Story, Lore, Canon...not for me, thanks.

Discussion in 'Fire Lotus Tavern' started by BillRoy, Aug 31, 2013.

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  1. BillRoy

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    These things mean little to me, I click past cinematics when I can, I rarely do more than skim quest logs. I play these games to be "The Adventurer", to interact directly with the world. I respond to the environment with the tools at hand. I believe this is a minority opinion here, anyon else feel like I do?


    *This is not intended as a troll thread but a place where like-minded SoTA'ers can build a sence of unity and find thier place in a virtual world.
     
  2. LoneStranger

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    You are not going to like this game, methinks.
     
  3. Bowen Bloodgood

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    You might be in the minority within the active community but perhaps not in the total player base post launch. I anticipate many roleplayers will ignore the "you are an avatar from Earth" and just make up their own origin story. Some may not even play through the storylien at all.. prefering to simply "live" in the world and try to tell their own story.

    Meanwhile.. a lot of non-roleplayers really couldn't care less and just want to enjoy a good game.

    Not to say these players will be a majority but there'll certainly be plenty of them out there.

    I personally fall somewhere in the middle. I don't care for the 'avatar from Earth' limit but I do believe in adhering to the world's lore in general and the on-going story is a part of the world.
     
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  4. Grogan

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    About 95% of the world gaming population.

    I'm following this game because I'm part of the 5% that doesn't want to min max everything to death and ignore the lore.
     
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  5. Maximus Katse

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    To each their own for sure. But having Richard Garriot team up with Tracy Hickman to deliver on those - to me - seems like a waste were I not to care or bother with them. Especially given the extent to which I believe we'll be getting them.
     
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  6. Montaigne

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    I think I know what you are gettting at. For me, the wonderful thing about UO was that you could just go out in the world and adventure would find you. No quests or NPCs telling you what to do and where to go. While a good storyline is important, the personal stories we create in our imaginations will always feel far more fantastic than an NPC telling a story. I'm sure SoTA is going to give us a good mix of both.
     
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  7. Aventari

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    Is this more that you dislike story vs game mechaics/action? Or more that you prefer active story as opposed to passive (which cinematics and notes to read can be)?
     
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  8. Vyrin

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    Interesting post, but I don't think you're as much of a non-role player as you think for two reasons.

    First, a very subtle point. Since the environment of the game is largely determined by the story, in some sense by playing this game you are already choosing to interact with the story. For example, you're choosing to interact with a loosely medieval world with some tech elements by playing this game. You'll be playing a character with classic fantasy genre skills. You'll head out to a dungeon that is there because of a story. In essence, interacting in this environment means that at some level you are already choosing to be part of the story.

    Second, remember that cinematics and obvious story elements are only one part of the role-playing dynamic. The way that you choose to interact with the environment (as an adventurer) gives your character some basic level of role-playing persona. I think it's certainly a role-playing choice to say, "I'm one of those people who just ignores the main events that everyone's paying attention to and strikes out on my own to see what's out there..." That is certainly a character that can exist in a world like this. And I think it would add to the role-playing dimension for others to have a character like this around.

    So I'm affirming that you can play the game this way and that perhaps maybe you are more a part of the story and lore than you realize.
     
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  9. Sir Tim

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    BillRoy, Im just like you. I never got too into the story of U7, which is my favorite game. But I loved adventuring and finding little sub-plots. You may not even be interested in the sub-plots.

    But like you, for me it was adventuring, and living amongst the people and picking up a sub-plot here and there. There were so many interesting things hidden in U7 that I look forward to in this game. Hands down I'm here because RG(Lord British) is known for making a "free world" where you can do what you want to do out side of the story line. Im extremely excited about the Farming aspect. I hope they add more of these seemingly mundane professions for us to RP.

    for example, a large portion of my time in U7 was being a cook and looking for ingredients. Sadly, I had to kill the real cook cause he kept stealing the food I made. Then coming across people in different areas with these neat sub-quests. Another large portion of my time was being a pirate. I would load a cannon onto one of the ships and terrorize the coast line. Sadly, they didnt develop any means for the NPCs to interact with me in the capacity of being a pirate, so it was mostly me just having to kill them to get what I wanted. Needed to be careful who you killed in U7 or the game would end... sadness there.

    Anyway, Im confident that you will find things to enjoy in this game.
    For me, it was not a waste in their easter-egg quests and sub-plots. I couldnt get enough of the whole adventuring around and helping the individual communities with their own little problems. Often the sub-plot was tied into the greater plot. It was a great experience.

    Interestingly enough, I had eventually done enough of the sub-plots that I decided I would just finish the story. :) So they lured me in. Added all up, I must have spent a full week of time in-game enjoying all of the little things out side of the main story. A lot of fun.
     
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  10. Isaiah

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    Just because there is a large story element doesn't mean you have to play it. You should like SotA then because you don't have to play the storyline at all. You can live as a farmer, or a blacksmith. Or you can adventure around without talking to a single person. Nothing says you have to use the stoyline because there are no questlogs. There is no path you have to travel, you make your own trails. RG said early on that you can use the storyline or skip it entirely. So this game is designed for you.
     
