I recently spent over an hour chatting with Brian “Psychochild” Green about his latest project, Storybricks. I had to be honest with him and explained that I just did not give Storybricks the time it deserved. I took a glance at it, didn’t “get” it, and moved on. Therefore, I wanted to give him a chance to help me understand just what exactly are they trying to do. I feel their biggest problem is that people are trying to relate it to anything else currently out there and falling short. It is easy to explain something by saying “It’s sort of like this.” but there is nothing sort of like this. Truth be told, they really have something new and interesting on their hands and it would be a terrible shame if this project failed due to nothing more than people not understanding it.

Let me take you way back, let’s call it 10 years, to the days of my very first MMO, Asheron’s Call. At first I thought it was some stupid game my brother played until he dragged me online kicking and screaming. Shortly after that, I was blown away. Just imagine and the things that can happen. Worlds change, big bad dragons are slain and disappear. Entire cities are destroyed and left in ruin. I couldn’t wait to see what the future held. Jump forward to World of Warcraft. Static world, static story, individuals have very little impact on the world. That said, huge success. Some tried to innovate and failed, which only leads investors to point at WoW and say we need more of that, just put it in a different setting. To that I say BORING!

Here we have a group of folks daring to do something different. Creating a storytelling system to allow everyone to tell a story. Allow everyone to live your story. Create your own NPCs and breathe life into them. Or death. It’s up to you. Don’t feel like creating? Just play! Permanent changes are possible. Individual players CAN have an impact on the game. Storybricks is the first thing to come along since I began dreaming of what could be possible in the MMO industry that matches up with my expectations. The problem was simply that I didn’t get it. I had grown so used to having story be the part of the game that you skipped over because you just wanted to find out the quest objective, reward, and how quickly you can finish it and move on.

When I look back on my MMO gaming history, certain events stick out in my memory. They all were situations where the players decided they needed something more to happen in the game. Where players took it upon themselves to become the Evil Wizard that the new guild applicant needed to convince to give away his staff in order to become a full fledged member of the guild in Asheron’s Call. Or where two players role-played racing spaceship thieves that bragged about their heist in general chat only to have other players become involved in the ship recovery in Eve Online. Or where over 50 players banded together to help a lost child find their mother in Anarchy Online. All events role-played by real people. All events that I’ve never forgotten about.

Imagine what you could do if you could create your own NPCs to fill those roles. Imagine what you could do with a group of people and an entire city filled with your own custom designed NPCs that react in various ways depending on how the players interact with them. Some players might get rewarded. Some might get tossed in jail. It’s really up to you. The only limit is your imagination.

So now I am asking you to do what I’ve done. Give Storybricks a little more time. Dig in, let it sink in. Try to understand just what might be possible. Create and share a story, win prizes. The truth is, every time something “different” like this fails, it just leads to more of the same. It would be a damned shame if we looked back in 5 years and wondered what if. Keep Storybricks alive. The game industry needs things like this to succeed.

- Ethic

Spotlight on Storybricks is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

It can be very frustrating to log on, scan the home system and the surrounding constellations, and realize that there is almost nothing you can feasibly do that will be of any significant benefit.   On a positive note, the last payout was a whopping $348,000,000 ISK so we are really getting good at milking the spawns we do get.   Now if we can figure out how to make content more consistent, though I think we all already know the inevitable answer… move to a bigger Wormhole with a 2nd WH Static.   If only we were ready for it, but we will be soon.

~Cyndre

[Eve] Fickle Wormholes is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

: Zubon

Other Funding Sources is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

: Zubon

Bearded Lady is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

: Zubon

[GW2] Searches I Did Not Think Would Work on Google is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

If you haven’t played, Prototype starts in medias res. This is apparently a month after the start of the game, to which you will flash back in a moment. This is a nice version of a common approach: show the player the things this character will be able to do by the late game, then take them away so that you can have an early game. Some games have you de-powered, robbed, etc.; Prototype instead has its opening at the end of the story, like the Odyssey or Twilight. This creates a gameplay problem and a story problem.

The gameplay problem is that you can already do everything and have massive powers that the game helpfully switches for you and explains. As the player, you are basically in a visual novel where you click to slaughter people and crush tanks. You do not know enough to have strategy or tactics, so you follow the indicators, watch things explode as you click them, and maybe eat some people. As a player, I am not invested in “click to advance.” Alex Mercer apparently just needs me to provide some motive power for his killing spree.

