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Gaming Story Bricks and the Dungeon builder
donpopuki
Member Posts: 591
We know Story Bricks is going to be part of EQN and most likely the dungeon builder from EQ2. So we got to wonder how these elements manifest in game. One possibility is that players will be able to create their own quests with these tools. Perhaps each player is allowed to design 10 quests per account. Rewards for designing popular quests would incentivize player to make high quality quests and questors would rate the "funess" of the quest upon completion.
So imagine entering a player city and picking up a player quest which ends with a player made dungeon. Depending on how popular the quest is that will drive traffic thru your town which in turn makes its more prosperous. You might even level up your quest designer level depending on your quests' popularity which provides better rewards and complexity. Other game incentives can be added to encourage quest design competition.
With this kind of system the game can truly be called Everquest!
Comments
I personally hope they keep those DnD instance building player development tools out of EQ Next. I hate them with a passion.
I can understand why someone would want them in a DnD game like Neverwinter 2, because its DnD and NW2 is a shell of a game that sort of serves as a backdrop for people to play it like they would a pen and paper game.
That said instances have no place in an open world game. Neither do "player development kits." In a normal MMO like EQ Next, everything you build should be built through normal interaction with the world, players and npcs. If you want to place guards around an area, you hire guards. If you want to build a structure, you hire or become a mason or other craftsmen and build it.
Allowing players to design stuff thru dev tools is a real immersion breaker.
I'm almost certain they won't.
I think player tools will exist in game, not some software tools you build the world with. Using tools instead of normal crafting systems in the game is not even sandbox.
People seem to be confused when they see storybricks are on the EQ Next team. Storybricks are going to be using their software to help EQ Next come to life, not providing players with the software to build the world.
EQ Next is an MMORPG, not a development kit.
Do you have any evidence of it being in the dungeon building or are you just making it up? I haven't seen anything that states it will be part of it. It seems like a dev tool.
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When I've used the dungeon maker in EQ2 it wasn't for fun, it was for quick and easy xp or items. The dungeon maker might be a beginning step in something better, but right now it isn't something that would benefit EQN.
When I read about Storybricks, I see that as more of a developers toolset, not the players toolset. Storybricks will allow the developers to easily set NPCs into the world and give them depth. If they implement Storybricks with the dungeon maker, then a lot of people might have fun with it, but it will still be an instanced situation that doesn't affect the game world at all.
Sandbox's really shouldn't need instancing. So while Storybricks and Dungeon Maker will be nice side distractions I am hoping that the devs give us better tools to shape the world. Let the players build cities (like in Shadowbane), let the players build empires (like in EvE), let the players create items and control the market (EvE) and let the players interact with the environment. Within those cities, I can see the players using Storybricks to limit who their Merchant NPCs sell or buy wares from. But at this point I don't see the players creating quests for the open sandbox world they say they are giving us.
If they are included, I think it should have to be submitted to SoE for approval, so you avoid most of the exploits, and only the really good stuff gets in.
They also could be using storybricks and having the game create quests/dungeons/tasks with a AI, and unique dungeons that do have a finite life cycle.
If they deemed the dungeon builder too buggy/exploited, they may not have it in EQN, with the same tools as EQ2.
Well so far the counter arguments are:
1. These are dev tools therefore impossible to be in the players hands.
2. I don't want these features in EQN therefore it can't happen.
SOE studio is a dev tool and so is the dungeon builder in EQ2. The Story Bricks was a game that the whole point was players creating quests. All the clues are there. SOE has been heading in this direction developing these types tools. It's a logical progression and synthesis. If you don't want to see it...well then I can't really convince you can I?
https://player-studio.soe.com/
Storybricks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3b_3UGc7Es
Dungeon builder https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBEW2shTZis
http://www.tentonhammer.com/eq2/news/john-smedley-talks-the-content-churn-cheating-and-eq-next?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss
I'm familiar with all 3, yet I don't believe EQ Next is going to be "build your own MMO."
I believe external player content will still be available out of game for SOE to utilize, and storybricks is going to be exactly what they said they were, making the world come to life through their creation of dynamic npc interactions. If you think the players will be "using storybricks" to create the world, you're just using your imagination, not reading what storybricks said about their involvement.
