I have seen WoW put people in tears or at least sniffles, repeatedly. I used to live in an apartment complex where everybody played. People talked about it. I haven't seen anyone really moved that way by STO content and I want to see that as a bar to shoot for. You may be a callous son of a gun who is immune to an emotionally manipulative quest in an MMO. But I have friends who are not that callous. I have fleetmates who are not that callous. And they're off playing WoW or TOR or Secret World or Fallout or even Starcraft half the time for that experience and I want them to get it here.
To be honest, the only tears I had reading/listening/seeing WoW lore was from laughing. I found the lore as interesting and well done than the CoD story. That's my personal opinion, and the one of a friend. We read together some lore from a WoW fansite and couldn't stop laughing. Official lore ofc. Some story about a dwarf who become a lich to save his people from some evil bad guy, and then become the enemy. Oh noes !
I think I can create 3 WoW lore/week.
I can't say the STO stories are the best I've seen, but some of them are "cool" (which mean average), few of them are more than that (coliseum is awesome IMO, but more for the setting etc than the story in itself).
TOR have good and bad stories. Play Imperial Agent, and you have a really awesome story. Play Consular, and you'll be bored to death.
I only played Secret World during beta, and the only story I've seen was the story of my character, who was, it seems, a bit dumb, and clearly mute, meeting people eager to tell their life story to my character. But now, I start thinking my character was a borg. It clearly looked like one.
GW2 story is as fascinating as 2 random guys talking about something you don't understand. You are rapidly annoyed, and not involved. The lore is not that bad, even if it clearly lacks imagination, and is for the whole family. But the story is YAWN... We were about 10 playing this game together. I was the only to finish the whole storyline. The others simply dropped it sooner or later because it was really annoying.
So far, the best videogame stories I had was Mass Effect 1 (not counting the 2 others one, the 2 was decent, the 3 was... well, you know...), Dragon Age (great lore, mature, and the story were great), and Jade Empire. The lore behind Homeworld was really awesome for those who had the game manual. 2/3 of this manual was lore. Really nice story.
Do pay attention to context. My post was mostly in response to someone who did mention the presence of moral messages and similar in videogame stories. A moral message isolated from human nature is little more than delusional. A moral message that would not reproduce itself naturally in a conductive enviroment is isolated from human nature.
Telling a story requires control of the story. Despite how authors often talk about characters running away from them, it's still all a product of their own mind, just unexpected ideas.. Telling a good story requires taking human nature into account, but 'emergent' stories are always another thing entirely. Unless people are focused on actually telling a story - that is, roleplaying, and being one myself i know what a minority we are - it just mirrors history, which is only ever a tale about who was left, not who was right.
I do wonder how long did you play Eve if that's your opinion on what I did mention.
And do please tell me what is so 'Trek' about STO to begin with.
Long enogh to run a wormhole starbase for an allience, be involved in 0.0 for a while, watch the Goon/BoB BS from afar, get ganked in losec enough times to learn that there's nothing worth bothering with there, deal with an endless stream of salvage vultures, and watch a hisec suicide ganking.
Not much, but putting the sort of people who populate PvP sandboxes in charge would quickly wipe away even the veneer.
I did never met these armies of bullies everyone does seem to find in PvP driven MMOs and I did play several. And what I did describe was more of a Realm vs Realm driven MMO than an open PvP sandbox one.
All your proposal, of having the most powerful player groups set policy, would do is cement the power of those who manage to conquer the most.
Telling a story requires control of the story. Despite how authors often talk about characters running away from them, it's still all a product of their own mind, just unexpected ideas.. Telling a good story requires taking human nature into account, but 'emergent' stories are always another thing entirely. Unless people are focused on actually telling a story - that is, roleplaying, and being one myself i know what a minority we are - it just mirrors history, which is only ever a tale about who was left, not who was right.
Emergent stories are not about 'telling' a story. They are about 'writing' one. As I did say Videogames as a medium are interactive. MMOs as a medium are both interactive and social. If you are being 'told' a story you are not 'interacting' with the world. You are passive observer.
People in this thread did say they want to be part of the world and the story. That is only possible if the story and the narrative is being spawned by the players' actions and ambitions as well as by the gameplay mechanics.
And there is an impossible to ignore artificiality on being 'told' a story. It does not matter when you are watching a movie or reading a book but it does matter when you are playing a game. How much do you actually deserve the praise you do receive? How much do you actually deserve to win? How much did your actions actually modify the outcome?
Would you prefer to have an NPC captain declare how much does he respect your character regardless of how many times did you fail the mission and how much did you suck at the game or would you prefer to gain the respect of an enemy player and make a new friend by fighting one mean duel? Would you prefer to always be able to finish the mission and win the day or to be the first to arrive to a battle just to discover both you and the first enemy player to arrive are using builds and equipment that do make it impossible for you to kill each other and have instead to wait for the rest of your respective armies while discussing music and fooling around?
Few writers would be able to capture the later moments. I doubt any of them does write videogames.
Long enogh to run a wormhole starbase for an allience, be involved in 0.0 for a while, watch the Goon/BoB BS from afar, get ganked in losec enough times to learn that there's nothing worth bothering with there, deal with an endless stream of salvage vultures, and watch a hisec suicide ganking.
Then you should know the difference between Realm vs Realm PvP and a sandboxy game like EVE. What I did describe in my example is nothing like EVE.
Not much, but putting the sort of people who populate PvP sandboxes in charge would quickly wipe away even the veneer.
At least the sort of people who does populate PvP sandboxes and Realm vs Realm PvP games would not make me feel two thirds of the team are being carried by the remaining third every time I do play a fleet action. Even the worst player I have met in Realm vs Realm PvP games and sandboxy PvP games did understand the game he or she was playing much better than most of the players here do.
All your proposal, of having the most powerful player groups set policy, would do is cement the power of those who manage to conquer the most.
So the ones who do actually understand the game and able to play it properly are not the ones who should be rewarded?
Emergent stories are not about 'telling' a story. They are about 'writing' one. As I did say Videogames as a medium are interactive. MMOs as a medium are both interactive and social. If you are being 'told' a story you are not 'interacting' with the world. You are passive observer.
People in this thread did say they want to be part of the world and the story. That is only possible if the story and the narrative is being spawned by the players' actions and ambitions as well as by the gameplay mechanics.
Would you prefer to have an NPC captain declare how much does he respect your character regardless of how many times did you fail the mission and how much did you suck at the game or would you prefer to gain the respect of an enemy player and make a new friend by fighting one mean duel? Would you prefer to always be able to finish the mission and win the day or to be the first to arrive to a battle just to discover both you and the first enemy player to arrive are using builds and equipment that do make it impossible for you to kill each other and have instead to wait for the rest of your respective armies while discussing music and fooling around?
Few writers would be able to capture the later moments. I doubt any of them does write videogames.
I'd prefer to not pretend that PvP sandbox gameplay is story. It's one thing to want to actually feel like part of the story, like you can actually affect the world, and an entirely different thing to enter such a system. For the most part, people end up someone else's peon or struggling to make a sand castle that a bigger and stronger group can come crush with trivial effort, and probably just for lulz. Actual storytelling is individual or cooperative, not antagonistic. The only 'stories' that come out of 'emergent' PvP are narratives woven outside the action itself. It's possible to have two groups craft a story together and agree that the final outcome will be decided on a battlefield, but that lives in a different conceptual space than Eve and its brethren naturally support with their mechanics.
I'd prefer a game that mostly lets me do and build on my own thing, possibly joining with others, without having to look over my shoulder every ****ing second or having some petty armchair tyrant dictate laws to me because their epeen is bigger. Something more like a hybrid selecting out the good aspects of current STO and very early SWG.
Then you should know the difference between Realm vs Realm PvP and a sandboxy game like EVE. What I did describe in my example is nothing like EVE.
At least the sort of people who does populate PvP sandboxes and Realm vs Realm PvP games would not make me feel two thirds of the team are being carried by the remaining third every time I do play a fleet action. Even the worst player I have met in Realm vs Realm PvP games and sandboxy PvP games did understand the game he or she was playing much better than most of the players here do.
Because those games viciously select out players who just want to log in and have a good time and not have to struggle just to get anywhere. Dealing with idiots is a hazard of being inclusive. Don't want to risk dealing with idiots, queue privately.
The sad thing is -- we did not just imagine this games potential .
We saw some of that potential come to fruition within the games lifetime .
And saddest of all ... we came to see the game change into a sub standard (pretty) sci-fi MMO not under different ppl ... , but under the same ppl .
