtering inhabitants of the planet to goad the fighting. Their efforts by all accounts may have succeeded too, had the now leader of the Asmodians not interfered and indirectly insured the doom of the planet. Then they turn around and blame the Elyos for its destruction. Almost as an afterthought, the devs sneak in a line about how the Elyos party killed some of their women and children as they were being killed off or escaping the asmodians trying to kill them, just so everyone trying desperately to sympathize with an unlikeable faction would have something to point to. Then they make notes about many of the Elyos have become arrogant over time, casting down the Asmodeans. Well, they and their leaders were clearly in the right, and made sacrifices to remedy their mistake (the tower guardians dying). I'd be a tad self-righteous about it too when the Asmodeans still don't admit they were wrong. Sure, as a player, this doesn't mean your character has to be good or evil yourself, but one side is right and the other is irrational or childish if they choose to share their leadership's view.
Maybe I'm the only one that interprets it that way, but when they try to pass off the "evil" factions as something just as rational as the "good" ones the two faction model seems to lose it's appeal to me. I fear this will put a damper on my experience in games like Aion, SW:TOR, and other such games if the devs choose to take this approach (by that I mean pass off the bad guys as good ones, the two faction model itself is otherwise tolerable). If you insist on having two opposing factions, please make it so a rational person could champion either viewpoint or make them undeniably good vs evil.
/rant off
gd, I'm such a nerd...
So in the interest of constructive discussion, who agrees, disagrees? What would a better model be for a game's premise, or what would be a better approach?
P.S. I'm still going to try the games I listed above, this issue isn't necessarily game breaking.
Comments
ok, a few things I want to say on the subject.
First: I hate faction MMOs. I loved Lineage2 because the players created the politics, and PvP had meaning, it wasn't just "hey other faction, kill kill kill"
Second: I love how Aion put in the dual faction lore. I don't know of any other MMO that has two different takes on the lore, even when selecting your faction the 2 windows that describe the race change based on which one you have currently selected. I love it, not quite enough to forgive Aion for being a faction based PvP game, but its something.
and lastly. Elyos wanting peace doesn't make them the good guys. yes, Peace is good, but there was a REASON the Asmo didn't want peace: because they didn't believe it would work. this isn't peace with another county, this is peace with an entire different species. The asmo didn't think the dragons would hold up their end of the bargin, and thus they struck first.
The asmo did what they did because they thought it was right. yes, it ended up destroying Aion and messing things up really bad. but hindsight is 20/20, yes we know that choice was a bad one. but who knows, maybe if they hadn't done that, the dragons would have taken over and wiped out the entire human race. the point is some people made a bad choice, not the WRONG choice, just a bad one. I think NCsoft did a good job of makeing neither side "evil" or "good".
Both sides are fighting the current war for the exact same reason. destroy the other teams tower base to save their own side of the world. its very symmetrical, which makes both sides seem more even. in fact, most of the fighting takes place in the abyss, which belongs to neither side.
So as far as I see it, Aion did the 2 faction thing pretty well. and while my personal prefrence is for non-faction based games, I have to admit they did a decent job.
Everything creates huge amounts of negativity on the internet, that's what the internet is for: Negativity, porn and lolcats.
There just needs to be 10 factions beating the holy living hell out of each other in a game. Simple enough in theory, but the story and lore that could be created could be extremely interesting/complex.
I think the only real evil faction is the Balaur. Both Asmodians and Elyos seem to be in the middle of the road.
I agree that a game where players made the politics would probably be more interesting to me.
As I said, I think it would be very possible to have a good Asmodean and an evil Elyos, but I still think the Elyos can pretty easily take the moral high ground on this one. Even if you don't consider the outcome in hindsight, the leader of the Asmodeans still made a poor decision and refuses to admit it.
If everyone followed what the Asmodeans wanted from the beginning: worst case scenario is that they continue fighting and lose which they would have as the enemy side clearly had the advantage, best cast they continue the war indefinitely, possibly managing to win but at a cost atleast as massive as the cataclysm in terms of deathtoll.
