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Hero's Journey: New Developer Journal
Dana
Member Posts: 2,415
Stephanie Shaver, the Lead Designer of Hero's Journey, tortures people with this curveball of a developer journal. In the article titled "Much Ado About Roleplay", Shaver openly switches topics for this amusing run.
;) bet you thought I was going to show up here with an article about Wyr. But no. When I sat down at the keys this morning, it was not Wyr that my muse fed me, even though they are neater than Felix Ungar and provide 110% of the FDA's daily recommended allowance for Vitamin Awesome.
No. This week, we're talking about...roleplay. Yeah, yeah. I know I keep bringing this stuff up, and I'm sorry if it's boring the snot out of some of you. What can I say? I like to see people writhe in agony. |
You can read more here.
Dana Massey
Formerly of MMORPG.com
Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
Comments
No longer visiting MMORPG.com.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Yea I definately hope they design the game with serious multifaceted roleplay elements in it.
Of course the Paladin(Antipaladin) would have new dialogue options, new questgivers,alignment changes, equipment incompatibilities, A shift in the toon's abilities, possibly looking different/clothing options.
This would lead to class changes based on roleplay events. Thieves could become assassins. Spellcasters would have to unlock different schools of magic. Priests/clerics/healers would need to devote themselves to a diety/ideal....etc etc
Anything that moves online games (or creates a seperate niche for them) more in the direction of Baldur's Gate, Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, etcetera is a good thing to me. I like it when my decisions have an impact on my character's story, on who that character is. Steph's observation that most of us don't read quest descriptions anymore really hit home for me. Embarrassed as I am to admit it, I've found myself falling more and more into that method of scanning and running, rather than reading and thinking.
In MUDs (good ones, anyway), there were reasons to read room descriptions other than the writing; there were often clues to secrets in the area, whether they were hidden trainers, rooms, quests, objects, or other such points of interest. The thing is, when you read a room description to look for clues that'll get you goodies, you're still reading the room description. Strangely enough, that allows you to realize just how good (or occasionally bad) the writing actually is.
Anyway, this episode of Steph's Adventures in Dev Land offered more good news for me, and I like a developer who's unafraid to toss in references from Pulp Fiction (or the bible, if we're going back that far), not to mention several other references I'm sure I missed on the first time through. I also applaud her brave use of punctuation (because unnecessary parentheses are clearly a sign of internal dialogue, indicating an active mind!). In all seriousness, I greatly enjoy the light tone and sense of humor in all of Steph's updates. Strangely enough, I read these dev reports looking for bits of information, and end up realizing just how good the writing actually is. Funny, that.
Actually... it sort of sounds to me like what Steph is describing isn't really "roleplaying" so much as it is story. That the lore of the game world will be more than just flavor text that somebody randomly emitted in a few seconds; that it will actually have meaningful in-game effects and consequences and linkages to real things in the game world.
I am definitely up for that.
Example: we've seen that wyr will have bits of lore text associated with them, presumably as something that Bards will be able to uncover with their Loresinging ability.
If we follow what Steph is saying, it sounds like some (much? most?) of any people or places or things identified for a wyr will themselves refer to other people or places or things that at some time existed in the game world.
If that's accurate, it will take quite a bit more work than just making up lore that sounds nice... but it also seems like a way to make the game world feel much more coherent, much more like a real place.
--Flatfingers
I sure wish my decisions would have an impact on the world, at the same time I see it technically impossible. I mean, comon, if i decide to kill an NPC who was giving a quest, what will the other players do? Imagine a psycho runs in the game and kills most quest-giving NPC, what then? replaced by another or respawns? that's not RP. If I killed an NPC in say, AD&D, there was a good chance my GameMaster would have made a check to see if someone saw me and if someone did Id be a hunted man for as long as needed. I know it sounds a bit crazy but my fun with new GMs was to test them by killing the quest giver. Either they'd complain you killed their game (bad GM) or they would just improvise something very fast in their head and go on on another path (good GM). i don't see a server imrpovising something tho, it will always be scripted and I know by experience, the game could get out of hands very fast. A script could have 1000 possible ways to get the quest, what if I get rid of those 1000 possibilities? The only way I can see it is by having GMs in-game, but that would be very expensive and you'd need very good GMs.