If it would have changed under different ppl , we would at least QQ-ed for the old regime .
The current situation just mostly leaves me feeling nausiated when I think about it .
So I think about it less and less , just as I log in less and less .
I still thank those same ppl for showing some kindness tho (like the Breen ship) .
It's not all bad , just not what it could & should have been .
Goodness Captain Sourpuss. I think that outlook is way more abysmal than it needs to be. :P
To things like this, I always have to bring up the great content drought that took place after the 2800. During that period of almost six months we got two missions. Two. During that same time period since Season Six, we got Starbases and all of that madness (though, that's arguably not that much :P), Nukura, New Romulus, the improved winter event, and a bunch of new missions. And that six months isn't even over yet. I don't think it's so bad.
I'd prefer to not pretend that PvP sandbox gameplay is story. It's one thing to want to actually feel like part of the story, like you can actually affect the world, and an entirely different thing to enter such a system. For the most part, people end up someone else's peon or struggling to make a sand castle that a bigger and stronger group can come crush with trivial effort, and probably just for lulz. Actual storytelling is individual or cooperative, not antagonistic. The only 'stories' that come out of 'emergent' PvP are narratives woven outside the action itself. It's possible to have two groups craft a story together and agree that the final outcome will be decided on a battlefield, but that lives in a different conceptual space than Eve and its brethren naturally support with their mechanics.
So in your opinion the Romance of the Three Kingdoms is not a great story and a great novel because 70% of it is historical fact and 30% of it is romantized historical fact? They were not trying to cooperatively tell a story. They were trying to conquer china by killing all of the other guys' doods. Most of them were someone else's peons. Most of their great works were later crushed by the almost trivial efforts of bigger fish with mad warmongering skillz.
Their lives, their deeds, their tragedies, and their triumphs do still make one of the greatest and most complex tales ever told.
I'd prefer a game that mostly lets me do and build on my own thing, possibly joining with others, without having to look over my shoulder every ****ing second or having some petty armchair tyrant dictate laws to me because their epeen is bigger. Something more like a hybrid selecting out the good aspects of current STO and very early SWG.
Did you you ever hear of single player games?
Because those games viciously select out players who just want to log in and have a good time and not have to struggle just to get anywhere. Dealing with idiots is a hazard of being inclusive. Don't want to risk dealing with idiots, queue privately.
In my experience those games do bring out the best and the worst in people. An extremely controlled enviroment does bring neither. And if someone does just want to have a good time without dealing with other people should he or she not be playing a single player game instead? I do not understand people who does log into a multiplayer game and then is angry because they have to deal and compete with other players.
A game that you can't lose is not a game at all. And when we are not even penalized for blowing up we are already dangerously close to being The Sims... In Space!
By controlling the gameplay experience of everyone else? **** no!
Any game that does allow you to influence the world, influence the story, or interact with other players will have you influencing the gameplay experience of others.
Should we remove Kerrat because BoPs ambushing distracted Feddies does negatively influence their gameplay experience? Should we remove Fleet Actions because players who do not understand which part of the phaser to point at the enemy does negatively influence the gameplay experience of players who do? Should we disband bigger fleets because their existence does negatively influence the gameplay experience of the smaller ones? Should we remove zone chat because what does transpire there does negatively influence the gameplay experience of anyone literate and with a working brain? Should we remove Drozana Station because the ERPers there do negatively influence the gameplay experience of anyone with taste? Should we remove STFs because terribad players do negatively influence the experience of good players? Should we remove the fast and the flurrious because players who are better at it do negatively influence the experience of players who are awful at it? Etc. Etc. Etc.
If we do follow this path to its conclusion we do end with a single player game with no difficulty settings other than 'Press button to win' available.
In all Realm vs Realm games I did play it was always up to ten guilds that did decide policy (strategy, focus, taxation, etc). Why? Because they are the most powerful guilds. They are the ones able to take and defend fortresses and territory. They are the ones with the best and more dedicated players. They are the ones with the better organization. They are the ones with the better contacts in the enemy realms' guilds. They are the ones that can bribe the enemy powerful guilds and have the clout to make alliances with them. If for example they all decide to attack territory A and territory B then small guilds attacking territory C and territory D will not manage to do much. If they decide to just sit in their fortress and wait the storm to pass when the enemy realms do ally against their own the small guilds will have no chance to protect what little holdings they have. If they decide to allow an enemy great guild to take Territory E in exchange of something the poor guys trying to defend that territory will be slaughtered when they have to face an enemy great guild without the backing of an allied one.
You cannot have any kind of territory control or serious PvP without it all being controlled by a few powerful guilds. The smaller guilds do become vassals because that's the nature of conflict itself: The weaklings can fight on their own and be anihilated or they can follow the powerful into battle and maybe be the extra presure the great guilds do need to win against the enemy great guilds, which would allow the small guilds to receive some loot and spoils of their own.
That's a valuable to know life lesson. And it was my point that you do not need a script to have meaningful morals and points. You do only need emergent gameplay and people doing what people does.
And on the topic of epicness do show me a single story in STO that's more interesting, complex, and full of twists and turns than some of the most famous tales of Dwarf Fortress playthroughs for example.
@ stoleviathan99:
Comparatively few books, fewer movies, and even fewer games do have content of enough quality when mentioning meaning, point, moral, or message to hold greater value, as far as those points are concerned, than the stories and events that do grow naturally from the interaction among human beings in different situations.
Comparatively few books, fewer movies, and even fewer games do have characters of such depth as for one to find it easier to relate to and empathize with them than with an actual human being put through a much simpler drama.
The problem is not with the products. The problem is that you aren't movable enough.
The worst Michael Bay movies have characters and themes worth analyzing and exploring for thousands of pages. The worst of Ed Wood's films are worth watching.
Bad narrative is not a reason to give up on narrative.
And most books, films, etc. have compelling characters. Most stories are fairly good stories. The big area where things fall apart is structure and mastery of execution.
Most books, movies, and even video games overwhelm me with the sheer volume and density of their characterization, meaning, moral and social implications. Five minutes of commercials have so much value, characterization, and idea in them that I could devote my life to unpacking them.
It isn't that it isn't there. It's that you're insisting it doesn't exist because you can't see it.
The Klingons fight the Federation because the Federation didn't believe every power in the quadrant was taken over by Undine which turned out to be true but they don't stop fighting.
Half-true... Or at least its only half-the reason the Feds and KDF are at odds.
The other reason, the first reason actually, is our attacking and claiming the now "up for grabs" Romulan systems left undefended by the supernova's events and the fracturing of the RSE.
So in your opinion the Romance of the Three Kingdoms is not a great story and a great novel because 70% of it is historical fact and 30% of it is romantized historical fact? They were not trying to cooperatively tell a story. They were trying to conquer china by killing all of the other guys' doods. Most of them were someone else's peons. Most of their great works were later crushed by the almost trivial efforts of bigger fish with mad warmongering skillz.
Their lives, their deeds, their tragedies, and their triumphs do still make one of the greatest and most complex tales ever told.
And for the people living it, it was a long, brutal, hard-fought war. The story was told by others, and the enjoyment of the story was had by others (except perhaps some of the ruling class). That's the point.
In my experience those games do bring out the best and the worst in people. An extremely controlled enviroment does bring neither. And if someone does just want to have a good time without dealing with other people should he or she not be playing a single player game instead? I do not understand people who does log into a multiplayer game and then is angry because they have to deal and compete with other players.
A game that you can't lose is not a game at all. And when we are not even penalized for blowing up we are already dangerously close to being The Sims... In Space!
That's a big straw man you're stuffing, there. There's a whole lot of middle ground between not dealing with others at all and having your ability to participate in the game entirely dictated by others. And PvE does not need to be the 'win only' scenario that it's generally devolved to, nor do I advocate it being such.
The weaklings can fight on their own and be anihilated or they can follow the powerful into battle and maybe be the extra presure the great guilds do need to win against the enemy great guilds, which would allow the small guilds to receive some loot and spoils of their own.
That's a valuable to know life lesson. And it was my point that you do not need a script to have meaningful morals and points. You do only need emergent gameplay and people doing what people does.
And on the topic of epicness do show me a single story in STO that's more interesting, complex, and full of twists and turns than some of the most famous tales of Dwarf Fortress playthroughs for example.
This is where that giant wall of blather starts being worth responding to.