If you go with Elyos, worst case scenario is that negotiations fail and become an attack, resulting in the cataclysm, or best case they reach an agreement and there is peace without any further bloodshed. Both sides pose equal risks but peace was probably the best possible solution they could hope for.
Furthermore, the leader of the Asmodeans knew he was going to ruin any possibility of peace and jeopordize his people and world by provoking the enemy's anger so close to the tower. He didn't even devise a plan to take out all of the enemy leaders at once or make concessions for a counterattack, he just murdered one on impulse. Even with all this, if he would atleast admit that his irresponsible actions lead to the current situation, he might be worth some sympathy, but instead he blames the people that gave their lives to clean up his mess.
Again, this won't stop me from trying the game, and I'll probably still play both sides. As you said neither side is really right in the current war, which makes the game premise more buyable, though I would hope there's additional lore about looking for a better solution to the over-arcing problem both sides are facing with the planet and their mutual enemies.
Yeah I agree... well sort of.
Having factions can be a very interesting way to have different views, game play styles, stories ect. That said my favorite MMOs just happen to be games that don't have the dual factions.. FFXI and Guild Wars. I like that everyone is in the same boat. Furthermore I think Guild Wars did it right where everyone was equal and could go anywhere but to battle in the Ft Aspenwood you had to align yourself with that faction. I'd like to see more things like that in MMOs of the future.
Where we get to deside through the story, who we want to ally ourselves with.
Ya know, when I was thinking of successful games that didn't have a dual faction model as I wrote this, FFXI was the first to pop into my head. Single faction games can spend more time on development of the individual races/classes etc. but can also risk becoming too simplistic if not done properly.
Being able to choose your alignment later on as opposed to at character creation I certainly think is a good concept, and that kind of coincides with the player politics idea, but with NPC factions possibly. Being able to choose between many shades of grey is certainly more compelling than dual faction and allows for more space to make a unique character too, I'd say.
I agree that a game where players made the politics would probably be more interesting to me.
As I said, I think it would be very possible to have a good Asmodean and an evil Elyos, but I still think the Elyos can pretty easily take the moral high ground on this one. Even if you don't consider the outcome in hindsight, the leader of the Asmodeans still made a poor decision and refuses to admit it.
If everyone followed what the Asmodeans wanted from the beginning: worst case scenario is that they continue fighting and lose which they would have as the enemy side clearly had the advantage, best cast they continue the war indefinitely, possibly managing to win but at a cost atleast as massive as the cataclysm in terms of deathtoll.
If you go with Elyos, worst case scenario is that negotiations fail and become an attack, resulting in the cataclysm, or best case they reach an agreement and there is peace without any further bloodshed. Both sides pose equal risks but peace was probably the best possible solution they could hope for.
Furthermore, the leader of the Asmodeans knew he was going to ruin any possibility of peace and jeopordize his people and world by provoking the enemy's anger so close to the tower. He didn't even devise a plan to take out all of the enemy leaders at once or make concessions for a counterattack, he just murdered one on impulse. Even with all this, if he would atleast admit that his irresponsible actions lead to the current situation, he might be worth some sympathy, but instead he blames the people that gave their lives to clean up his mess.
Again, this won't stop me from trying the game, and I'll probably still play both sides. As you said neither side is really right in the current war, which makes the game premise more buyable, though I would hope there's additional lore about looking for a better solution to the over-arcing problem both sides are facing with the planet and their mutual enemies.
At what point in ANY of the lore you read does it expressly say Asphel was the one who killed the balaur at the tower? Neither side of the lore say HE was the one who killed the Balaur.
All it says is "There was shouting, confusion, a rout. One of the Balaur had fallen, and Lord Asphel was standing ready to fight, his eyes blazing." and "We saw Asphel move swiftly and suddenly, and the Dragon Lord Vitra collapse. The Balaur did not waste time with words. In an instant, there was carnage and chaos."
