Is this the first time where a 'player char' was weaved into game lore?

JohnP0100

https://www.themittani.com/news/amarr-empress-boldly-faces-down-space-pope-tense-standoff

A recent event occurred in EVE where an in-game lore character Jamyl Sarum I (piloted by the game devs - CCP) sent a message in public chat to a player Max Singularity VI (first of his name) and a stand off event occurred. Course the 'lore character' used DEVHAX (MJD on a freakin Titan? REALLY?!!) so the players can't break the story but it was a cool 'OH SNAP!' moment.

I recall several incidents where GM's would 'role play' with players in WoW/UO but I don't ever recall game devs actually acknowledging a 'player' as a lore char, weaving that character into the story and making it 'canon'.

It is good to see CCP doing something like this and engaging the player base. This is almost a 'meta of a meta'.

Like all things, there is a downside; the most obvious one is that the 'player' can cancel its sub and not play thus, breaking any future lore the game devs might have had with that char. e.g. If BOB was part of EVE official lore like this then the game devs would have been forced to re-write that entire section when it disbanded overnight.

 

The question is, how does a game company write lore / story that includes players and their char without the downsides?

From my perspective, this can only be done if you have only one server as you'd rather not deal with multiple variations of a story across the different servers.

*disclaimer* - Yes, I was in Goonswarm / a terrible poster on SomethingAwful and enjoy long walks on the beach. 

Jemcrystal

I haven't really seen a named player character put in the games historical lore.  Of course I don't play Eve.  As far as I know Eve doesn't have player characters.  It has ships.

 

I would not put players in script lore.  I would rather have a game famous character's shoes players could take turns filling.  Mabinogi did this.  You would role act as that character for a bit, their name and outfit, while following the story line.  If I personally wrote my own game, I would choose champions from the world to do something that changed the planet's destiny.   If they failed to accomplish the goals they could just log out disgrace.  Being a Commander in GW2 EotM is kinda like this.  You get a chance to shine and save your team or fail.  Only if I made a game I would choose heros to save the entire world so they could really feel the pressure cooker, lol.  If that got written in history lore AFTER the event then so be it. 

 

 

Loktofeit

Originally posted by JohnP0100

https://www.themittani.com/news/amarr-empress-boldly-faces-down-space-pope-tense-standoff

A recent event occurred in EVE where an in-game lore character Jamyl Sarum I (piloted by the game devs - CCP) sent a message in public chat to a player Max Singularity VI (first of his name) and a stand off event occurred. Course the 'lore character' used DEVHAX (MJD on a freakin Titan? REALLY?!!) so the players can't break the story but it was a cool 'OH SNAP!' moment.

I recall several incidents where GM's would 'role play' with players in WoW/UO but I don't ever recall game devs actually acknowledging a 'player' as a lore char, weaving that character into the story and making it 'canon'.

It is good to see CCP doing something like this and engaging the player base. This is almost a 'meta of a meta'.

Like all things, there is a downside; the most obvious one is that the 'player' can cancel its sub and not play thus, breaking any future lore the game devs might have had with that char. e.g. If BOB was part of EVE official lore like this then the game devs would have been forced to re-write that entire section when it disbanded overnight.

 

The question is, how does a game company write lore / story that includes players and their char without the downsides?

From my perspective, this can only be done if you have only one server as you'd rather not deal with multiple variations of a story across the different servers.

*disclaimer* - Yes, I was in Goonswarm / a terrible poster on SomethingAwful and enjoy long walks on the beach. 

EVE Online has brought characters and player conventions into the lore on several occasions. There was a citizen that became part of the lore/storyt during the Incursions, and during recent events the player designations for thing have become part of game canon such as Caroline's Star and the god, Bob. There's also the very recent power struggle which you mention above. Links to that are here. 

In Asheron's Call during the faction wars several years ago there were players and allegiances that entered into lore, but I'm too far removed from that lately to know where to look to find that info for you. AC, also has several spells and items that are named after or refer to players. 