The story problem is that there is enough to imply that the game wants you to care but not enough to actually make you care. Hey, tutorial, very first introduction, I get that. But you are sent to murder dozens of people before being given much reason to except that they are cartoonishly evil (and shooting at you). There is a conflict here, but the role I have been handed is that of a mass-murderer who is attacking the military and may get bonuses for picking off civilians as collateral damage. Some games address this by using monsters and robots so that you are not murdering innocent people as a form of character introduction; Prototype goes with giving the humans faceless masks and having a cut scene where they murder the innocent, too. Must be a local custom. Other games take the opposite tack: do not even pretend to have a plot, just go straight to the bloodshed. No context, no moral standing, just mindless violence. Completely amoral works much better than poorly sketched black and very dark gray morality. Part of black and grey morality is that you must make the villains worse than the protagonist; if the player quickly pulls ahead of the villains in terms of pointless bloodshed, you really have created a murder simulator.

Of course, that seems to be the point of Prototype.

: Zubon

Not Caring About Alex Mercer is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

I admit that it can be hard to stop. Just stop. And enjoy the moment. The transitions  between most events are really quick, but the NPCs do take a small chance to talk. I noticed that I have to stop and pay attention. Fiddling with loot, trading post, or remaining enemies usually means I miss a bit of the story action.

I know that when Guild Wars 2 launches I am going to make sure to set up a chat channel for NPC discussions. Still, I wonder if I will train myself backwards to slow down and get the content hit as it happens. I wonder if I will care, or if it will be go, go, go.

When I am running through an area for the second or third time I might stop or take time to search out new experiences. This is why I can’t say that all the development resources taken to create these “missable” cut scenes were a waste of time. I think that the content’s depth of beauty won’t be found right away (especially as players rush to 80), but I do think it is worthwhile endeavor. Without the pressure of a subscription after the initial surge, I am hoping I can find a peaceful pace in time.

This is the long game ArenaNet is playing. They are banking on depth and new experiences to enhance replayability of areas. When everybody is so concerned about “the end game” for Guild Wars 2, perhaps the question has already been answered. There is no bait-and-switch-style end game. Just play.

This is compounded by ArenaNet’s plan to update the game with a live team [PC Gamer]. New events will just pop into existence without any warning. Patch notes will not herald the fact that perhaps the Queensdale Brood Mother event frequency has been halved and replaced with, I don’t know, a skale stampede running towards the smell of fresh baked apple pies. Man-with-the-plan Colin Johanson says in the PC Gamer interview:

“Our goal is that every time you make a new character, you might go back through a map that you played six months ago and you’re going to find completely different content.” New content, he says, will be spread across the whole game rather than concentrated in specific areas. As this happens, the events already in place will be altered to accommodate it.

To be honest, I am more shocked than anything. It seems to break two well-cemented  MMO rules: (1) spend development resources on things everybody will see, and (2) MMO players don’t like change. Yet, from the interview ArenaNet would be excited if something was patched in and found three weeks later!

Maybe a year from now all the Risen across Tyrian zones will begin to wane as more and more players defeat Zhaitan and the army of Bubbles, the Elder Sea Dragon arises from the depths. Or perhaps the Blood Legion gets uppity and easily aggitated creating a new type of renegade to deal with in Ascalon. It appears that the entirety of Guild Wars 2 is going to be a living document for ArenaNet instead of just expansion-type content.

It’s an exciting and scary thought, and I’ve actually reconsidered my alt-ing strategy in lieu of this. Is this just going to be a monumental waste of resources, or is the depth going to pay off in the long, long run? The original Guild Wars has maintained some definite life for seven years, and if returning to Guild Wars 2 launch zones a few years later is going to be a new experience… well, that might pay in dividends.

–Ravious

[GW2] The Long Game is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Cleaning the garage is feeling strongly competitive with MMOs right now.

: Zubon

Sapped is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

–Ravious

[GW2] Dynamic Events Edutainment is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

I will now roll my twenty-sided polyhedral die and the winner is…

James!

Congratulations!

I will be sending you an email to the address you posted from to get your shipping address.

Thanks everyone for playing along and sharing those great stories.

- Ethic

M.M.O. 7 Gaming Mouse Winner is a post from: Kill Ten Rats