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  11. Fireangel

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    "Role-playing Game" also means different things to different people. You've got your Adventure/RPG, Strategy/RPG and Action/RPG. There is also a definition: a game in which players take on the roles of imaginary characters who engage in adventures, typically in a particular computerized fantasy setting overseen by a referee. So, if you're a Player making a character inside a game, you may be participating in role-playing to some extent.
    There is also the role-player. A role-player wants immersion. There are 'serious' role-players and 'casual' role-players, with variances in between the two. All role-player types want to be immersed in the role-playing as much as possible, and anything that breaks that immersion has a negative impact for them. In other words, yes, they know this is 'just a game', but don't remind them of it.
    Richard Garriott wants to make the 'Ultimate RPG'. If you've played some of the Ultimas before the corporate problems, or Ultima Online before the corporate changes, you've got a bit of an idea of what Richard Garriott's unfettered RPG would be. It's a 'world' with a setting and lore, and a storyline that effects that world, and you to some extent (differing for players by how much they interact with it). In the Ultima games, you are not required to take a linear path, or much of a path at all. The choices set before you are yours to make, and matter. In Ultima Online, there were no formal quests. It was just a world. What you did in it, or didn't do, gave you a reputation, not a questline in a story. We know Richard is working with Tracy Hickman for Shroud of the Avatar, and that there will be 5 Episodes (at least), following more of the style of the Ultima games rather than Ultima Online. The two of them have been working on the Single Player game first, before they extend that tale to the Selective Multiplayer Options.
     
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  12. BillRoy

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    Story Time. *My wife got me into computering, due to education and accesability issues I never had or used a computer before we got together.

    A long time ago in UO, I started playing a character I named BillRoy, he had vast potential but somehow he could not get anything going, he was a looser and sucked big-time, nothing but a punching-bad for Mungbats. He was a disapointment, and died all the time, and got lost so often and thouroughly I was afraid to leave sight of town or a moon gate. I'd almost given up on the game when my wife encouraged me to harvest lumber for her furnature store, she said that using an axe would also improve my swordsmanship (like that was ever going to matter, but I humored her for trying to help). I got to where I could harvest rare woods and started going further and further, clad only in sandals, short pants with a matching sash (to look like coveralls)and a wide-brimmed hat.

    Oftentimes I had to fight in self defence, but I was careful to avoid danger much of the time, until I found myself harvesting in Orc country. It was quite a challange stealing resources right from under thier noses but my luck didn't hold out. Eventually they caught me (several times) and murdered my pack-mule and riding llama, I tried to fight back but didn't stand a chance. I became furious, my faithful pets, hours of hard work, valuable supplies for my wife's furnature store...all gone. I felt the urge for vengance rising.

    I took a hatchet and ran back to the Orc camp (I had to tame a new llama on the way, it was a long trip, *taming skill just high enough to catch a mount) and started taking out loners on the outskirts of camp, working my way in. For days I harvested Orcs and collected thier loot , I had a lifetime supply of Orc armor and axes in stacks at my shack. I traveled to Orc camps and forts across the lands bringing bloody justice. I had become a murder machine.

    One day a group of adventurers came upon me while I was cleansing an Orc fort, I thought they were going to come at me, but one asked if I was an Orc, I said "Hell no!" and threw a head on the ground, (There were piles of Orc heads on the porch of my shack at this time.) I was resolved to kill all of them too, but they asked if I would join them. They said theyd had thier Eye on me for quite a while (one of them had a mansion near my Wife's house and my shack was not too far from there) and needed a skilled mercenary and would pay for my skills, I said money ment nothing to me, and that I'd go with them.

    Through the course of our adventures I became the "grim barbarian who who let his axe do the talking" (I have a fairly moderate case of dyslexia which keeps me from text talking/responding quickly and keeping up in conversation, especially during action, *it also affects the quest and story reading*, but my friends understood/accepted this.). One tamed me a SwampDragon when my llama was killed in battle, another made my SwampDragon custom brown armor to match my cape and brown dyed Orc Boots (I still always wore the Orc armor).We faught monsters and saved towns, we helped the weak and faught evil. I had become an equal among heroes (people who in the past I'd always seen as untouchable "golden gods").

    This is why a pre-made, spoon fed story leaves me wanting, why a story that leads you and gives you objectives that you can't really fail unless you quit playing the game seems hollow. Many of you have Grand Tales of Heroism and Glory far greater than mine. Many of you have storys that professional game makers and authors could never rival. Doesn't remembering those days make you sad a little sad inside knowing that those kinds of things don't happen in games anymore and probably will never happen again?
     
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  13. Bowen Bloodgood

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    The thing about an online environment that gives you enough freedom to do whatever you want.. is that you can experience both the story made for the world and your own story at the same time. I don't mind a well crafted story in game.. just give me the freedom to play out the character(s) I want to play.

