Topic

How can the game help facilitate storytelling?

(I've thought about this one and off for a while. It came up in a quote from stoot posted by striatic in another thread. This will also be a long post... close to a frackin' essay... so I'm not expecting many folks to slog through what is most yet another theoretical discussion that has actually been touch on in various other places.)

Part of the stated goal of Glitch is to allow/help players generate stories. It is a sandbox of a world in which we can play... and some hope create stories. "Role playing" if you will. 

Right now there does not appear to be a whole lot of that. 

Part of the reason, I am sure, is because we are mentally in such a "testing" mode. We, as players, are striving to test the mechanics of the game and explore each and every change. Testing periods are short and we try to cram every bit of into three to for days of test so that we can get to the next skill. This will obviously mellow out once the game goes 24/7. But I'm still curious as to what things make stories between players happen.

Some background on where I am coming from: I have been playing pen and paper role playing games (D&D, Shadowrun, World of Darkness, etc, etc, etc) for, well, decades. For me it was always about telling a good story. Some of my favorite "stories," from film or books or tv or anything, are actually ones I played in (of 'game mastered').  I actually content that role playing is an art form (but let's not delve to deeply into that).

I have always been intrigued by MMORPGs for this reason but they have all fallen extremely short of the experience of playing with a handful of friends around a table. There are three main reasons:

1) You are limited to what you can do: No matter how detailed the game play, there are limits in a computer game that aren't when you are just using words. For example, how many games would allow you to place pillows under your blankets so that assassins believe you are sleeping when you have actually already escaped (to steal an idea)? And it gets worse when attempting to talk to computer controlled characters. Usually, we are stuck with dialogue tress at most.
2) Everyone is the hero: Now, I haven't actually ever played World of Warcraft, but my understanding is that if there is a quest, it is open to everyone who is of the right level. Say it is fight the Great Dragon of Blah Blah. You gather together a group, go kill him and gather your reward. And then the Dragon response for the next group. This obviously makes sense when designing a game but does little for story in what is supposed to be a persistant world. Heroic actions of individuals (or even groups) have little impact on the world. The Dragon is still there and there are no real consequences if he is killed or not... until the designers decide to make a change.
3) Most folks play it like a computer game and not a role playing game: I honestly don't know how true this is these days. I know for a long time actually staying in character was looked down upon (or at least looked on as "geeky" in many games). Breaking the "fourth wall" happens all the time. "How do I cast a fireball." "Click on you spell inventory and and select the spell. Better yet map it to a macro and...." Hard to feel immersed in an epic tale.

#1 can be addressed by having most of the world BE players (as in Glitch). But that means they have to drive and create stories. While you still can't do everything and are limited to the mechanics of the game, you are not limited to what the response to those actions are.... because there is an actual human on the other end.

#2 relates to this. If most of the world is actual people, it becomes less about being the hero on a grand scale. It DOES become about being a character in the story. A grand story the involves thousands. EVE, from what I understand, is a grand example of this. I love reading stories and news from EVE (although I found the game fairly boring to play). The stories of sweeping betrayals and espionage are epic. Even weird moments like the recent micotransaction scandals and thousands of players firing weapons at a monument in protest, while cross the line into meta, are still entertaining... and feel like stories.

#3 is hard and I honestly have no idea how to address it. The more consistant a game world is and the more true it is to itself, the more likely folks will stay in character. But as long as you have to type and click a mouse, there will be a distance between the world and player.

So how does this relate to Glitch? Well, that comes to one thing MOST stories have that Glitch strives to avoid: conflict. Glitch works hard to make it difficult to negatively affect other players. This is good for many things. It makes griefing difficult. It creates an environment of cooperation. As has been stated, one of the things people love in Glitch is doing kind things for people.

But it makes conflict difficult.