That's not a life lesson, that's a life reenactment. I know full well that's how real life works. Every adult either does or damn well should. I deal with real life every day. I play games because I am successful enough in real life to have the spare resources to do things that don't involve dealing with real life.
The emergent gameplay of Dwarf Fortress is a terrible analogy to PvP sandbox games because there's still one nearly-godlike being (the player) living above and influencing everything. Epic LPs of Dwarf Fortress invariably involve a lot of dwarves who live short, meaningless, miserable lives, though at least it's not (usually) inflicted on the dwarves by each other.
And for the people living it, it was a long, brutal, hard-fought war. The story was told by others, and the enjoyment of the story was had by others (except perhaps some of the ruling class). That's the point.
Yet when we are talking of 'being part of the story' that's exactly what it means: To be part inside the story. Not to be the one being told it afterwards.
They actually said they do want to feel as a part of the story and the world. If they did want to feel part of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms they have to feel as part of a long, brutal, hard-fought war. If they do want to be part of a story about war and a time of chaos (every MMO out there, give or take a couple) and they feel like they are going through a long, brutal, and hard-fought war while everything does collapse around them the story is good.
An emergent game can tell that story much more easily than an scripted one, more so when the writer of the later is a penny dreadful hack. And the meaning will be stronger as it will not be something that someone did come up with in a flight of fancy. It will something that did happen.
This is where that giant wall of blather starts being worth responding to.
Let us keep this civil.
We are not going to get anywhere if we go down that path.
That's not a life lesson, that's a life reenactment. I know full well that's how real life works. Every adult either does or damn well should. I deal with real life every day. I play games because I am successful enough in real life to have the spare resources to do things that don't involve dealing with real life.
The person I did answer to did not say he did want an escapist fantasy. He did say he did want a story with meaning, depth, morals, and actual points being made. Any such story will be closely related to life.
If you do want an escapist fantasy then go ahead. :S
The emergent gameplay of Dwarf Fortress is a terrible analogy to PvP sandbox games because there's still one nearly-godlike being (the player) living above and influencing everything. Epic LPs of Dwarf Fortress invariably involve a lot of dwarves who live short, meaningless, miserable lives, though at least it's not (usually) inflicted on the dwarves by each other.
We are both discussing different things.
From the start my points are:
1. An emergent story can be as meaningful, if not more, than a scripted story done by a hack writer.
2. The themes, morals, and points of an emergent story can be controlled by the designer of the enviroment in which the story will take place.
You are not discussing those topics. You are discussing the role of the player in the story. That's of no importance in this case. The case is that the story, once finished, will be an emergent story as meaningful, if not more, than a scripted story done by a hack writer regardless of whether you were the main character or extra #427209178192731. And the case is that the themes, the morals, and the points will have been controlled by designer of the enviroment.
I will add now a third point:
3. The player able to influence the world and the story far more in an emergent tale than in a scripted one.
All topics not related to these three points are not what I am discussing about. If we do continue with this we will be running in circles because you will keep talking about the poor unskilled player that does suffer the exploitation of his or her betters while I am discussing emergent storytelling. You being God-Emperor of MMOLand or being the downtroded masses is of no importance to my point.
If you do insist to discuss gameplay and perceived fairness instead we will have to agree to disagree.
I do believe if you do not have the skill to be the best you do not have the right to the things the best do enjoy. Yes, the great guilds do exploit and abuse the lesser guilds and freelance players. It is their right. They did reach the top. They did have to fight and win to reach it. The others did not reach it. It is fair that the powerful rule and the weak are ruled regardless of it being IRL or in a game. It is in accordance to the celestial order. It is exactly as it should be.
When I do PvP in that enviroment I do get killed a lot. I do kill a lot. I do abuse a lot. I am abused a lot. I do make great friends. I do keep deep grudges. I do have fun both ways. You do not. To each his or her own.
@ stoleviathan99:
Bad narrative is not a reason to give up on narrative.
I did not say bad narrative is a reason to give up on narrative. I do love narrative. There are great narrative works that reach depths of analysis and understanding not many of us would be able to reach on our own. There are great narrative works that do reach such a beauty of execution the impact of the events themselves would be diminished without it. There are great narrative works that deal with ideas and concepts that go beyond the realm we are able to experience with our senses and through our daily lives.
Yet the stories on STO are not so.
Which does bring me back to the point:
1. An emergent story can be as meaningful, if not more, than a scripted story done by a hack writer.
2. The themes, morals, and points of an emergent story can be controlled by the designer of the enviroment in which the story will take place.
3. The player able to influence the world and the story far more in an emergent tale than in a scripted one.
We are not talking Borges and Tarkovsky here. We are talking terribad stories with awful writing, criminal pase, and painful dialogue. If an emergent story can do everything STO story currently does and do it better with little cost to the already over-stretched developers what practical point is there not to do so? We even have the mission creator whose name I do never remember to keep scripted stories both good and bad coming.
The game will benefit far more from Klinkies who do actually get stuff to buy (bloody clothes to begin with!), less bugs, balanced and diverse PvP, better ground combat (as in ground combat that does not make sure I do never do a ground mission), more raids and high level instances, territorial control, more factions, and more C-Store goodies than it will benefit from yet another cringe worthy episode series that does nothing but nauseate literate people.
As I did say to you in a perfect world (trolololol) we would have both the stories and the gameplay content. With Cryptic's few resources, small team, and terribad coding skillz we do have to prioritize. I did just propose a way to cover both bases while making a better game.
I do need to have Antimatter Spread in my Bopiest of BoPs every bloody time I do visit Kerrat just to not get ganked the moment the map does reset. I do leave for almost a year (or was it half a year?) and that bug is still here.
They need to focus their resources, not to spread them even more.
The emergent gameplay of Dwarf Fortress is a terrible analogy to PvP sandbox games because there's still one nearly-godlike being (the player) living above and influencing everything. Epic LPs of Dwarf Fortress invariably involve a lot of dwarves who live short, meaningless, miserable lives, though at least it's not (usually) inflicted on the dwarves by each other.
Not hardly. The player may be able to control everything about their Dwarves lives down to when they eat and sleep, but the game world is still very much out of the players hands. The fun of Dwarf Fortress comes from the massive, horrible curveballs the game throws at you, and the resulting insanity.
The problem STO faces is it's near constant inability to surprise anyone. With a franchise like Star Trek, with it being based in facing the unknown and all, being consistent is our curse rather than our blessing.
I believe that if the queued "grind" missions had randomized, bizarre, "Jack in the Box" like events that made things interesting, we would be more accepting of them, or at least complain about them less.
Take the "Starbase Assault" five man mission. Design wise, it's incredibly boring. Fight 4 groups of randomized enemies, and if you beat them all within a time limit, you get a Boss level, and if you beat that, you get extra rewards.
*Yawn*
How boring.
But what if we took that same mission, and to it, we made it so there was a small chance the Boss fight came first, and you didn't have to slug your way through popcorn enemies? Or a third group that attacked you and your attackers indiscriminately? And the Klingons are allied with the Naussicans, Orions, and Gorn. Why can't we have mixed race fleets? Slave Battleships backing up Neg'Vars would be terrifying!
Why can't we have stuff like that? It wouldn't be that hard.
This statement would have to be true before I could answer your question.
I haven't seen reviews of the game praising its storylines.
/thread
No, no, no. As I said earlier it wasn't the reviews, it was the players constantly demanding more story that was getting to me. They keep asking for something that I'm not sure is worth asking for. That was why I created this thread.
Not hardly. The player may be able to control everything about their Dwarves lives down to when they eat and sleep, but the game world is still very much out of the players hands. The fun of Dwarf Fortress comes from the massive, horrible curveballs the game throws at you, and the resulting insanity.
The problem STO faces is it's near constant inability to surprise anyone. With a franchise like Star Trek, with it being based in facing the unknown and all, being consistent is our curse rather than our blessing.
I believe that if the queued "grind" missions had randomized, bizarre, "Jack in the Box" like events that made things interesting, we would be more accepting of them, or at least complain about them less.
Take the "Starbase Assault" five man mission. Design wise, it's incredibly boring. Fight 4 groups of randomized enemies, and if you beat them all within a time limit, you get a Boss level, and if you beat that, you get extra rewards.
*Yawn*
How boring.
But what if we took that same mission, and to it, we made it so there was a small chance the Boss fight came first, and you didn't have to slug your way through popcorn enemies? Or a third group that attacked you and your attackers indiscriminately? And the Klingons are allied with the Naussicans, Orions, and Gorn. Why can't we have mixed race fleets? Slave Battleships backing up Neg'Vars would be terrifying!
