As some of you may or may not have heard, research is being done into a completely new style of wan, eventually replacing the internet (they hope) and providing extra functionality to computers. The concept is this- not getting enough power to run your games? Then why not use the processing power of another computer in you house (15 units), still not enough why not use your dvd player (4 units), television (3 units) and your microwave (1 unit)? Still need more power why not nab some off someone elses pc?
The Grid is a huge interconnection between everything. The bottlenecks that occur in the internet due to its structure have been vaporised by the research done by physicists. Many Grids today are only on small scale, but people are hoping to make it larger.

A few years into the past, the government sets up an agency for ''National Security and Peace'', but this agency ends up growing alot larger than the government surpassing out of their control. They then go on to found another agency which again surpasses that of alot more major governments. In public they are called ''Global Trade and Alliances'' (i dunno something to do with keeping peace, much like UN), but in secret they are known as the Echelon.
So the story is set not so far in the future, with people ascustomed to The Grid. Our small rebel faction made up of our team members is involved in many underground activities (and have been outlawed)- e.g Mercenaries, Hackers, Thiefs, Engineer and Chemist are among some of their shared skills. They know that the Echelon is using The Grid to spy upon people and they know this is a breach of human freedom as they can snoop on any one in the world. They are trying to ''get at them'', but as you see it is most often them who are often got at. They are constantly on the move trying to evade the Echelon''s grasp.
Theres an old computer kept on for memorial reasons, which is at the heart of the Security bank, which they need to break into. To be able to get anything into this ''weak'' link they need to break into the place where its stored and insert whatever it is (not decided yet, maybe have to steal a really advanced virus from soemwhere else, ro they program a worm) into this old computer which could gain them root access to some potentially important computers that may help their mission.
On escape two of the team members get cut off from the rest of the team, one being captured the other making back to the team. Hes been followed and there is a frantic escape. They are able to hideout somewhere, and the other captured team member somehow makes it back after tracking them- turns out he wasnt captured after all.
Then another character some story focuses around him(i wont go into too much detail), and they''re again off when another team member has a new weapons deal. They set off again, and all seems pretty calm at this point. Though there is something strange about the character who got captured, he doesnt seem to be speaking much (he does in game), and getting all philosophical(which he likes doing). Then they find him in a room alone... He shot himself. No One has any idea why, confusion.
The story blacks out, and you find back at weapons place (we dont know what else to do apart from weapons place at mo) and its an ambush. One of the characters whos especially good at long range shooting manages to basically save everyone, but fast evasion. They find out that the character who shot himself had in fact betrayed himself for his life.
You also later on find out about another team working not along side you, but in ''co-operation'' with you (like you get alliances between countries really).
They later find out the Echelon is in fact not spying on people but using The Grid to control people. Since everything like clocks and shit is running off The Grid, they can slow down time and so therefore peoples own biological clocks, they can give people food poisoning by making the microwaves run off low power, make cars crash... etc
A bit later half the other team joins your team for whatever reason (they have a goal too great that could mean something potentially bad?).

There are some other concepts such as the downloaded consciousnesses in The Grid ''living'', and the living program they have to ''chase'', which allows us them to travel into the grid,
e.g You start playing the game and its set in this future, and you see the people go on the computer,
then suddenly it switches to an old style medieval kingdom.

We were experimenting with the idea of the other team wanting to detroy the world to pave the way for a new world, and that you end up competing for it with the other team.


Whew I tried to cut out nearly all the little sub plots (even the friendship between two members and they must go to some strange far off place and find true power within themselves.. ), and its still huge. damn. oh well there you go, tell me what you think.

The post above is correct for all the wrong reasons.

Ok, so you have a good plot idea. Guess what, im still not interested. I read your plot and thought ''meh, sounds like shadowrun. But to make it truly original, it has the most overused plot device known to man....a conspiracy!'' In other words, what does this game offer that no other game has so far? Well, all its offering is a *different take on a cut and paste adventure*

For me, thinking about sitting down and listening to all the plot twists and evil conspiracy ideas makes me feel soooo bored. I couldn’t care less what they have in store; its probably NO different from every other game (let me guess, they want...power....money...and control?). I just couldn’t be assed listening to yet another variation of the same damn thing...again

I think this is why I cant play Beyond good and evil. Its just another conspiracy plot...a GOOD conspiracy plot, but just another one all the same.