The GM story arcs in UO that you mentioned were done on several levels, so players often ended up in server history, but not the more universal canon. 

You're right, though, it's very hard to do in multi-shard MMOs. 

 

 

Horusra

Wow does it sometimes.

Thane

errrrrm... just sayin, Jamyl is NOT a player char, she is the amarr god-empress.

Loktofeit

Originally posted by Thane
errrrrm... just sayin, Jamyl is NOT a player char, she is the amarr god-empress.

Correct. Max Singularity is a player. 

Vrika

I think Defiance allowed one of its player chars to appear on the Defiance TV show.

WoW made a NPC named "Wildhammer Fact Checker" that looks very much like the player who pointed out an error in their lore about one of Wildhammer clan members.

Dibdabs

I recall WoW had a quest in the Tauren area that featured the actual voice of a little boy who loved WoW but who had sadly died.  He asked you to feed his lost puppy, as I recall.  Blizzard heard he was seriously ill and let him create a little quest in the game he loved to play.

There are now quite a few players who have had a quest made for them, in memoriam.  http://www.wowhead.com/guides/miscellaneous/a-guide-to-in-game-memorials  I hadn't realised there were so many. 

waynejr2

I assume we are talking about mmorpgs and not muds.

JohnP0100

Yes. We are talking about mmos. I think npcs interacting with players beyond 'kill 10 rats' is interesting.
Can see why it is not possible for all mmos though.

Nanfoodle

City of Heros used to send a monthly comic to everyone subbed to the game. It was about the on going story in CoH. They used to pick players chars to feature in the comic. Always wished mine would have made the cut lol.

Sheista

Asheron's Call and old-school Everquest were the kings of this sort of thing.

Asheron's Call would utilize Gm-ran characters to drive story points.  I still remember the Asheron vs Bael'Zharon story arc, where guilds (allegiances) could swear allegiance to either Asheron or Bael'Zharon, and would go to war with each other in the most random of places.  I also remember GMs appearing on special story characters and role-playing with groups of players and giving them quests and allowing the players to determine what happened.

 

Everquest did this in a smaller way - You could come across someone with both First and Last names displayed in a certain way, and you knew it was a GM.  They would role-play, give out mini-quests, and then give small or unique items to players upon completion.  It was awesome, but I'm sure time-intensive and required some level of coordination to pull off.

KenFisher

What a cool twist depending on how you look at it.

 

You expect to interact with a game, but you don't expect the game to interact with you.  When it does, that must be one hell of a surprise.

 

I'd freak out and log-off.  Botch the whole thing up.

L0C0Man

A friend used to talk about how in Matrix Online the GMs would play in character as important characters (Morpheus, for example) and player characters would get involved into the story like that, never played it myself, though, and he was a known to embellish the games he played a bit so no idea how accurate that was.

As for NPCs named or designed after general players, it has happened. Other examples (other than the ones already mentioned here) can be Siegemaster Dulfy (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Siegemaster_Dulfy) based after Kristina "Dulfy" Hunter from dulfy.net, and there's also Kelly West (http://kotaku.com/5911071/a-girl-and-her-dog-walk-across-america-end-up-in-guild-wars-2) that walked from Maine to California with her dog Anna, visiting Arenanet on the way, inspired on the player characters in MMOs like guild wars (the one she played) that went around the world doing quests and the like, so now in GW2 there's a sylvari character named Ameranth (her character name in GW2) with a dog named Anna that says that she's walking across Tyria.

Jaedor

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Originally posted by ZombieKen
What a cool twist depending on how you look at it. You expect to interact with a game, but you don't expect the game to interact with you.  When it does, that must be one hell of a surprise.

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Lovely way to say it.

SlyLoK

Used to happen quite often in MUDs and GMUDs I used to play. As time went on it became more rare to see it.

Alumicard

Originally posted by Vrika

I think Defiance allowed one of its player chars to appear on the Defiance TV show.