Why can't we have stuff like that? It wouldn't be that hard.
On this specific point, that variety and unexpected encounters are needed, I absolutely agree, and advocated similar systems long ago.
But it's also an example of emergent stories that aren't driven by people scrambling to find the best way to ruin each others' day in PvP, which was my point.
I actually think the story is underrated. Sure, there are no "Duet"s or "The Inner Light"s, but neither is there anything near as bad as "Spock's Brain" or "Shades of Gray". I'd say on average STO story missions are about at Enterprise level. (Makes sense, since STO borrows a lot from VOY and ENT :P)
Most of the trouble is how the missions don't link to each other very well, in the campaigns. The Klingon Campaign is the worst, and it's probably the majority of what everyone sees, though the Cardassian Campaign is almost as bad in its disunity.
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them." -Thomas Marrone
No, no, no. As I said earlier it wasn't the reviews, it was the players constantly demanding more story that was getting to me. They keep asking for something that I'm not sure is worth asking for. That was why I created this thread.
I guess I should change the OP now, but eh......
I want it to be worth asking for. I don't think that's insurmountably hard.
Studios accomplish that all the time on budgets much, much smaller than Cryptic's.
I'd LIKE for it to get mentions in the same breath as games like "Dishonored", "Journey", "Catherine", "The Walking Dead", "The Secret World", "I Am Alive", "Analogue", "Sleeping Dogs", "Deus Ex: Human Revolution", "Arkham City", or even "Darksiders II."
As it stands, I think we're probably a few notches above "Gotham City Imposters", "Eve", or "Call of Duty", a few rungs below "Starcraft III", and noticeably below "Halo" or "WoW", much less any of the titles above.
And we're about to be outdone by a Star Trek action shooter in the story department. And, y'know, I can totally tolerate STO being outdone on voice acting, graphics, and cinematics by the "Star Trek" shooter. But being outdone on story is a real shame, because good story isn't the expensive part to produce.
And I don't blame Kestrel... although I think I might blame the fact that there's just ONE Kestrel and that the writer is treated as such an ancillary support role, more aimed at justifying what Cryptic does than providing direction.
But it's also an example of emergent stories that aren't driven by people scrambling to find the best way to ruin each others' day in PvP, which was my point.
It's an example of emergent stories that are driven by the world scrambling to find the best way to kill your d0rfs in amusing ways and bring chaos down upon your fortress in a totally unexpected way so that Armok is kept entertained and the world does survive another day. :P
It is the way in which the unpredictability and the complexity do interact that does create very tragic yet amusing stories. This can also be observed on roguelikes for example. A character may not get beyond the fifth floor yet still spawn a story or a series of anecdotes worth telling. Or do play a couple of FTL runs for the same effect.
And then the players do go and mod even more danger and horror into the game so that the next story will be even better. Right now on DF I am working on a very hostile and quick to expand civilization of Giant Cave Spiders with necromantic powers and venom that does turn the victim into a thrall.
Losing is FUN.
I would personally love an MMO where you do play as a Dwarf Fortress' d0rf and must build a fortress along other players, all of the rest remaining exactly as it is on DF. Yet it would make modern computers explode. Other means to add unpredictability and an order so deep and complex it does look like pure chaos to the casual observer are needed. To pit players either as individuals or groups against each other does allow for a little bit of this.
On this specific point, that variety and unexpected encounters are needed, I absolutely agree, and advocated similar systems long ago.
But it's also an example of emergent stories that aren't driven by people scrambling to find the best way to ruin each others' day in PvP, which was my point.
Not that trying to ruin each others day isn't amusing. Some of my favorite stories come from Ker'rat. That being said, STO should stay as far away from EVE mechanics as physically possible, but it should have some form of territory control.
I actually think the story is underrated. Sure, there are no "Duet"s or "The Inner Light"s, but neither is there anything near as bad as "Spock's Brain" or "Shades of Gray". I'd say on average STO story missions are about at Enterprise level. (Makes sense, since STO borrows a lot from VOY and ENT :P)
And guess what are widely considered to be the weakest of the Star Treks? :rolleyes:
It is the way in which the unpredictability and the complexity do interact that does create very tragic yet amusing stories. This can also be observed on roguelikes for example. A character may not get beyond the fifth floor yet still spawn a story or a series of anecdotes worth telling. Or do play a couple of FTL runs for the same effect.
And then the players do go and mod even more danger and horror into the game so that the next story will be even better. Right now on DF I am working on a very hostile and quick to expand civilization of Giant Cave Spiders with necromantic powers and venom that does turn the victim into a thrall.
Losing is FUN.
Indeed it is.
There's a reason the most popular stories are of people fighting against the odds to achieve a happy ending. Theres a reason there are so many Die Hard movies, chick flicks exist, and the path of the hero is such a widely used plot basis. People want to fight against the odds and win.
Videogames are unique due to the audience (in this case the player) taking an active role in fighting the odds. Running out of ammo in Ravenholm, trying to save the Companion Cube, your last pickaxe breaking, accidentally giving a shipment of wooden swords to the nearby elven empire, running from giants when you hear the roar of a dragon, all of these things are "not good", but there the kind of things stories are born from. Circumstances out of your hands that either give you an impossible, lucky-beyond-all-reason win, or a gruesome, messy failure.
Either way, if it was ridiculous, you have to tell someone about it.
I would personally love an MMO where you do play as a Dwarf Fortress' d0rf and must build a fortress along other players, all of the rest remaining exactly as it is on DF. Yet it would make modern computers explode. Other means to add unpredictability and an order so deep and complex it does look like pure chaos to the casual observer are needed. To pit players either as individuals or groups against each other does allow for a little bit of this.
I once had a conversation about a Minecraft MMO. It basically boiled down to this. :P
As it stands, I think we're probably a few notches above "Gotham City Imposters", "Eve", or "Call of Duty", a few rungs below "Starcraft III", and noticeably below "Halo" or "WoW", much less any of the titles above.
Eve have a really interesting lore constantly evolving, with novels being released. However, if you are like 90% of eve player, and just play for the sandbox pewpew area, you won't heard of it.
Back to topic, if you don't want story released, what do you want ? More Nukara/New Romulus with their usual "kill that" "fetch this" quest ? More "grind this STF to death until you have something in 3years" ? More "grind this reputation for several month, to have the right to grind again for items" ? Or maybe more gamblebox ?
Some people talked about exploration, and I agree they need to add more. More diplomacy aswell. But those are story missions. Instead of pewpewing, you'll talk and explore. New Romulus or Nukara are not exploration or diplomacy, they are random MMO map.
So far, they do better episode than they copy and past others mmo.
i just came back to STO after a relly long break and i'm wondering-
how is it that i have already hit 50 (the lvl cap, right??) and am only on episode 2 of the second season of "story quests" and keep getting killed the enemies?
i just came back to STO after a relly long break and i'm wondering-
how is it that i have already hit 50 (the lvl cap, right??) and am only on episode 2 of the second season of "story quests" and keep getting killed the enemies?
wtf? this does not feel right.
someone help me figure out what i did wrong... ?
thanks
Get better equipment?
Try using some tactics instead of rushing in?
Eve have a really interesting lore constantly evolving, with novels being released. However, if you are like 90% of eve player, and just play for the sandbox pewpew area, you won't heard of it.
Back to topic, if you don't want story released, what do you want ? More Nukara/New Romulus with their usual "kill that" "fetch this" quest ? More "grind this STF to death until you have something in 3years" ? More "grind this reputation for several month, to have the right to grind again for items" ? Or maybe more gamblebox ?
Some people talked about exploration, and I agree they need to add more. More diplomacy aswell. But those are story missions. Instead of pewpewing, you'll talk and explore. New Romulus or Nukara are not exploration or diplomacy, they are random MMO map.
So far, they do better episode than they copy and past others mmo.
I do want content. I DO like New Romulus better than most missions because it's technically executed better.
I said I DID want more story content. And I want HOW it's made to get re-examined. As-in, the philosophy behind it.
Originally Posted by mrzeppo
i just came back to STO after a relly long break and i'm wondering-
how is it that i have already hit 50 (the lvl cap, right??) and am only on episode 2 of the second season of "story quests" and keep getting killed the enemies?
wtf? this does not feel right.
someone help me figure out what i did wrong... ?
thanks
Sounds like you are going through the story lines way too fast. Remember, the enemies are at your level, whether that level is 11 or 51. Therefore its wise to make the best use of the time not doing the missions straight away, but concentrating on things that will offer you the biggest upgrades for the least levelling - dilithium mining, tour the universe and the academy event both offer the chances to rack up credit/dilithium to spend on weapons, staff and ships whilst not levelling you (and therefore the PVE enemies) too quickly.