Asphel was arguably the strongest fighter of all of the Lords, could it not be that whatever killed the Balaur leader asphel sensed just fast enough to save himself and be ready for whatever it was that came next? You like alot of others jump right to the "Asphel was mad about the decision, he flew off the handle and killed the leader" way of thinking... Just maybe there is another side to that, maybe just maybe he was only looking out for the best interests of his people and was willing to give peace 1 shot before it killed the leaders anyways.
that pretty much says he did it. when you say "person A did some verb, and person B died" 90% of the time, Person A killed person B. its just a way to say it that seems more dramatic.
and I disagree with your best case worst case. best case in Asphel's mind would be that he could rout the dragon leaders, and end the war, or at the very least stop the others from making a terrible mistake and having the human race wiped out. and worst case if he hadn't killed vitra is that they may have turned on everyone, destroyed the tower, and then hunted down and killed every last human.
I don't think it was a bit evil. even if we decide that he made the "wrong" choice (and not just a bad one) that doesn't make him evil, we all make mistakes, his just had a lot more riding on it than most others. I think its pretty clear NC soft didn't want either side to be good or evil, both sides are very justified in their conflict, they want to save their home.
Everything creates huge amounts of negativity on the internet, that's what the internet is for: Negativity, porn and lolcats.
that pretty much says he did it. when you say "person A did some verb, and person B died" 90% of the time, Person A killed person B. its just a way to say it that seems more dramatic.
and I disagree with your best case worst case. best case in Asphel's mind would be that he could rout the dragon leaders, and end the war, or at the very least stop the others from making a terrible mistake and having the human race wiped out. and worst case if he hadn't killed vitra is that they may have turned on everyone, destroyed the tower, and then hunted down and killed every last human.
I don't think it was a bit evil. even if we decide that he made the "wrong" choice (and not just a bad one) that doesn't make him evil, we all make mistakes, his just had a lot more riding on it than most others. I think its pretty clear NC soft didn't want either side to be good or evil, both sides are very justified in their conflict, they want to save their home.
Again, I'm not trying to argue that one side is good or evil, usually one is just irresponsible, or flat out wrong in regard to the situation (like I think is the case here). When there are dual factions, they are generally given close motifs of "light" and "dark" (or what have you) even if they aren't purely those. I'm saying that the arguement they make for sympathizing with the "dark" faction tends to be weaker and less compelling.
In this case, even the asmodean account doesn't make any hint of an organized plan, which leads me to believe this was more of an impulse thing on Asphel's part. If he thought he could single-handedly take out all their most powerful enemies alone, he was just being arrogant rather than making a serious effort.
As far as the theory about if he was really the killer, I'll grant you that neither version confirms it definitively, but it seems strange that both would mention Asphel in the same line unless the devs were purposely trying to mislead. That seems unlikely though, since they should have atleast had the Asmodean account cast doubt on whether he was the killer, otherwise he seems completely responsible for the incident. If he wasn't responsible for some reason, that leaves the question of who was. It mentions the Baluar being very intelligent and evolved, so I guess it's possible that one of them did it, some radical on either side, or an as yet unknown party. While I'd hope the lore went down that more complex road, I doubt it. This style of game generally isn't known for that, but maybe time will prove me wrong.
Okay, after giving it some thought and looking over a few more sites, I'm starting to think spector has something. Maybe I was too quick to call it. The official European Aion site places emphasis on the blurriness and uncertainty of the different accounts. The wiki for the game says that the events at that moment were "unclear". So I'm willing to entertain the theory that Asphel may not have done it for now. I genuinely hope this is expanded upon. I can see the potential for decent lore in this game despite it's too-often used mechanics (I was particularly interested in talk of how the Balaur rapidly evolved from reptiles and are even seen commanding what appear to be spaceships in some of the trailers).
I still stand by my original statement for games like this in general though, here's hoping Aion is an exception.
Anyway, when dealing with factions I think it's safe to say that to avoid the versus model we need to either have one unified playerbase (though they can form alliances for RvR and such), or have far more than 2 factions (another Korean game called RFOnline had the same premise as Aion, but with 3 factions, and really ended up not being story focused at all). With a larger number of factions, it's best to let the player choose some time after creation who to align with, or whether to align at all. Anyone disagree or have other ideas?
This.
It could well be argued that Elyos are the more evil race of the two, at least according to the lore. Blond and beautiful does not make good, no matter what that old nazi fart Tolkien says.
I agree that a game where players made the politics would probably be more interesting to me.
