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"Two wrongs do not make a right; it usually takes 3 or more."
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"Two wrongs do not make a right; it usually takes 3 or more."
quote: Original post by Ketchaval
I think that you would need to give the events more "motivation", make it so that the kings have reasons for doing things and make this more obvious in play. (Character by Gameplay thread - game design forum), so that the King Arunhotep''s messenger comes to you with a demand that "by his Majesty..." you give the city over to him or face the wrath of the God King himself. So that each thing is done in character to the people intitiating the action. (And that the events initiated are in character with the initiators). This would probably work better on a smaller scale.
Two points on this: Motive and color.
Events and decisions are already driven by a powerful motive: to survive and prosper. These translate well to game goals, (conquer, form a peace, go to space), but the "problem" is that these goals don''t translate well to narrative.
As far as color, where Civ does this (mostly interaction dialogs), it''s nice. Your own advisors and the diplomats of other nations speak in character. However, what they say is pretty repetitive. If you want them to say a bazillion different things, each applicable to the thousands of permutations that make up a civ game, we''re going to run into an near-impossible (with today''s tech and techniques) resource / content issue.
What you do when faced with this confronation would also be part of the story/ gameplay ie. if you start to amass troops near the border, and King A. has some Spies in your court, then you might get another threat …
So there would be a lot of pre-specified ways of responding to events.
You have this already, tho''. You can only respond to or even generate situation from a limited set of choices. Do you appease, or defy? Conquer? Ask for help from an ally.
Civ has this already, but it doesn''t seem to make a story in the traditional sense of an emotionally impactful, meaningfully orchestrated tale.quote:
Ie. My kingdom was attacked by the bloodthirsty barbarian tribes…
(snip cool story)
This is cool, and Civ can occassionally give you something like this. It would work if you were guaranteed only stories like that, and it was presented to you in a format closer to how you wrote it. But, this leaves out a lot of the detail, micromanagement, and repitition that is the spirit of civ. As I''ve noted before, this makes for great gameplay but awful story.
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Just waiting for the mothership…
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Civ has this already, but it doesn''t seem to make a story ...
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... in the traditional sense of an emotionally impactful, meaningfully orchestrated tale.
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"Two wrongs do not make a right; it usually takes 3 or more."
quote: Original post by Buster
A game like Civ doesn't need narrative. It would, in fact, ruin the idea of the game. The player is making their own narrative just by playing.
You can send that $50 now if you'd like.
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With just gameplay you don''t need complex motivations. You play to win, or possibly just because you like the interface . It''s the challenge you''re looking for, not an experience.
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If you don''t really care about the events within the game then it''s missing something in my opinion.
Like in chess, you don''t care if you lose most of your pieces so long as you get that checkmate! Still good fun at times, but too dry for my tastes.
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The players write the final narrative, the creator just provides the overall setting, and the NPC''s dialog. Depending on the players, the resulting story is often better than the original concept, and is more rewarding to the players than being forced to do certain theing certain ways to progress in the game. The story becomes the payers'' story.
quote: Original post by Ratheous
Go Wavinator! :o 4 posts while I formulated my 1![]()
quote: Original post by MSkinn99
Are you really going to give any of us the $50???
quote: Original post by Wavinator
You see! You see! __THIS__ is why I think it can''t be done. The whole point of playing Civ is to *win.* The whole point of enjoying a story is for the *experience* of the narrative. Good story is like fun exploration. You don''t know how things are going to go. I think you often enjoy the twists and turns in the story, and really have no idea how it''s going to end. In fact, isn''t a story lame when you know what''s coming and how it''s going to be resolved? Yet, with a game of Civ, it''s either going to be you, or the other guys on top (there are *some* similarities, in that you don''t know how you''ll get there either way... but I see mostly differences).
quote: Original post by Ratheous
- it has to have meaning to the player, and while ''orchestration'' does often make for a good book, it does not often make for good gameplay (as I''m sure has been said over and over.)
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If the game were designed to allow the story to be written by the player(s) it would by definition have meaning to them. A very dificult balance, but I believe doable if enough attention is given to it.