Without naming names, there have been moments were folks have tried to create stories (or if not tried to, have come close to it through their actions anyway).
• The tree killing scandal: This felt very in world. "Someone is killing all the tress for corporate gain! Panic! We must save the trees!"
• Stealing a blockmaker and holding it hostage: Again, we have a villain. The problem here is that the owner of blockmaker did not have choice in whether they wanted to play this or not. Blockmaker stealing is one of the only cases where you can "grief" (intentionally or not) right now.
• Protesting street projects and boycotting: Now this is a meta case. It was tongue in cheek (I believe) and it was "against" the devs.... but what if it was player against the Giants? What if one lone Glitch is declaring that donating willy nilly to the Giants is wrong because the Giants are abusing us? That they want to break away from the old path and no longer be at the Giants whim? Now we are getting to an epic story. 

Part of the problem is that IF stories are player against player, you may well destroy the vibe of the game. Is there a way to do it safely and so it is mutually fun?

Posted 17 months ago by Lord Bacon-o Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • Interesting points, LBO.  I am interested in storytelling and creativity as well.  I have a few thoughts, mapped to your points:

    1. I find chat lag to be one of the most persistently annoying bugs in Glitch.  It impairs communication between players (sometimes to the point of making it impossible).  To some extent, we have mapped actions to communication (jumping around with glee at the sight of a friend/celebration of an exciting event), but the ability to "use your words" is still limited ingame.  Without dialogue, story is not impossible, but it's more difficult.

    2. I am reminded of the actor's truism that "every character thinks the play is about him/her."  We are all the heroes in our own stories.  

    3. I don't think there is any way out of/around this one.  But having played tabletop RPGs, there was always the "roll your __ die" sort of meta-conversation happening that is similar to the intermediation we get on our screens.  Also, just speaking for myself, I'm not particularly interested in playing a role or being someone else.  I've found that jasbo represents me pretty precisely - even to the physical look of her.  I even (mostly) dress her in clothes I would wear myself!  But this is just one of the many faces of the "there are many ways to play" discussion.  

    As to villains, I'm interested to see what happens with The Rooks.  Because while we mostly have a conflict-free environment inside Ur, we do have the opportunity to band together against a common foe.  

    The potential offshoots of the game is also interesting - perhaps a storytelling component to a mobile game?  Dunno.  Just spitballin'.
    Posted 17 months ago by jasbo Subscriber! | Permalink
  • " You gather together a group, go kill him and gather your reward. And then the Dragon response for the next group."

    Pretty much every MORPG I've ever played have claimed that their world is 'dynamic' and that your actions 'shape the world'.  Every game I've ever played didn't even come close to delivering this.   I'm not sure it's even feasible with a game catering to thousands and thousands of people.   If the first player to kill the green dragon actually DOES, then you have 1 elite player and a million envious or disappointed people.  Not good for revenue.

    At least in glitch, there's the street building projects.  Which are cool, if not a bit repetitive once you've done a few.

    Just my observation.  No solution from me.
    Posted 17 months ago by Vicereine Linnæa Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I want to see the in-game world develop into a community. I want to be able to run a shop, offer my services to other Glitches, advertise on the subway, that kind of stuff. Let me craft a life for my Glitch, let me align it with the various forces at play in the game, let me survive in the game without having to develop ALL the skills. I think Glitch is on the right track with a number of these points already.
    Posted 17 months ago by Lilypad Subscriber! | Permalink
  • It's interesting to read posts by people who've given a lot of thought to these games...

    1.
    What if there were skill trees related to building narratives or working with others to construct narratives? Kind of like having a visual arts skill tree? Almost a game inside a game?
    2. 
    What if the more advanced players could provoke or influence the gods in some way? Are the gods in conflict?
    Posted 17 months ago by sakmet Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'd like to see more environmental changes based on player actions.  The trees are a good start, although fairly limited given the planting restrictions and the immediacy with which patches are replanted.

    The projects are fun, but they're also inevitable, so the only real influence is whether or not you get your name up in lights.

    Before I knew how the projects worked, when I saw the Meadows for the first time, I figured that the projects were all about beautification and that the names in lights were the players who spammed the most landscaping across town.

