How about ditching the regular "story approach" for dynamic world events in Episode 2

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Lord_Darkmoon, Nov 29, 2017.

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  1. Lord_Darkmoon

    Lord_Darkmoon Avatar

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    Quests in a game are always a matter of taste. Some like them, some don't. Also they create many problems in a MMORPG. Can the enemy be defeated? Does he respawn? Can I recover the same one and only artifact other players do? Who will win? Can we win?

    So how about ditching this type of story telling for Episode 2 and do something else?

    Groups of inhabitants of the world, be they humans, monsters or animals could have goals they try to reach. Bandits try to take over trade routes and set up camp somewhere. An undead lich tries to create an army of undead and invade a city. Some Kobolds try to take over a pass to control the passage etc.

    The groups try to reach their goals all of the time in the game. And we as the adventureres encounter them.

    We hear about bandits who attack a certain trade route. So we engage them and track them down to their camp which we destroy. But other bandits set up camp elsewhere and try to take over another trade route. During this some undead lich has risen in the swamps and gets other undead to follow him.

    If we wait too long to engage a certain group this group gets more and more powerful and harder to defeat.

    There could be lots of such groups in the world and the devs could add new ones with new agendas from time to time.

    This would create a dynamic world with changing threats.

    We would not have to follow linear quests which don't really fit into the sandbox and which some people won't like.
     
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  2. Browncoat Jayson

    Browncoat Jayson Legend of the Hearth

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    I like the idea of having a "living sandbox" where threats are not specifically there to challenge the player, but to fight against each other. Players can influence these in order to affect the world. This would allow the devs to reutilize some of their mechanics, like sieges, so NPCs can battle one another and still have the players be part of the encounter.

    They did try something like this in UO, but removed it because players came in such quantities that it was impossible for the NPCs to create their own ecosystems. With a smaller player base, perhaps this will work here.

    That said, I'd like this in addition to a storyline series of quests. A living world is a great thing to be a part of, but there is nothing as satisfying as a truly epic quest. I would have been quite happy to finish Ultima VI, and then be able to live in Britannia for a time after that, while the gargoyles relocate from their disappearing world, the Fellowship is formed, and other threats (from bandits to gazers) attempt to make their claim on the world. Epic story, followed by a living sandbox.
     
  3. Vodalion [BEAR]

    Vodalion [BEAR] Avatar

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    good ideas - this could even lead to several "scenes" that become only available after criteria x has been reached.

    for example there are bandits camping the road north of Britain - if these bandit encounters are not defeated within x hours, a new scene "Bandit Camp" becomes available - now players can go in there and have a large chiunk of bandits to fight with ... these scenarios could even escalate higher (more opponents in one scene, several scenes etc)...

    worth some more thoughts and surely opens up interesting possibilities to create a vivid world with nonlinear questing ..
     
  4. Sean Silverfoot

    Sean Silverfoot Avatar

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    I have no problem at all with adding those types of things, but I do want the Avatar's story about Virtues to continue thru all 5 episodes. I'm thinking that it doesn't end with just the Shroud. Consider possibly more of the Avatar's outfit, sword, chest, legs, etc. But I again I see no reason not to attempt what you suggest also. Especially since the base things will be completed.
     
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  5. Lord_Darkmoon

    Lord_Darkmoon Avatar

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    Maybe a small main quest telling the story of the Avatar could still be included.
     
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  6. Ristra

    Ristra Avatar

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    These type of events should be regular additions every release between episodes.
     
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  7. LoneWerewolf

    LoneWerewolf Guest

    I would be ok with having no quests like in UO, just like I love quests like in the SP series. But whichever way it will be, do it right. Queststorytelling should improve (again, see my signature), but if they go all sandbox and add systems like those I am cool with it too.
     
  8. Corv

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    I am a single player Ultima fan, but I can see what a huge challenge it is to create this kind of experience in an MMO. So IF such story events are well done and tell an overall story arch, then I think I could be convinced that it is the right way to go. the world just needs to feel alive. I liked UO, but I thought that no story at all was a bit bland. The game itself was so extremely revolutionary and addicting that at the time I didn't mind too much, but the longer I played the more I missed SOME kind of story. So overall yeah I would be open for this approach.
     
  9. Black Tortoise

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    The very first time I heard about control points, and also the very first time I heard about sieges, this sort of thing is exactly what I had in mind. Was hoping for EP1!
     
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  10. Obsidian Tempest

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    I have been a big fan of this concept in an MMO since the Battle of Trinsic or the Britain Invasion in UO. Static questing is fine but I'd love to see a more dynamic world. I have always believed that this is in the plans once this game is more stable. Having to beat back an undead army lead by a powerful lich that has attacked or even sacked Solania or kingsport would be amazing. Or perhaps a pirate invasion in Bloodbay? How about kobolds begin to spread across Novia, conquering large swaths of land until we, as a community beat them back. Good stuff there.
     
