(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?