So, as much as I would LOVE to see more RP in a MMO, I don't see it happen soon.
This sounds great.
I like the fluffy background material and find it can help me to role-play better.
I would certainly like to see quests that give me more scope for role-play. Things like
- Sending out healers to cure a plague outbreak
- Rogues could be sent to collect guild fees from thieves that havent paid them
- Clerics could be given sermons to deliver
Kudos to Stephanie for touching on an old concept that no MMORPG embraces. Heck, if a game truly emphasizes role playing versus "levelling" and Farming it would truly be a unique feature and make it stand out among the sea of MMORPGS.
Dana Massey or another ediotr should create an Outside the Box topic called "Alignment gaming" or something. Even in the recent role playing giant Dungeons and Dragons Online has NOTHING for role playing. I find myself doing exactly as Stephanie writes. Click through the dialoge until "Quest Bestowed" appears and go to the mission. Alignment in DDO is simply a category in which some loot is restricted to your character. Big whoopie.
Developers should use a carrot and not a stick for those who want to role play. An awesome comment Stephanie had was related to her Gemstone GM experience where she rewarded a player behind the scenes for role playing while solo. This is fantastic! Tell your gamers, We are not only watching for cheaters or fixing bugs but we may sneak in a bonus for those who truly partake in the role playing aspect of the game. The bonus can come in many forms. Maybe an unexpected random loot drop, maybe a secret quest, maybe an item for access to a future GM event, or simply some extra experience. The possibilities are numerous.
If alignment is a part of your game, then it should mean more than faction scores. Quest information can have alignment thrown in it. Maybe everyone has the same NPC quest giver, but the good aligned have to save a princess, while the evil aligned have to kidnap her. (City of Villians touches on this a little, but I still feel like I have to "save" someone from the baddies even though im a bad guy myself. Make it a true kidnapping, dammit! You should be allowed to move the NPC at least to another instance ( so another player can do the quest of course> ).
I also like the idea that readng the storyline makes a difference. Everquest had generated player based websites for unlocking quests that had lore components. The fun of solving mysteries instead of zerging through a dungeon makes gaming all the better. Quest journals are fine, but don't dumb it down too much.
So, while I don't want an uber item for spewing "Thees and Thou" in all my words. I would enjoy NPCs reacting to by emotes. I make an angry emote at an NPC, and he responds. I trigger a quest from a normally silent guard by doing an emote dance. "Hey your kinda good. You dance at the cantina? My sistah Sue used to dance there, I don't see her no mah. Can you give her dis note fer me?" (Quest bestowed).
I have so much more to write about this, i am overwhelmed.
the only drawback to roleplaying is having a wide enough gaming environment for someone to roleplay with. Also, the bottom line is that will the game reward actual roleplaying items and how do you get the game engine to recognize, and reward, those who do roleplay. Roleplaying usually means you choose a background story for your character. Let us say you are a human that grew up in an area where elves were distant and refused to help the humans and allowed a savage attack to take place and didn't help the humans. That character could grow up hating elves because their parents were killed in the raid that the elves refused to help stop. How could a game reward a player for not interacting with elves or taking up causes against the elves.
give me something in the environment to roleplay with. an idea i had is to have each character have a quest thread that is given them at the start of their character. it could be a long term goal, but then the character would get exp points as they work toward that quest.
while i like the author's ideas, i don't know how they could realistically be turned into a system that will help me roleplay and reward my roleplaying.
well, this just shows how well a company can do games and MMOs if they truely have a passion for what they do. Rather than just looking to make a buck off the latest IP or product name. Simultronics is a veteran when it comes to Massive Multiplayer games most specifically MUDs. And transfering that talent to a graphical MMO seems to be no different. If you truely care about what you do for the sake of making a good game and have passion to create great story and content and make the game multifacited in a way that makes people think rather than just doing the boring "kill missions" is outstanding and long overdue. I'm just sick of all the companies trying to copy the EQ model so they can gain the subs.
Having the roleplay elements in a game as described is great and something i've been looking for, for a long time now. Having consequences to ones actions help to make a more believable experience as well as getting people more envolved. Reminds me of the good ol' days playing AC1. Can't wait to check HJ out when it hits live.