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For developers: A multi-pronged storyline idea...


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Posted

One thing Star Wars is known for is story content moving along on multiple fronts, especially during battles (best classic example is Return of the Jedi: Throne Room, Endor, Space Battle - no surprise; you get the idea, also happens in the better novels).

Idea: what about a storyline that utilizes a user's own multiple characters on a server (maybe two Force-users and two Techs for instance, or maybe not limited to that sort of balance, if that's not too complicated - but perhaps four or less characters so F2P can use it), and they each have key pieces in separate "prongs" to the same storyline (seems reasonable since you already manage to basically streamline all of the character classes into the same storyline once you hit the expansions), albeit separate enough from each other that they know each other exist (flesh out the "family tree" legacy aspect somewhat... maybe, might even be fun to choose responses for multiple characters in the same conversation a time or two... but that's closer to wishful thinking than the rest of this idea) and some of their choices in their respective arenas affect the direction of the storyline for the others, storyline-wise maybe a tug-of-war between 2-4 possible final confrontations. The final culmination (however that plays out, even if you just script it one way instead of 4) could be staged and sequenced, one stage for each character that builds to/sets the stage for successive stages for the other characters (to keep them logistically separate) until the final stage, that being a culmination/showdown with the last character.

The idea is to do something operation-like, but with your own characters so you can do it solo, and even walk away in the middle (unlike flashpoints), and it's fun because it's dynamic interaction with the story. You (the developers) sort of do this with the Eternal Throne stories, except you control the other "prongs" with cut scenes (and I love the variation in the story it provides), and there we just flesh out our solo character's part in it when it's our turn to play. With this idea, the storyline itself that we get to interact with is more dynamic (already mentioned that, I know, but it bears repeating, and it beats literally running to literally every key point in the story)!

Posted
(seems reasonable since you already manage to basically streamline all of the character classes into the same storyline once you hit the expansions)

Unfortunately, that actually makes the idea *harder*, not easier.

 

Each "prong" would essentially be a separate story, where the stories depart from a common base and follow different paths to a unified end-point. Furthermore, to maintain a good flow of storytelling, the combined multistory would have to be told in pieces - in novels and films, you don't see all of one prong then all of another then all of a third - and the scope for weird weirdness is epic.

 

Example: what happens if, halfway through the multistory, one of the linked-together characters is deleted, whether by fumblefingeredness or deliberate choice? What happens to the other characters' progression through the multistory? Can they even continue (they are waiting for the deleted character to finish segment three before they can begin segment four...)? What if the deleted character is restored? Would the multistory links be preserved awaiting such a thing?

 

What about companions? Which of the participating characters has Lana, which has Kaliyo, etc.? (And what if one of them killed, say, Arcann, and the other didn't?)

 

I'm not saying its a bad idea, but the engineering to make it robust against weirdness would be epic. It certainly isn't the most radical "multi" idea I've ever seen. I used to play Dofus(1), a sandboxy paged-map high-view third-person MMORPG, and I discovered a quest that took me through three different *games*...

 

(1) It had an aspect of "support local industry" because the developer's office is about ten miles from where I live.

Posted

I REALLY appreciate your response, so if you don’t mind, I would like to pick your brain a bit more with what-ifs before I give it a rest, and let/beg you to (probably easily) shoot down all of it, but it will be worth the stab (for me at least; I hope you don’t mind/somewhat agree) 😊, plus I realize I’m just haphazardly throwing around ideas like there’s nothing to it, and you are gracefully showing me how much there really is to it.

You make some good points (I didn’t consider those possibilities for a full campaign, because I would try to be a committed player who's unlikely to do those things contributing to weirdness), so breaking it into pieces wouldn’t destroy the experience for players like me (kinda what I’m looking for), so what about using framework like flashpoints, tied together like ET chapters (actually reminds me of what you do with the Ilum ending, only use the special feature I’m soliciting of multiple characters). As in flashpoints, if they drop out in the middle of a chapter/segment, then all progress for that story-segment/chapter/pseudo-flashpoint is lost and the segment is short enough that there’s not much of a loss overall if that happens, not too much of a drag for the user to restart the chapter (maybe they decide they'd rather use a different other-character... who knows?). I would guess (purely a guess) a flashpoint-length segment could reasonably rotate through say 3 story prongs 2-3 times.

Companions? I see the conundrum you propose. I suppose one possible answer, as it might as well be for any expansion, is to significantly limit the options. You did this with ET, but you made up for it with later allowing companions from other classes to be recruited (thank you, btw). Just for kicks, let’s say this idea had 4 chapters; chapters 1 & 2 could have new companions (no choices), specific to each story prong (maybe some “unlikely-but-capable heroes of opportunity” that are otherwise very likeable [like/as if giving a lightsaber to Charlie Brown], instead of your classic genius/guru/superstar companions you’ve blessed us with so far); chapter 3 could be a wildcard chapter where the user can choose any companion the player has with no real story contribution (not any?), just so they can have their favorite/preferred companion(s) for part of it; and then chapter 4 could be back to the new companions to make it all mean something.

I don’t know what it would take to cross streams with characters (maybe you’ll easily dash my dreams with this point alone), but (and maybe this should be obvious; I don’t try to insult your intelligence - sorry btw) perhaps establish a “main” prong of each chapter that would default to the character that’s logged in (I guess it would have to be their story, wouldn’t it? to make it easy [like I would know what's easy] the other characters would have to do their own story as the main in their own login, as if stories where they were secondaries for other characters never happen), the not-logged in characters (maybe some kind of eligibility filter - if its even needed - not too difficult to achieve [help newbs kinda know what they’re doing, right?]) would be eligible for the other roles in the chapter.