I've been level 51 for months , and I'm only two thirds of the way through the Cardassian missions - I hit level 50 about the time I was finishing up with the Klingon missions! I'd say I went a little too slowly though, as when I have picked up unique items (the Harpangh torpedo or reman shield for example) they have tended to be below the level required for me to bother using them. Hitting level 50 is the biggest step - I still had some uncommon mk ix equipment, when the game was geared at that level towards players with better weapons. Once I got these weapons, I was fine.
Of course, if you are rocking a ship with the highest grade you can buy very rare weaponry and consoles, staffed by very rare officers, you might be better off finding another game!
Also in regards to the OP and the comparison between TV episodes and game 'episodes'.
I'm a huge Enterprise fan. I've rewatched it all several times, and almost every episode is more memorable to me than the game episodes.
I've never been a fan of TOS (too cheesy and underproduced for someone my age IMO).
TNG I watched an awful lot as a teenager when it was on TV, I can't really remember any of the episodes, although I've never bothered to rewatch them. Likewise DS9 and Voyager, although the weird thing is - I've rewatched many of those episodes and other than when major characters have joined or left, I can't really remember any of the other episodes as well as I can remember some of the STO storylines (particularly the whole Drozana time travel business!)
The story would be so much better if the episodes were better at telling it......more like stranded in space and less like a btran cluster kill the bad guy on a generic star base, or a kill 3 tiers of enemy space ships, it gets old, predictable and boring.
We still have not seen any major content to tell the story, only grind repeatable missions that are so not trek could be anything else reskinned i hate the grind sto has become. I miss progressing by playing mission story content. Someone lost the trek here, i blame steven d'angelo for the snow ball that is the not fun grind we have today.
If he would of focused on content instead of f2p grind sto would be much better off. We should of seen so much episodic content by now that we could naturally progress to fleet admiral (without mote grind systems).
Sounds like you are going through the story lines way too fast. Remember, the enemies are at your level, whether that level is 11 or 51. Therefore its wise to make the best use of the time not doing the missions straight away, but concentrating on things that will offer you the biggest upgrades for the least levelling - dilithium mining, tour the universe and the academy event both offer the chances to rack up credit/dilithium to spend on weapons, staff and ships whilst not levelling you (and therefore the PVE enemies) too quickly.
I've been level 51 for months , and I'm only two thirds of the way through the Cardassian missions - I hit level 50 about the time I was finishing up with the Klingon missions! I'd say I went a little too slowly though, as when I have picked up unique items (the Harpangh torpedo or reman shield for example) they have tended to be below the level required for me to bother using them. Hitting level 50 is the biggest step - I still had some uncommon mk ix equipment, when the game was geared at that level towards players with better weapons. Once I got these weapons, I was fine.
Of course, if you are rocking a ship with the highest grade you can buy very rare weaponry and consoles, staffed by very rare officers, you might be better off finding another game!
thanks!
i had not realized that it was possible to lvl "too fast" and hit cap too early! it's facinating, and now i realize what i need to do in order to not get pawned by the mobs in each episode.
i'll focus on grinding for the best gear!
any more advice and what to do / where to go in the game to accomplish this?
I do want content. I DO like New Romulus better than most missions because it's technically executed better.
I said I DID want more story content. And I want HOW it's made to get re-examined. As-in, the philosophy behind it.
I think the problem is a difference between what it is, versus what it's made out of. Cryptic wants it to be made out of lots of easy to make activities, and players want huge epic set pieces with sweeping stories surrounding them.
I do think that Cryptic needs to take more risks like New Romulus, but I think that players do need to be more accepting of the smaller things. That being said, Cryptic needs to give us more smaller things. :P
I think the problem is a difference between what it is, versus what it's made out of. Cryptic wants it to be made out of lots of easy to make activities, and players want huge epic set pieces with sweeping stories surrounding them.
I do think that Cryptic needs to take more risks like New Romulus, but I think that players do need to be more accepting of the smaller things. That being said, Cryptic needs to give us more smaller things. :P
Well, I'm in the category that would be fine with set pieces being once or twice a year.
But there needs to be content between. And not just things to delay people between set pieces but stories that are not set pieces.
Thing is, every time a player suggests this, devs look at them like they're crazy for wanting non-set piece story content.
Heck, when Dan Stahl talked about his "Founders of the Federation" season pitch which involved officially adopting a bunch of Foundry missions, even THAT proposal of his involved creating new Foundry set pieces.
And I don't want to turn down any asset additions to the Foundry because there are good assets we haven't gotten yet.
But I don't see the Foundry as hurting for assets or mechanics at this point.
If people aren't playing, it's because the missions aren't official or quality vetted. It's not the mechanics. We can do just about anything the early Featured Episodes could do now. It's not the variety of maps.
Let Tumerboy work on the next adventure zone or Fleet Action or replica interior, I say.
It's really just volume of vetted, official stories that people can treat as continuing the Star Trek story post-Nemesis. They won't be canon. But if they're pretty good, have some action, and are CBS approved, people will play them.
Now, sure, if a mission is annoying/silly, people critique the rewards.
But take the critical hits. What Lies Beneath. Coliseum. Who USES those rewards? Sure, NO reward and nobody would play. But they aren't rewards people need multiples of and I think people would play just for dilithium. But it's just a good couple of missions and they'd be just as good if we'd seen those maps in other missions.
You are as much part of a story in a good quality sandbox with only loose objectives and procedurally generated content. I would dare say you are more part of the story than in a heavily scripted game.
In a heavily scripted game stuff does happen because of authorial fiat and nothing else. When your captain does save the day it was not because of your actions but because of the script. When your captain does fail it was not because of your lack of skill but because the script did demand so. What input did you have in the story? What part did you play in the plot? Your input has no value. It is not your character's story at all. You do nothing but to watch the story play before your eyes and imagine it was actually your character's accomplishment.
Compare this to, to use an example I do know about, an MMO with heavy faction and guild based gameplay like territorial control that does actually matter and does make a difference. That enemy wizard you did finish off with an awesome critical hit while protecting city X or fortress Y from an enemy faction or guild? That did influence the world. A world that could have been different. And that did influence the outcome of the battle. A battle your faction could have lost. The way you did build your character, the way you did plan his or her development, the skill you did pick to use and the equipment he or she had at the time did write a few paragraphs in the story of that world. It was not scripted. It could have been different. Your skill and your choices did make it this way.
Is that not to be truly part of a story and part of a world?
There is a reason why most of the really interesting anecdotes in gaming do come from roguelikes, from Dwarf Fortress, from PvP heavy games, or from random ocurrences in an otherwise scripted game.
But there is no story to be a part of in what you describe. It's just a shoot 'em up and min-max fest, neither of which interest me. I don't like pvp, period. These "unscripted" scenarios you are describing all feel the same over time because it's just a series of battles. I like battles, but I also like a reason for doing them beyond just fighting.
Story brings mystery, it brings personality, it brings emotion (well-written ones do), it brings a variety of activities to further along the story beyond just having the best equipment/stats/hand-eye coordination.
So, no, what you are describing is not immersive to me on it's own. There is no purpose other than see who can get the best build and gear or who uses the best tactics. That's great for a FPS, not so much in an RPG. If I want to play an FPS, I'll do that in a game dedicated to that, not in an MMO.
Note as I've said before, I like combat and adventure zones and dailies and the like -- in addition to immersive storyline content. But -- for me -- simply relying on game mechanics to carry the game doesn't cut it. It gets old and repetitive. As much as I enjoy combat, it's not enough on it's own to hold my interest.
Also note that your comments about character build, equipment, and development apply whether there is storyline content or not.
Without good, immersive storyline content, STO could become that game I come back to every once in a while for some sci-fi action, but would not be my main game, and certainly not one I would invest money in.
Comments
I think I can create 3 WoW lore/week.
I can't say the STO stories are the best I've seen, but some of them are "cool" (which mean average), few of them are more than that (coliseum is awesome IMO, but more for the setting etc than the story in itself).
TOR have good and bad stories. Play Imperial Agent, and you have a really awesome story. Play Consular, and you'll be bored to death.