As I said, I think it would be very possible to have a good Asmodean and an evil Elyos, but I still think the Elyos can pretty easily take the moral high ground on this one. Even if you don't consider the outcome in hindsight, the leader of the Asmodeans still made a poor decision and refuses to admit it.
If everyone followed what the Asmodeans wanted from the beginning: worst case scenario is that they continue fighting and lose which they would have as the enemy side clearly had the advantage, best cast they continue the war indefinitely, possibly managing to win but at a cost atleast as massive as the cataclysm in terms of deathtoll.
If you go with Elyos, worst case scenario is that negotiations fail and become an attack, resulting in the cataclysm, or best case they reach an agreement and there is peace without any further bloodshed. Both sides pose equal risks but peace was probably the best possible solution they could hope for.
Furthermore, the leader of the Asmodeans knew he was going to ruin any possibility of peace and jeopordize his people and world by provoking the enemy's anger so close to the tower. He didn't even devise a plan to take out all of the enemy leaders at once or make concessions for a counterattack, he just murdered one on impulse. Even with all this, if he would atleast admit that his irresponsible actions lead to the current situation, he might be worth some sympathy, but instead he blames the people that gave their lives to clean up his mess.
Again, this won't stop me from trying the game, and I'll probably still play both sides. As you said neither side is really right in the current war, which makes the game premise more buyable, though I would hope there's additional lore about looking for a better solution to the over-arcing problem both sides are facing with the planet and their mutual enemies.
At what point in ANY of the lore you read does it expressly say Asphel was the one who killed the balaur at the tower? Neither side of the lore say HE was the one who killed the Balaur.
All it says is "There was shouting, confusion, a rout. One of the Balaur had fallen, and Lord Asphel was standing ready to fight, his eyes blazing." and "We saw Asphel move swiftly and suddenly, and the Dragon Lord Vitra collapse. The Balaur did not waste time with words. In an instant, there was carnage and chaos."
Asphel was arguably the strongest fighter of all of the Lords, could it not be that whatever killed the Balaur leader asphel sensed just fast enough to save himself and be ready for whatever it was that came next? You like alot of others jump right to the "Asphel was mad about the decision, he flew off the handle and killed the leader" way of thinking... Just maybe there is another side to that, maybe just maybe he was only looking out for the best interests of his people and was willing to give peace 1 shot before it killed the leaders anyways.
No offence but aren't you drifting off from the main scene? (just a tiny little bit) xD
And if Azphel was saving himself from the horror, he would be scared - fear in his eyes, not blaze - I might be wrong. Just my point of view.
I've decided to write my own background story:
So once upon a time there was this hot Elyos chick. And she was all like, "I like picking angelica flowers n-stuff". So there she was gathering mats, when by accident she stumbled upon some crotchety old Asmodian's lawn.
The Asmodian stumbled out of his van, which he had parked down by the river, and shouted at the hot Elyos chick, "You dam Elyos get off my lawn!" But little did he know that she was really the niece of a big mean Balaur uncle...
So the hot Elyos chick ran to the center of the world and told on the mean old Asmodian. The Balaur uncle listened to his niece's pleas (thinking "boy is she hot if she weren't my niece") and vowed to help his niece get revenge.
So the next day the Balaur went to the surface and attack the Asmodian. Without any warning what-so-ever he totally tipped over the outhouse the Asmodian was in. But later that eveneing when he returned to his castle at the center of the world, he found his niece there crying. "What's wrong this time," he demanded.
*Sob* "Uncle, today for no reason at all someone tipped over the outhouse my Fiancee was in and he drowned in the aftermath!"
"Oh snap," thought the Balaur uncle. "I'm sorry dear that was me. I must have accidentally gone to the wrong side of the planet."
"YOU?!" she shouted, managing to get the word in all caps. "Why I'll never forgive you and I'm going to tell father!"
So the hot Elyos chick ran home and told her Elyos king dad what happened. The king never like the Balaur uncle anyways because it was on his wife's side of the family, and so declared war on him. He also declared war on the Asmodian's as well because it was their fault this whole mess got started in the first place. The end.
youtube.com/gcidogmeat