To make me interested, you would need to do something so that the baddie isn’t generic, the overall goal hasn’t been done 10000 times, and the characters haven’t been used 100000 times.

A perfect example is the cartoons that are coming out these days.
If you make a cartoon where there is an evil guy who is trying to take over the world, and the main characters are a ragtag bunch of people who try to stop him every week, chances are it will die. It might of been good 15 years ago (eg. He-man, Transformers), but these days people are wanting more.
So you have cartoons that go much deeper, like Trigun, or if you haven’t heard of that, something even like X-men. In a way it still has that basic plot (stop the bad guy), but has added in so many of its own twists to the genre that you don’t ever think of it as just that.

So instead of your plot being a run-of-the-mill conspiracy deal, you need to do something that hasn’t been done before (and try to not think of game design, only plot).
Maybe have it so that the ''baddies'' arnt that bad, they just think they know what is best. But the rebels think that it is too controlling, and in a stupid attempt to stop them they accidentally go too large with an EMP device and destroy heaps more of the grid that they anticipated, and a chain reaction creates a divide between the two halves of the country. This splits the country in two and costs millions of lives as those stuck in the middle are without any power, and the player is responsible for it.
Forward 20 years and the player is a bit older and wiser. The two factions of the country have developed in very different ways, but no-one has seen the other side ever since the gap was made (about 2 weeks walk through the dead zone..no electricity). The way of life that people were clinging onto (pretty much the same as it was before the divide) is starting to fade. Power stations are dying, and the repairs require resources on the other side. The player knows that in a few moths they will have no power left. Driven partly by guilt, and partly by the fact that people are getting hints that you where responsible, you decide to make a treck to the other side and see if you can retrieve what is needed to make the repairs.

I dunno, but thats my take. It has plot holes the size of cansas, and I don’t know if other people will think this helps or hiders my point, but ah well....


P.s. Sorry to rag on your plot. I do really like the bit about how they control peoples lives though making clocks slow down, giving people food poisoning from microwaves. This is good! its fresh, new, and a thought that I never had before.

what youre talking about is exactly what i was trying NOT to happen. We played around with many different stories but ended up sticking to the consiparacy because that was got the most WOWs!
For instance our first plot was about a woman who falls in love with someone over the internet(grid?).. except its not actually a person, its really a computer, a developed consiousness that is constantly moving throughout the network, and it was somehow in jepoardy and you had to save it. But that didnt really fit into a game, even for an rpg.
What i also didnt want is then player to know their goals right from the start and be like yep, i have to kill this and this (like in games where you see for instance the 8 men, you know you will go after each one and at end have a show off with the ''head'' man).
I did sorta toy with the idea of the main party being more evil than good/accidentally causing more harm than good, but that has ended up being more towards the end. The conspiracy idea is what we used in like the ''first half''/''quarter...'' to get it going and so be more developed. Truth is im really stuck for end, and as you pointed out conspiracy theories HAVE only been done like one million times in many games. I particularly liked the way Chrono Trigger instead of having a great big introduction, instead made Lucca have an accident with her machine and plunge you straight into the past where everything starts right away, what i didnt like was the way they say ''We have to save her!''. See what i mean?....

There are lots of problems with this, first of all how can you focus a group around it?
Also wouldnt the plot be predictable and the game short?
It would be ok for one of the characters in the group but i cant see how it could fit into a story.

See with the conspiracy theory the Echelon goes around detroying all the ''untampered'' clocks that arent hooked up to the grid saying that theyre inaccurate and crap, so you get your team stock piling these items .etc
with that plot there is no such thing here, its a simple story with no flexibility really.

Another thing we toyed with was the other team being good at first, like you think theyre helping you, but theyre in fact trying to destroy world to make way for ''their'' world, and so focus becomes moved from Echelon to the other team. If you have too many plot twists does it become predicable? or is it ok to have a good few in a game you think?