Do you know who made it on the show and maybe even in which episode? I remember the contest but didn't find anything about who won it.

 

 

 

OnT: Like others mentioned Asherons Call. iirc some players who finished a quest first were made into parts or story of the quest.  I remember Paraduck to be named in one quest at least but darn it's been a long time and no clue which sites have the info on that. Also some outstanding players had their names made into skills or spells. I remember one person but not his name that was the highest war magic mage and his was turned into the at the time highest war magic spell something "Playersname" Bolt of Fire or something like that.

 

 

My exp in EVE is rather anti community so I guess picking one player over 100s of other players who were as good as this player could lead to some toxic behavious...to clarify toxic behaviour for EVE standards (aka players who tell you to die, threaten to slit your throat in real life and stalk kill noobs which is apparently fine for the company).

moonbound

wrong thread.

Thane

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by Thane
errrrrm... just sayin, Jamyl is NOT a player char, she is the amarr god-empress.

Correct. Max Singularity is a player. 

errr. yea, i remember that one. max sinularity VI. first of his name, never got how a sixth can be first :P

but i guess that was the plan.

JohnP0100

Originally posted by Alumicard

Originally posted by Vrika

I think Defiance allowed one of its player chars to appear on the Defiance TV show.

Do you know who made it on the show and maybe even in which episode? I remember the contest but didn't find anything about who won it.

 

 

 

OnT: Like others mentioned Asherons Call. iirc some players who finished a quest first were made into parts or story of the quest.  I remember Paraduck to be named in one quest at least but darn it's been a long time and no clue which sites have the info on that. Also some outstanding players had their names made into skills or spells. I remember one person but not his name that was the highest war magic mage and his was turned into the at the time highest war magic spell something "Playersname" Bolt of Fire or something like that.

 

 

My exp in EVE is rather anti community so I guess picking one player over 100s of other players who were as good as this player could lead to some toxic behavious...to clarify toxic behaviour for EVE standards (aka players who tell you to die, threaten to slit your throat in real life and stalk kill noobs which is apparently fine for the company).

This is a bit of a tangent but since it involves 'EVE'; any Real-life threats should be reported and they will be punished.

I personally witnessed a graphical real life threat being made and I know the char was perma-banned by CCP. If I recall correctly (this is years ago), the guy came to Kugu, posted a huge QQ post, was told by KUGU to GTFO and hasn't been seen since.

I haven't played AC, but was AC like WoW where the company would just put in a quest giver / item into their game?

I'm rather fond of this particular event as the actual interaction between NPC and a player char is now 'official canon'.

ohika

The saga of Ryzom used to do this all the time. I was part of the CSR team and myself (flump) and another CSR member (pheadrea) used to write and roleplay quite a few live events. These at first where just done on the EU servers but one of the story branches which included players in their history was then woven into the game lore. Oba and his minion Wormtounge (played by myself and another csr) was picked up by the devs and the story unfolded in sudseqent patches.....heady days.


I noticed earlier in the thread someone mentioning Asherons call doing this, I wrote and rp'd some of those when jolt hoasted the servers.

Yanocchi

My player character was weaved into game lore of one MMORPG 16 years ago. Game designers decided to give me some credit that way for my tiny role and involvement in development of their game.

 

http://www.tibia.com/library/?subtopic=creatures&race=demon

The famous knight Apoc once wrote: "Demons are the most malevolent, powerful, and dangerous creatures in Tibia. In addition to their awesome physical strength, they can also use powerful spells, such as fireballs and fire fields. Especially dangerous is their gaze, which can produce beams of pure energy to annihilate their poor victims. Moreover, they drain mana off their victims, heal themselves and summon fire elementals as their vassals.
Fortunately, Demons usually live in the deepest dungeons near hell but sometimes they appear also on the surface. When they do, they leave a track of death and destruction behind them. Nobody has ever been able to slay even one of these entities and only very few adventurers have survived an encounter with them."