As much as I’m shooting for the moon here, I’d even settle for being only allowed one alternate character (2-prongs, but whatever)!

I'm afraid you're just gonna come back with, "it's just not going to work," and not worth explaining why (and I won't hate you for that), but if not, I'll be absolutely thrilled, even if it still won't work!!:cool:

Posted

I'm a little short on time this morning, so I'll just say one thing, and give a more considered response this evening when I get home from work.

 

The one thing is that you have to bear in mind that while I am a software developer, I do not work in any capacity for BioWare, so whatever I say does not reflect any realities of what BioWare might do with this idea.

Posted
I REALLY appreciate your response, so if you don’t mind, I would like to pick your brain a bit more with what-ifs before I give it a rest, and let/beg you to (probably easily) shoot down all of it, but it will be worth the stab (for me at least; I hope you don’t mind/somewhat agree) 😊, plus I realize I’m just haphazardly throwing around ideas like there’s nothing to it, and you are gracefully showing me how much there really is to it.

OK, no problem, but remember that anything I say here is based on me being just another player, just like you, with no special inside knowledge of how SWTOR works inside, nor of BioWare's plans.

 

That said, I *am* a software developer - this job has paid my rent for more than 33 years now - and deep-juju analysis of how software works and how it might be changed is an inherent part of my job, *and* what I usually call an "occupational hazard", meaning something that I do automatically without really deciding consciously to do it.

You make some good points (I didn’t consider those possibilities for a full campaign, because I would try to be a committed player who's unlikely to do those things contributing to weirdness), so breaking it into pieces wouldn’t destroy the experience for players like me (kinda what I’m looking for), so what about using framework like flashpoints, tied together like ET chapters (actually reminds me of what you do with the Ilum ending, only use the special feature I’m soliciting of multiple characters). As in flashpoints, if they drop out in the middle of a chapter/segment, then all progress for that story-segment/chapter/pseudo-flashpoint is lost and the segment is short enough that there’s not much of a loss overall if that happens, not too much of a drag for the user to restart the chapter (maybe they decide they'd rather use a different other-character... who knows?). I would guess (purely a guess) a flashpoint-length segment could reasonably rotate through say 3 story prongs 2-3 times.

That sounds reasonable. Building the prongs in "solo-story flashpoint" mode, as you see in the "traitor arc" after War on Iokath or in the stories after Onslaught, with the "group" of characters able to be modified at various points, notably that the player could drop a character from the group before running that character's participation in the next segment, to be replaced by another who's ready to do it, well, that might work.

 

The other approach might be to simply block deletion of characters who are playing the multi-story, which would take care of oddities caused by "I deleted the wrong character". (No, that's not a joke. I once managed to delete a max-level character by selecting the character, then paging around the character list and deciding that it was time to delete this other character, and pressing the Delete button. (Note: I didn't say that I selected the one I wanted to delete, because I didn't do that. Aurata got deleted instead of Binthelius Gsrim... CS was very polite and just restored Aurata without passing comment on my stupidity.))

Companions? I see the conundrum you propose. I suppose one possible answer, as it might as well be for any expansion, is to significantly limit the options.

That's pretty much how I would suggest doing it.

I'm afraid you're just gonna come back with, "it's just not going to work," and not worth explaining why (and I won't hate you for that), but if not, I'll be absolutely thrilled, even if it still won't work!!:cool:

My best guess is that BioWare would decide that the risks of everything going way far south (and souther than that) would be too great for them to risk building such a thing.

 

Shame, really, because it could do something really unusual for an MMORPG.

  • 4 weeks later...
Posted (edited)

Thank you for what you do, what you're able to offer.

 

Maybe another possibility with all this is to create an Operation that is multipronged (say 3 prongs), where players fill slots in each prong (minimum of 4? no minimum? combined levels added up are greater than 80? It wouldn't need to be about difficulty - I think some of the flashoint/operation ideas forget that - I just want a good story). Each prong would have milestones (not limited to cutscene choices, maybe also completion of certain bonus missions or main missions for the prong, like destroying something, that can make something else easier for a different prong/affecting the gameplay of the others (like a central hub controlling droids, gets destroyed, all droids/autocannon emplacements no longer work/go away in all prongs). It almost seems like you would be incorporating game/storyline settings into the game itself (or maybe as a separate feature?), so you can affect how everything plays out: make it easier by taking out something or making a choice, or keep it harder by leaving something alone, or making another choice, nothing that makes it impossible, maybe some choices you can somehow go back and change your mind on? Anyhow, If one prong is waiting on actions in a different one, then maybe insert something like a rest area to logistically tag players as eligible to temporarily transport (take summons) to help the other prong along, then dump them back in their original prong once the milestone is completed.

 

I give up. I just wanna see something more productive with something like the "Family Tree" Legacy feature, and I would love to see something - anything, even purely passive - where my characters on a server can/may visibly interact with each other, stare at each other from across the room, show some moves together, share drinks, huddle and pretend to talk, spar, whatever.... And I would like to see a multi-pronged storyline so it can be something like a movie from the original trilogy where they did it best. I don't even mind missing part of the story if I get to play it again and try out a different part of the story the next time!

 

*sigh* ...oh well.:rak_tongue:

Edited by anonyhm
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