Will the world change because of our actions?

Actually that's part true and part untrue if I understand it correctly. Instancing will play a large role in presenting the story.

 

I was thinking that it would be so cool to be able to affect the the whole game then I thought about how I affect things at work and I don't want to be *that* player... You know the one who pressed the shiny red button that one time?

sent from the future using my Coleco Adam

 

As SotA was advertised as the spiritual successor to Ultima and they want it to play like a Single Player RPG, too, I hope that our actions and decisions during quests and conversations with NPCs will have consequences to the story and the world. Similar to other SP-RPGs like The Witcher. That something like that is possible even in an MMO shows The Elder Scrolls Online. In this game your decisions during quests can change whole landscapes and affect the lives of NPCs. I hope for something like that for SotA, too.

 

It can never be a complete sort of thing, however, as they have to account for people coming after you. If you made a decision that saw a whole town destroyed by a dragon, for example, a new person can't enter the game with that quest missing and the town already destroyed. So perhaps in some areas -- like the way NPCs react to you, etc -- it's possible. But in terms of "big stuff" it's always very, very, very hard to do in an MMO environment.

 

Hi,
as I said, The Elder Scrolls Online uses an interesting solution for this. You can basically change whole areas, destroy cities and kill off NPCs and these changes are only visible to you and those who made the same decisions as you. And those changes are permanent. Downside of this is that you also do not see other players who made other decisions than you or who are not at the same point in the story than you. This could be a problem in OPO but it should be doable in SP and friends only mode at least.

 

I think "SP and friends only mode" wouldn't account for the majority of the way people will play the game though. I think multiplayer's going to be the most popular, followed by SP online, neither of which cover those areas, as they both involve projecting the game world from the multiplayer version of the game; which is the whole sticking point in the first place when it comes to "changing stuff".

So the question to me (and possibly the devs), is simply, "Is it worth it?" to put such a structure into the game if, by my reckoning, most people aren't going to play the game in a way that could benefit from it?

 

I still hope that we can move away from the same old standards that somehow have manifested itself in the MMO genre and that have become so tedious as they are the same in every MMO. I believe that is one of the reasons why new MMOs often fail. They do the things the same as other MMOs. So why should someone leave for example WoW for a longer time when the new game uses the same mechanics?
Now SotA will be different in many regards but still some key elements will be the same and I think that those need to change, too in order to bring the whole genre to a new level. And I think that choices and consequences that affect the world is one big feature that is very important for telling a story in an MMO. It is hard to accomplish this but I think that it would definitely be worth it.

This is also true for respawing bosses which are in the same category. Choice=kill boss, consequence=he stays dead forever. This would give the story much more meaning. With respawning bosses the story around them does not matter. It only matters to kill them over and over again to get exp and loot. So the story becomes irrelevant which can be the death of a game that relies so much on a story as SotA does.
But having consequences to your actions that really matter and have an impact on you, the NPCs and the world, the story becomes very important and memorable.

 

I should hope it is "worth it" because that was a selling feature during the kickstarter.

 

Personally, I think there's plenty of room for individualized world progression through phasing in SPO. That makes your world far more dynamic, and also sets up potential consequences as you go.

In MMO, though, there is far more potential for people to create an unplayable or unenjoyable environment, either intentionally or not. Imagine - harvested trees don't "respawn" in any rapid sort of time. Result - within weeks the world is barren and wood fixtures and scraps are being sold on the black market. Potentially realistic, but significantly damaging to the overall enjoyability of the game.

What I would like to see in the MMO environment is twofold:
1) Keep the world relatively the same, with little or no player changes that don't revert in a certain amount of time. (Dungeons respawn, trees regrow, etc.) There would be exceptions - player housing, for example.

2) As time goes on, take input from what players are doing on (and off) line, and "advance the narrative" bit by bit. Yes, games do this, but WoW, for example, jumps ahead a few months or a year every 9-12 months of real time, and yet leaves as much of the old content as possible in place (see: Outland). I believe the world should move on. Perhaps some content becomes unavailable for newer players - but if the current content is just as enjoyable, they're still getting what they reasonably expected from the game.

Someone mentioned Legend of the 5 Rings - I came into the game just after WotC took it over, and though I'd missed all of the previous events and struggle, I could still read about it and appreciate the backstory that got us to where we were. It didn't detract from my experience. I didn't insist that they keep running Jade Edition storyline tournaments just so I could experience it.

So every few weeks, "update" the MMO world based on the intended storyline but also based upon the overall actions of the player-base as a whole. Geography changes a bit in some areas as they become more civilized. Perhaps you hear about someone who collapsed the entrance to a dungeon with explosives - close it, and add in some NPC dialogue so that player's name lives in infamy. (...and perhaps a new entrance that the few survivors from within were able to make.)

As an aside, I think it would be very cool to have certain secret triggers or unrevealed goals that would specifically affect the MMO world permanently once it happens (like the opening of the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj in WoW).

- Someone wanders into an obscure portion of the world and sets off a landslide. Suddenly, everyone has access to a hidden valley they didn't before. They don't have to trigger the landslide to do so, that's already been done ("Did you hear about when such-and-such caused the Razor Ridge to collapse?"

- Say a group successfully burns down the castle of the current-final-boss. It stays that way. The event is done. If you didn't kill him, or all of his minions (or his lover, or their computer-son), there will be repercussions, but the castle won't just respawn so the next group can do it. As always, though, there will always be other castles to storm and other then-final-bosses to defeat. (And, if the destruction wasn't complete, some portions of the area may still exist to be searched and pillaged.)

These elements, though, should be few and far between, but I believe having them gives people the sense of awe, wonder and accomplishment that they really are a part of something living and breathing.

 

I am thinking also that with Tracy Hicks involvement, there may be some dynamic storytelling from him as well. Initially he may have a story arc sketched out but based on in-game developments or forum discussions he might consider altering the story line based on new ideas that inspire him.

Has he made an appearance on the forums at all? I'm not sure how involved in SotA he is. Just a contract to crank out a story? Or does he have regular discussions and put a lot of thought into this? Be nice to hear from him. An interview or something.

 

Tracy Hickman ? I do not recall him ever appearing on the forum, so that is probably not his sort of scene.

However he did make an extended appearance in the recent anniversary video here : https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?p=38748

His portion was during the second and third hours, if you want to listen to his perspective on involvement in the development.

 

I dont care. I really like the book!

 

Thanks, NRaas - I'll check it out.

 

Tracy doesn't frequent the forums regularly but has done so in the past when we had that writing contest. His forum name is Dragonbard and he last posted to that underworld story thread here.

Based on the daily standups, Tracy is still very much involved in crafting the story of SotA, beyond just his work on BotA.