    It would be cool if the currently dominant giant (maybe based on donations) caused Ur-wide, or maybe just land-wide, changes.  Could be as simple as bonuses to whatever tasks that giant likes, but would be cooler if there were subtle changes to scenery based on which giant was currently the most powerful at the time.

    This could give maxed out players something to do, and a reason to collaborate with other like-minded players.
    Posted 17 months ago by Biff Beefbat Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The devs are working on something that can be called a storyline, we just have to wait and see. 
    Posted 17 months ago by Piratice Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I like this....
    Posted 17 months ago by sakmet Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "The devs are working on something that can be called a storyline, we just have to wait and see. "

    Oh, I know this. But that's not quite what I'm talking about. You can make as much back story as you want and still not make it feel like you are a part of and affect the story. Stoot has mentioned EVE on a few occasions. But a lot of EVE's "drama" stems from conflict between players. I'm wondering if there is a way to create drama without player vs player conflict.
    Posted 17 months ago by Lord Bacon-o Subscriber! | Permalink
  • When I read about the game allowing us to create stories about our little Glitchy lives, I don't think of role-playing or backstory or conflict per se.  I think of more or less what Lilypad said above, "Let me craft a life for my Glitch, let me align it with the various forces at play in the game, let me survive in the game without having to develop ALL the skills."

    I don't role play in Glitch and I don't want to do so.  To a degree I do as there is no way in real life I can buy other people houses, as I have done here, or some other things, but by and large I don't log into Glitch thinking, "Oh, I am about to act this role and here's the way I frame my character."  I'm just me, enjoying whatever grind I am doing or whatever company happens to be around at the time.  And that's really all I want out of a game.  The tree killing and project protest and block maker thefts actually have killed a part of the fun I had been having at the time, because I'm simply disinterested in using my leisure for conflict, real or imagined.  That's why I don't play WoW or many other MMOs.  But it's why I like Glitch: I don't have to do that here and the drama has been relatively easy to ignore by just ignoring the Forum or Global Chat.  I did used to RPG and had a total blast at it, acting a character and all.  But those RPGs had 12 or less people; I just don't see that type of play being feasible here.

    To be honest, while I would never ask for it to be removed, the backstory sort of annoys me, too, because it's just so many words being spit at me from trees or rocks and seems to have no bearing on me playing the game at all.  The Tower Quest came closest to the backstory being intriguing and part of the game flow, so I'd like to see more stuff like that which ties the backstory into the game, so that the story is playing the game.  But I don't really come here for stories or folklore and certainly don't want to ever get a quest in which I have to write a narrative or read a narrative.  Although, I could see narratives being a useful part of some mobile app for those who like to get involved in that sort of thing.

    Instead, the 'story' -- for me -- comes out my interactions with other players and I've felt that I've had some quite epic moments whenever it came to collaborative play - "how will we get this done?"  That made the early projects really just so much damn fun, because maybe one person was the only player logged in with a skill the project needed so we had to find them and get them to the project or we had to cleverly figure out how to collect mass quantities of scare items, so we formed teleport chains to paper trees.  Or we tried to figure out how to make that damn crab happy. That sort of thing is the story - how we worked something out or how we bended the game at the seams to fly pigs in the air or air bomb other players at Femen Falters.  Because I sat out this last test, I don't even know if that trading market on Gregarious Grange made it off the ground, but that's exactly the sort of story I think about when I hear Stoot or someone talk about us creating the stories of ourselves in Glitch.... what we do with and within the world given to us.
    Posted 17 months ago by zeeberk Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1 to what zeeberk said.  Except that the backstory doesn't annoy me.  I don't consider it to be evolved enough to pay much attention to it.  If it were necessary to know it and work within it, I might find it annoying if I found it inconsistent (and not in an "unreliable narrator" sort of sense) or sloppily constructed or otherwise unsatisfying.
    Posted 17 months ago by jasbo Subscriber! | Permalink