  11. Corv

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    Yeah I also had in the back of my head that they had planned something like that... maybe it's still on the table. But most likely not for Ep1
     
  12. redfish

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    No reason why a dynamic world approach couldn't mesh together with quests.

    If any of you have played Darklands, there's a story, but you proceed through the story from generated quests and encounters. You would fight bandits, do tasks for merchants, and run into encounters along the road, and eventually you would find out all of this played a role in a larger story. U5 was not as sophisticated, but I always thought it had a similar dynamic in that most of the game was just adventuring around the world and you discovered the story along the way.

    My understanding is this was supposed to be partly the case in SotA, at least in the particular sense of the sieges playing a role in the story.

    At any rate, there are many ways that it could be still done in SotA. Quests could send you to random encounters (stop the bandits), quests could originate in random encounters (robbed merchant), there could be dynamic events whether sieges or patrols which lead to quests or become involved in quests, there could be a treasure map system which leads to unearthed dungeons which have hidden quest lines, there could be random traders at the docks and random merchants in taverns which appear for about a week at a time and give out quests.

    And I'm still waiting for stuff we saw mentioned in Kickstarter like Gypsy caravans and contraband quests.
     
  13. Corv

    Corv Avatar

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    Wow Darklands, haven't thought about that game in a while. Good memories

    And yeah contraband qeusts should be fun, I hope they are coming soon.
     
  14. Jamet

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    Sounds like a "Game of Life" style approach to how much more difficult or easier tasks can get. You know, that simulation that shows you a plane of hares and foxes and wolves and humans, and they multiply and eat each other. The slightest imbalance throws it all into oblivion, and at the end, species die out, and the rest starve.

    Not to have these absolute extremes, but sure, of course, you could have conflicting parties amassing resources and such, and it'll get more and more difficult to stop them from taking over entirely. But not to the point that it's irreversible within the life span of an interested player character.

    And I will admit that this will make things more difficult for me. Because I take time. I sniff the flowers along the way, and I dwell on events and places that no one else would care for. I'd sit with NPCs for a while and soak in the atmosphere.
     
    Last edited: Nov 30, 2017
  15. Spartus

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    Good thread--this describes the primary problem that I have with the game: lack of true open-world sandbox and simulation. The world feels static and unchanging to me, heavy-handed. Many sandbox/simulation elements are not difficult to program nor require excessive computational resources as long as you decide from the very start that you want to add them. After years of development of adding assets before mechanics, they may have programmed themselves into a corner.

    In fairness, there is a type of unpredictability that comes from player interaction, and the game seems to be banking on this as the primary source for providing a "living" feel, but since the world can't change much and the flora and fauna are restricted/controlled, this will only appeal to some gamers. The game is somewhat designed to hide knowledge and make it hard to obtain--this helps but is no replacement for true unpredictability.

    This leaves out survival/sandbox/procedural fans like me. I was an avid fan of Ultima I and UO, but game concepts have progressed since those days. With SoTA, we are getting a long-awaited "3D" Lord British game, but it went in the direction of story/economy/ownership instead of exploring procedural/sandbox, as if RG split UO down the middle. (Btw, I was a player in UO that didn't care much for the storyline/adventure--I just ran around doing random things and watching events unfold, and it kept me engrossed).

    A simple example of an unnecessarily static SoTA world is that even the basic mechanic of dropping items in the open world isn't possible. The lack of such mechanics limits any (exponential) gains that you get from mathematical complexity, simple interactions that lead to unpredictable/novel results (with hardly any manpower needed, by comparison).

    For comparison, a few weeks ago, I got Wurm Unlimited, along with some licenses so my friends could play with me, and ran it on my own server (which is the "missing half" of UO that I like to play). In that game, even though I know that I am just running my own simulation on the box in front of me, just being dropped into the world is fascinating and mysterious. Gathering, building a house, fending off animals and monsters that can stalk you across the entire map in the unknown wilderness... Animals/plants are simulated and have lifespans. People get significant gains from cooperating. SoTA stand-alone mode has the potential for doing this, but it is not realized.

    The Wurm games aren't for everyone--they are old, grindy, and flawed (and weren't designed to have a complex adventure/storyline like SoTA), and the simulation can sometimes go haywire, but it gives me some of the unpredictable mystery/magic back and makes me feel empowered (although a bit solitary). I was hoping that SoTA would take the lessons learned since UO from older games like this and create the perfect merging of the the best of all worlds, but it hasn't happened. I don't think the storyline has to be eliminated--just leave it in for people that like it--but expand the areas where players like me can do our own thing.

    SoTA needs to create a reason for (poor) players like me to want to remain in-game, to live in a virtual world. I have to have mystery and empowerment. At the very minimum, put in an arcade of procedural dungeon crawls or roguelikes--then I'll at least have a reason to fire up the client and login if I want to play one of those games. An avatar standing at a game console lurking around an arcade is still adding to the in-game population.
     
  16. LoneWerewolf

    LoneWerewolf Guest

    It's the only way to go for them. Then at least nobody expects a Ultima quality main storyline.
     
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