    Well no character of mine is from Earth I can tell you that much. Not going to happen. Ever. Not interested. I didn't bother me in the Ultimas since it wasn't MY character. It was a character someone else thought up. My character will not be forced to be something I don't want him to be.. not by some outside force or someone else's machinations. That's the only part of the story I don't like. Having your role forced upon you is not roleplay.

    That said.. I'm more than happy to have my character exist in a world within someone else's story. I'll not simply ignore story elements I've no direct control over. If dark forces exist in the world.. my character will fight them.. in his own way. If there are quests to be done.. he'll do them. etc etc. He will still live within the world. He'll just do things his way.

    The world has it's own story but everyone's story exists within the world.. I'm perfectly happy with this arrangement.
     
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  14. God

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    That paragraph, especially the last sentence, got me... ;'(
     
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  15. Devoid

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    @BillRoy: I thoroughly enjoyed your tale! I know where your coming from, and I share your point of view. As a matter of fact, I believe everybody who contemplates the matter shares your point of view.
    I agree that a predetermined storyline with NPCs leading one by the hand from checkpoint to checkpoint as the story unfolds in a linear fashion is insulting, infuriating and belittling. I truly hope that SotA doesn't evolve like this. IF ONE SINGLE NPC DARES CALL ME "HERO" IN THIS GAME, I SWEAR I'LL PROVERBIALLY STUFF IT DOWN RG'S THROAT! I hope for a more dynamic game than that, and I expect something more than that from the great creator of UO. If this were a game by Blizzard, then I wouldn't be here to begin with. All I can say is that we are obliged to wait and see what the future has in store for us. By discussing our hopes and tribulations perhaps the great creators of SotA will take heed and not go down that road.

    Edit: I apologise to RG and the team working on SotA for sounding so brutal and aggressive, it isn't my intention. Rather, that I intended to emphasize how idiotic it is for the devs with generic scripted NPCs to assume everybody playing the game is a hero aspiring alter-ego PvEer.
     
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  16. Rose2

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    I'm his wife. I had to give him a hard time because he wrote a whole story, my "non-roleplaying" husband... :D
    I get his point though too, UO let you make of the game what you would, and you didn't have to know the lore or cannon. I honestly hadn't played any of the ulitma games prior to UO, and just loved UO for what it was, a real fantasy world to be in, acting as you wished. I often played as a merchant. I plan to be as merchant-y and farmer-y as possible in SOTA.

    So this made me think a bit of... how I was so hooked on UO, I spent 3~4 solid years playing, made some lifelong friends. There wasn't a single written-in quest. And I just loved it! If I wasn't playing, I was thinking about playing. Then everyone, I mean EVERYONE quit playing UO to play Everquest. It got deserted. I even went and tried it, and it was cool, but it wasn't UO. But people didn't really seem to go back to UO, it had lost a bit of something along the way.
    Now, i have tried soooo many mmorpgs since then and there has never been one that has held my attention for longer than maybe 4 months. There was something very special and magical about UO!

    The one game that has interested me as much as UO is the Sims 2 and Sims 3. And I think it's because of all the self-driven storymaking.

    So, I look forward to seeing what SOTA can be. I don't read a lot of stuff in the forums, because I want things in the game to be a bit of a surprise and I also don't like how many people "behave" in forums. But I am probably going to be able to be a farmer and a merchant (I would pick selling food over other things any day! Perhaps someone bought the fish steaks I would sell around the Moonglow bank? hehe) I think it's going to be great! I hope they make the magic we are all dreaming of!
     
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  17. Bowen Bloodgood

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    I'm reminded of the RPers I know from my NWN days.. and how they often bemoan the lack of a 'home'. NWN servers provided the best places to really roleplay. UO was very similiar in this regard as an open sandbox where you go do whatever you liked. Take the main quest line out of SotA and this is how I see the game.. having the best opportunities to just simple "live" in a medieval/fantasy setting. Don't want to play through the main quest? Don't have to. Don't want to go hunt down bad guys? Don't have to do that either.

    Run a tavern.. go fishing.. be a blacksmith or a miner.. make a living and just play. You make your own role for yourself and do whatever it is you find fun to do.

    Naturally I expect playing the main quest will be fun also.. but I'll have MY character to play and he'll keep me plenty busy long after the "story" is over.
     
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  18. BillRoy

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    @Bowen~ Me too, that's what I'd like. That's what I hope.
     
  19. Knight Grant MacGregor

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    I'm in the camp of players that want to experience the storyline, not read through it in journals and quest logs.

    In KoB one of the greatest things was that you had the back story's you wanted to catch up n it, but were also completely free to make your own story, the tale of your adventures, within the context of the game.

    I'm not at all worried that RG and TH will ruin things. They have repeatedly stated that the storyline will be immersive and will not consist of dialog boxes that will be clicked through, but rather evolve naturally through experience and be told through conversations with NPCs.

    I for one am looking forward to it. :) and, yes, I'll read all the backstory that s going to be published as well. :)

    Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
     
  20. Grogan

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    There are actually more roll-players than anything. For most people these games are just about min maxing dice roll outcomes until there's just a single way to "win", rinse, wash, repeat. I think as long as SotA makes it difficult to do this, we'll be ok.
     
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