I only played Secret World during beta, and the only story I've seen was the story of my character, who was, it seems, a bit dumb, and clearly mute, meeting people eager to tell their life story to my character. But now, I start thinking my character was a borg. It clearly looked like one.
GW2 story is as fascinating as 2 random guys talking about something you don't understand. You are rapidly annoyed, and not involved. The lore is not that bad, even if it clearly lacks imagination, and is for the whole family. But the story is YAWN... We were about 10 playing this game together. I was the only to finish the whole storyline. The others simply dropped it sooner or later because it was really annoying.
So far, the best videogame stories I had was Mass Effect 1 (not counting the 2 others one, the 2 was decent, the 3 was... well, you know...), Dragon Age (great lore, mature, and the story were great), and Jade Empire. The lore behind Homeworld was really awesome for those who had the game manual. 2/3 of this manual was lore. Really nice story.
Telling a story requires control of the story. Despite how authors often talk about characters running away from them, it's still all a product of their own mind, just unexpected ideas.. Telling a good story requires taking human nature into account, but 'emergent' stories are always another thing entirely. Unless people are focused on actually telling a story - that is, roleplaying, and being one myself i know what a minority we are - it just mirrors history, which is only ever a tale about who was left, not who was right.
Long enogh to run a wormhole starbase for an allience, be involved in 0.0 for a while, watch the Goon/BoB BS from afar, get ganked in losec enough times to learn that there's nothing worth bothering with there, deal with an endless stream of salvage vultures, and watch a hisec suicide ganking.
Not much, but putting the sort of people who populate PvP sandboxes in charge would quickly wipe away even the veneer.
All your proposal, of having the most powerful player groups set policy, would do is cement the power of those who manage to conquer the most.
Emergent stories are not about 'telling' a story. They are about 'writing' one. As I did say Videogames as a medium are interactive. MMOs as a medium are both interactive and social. If you are being 'told' a story you are not 'interacting' with the world. You are passive observer.
People in this thread did say they want to be part of the world and the story. That is only possible if the story and the narrative is being spawned by the players' actions and ambitions as well as by the gameplay mechanics.
And there is an impossible to ignore artificiality on being 'told' a story. It does not matter when you are watching a movie or reading a book but it does matter when you are playing a game. How much do you actually deserve the praise you do receive? How much do you actually deserve to win? How much did your actions actually modify the outcome?
Would you prefer to have an NPC captain declare how much does he respect your character regardless of how many times did you fail the mission and how much did you suck at the game or would you prefer to gain the respect of an enemy player and make a new friend by fighting one mean duel? Would you prefer to always be able to finish the mission and win the day or to be the first to arrive to a battle just to discover both you and the first enemy player to arrive are using builds and equipment that do make it impossible for you to kill each other and have instead to wait for the rest of your respective armies while discussing music and fooling around?
Few writers would be able to capture the later moments. I doubt any of them does write videogames.
Then you should know the difference between Realm vs Realm PvP and a sandboxy game like EVE. What I did describe in my example is nothing like EVE.
At least the sort of people who does populate PvP sandboxes and Realm vs Realm PvP games would not make me feel two thirds of the team are being carried by the remaining third every time I do play a fleet action. Even the worst player I have met in Realm vs Realm PvP games and sandboxy PvP games did understand the game he or she was playing much better than most of the players here do.
So the ones who do actually understand the game and able to play it properly are not the ones who should be rewarded?
I'd prefer to not pretend that PvP sandbox gameplay is story. It's one thing to want to actually feel like part of the story, like you can actually affect the world, and an entirely different thing to enter such a system. For the most part, people end up someone else's peon or struggling to make a sand castle that a bigger and stronger group can come crush with trivial effort, and probably just for lulz. Actual storytelling is individual or cooperative, not antagonistic. The only 'stories' that come out of 'emergent' PvP are narratives woven outside the action itself. It's possible to have two groups craft a story together and agree that the final outcome will be decided on a battlefield, but that lives in a different conceptual space than Eve and its brethren naturally support with their mechanics.
I'd prefer a game that mostly lets me do and build on my own thing, possibly joining with others, without having to look over my shoulder every ****ing second or having some petty armchair tyrant dictate laws to me because their epeen is bigger. Something more like a hybrid selecting out the good aspects of current STO and very early SWG.
Because those games viciously select out players who just want to log in and have a good time and not have to struggle just to get anywhere. Dealing with idiots is a hazard of being inclusive. Don't want to risk dealing with idiots, queue privately.
By controlling the gameplay experience of everyone else? **** no!
Goodness Captain Sourpuss. I think that outlook is way more abysmal than it needs to be. :P
To things like this, I always have to bring up the great content drought that took place after the 2800. During that period of almost six months we got two missions. Two. During that same time period since Season Six, we got Starbases and all of that madness (though, that's arguably not that much :P), Nukura, New Romulus, the improved winter event, and a bunch of new missions. And that six months isn't even over yet. I don't think it's so bad.
And least not yet. :P
So in your opinion the Romance of the Three Kingdoms is not a great story and a great novel because 70% of it is historical fact and 30% of it is romantized historical fact? They were not trying to cooperatively tell a story. They were trying to conquer china by killing all of the other guys' doods. Most of them were someone else's peons. Most of their great works were later crushed by the almost trivial efforts of bigger fish with mad warmongering skillz.
Their lives, their deeds, their tragedies, and their triumphs do still make one of the greatest and most complex tales ever told.
Did you you ever hear of single player games?
In my experience those games do bring out the best and the worst in people. An extremely controlled enviroment does bring neither. And if someone does just want to have a good time without dealing with other people should he or she not be playing a single player game instead? I do not understand people who does log into a multiplayer game and then is angry because they have to deal and compete with other players.
A game that you can't lose is not a game at all. And when we are not even penalized for blowing up we are already dangerously close to being The Sims... In Space!
Any game that does allow you to influence the world, influence the story, or interact with other players will have you influencing the gameplay experience of others.
Should we remove Kerrat because BoPs ambushing distracted Feddies does negatively influence their gameplay experience? Should we remove Fleet Actions because players who do not understand which part of the phaser to point at the enemy does negatively influence the gameplay experience of players who do? Should we disband bigger fleets because their existence does negatively influence the gameplay experience of the smaller ones? Should we remove zone chat because what does transpire there does negatively influence the gameplay experience of anyone literate and with a working brain? Should we remove Drozana Station because the ERPers there do negatively influence the gameplay experience of anyone with taste? Should we remove STFs because terribad players do negatively influence the experience of good players? Should we remove the fast and the flurrious because players who are better at it do negatively influence the experience of players who are awful at it? Etc. Etc. Etc.
If we do follow this path to its conclusion we do end with a single player game with no difficulty settings other than 'Press button to win' available.
In all Realm vs Realm games I did play it was always up to ten guilds that did decide policy (strategy, focus, taxation, etc). Why? Because they are the most powerful guilds. They are the ones able to take and defend fortresses and territory. They are the ones with the best and more dedicated players. They are the ones with the better organization. They are the ones with the better contacts in the enemy realms' guilds. They are the ones that can bribe the enemy powerful guilds and have the clout to make alliances with them. If for example they all decide to attack territory A and territory B then small guilds attacking territory C and territory D will not manage to do much. If they decide to just sit in their fortress and wait the storm to pass when the enemy realms do ally against their own the small guilds will have no chance to protect what little holdings they have. If they decide to allow an enemy great guild to take Territory E in exchange of something the poor guys trying to defend that territory will be slaughtered when they have to face an enemy great guild without the backing of an allied one.
You cannot have any kind of territory control or serious PvP without it all being controlled by a few powerful guilds. The smaller guilds do become vassals because that's the nature of conflict itself: The weaklings can fight on their own and be anihilated or they can follow the powerful into battle and maybe be the extra presure the great guilds do need to win against the enemy great guilds, which would allow the small guilds to receive some loot and spoils of their own.
That's a valuable to know life lesson. And it was my point that you do not need a script to have meaningful morals and points. You do only need emergent gameplay and people doing what people does.
And on the topic of epicness do show me a single story in STO that's more interesting, complex, and full of twists and turns than some of the most famous tales of Dwarf Fortress playthroughs for example.
The problem is not with the products. The problem is that you aren't movable enough.
The worst Michael Bay movies have characters and themes worth analyzing and exploring for thousands of pages. The worst of Ed Wood's films are worth watching.
Bad narrative is not a reason to give up on narrative.
And most books, films, etc. have compelling characters. Most stories are fairly good stories. The big area where things fall apart is structure and mastery of execution.