I agree with you. When I looked up Storybricks, read through their site, looked over what they were trying to accomplish it screamed "developers tool". I would love to have a tool like that available to plop into a game so that developers could link NPCs to one another and give them depth.
Storybricks to me was more about how NPCs related to Players and other NPCs. It gives the devs the ability for NPCs to have a backstory with personality. I think that we will have NPCs in the world that relate differently to each player avatar, but we will not be using Storybricks to script our own NPCs.
It's kind of like procedural land building, or procedural structure building. Company A comes up with a great design to save devs time, and Company B drops it into their game code. Now Company B can give NPCs backstory with attitude with a few clicks of the button. Imagine some quest NPCs not talking to you because you just killed an mob right in front of him. That's to me what Storybricks is about.
"We want to create games with interesting worlds to explore.
Boundless, incredible universes where players can be creators."
So where does it say this is a dev only tool?
Thats storybricks independent work, not their work for EQ Next. Thats exactly what storybricks does, go log in and create stuff and see for yourself.
http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/04/27/tattered-notebook-eq-next-and-storybricks-sitting-in-a-tree/
"Imagine coming across an NPC who doesn't just stand there and blandly roll through the same text player after player after player. Instead, the NPC interacts with folks on an individual basis, adapting to the choices and needs -- and even emotions -- of the one currently standing there. Now add in a memory; yes, the NPC remembers past experiences with the individual player and draws on past interactions to guide current ones. Pretty innovative, right? But it doesn't end there."
Thats an example of what Storybricks is doing for EQ Next. Notice nothing in the article suggests players will be using storybricks, but rather that they will be helping specifically with the development of NPC AI.
Though I will edit and add as a disclaimer, the relationship between storybricks and EQ Next is not confirmed.
You mean 1 in a thousand was not trash?
That is much higher than my expectations of this kind of thing, I would have thought no more than 1 in 20,000. Never played NWN so have no info though.
Lets put it this way... Everything I tried in EQ2 and NWN was garbage.
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When I think about dungeon maker, I think of NWN yikes. And how that game world was super Instanced. If EQNext is as Instanced as NWN than I can understand now how it can be the largest sandbox world. Because its all Instanced.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Dungeon Builder has a powerful, easy to use interface. (Customizing a patrolling monster is very simple.)
Unfortunatly it's useless for making anything other than museums.
There is zero scripting. You can't even have a locked door that opens only when the player does something.
Story Bricks could be part of a new scripting system.
On the other hand, I'm much more interested in what goes on in the shared world than in player-customized instances.
Hopefully there will be a ton of open-world sandbox features.
You seem to be expecting something different from Storybrick's contribution than I am. SB's expertise is in NPC behavior and how they interact with the players... giving NPCs deeper characters and more realistic simulated lives. That's what I expect to see from them in EQN, not a NW-like quest creator system.
But I guess we'll find out soon, won't we?
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You guys don't watch many interviews do you ? Dave all but confirmed that is the direction SOE is taking MMOs.
He said player created content is the future of MMOs because there is no way developers can keep up with player demand and the idea of mod teams making content for the players to enjoy is what SOE wants.
To put some context into this he was being interviewed about EQ Next when he brought this up.
We will see some hybrid content creation system. Maybe you need to gather the mats to make the dungeon or whatever, but you can expect player created quest at the very least.
Let's remember SOE developed this Game Engine making a mod to let players create content even scripted content is possible if you give them Development kits with limited use.
ie, content players create in a sandbox world, as opposed to creating nothing outside of a few items in the traditional "themepark" mmo. This does not imply players will be using anything other than the traditional means to create content such as tradeskills.
There will probably be a core theme park aspect to the game resembling EQ1. However in between the theme park elements we could have large open spaces resembling SWG where players can build cities and add their own content within those cities via StoryBricks.
Technically speaking not sure how they would incorporate non-instanced player made dungeons into the seemless open world. It maybe that the only instanced content would be these types of dungeons, I'm ok with that.
In fact they could have instances open to anyone that are on the same part of the quest. An open instanced dungeon?