Most books, movies, and even video games overwhelm me with the sheer volume and density of their characterization, meaning, moral and social implications. Five minutes of commercials have so much value, characterization, and idea in them that I could devote my life to unpacking them.
It isn't that it isn't there. It's that you're insisting it doesn't exist because you can't see it.
R.I.P
And for the people living it, it was a long, brutal, hard-fought war. The story was told by others, and the enjoyment of the story was had by others (except perhaps some of the ruling class). That's the point.
That's a big straw man you're stuffing, there. There's a whole lot of middle ground between not dealing with others at all and having your ability to participate in the game entirely dictated by others. And PvE does not need to be the 'win only' scenario that it's generally devolved to, nor do I advocate it being such.
This is where that giant wall of blather starts being worth responding to.
That's not a life lesson, that's a life reenactment. I know full well that's how real life works. Every adult either does or damn well should. I deal with real life every day. I play games because I am successful enough in real life to have the spare resources to do things that don't involve dealing with real life.
The emergent gameplay of Dwarf Fortress is a terrible analogy to PvP sandbox games because there's still one nearly-godlike being (the player) living above and influencing everything. Epic LPs of Dwarf Fortress invariably involve a lot of dwarves who live short, meaningless, miserable lives, though at least it's not (usually) inflicted on the dwarves by each other.
Yet when we are talking of 'being part of the story' that's exactly what it means: To be part inside the story. Not to be the one being told it afterwards.
They actually said they do want to feel as a part of the story and the world. If they did want to feel part of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms they have to feel as part of a long, brutal, hard-fought war. If they do want to be part of a story about war and a time of chaos (every MMO out there, give or take a couple) and they feel like they are going through a long, brutal, and hard-fought war while everything does collapse around them the story is good.
An emergent game can tell that story much more easily than an scripted one, more so when the writer of the later is a penny dreadful hack. And the meaning will be stronger as it will not be something that someone did come up with in a flight of fancy. It will something that did happen.
Let us keep this civil.
We are not going to get anywhere if we go down that path.
The person I did answer to did not say he did want an escapist fantasy. He did say he did want a story with meaning, depth, morals, and actual points being made. Any such story will be closely related to life.
If you do want an escapist fantasy then go ahead. :S
We are both discussing different things.
From the start my points are:
1. An emergent story can be as meaningful, if not more, than a scripted story done by a hack writer.
2. The themes, morals, and points of an emergent story can be controlled by the designer of the enviroment in which the story will take place.
You are not discussing those topics. You are discussing the role of the player in the story. That's of no importance in this case. The case is that the story, once finished, will be an emergent story as meaningful, if not more, than a scripted story done by a hack writer regardless of whether you were the main character or extra #427209178192731. And the case is that the themes, the morals, and the points will have been controlled by designer of the enviroment.
I will add now a third point:
3. The player able to influence the world and the story far more in an emergent tale than in a scripted one.
All topics not related to these three points are not what I am discussing about. If we do continue with this we will be running in circles because you will keep talking about the poor unskilled player that does suffer the exploitation of his or her betters while I am discussing emergent storytelling. You being God-Emperor of MMOLand or being the downtroded masses is of no importance to my point.
If you do insist to discuss gameplay and perceived fairness instead we will have to agree to disagree.
I do believe if you do not have the skill to be the best you do not have the right to the things the best do enjoy. Yes, the great guilds do exploit and abuse the lesser guilds and freelance players. It is their right. They did reach the top. They did have to fight and win to reach it. The others did not reach it. It is fair that the powerful rule and the weak are ruled regardless of it being IRL or in a game. It is in accordance to the celestial order. It is exactly as it should be.
When I do PvP in that enviroment I do get killed a lot. I do kill a lot. I do abuse a lot. I am abused a lot. I do make great friends. I do keep deep grudges. I do have fun both ways. You do not. To each his or her own.
@ stoleviathan99:
I did not say bad narrative is a reason to give up on narrative. I do love narrative. There are great narrative works that reach depths of analysis and understanding not many of us would be able to reach on our own. There are great narrative works that do reach such a beauty of execution the impact of the events themselves would be diminished without it. There are great narrative works that deal with ideas and concepts that go beyond the realm we are able to experience with our senses and through our daily lives.
Yet the stories on STO are not so.
Which does bring me back to the point:
1. An emergent story can be as meaningful, if not more, than a scripted story done by a hack writer.
2. The themes, morals, and points of an emergent story can be controlled by the designer of the enviroment in which the story will take place.
3. The player able to influence the world and the story far more in an emergent tale than in a scripted one.
We are not talking Borges and Tarkovsky here. We are talking terribad stories with awful writing, criminal pase, and painful dialogue. If an emergent story can do everything STO story currently does and do it better with little cost to the already over-stretched developers what practical point is there not to do so? We even have the mission creator whose name I do never remember to keep scripted stories both good and bad coming.
The game will benefit far more from Klinkies who do actually get stuff to buy (bloody clothes to begin with!), less bugs, balanced and diverse PvP, better ground combat (as in ground combat that does not make sure I do never do a ground mission), more raids and high level instances, territorial control, more factions, and more C-Store goodies than it will benefit from yet another cringe worthy episode series that does nothing but nauseate literate people.
As I did say to you in a perfect world (trolololol) we would have both the stories and the gameplay content. With Cryptic's few resources, small team, and terribad coding skillz we do have to prioritize. I did just propose a way to cover both bases while making a better game.
I do need to have Antimatter Spread in my Bopiest of BoPs every bloody time I do visit Kerrat just to not get ganked the moment the map does reset. I do leave for almost a year (or was it half a year?) and that bug is still here.
They need to focus their resources, not to spread them even more.
Not hardly. The player may be able to control everything about their Dwarves lives down to when they eat and sleep, but the game world is still very much out of the players hands. The fun of Dwarf Fortress comes from the massive, horrible curveballs the game throws at you, and the resulting insanity.
The problem STO faces is it's near constant inability to surprise anyone. With a franchise like Star Trek, with it being based in facing the unknown and all, being consistent is our curse rather than our blessing.
I believe that if the queued "grind" missions had randomized, bizarre, "Jack in the Box" like events that made things interesting, we would be more accepting of them, or at least complain about them less.
Take the "Starbase Assault" five man mission. Design wise, it's incredibly boring. Fight 4 groups of randomized enemies, and if you beat them all within a time limit, you get a Boss level, and if you beat that, you get extra rewards.
*Yawn*
How boring.
But what if we took that same mission, and to it, we made it so there was a small chance the Boss fight came first, and you didn't have to slug your way through popcorn enemies? Or a third group that attacked you and your attackers indiscriminately? And the Klingons are allied with the Naussicans, Orions, and Gorn. Why can't we have mixed race fleets? Slave Battleships backing up Neg'Vars would be terrifying!
Why can't we have stuff like that? It wouldn't be that hard.
I haven't seen reviews of the game praising its storylines.
/thread
No, no, no. As I said earlier it wasn't the reviews, it was the players constantly demanding more story that was getting to me. They keep asking for something that I'm not sure is worth asking for. That was why I created this thread.
I guess I should change the OP now, but eh......
On this specific point, that variety and unexpected encounters are needed, I absolutely agree, and advocated similar systems long ago.
But it's also an example of emergent stories that aren't driven by people scrambling to find the best way to ruin each others' day in PvP, which was my point.
Most of the trouble is how the missions don't link to each other very well, in the campaigns. The Klingon Campaign is the worst, and it's probably the majority of what everyone sees, though the Cardassian Campaign is almost as bad in its disunity.
Enterprise seasons 1-2, or Enterprise seasons 3-4? There's a big difference.
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them."
-Thomas Marrone
I want it to be worth asking for. I don't think that's insurmountably hard.
Studios accomplish that all the time on budgets much, much smaller than Cryptic's.
I'd LIKE for it to get mentions in the same breath as games like "Dishonored", "Journey", "Catherine", "The Walking Dead", "The Secret World", "I Am Alive", "Analogue", "Sleeping Dogs", "Deus Ex: Human Revolution", "Arkham City", or even "Darksiders II."
As it stands, I think we're probably a few notches above "Gotham City Imposters", "Eve", or "Call of Duty", a few rungs below "Starcraft III", and noticeably below "Halo" or "WoW", much less any of the titles above.
And we're about to be outdone by a Star Trek action shooter in the story department. And, y'know, I can totally tolerate STO being outdone on voice acting, graphics, and cinematics by the "Star Trek" shooter. But being outdone on story is a real shame, because good story isn't the expensive part to produce.
And I don't blame Kestrel... although I think I might blame the fact that there's just ONE Kestrel and that the writer is treated as such an ancillary support role, more aimed at justifying what Cryptic does than providing direction.
It's an example of emergent stories that are driven by the world scrambling to find the best way to kill your d0rfs in amusing ways and bring chaos down upon your fortress in a totally unexpected way so that Armok is kept entertained and the world does survive another day. :P
It is the way in which the unpredictability and the complexity do interact that does create very tragic yet amusing stories. This can also be observed on roguelikes for example. A character may not get beyond the fifth floor yet still spawn a story or a series of anecdotes worth telling. Or do play a couple of FTL runs for the same effect.
And then the players do go and mod even more danger and horror into the game so that the next story will be even better. Right now on DF I am working on a very hostile and quick to expand civilization of Giant Cave Spiders with necromantic powers and venom that does turn the victim into a thrall.
Losing is FUN.
I would personally love an MMO where you do play as a Dwarf Fortress' d0rf and must build a fortress along other players, all of the rest remaining exactly as it is on DF. Yet it would make modern computers explode. Other means to add unpredictability and an order so deep and complex it does look like pure chaos to the casual observer are needed. To pit players either as individuals or groups against each other does allow for a little bit of this.
Not that trying to ruin each others day isn't amusing. Some of my favorite stories come from Ker'rat. That being said, STO should stay as far away from EVE mechanics as physically possible, but it should have some form of territory control.
And guess what are widely considered to be the weakest of the Star Treks? :rolleyes:
Indeed it is.
There's a reason the most popular stories are of people fighting against the odds to achieve a happy ending. Theres a reason there are so many Die Hard movies, chick flicks exist, and the path of the hero is such a widely used plot basis. People want to fight against the odds and win.
Videogames are unique due to the audience (in this case the player) taking an active role in fighting the odds. Running out of ammo in Ravenholm, trying to save the Companion Cube, your last pickaxe breaking, accidentally giving a shipment of wooden swords to the nearby elven empire, running from giants when you hear the roar of a dragon, all of these things are "not good", but there the kind of things stories are born from. Circumstances out of your hands that either give you an impossible, lucky-beyond-all-reason win, or a gruesome, messy failure.
Either way, if it was ridiculous, you have to tell someone about it.
I once had a conversation about a Minecraft MMO. It basically boiled down to this. :P
Back to topic, if you don't want story released, what do you want ? More Nukara/New Romulus with their usual "kill that" "fetch this" quest ? More "grind this STF to death until you have something in 3years" ? More "grind this reputation for several month, to have the right to grind again for items" ? Or maybe more gamblebox ?
Some people talked about exploration, and I agree they need to add more. More diplomacy aswell. But those are story missions. Instead of pewpewing, you'll talk and explore. New Romulus or Nukara are not exploration or diplomacy, they are random MMO map.
So far, they do better episode than they copy and past others mmo.
how is it that i have already hit 50 (the lvl cap, right??) and am only on episode 2 of the second season of "story quests" and keep getting killed the enemies?
wtf? this does not feel right.
someone help me figure out what i did wrong... ?
thanks
Get better equipment?
Try using some tactics instead of rushing in?
I do want content. I DO like New Romulus better than most missions because it's technically executed better.
I said I DID want more story content. And I want HOW it's made to get re-examined. As-in, the philosophy behind it.
Sounds like you are going through the story lines way too fast. Remember, the enemies are at your level, whether that level is 11 or 51. Therefore its wise to make the best use of the time not doing the missions straight away, but concentrating on things that will offer you the biggest upgrades for the least levelling - dilithium mining, tour the universe and the academy event both offer the chances to rack up credit/dilithium to spend on weapons, staff and ships whilst not levelling you (and therefore the PVE enemies) too quickly.
I've been level 51 for months , and I'm only two thirds of the way through the Cardassian missions - I hit level 50 about the time I was finishing up with the Klingon missions! I'd say I went a little too slowly though, as when I have picked up unique items (the Harpangh torpedo or reman shield for example) they have tended to be below the level required for me to bother using them. Hitting level 50 is the biggest step - I still had some uncommon mk ix equipment, when the game was geared at that level towards players with better weapons. Once I got these weapons, I was fine.
Of course, if you are rocking a ship with the highest grade you can buy very rare weaponry and consoles, staffed by very rare officers, you might be better off finding another game!
I'm a huge Enterprise fan. I've rewatched it all several times, and almost every episode is more memorable to me than the game episodes.
I've never been a fan of TOS (too cheesy and underproduced for someone my age IMO).
TNG I watched an awful lot as a teenager when it was on TV, I can't really remember any of the episodes, although I've never bothered to rewatch them. Likewise DS9 and Voyager, although the weird thing is - I've rewatched many of those episodes and other than when major characters have joined or left, I can't really remember any of the other episodes as well as I can remember some of the STO storylines (particularly the whole Drozana time travel business!)
We still have not seen any major content to tell the story, only grind repeatable missions that are so not trek could be anything else reskinned i hate the grind sto has become. I miss progressing by playing mission story content. Someone lost the trek here, i blame steven d'angelo for the snow ball that is the not fun grind we have today.
If he would of focused on content instead of f2p grind sto would be much better off. We should of seen so much episodic content by now that we could naturally progress to fleet admiral (without mote grind systems).
thanks!
i had not realized that it was possible to lvl "too fast" and hit cap too early! it's facinating, and now i realize what i need to do in order to not get pawned by the mobs in each episode.
i'll focus on grinding for the best gear!
any more advice and what to do / where to go in the game to accomplish this?
I think the problem is a difference between what it is, versus what it's made out of. Cryptic wants it to be made out of lots of easy to make activities, and players want huge epic set pieces with sweeping stories surrounding them.
I do think that Cryptic needs to take more risks like New Romulus, but I think that players do need to be more accepting of the smaller things. That being said, Cryptic needs to give us more smaller things. :P
Well, I'm in the category that would be fine with set pieces being once or twice a year.
But there needs to be content between. And not just things to delay people between set pieces but stories that are not set pieces.
Thing is, every time a player suggests this, devs look at them like they're crazy for wanting non-set piece story content.
Heck, when Dan Stahl talked about his "Founders of the Federation" season pitch which involved officially adopting a bunch of Foundry missions, even THAT proposal of his involved creating new Foundry set pieces.
And I don't want to turn down any asset additions to the Foundry because there are good assets we haven't gotten yet.
But I don't see the Foundry as hurting for assets or mechanics at this point.
If people aren't playing, it's because the missions aren't official or quality vetted. It's not the mechanics. We can do just about anything the early Featured Episodes could do now. It's not the variety of maps.
Let Tumerboy work on the next adventure zone or Fleet Action or replica interior, I say.
It's really just volume of vetted, official stories that people can treat as continuing the Star Trek story post-Nemesis. They won't be canon. But if they're pretty good, have some action, and are CBS approved, people will play them.
Now, sure, if a mission is annoying/silly, people critique the rewards.
But take the critical hits. What Lies Beneath. Coliseum. Who USES those rewards? Sure, NO reward and nobody would play. But they aren't rewards people need multiples of and I think people would play just for dilithium. But it's just a good couple of missions and they'd be just as good if we'd seen those maps in other missions.
But there is no story to be a part of in what you describe. It's just a shoot 'em up and min-max fest, neither of which interest me. I don't like pvp, period. These "unscripted" scenarios you are describing all feel the same over time because it's just a series of battles. I like battles, but I also like a reason for doing them beyond just fighting.
Story brings mystery, it brings personality, it brings emotion (well-written ones do), it brings a variety of activities to further along the story beyond just having the best equipment/stats/hand-eye coordination.
So, no, what you are describing is not immersive to me on it's own. There is no purpose other than see who can get the best build and gear or who uses the best tactics. That's great for a FPS, not so much in an RPG. If I want to play an FPS, I'll do that in a game dedicated to that, not in an MMO.
Note as I've said before, I like combat and adventure zones and dailies and the like -- in addition to immersive storyline content. But -- for me -- simply relying on game mechanics to carry the game doesn't cut it. It gets old and repetitive. As much as I enjoy combat, it's not enough on it's own to hold my interest.
Also note that your comments about character build, equipment, and development apply whether there is storyline content or not.
Without good, immersive storyline content, STO could become that game I come back to every once in a while for some sci-fi action, but would not be my main game, and certainly not one I would invest money in.