Branching story lines?

[thruine.8510]

Are we going to be getting branching story lines so we can have more connection to it and our characters? That's what started the whole Twitter thing and I admit, I'd like to see this. Apparently we had some developers standing in the way of it and now that O'Brien has taken action to remove that problem, how soon can we expect this change to start? Next couple of Living World episodes or next expansion? And does ArenaNet need to set up some kind of player council to help in this regard? Perhaps its something they have difficulty in understanding.

 

[FyzE.3472]

Derior did not do anything. JP did that to herself. Derior did not even comment on the matter after being asked to do so by Anet. Like he said on his stream: "I have nothing to gain from it, and I have everything to loose". So, please, think what you write. At least for now, since this is all still fresh.

[zealex.9410]

> @"thruine.8510" said:

> Are we going to be getting branching story lines so we can have more connection to it and our characters? That's what started the whole Twitter thing and I admit, I'd like to see this. Apparently we had some developers standing in the way of it and now that O'Brien has taken action to remove that problem, how soon can we expect this change to start? Next couple of Living World episodes or next expansion? And does ArenaNet need to set up some kind of player council to help in this regard? Perhaps its something they have difficulty in understanding.

>

 

Nobody said she was wrong... Even deroir disagree'd slightly. such thing would require resources and man power which i would honestly prefer used elsewere. This is an mmo after all not a sp rpg.

[Vayne.8563]

No, we're not, because the reason we're not getting that stuff hasn't changed. It's great for single player games, but almost impossible to do in an MMO. The more you branch, the more you separate players who are all supposed to be coming together. In a single player game you can change the world around decisions made by players. In in MMO you really can't. Even in a bioware game like SWToR, there were people complaining that your choices didn't come to anything. They made no real difference.

[hugo.4705]

This title is kinda disproportioned, he saved us from nothing. This debate has to be closed. One employee isn't equal to a whole company. One thing to do now: wait. We dunno if the unfinished meta of Kourna is due to that or simply time restriction. The simple solution would be to make a poll for players to decide of the next main story turn, but they are not forced to do that.

[thruine.8510]

> @"FyzE.3472" said:

> Derior did not do anything. JP did that to herself. Derior did not even comment on the matter after being asked to do so by Anet. Like he said on his stream: "I have nothing to gain from it, and I have everything to loose". So, please, think what you write. At least for now, since this is all still fresh.

 

I'm not sure what you mean here. Not about the JP thing. The way I read things from a lot of players is this was a reasonable request and he was shut down by an unstable developer. He was the catalyst of the whole thing. Why run away from it after the fact? But for it being fresh, we all have to move on so I think its reasonable that we just move on. Its over and done. We can't change that fact but perhaps this isn't as much fact as JP led us to believe.

[Menoitios.8375]

It's reasonable from our perspective but what about from Arenanet's? Is it cost effective? What about time effective? They already record multiple voice lines for the commander based off race and gender (10 total), every time they add a possible divergence to it that's 10 more voice lines (minimum) they have to record. That takes more time and money. Sometimes it's just not economically feasible.

 

Edit: add not had* derp.

[thruine.8510]

> @"zealex.9410" said:

>

> Nobody said she was wrong... Even deroir disagree'd slightly. such thing would require resources and man power which i would honestly prefer used elsewere. This is an mmo after all not a sp rpg.

 

Sorry to do back to backs but I can't get quote to work the way I need it to. But about "mmo after all not a sp rpg".... are we not being sold this? The casual nature of the game, whether you think it good or bad, with everyone having skills making playing with others unnecessary in most cases. Basically saying you can play it solo. Players should expect as much a well done single player experience as a massive online experience. The game is much better with others and a bit tedious solo so its already failing to do half of what its promising.

[FyzE.3472]

> @"thruine.8510" said:

> > @"FyzE.3472" said:

> > Derior did not do anything. JP did that to herself. Derior did not even comment on the matter after being asked to do so by Anet. Like he said on his stream: "I have nothing to gain from it, and I have everything to loose". So, please, think what you write. At least for now, since this is all still fresh.

>

> I'm not sure what you mean here. Not about the JP thing. The way I read things from a lot of players is this was a reasonable request and he was shut down by an unstable developer. He was the catalyst of the whole thing. Why run away from it after the fact? But for it being fresh, we all have to move on so I think its reasonable that we just move on. Its over and done. We can't change that fact but perhaps this isn't as much fact as JP led us to believe.

 

He was not the catalyst. It's like saying that if a person got robbed, it's that person's fault for having a good phone or what ever was stolen. It should have been just an exchange of feedback and that's it.

[FrizzFreston.5290]

The decision to not have branching story lines has been asked about, made and explained many times. Way before the employment of JP.

 

Though they have gone slightly back to different possible reactions like with the latest episodes.

[GDchiaScrub.3241]

> @"thruine.8510" said:

> > @"FyzE.3472" said:

> > Derior did not do anything. JP did that to herself. Derior did not even comment on the matter after being asked to do so by Anet. Like he said on his stream: "I have nothing to gain from it, and I have everything to loose". So, please, think what you write. At least for now, since this is all still fresh.

>

> I'm not sure what you mean here. Not about the JP thing. The way I read things from a lot of players is this was a reasonable request and he was shut down by an unstable developer. He was the catalyst of the whole thing. Why run away from it after the fact? But for it being fresh, we all have to move on so I think its reasonable that we just move on. Its over and done. We can't change that fact but perhaps this isn't as much fact as JP led us to believe.

 

Hate having to quote myself but uh. In short it wasn't a "reasonable request" since it came from a place of ignorance in regards to ANET's resources.

 

> @"GDchiaScrub.3241" said:

> Meh. Product matters to me since that will be proof of their actual working merit. It'd help perceptually if their rhetoric was more concise I'll give you that.

>

> What I saw is that neither party rationalized what needed to be talked about, and referred to (scope). There was an AMA about **scope** of writing when it came to MMOs. A fan said suggested something that was probably out of **scope**. She lashed out, and didn't explain that important conflict of **scope**. _Scope being that balance of content and budget_. Branching paths, and more character choice for depth = more expense for customization but not necessarily adding game play.

>

> Neither convinced me of anything, though.

>

> D:

 

From closed thread: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/584671#Comment_584671

[derd.6413]

> @"thruine.8510" said:

> > @"FyzE.3472" said:

> > Derior did not do anything. JP did that to herself. Derior did not even comment on the matter after being asked to do so by Anet. Like he said on his stream: "I have nothing to gain from it, and I have everything to loose". So, please, think what you write. At least for now, since this is all still fresh.

>

> I'm not sure what you mean here. Not about the JP thing. The way I read things from a lot of players is this was a reasonable request and he was shut down by an unstable developer. He was the catalyst of the whole thing. Why run away from it after the fact? But for it being fresh, we all have to move on so I think its reasonable that we just move on. Its over and done. We can't change that fact but perhaps this isn't as much fact as JP led us to believe.

 

Ppl weren't mad at her for being wrong, they were mad because she was rude (nicest way to say it without getting deleted)

[thruine.8510]

> @"FyzE.3472" said:

>

> He was not the catalyst. It's like saying that if a person got robbed, it's that person's fault for having a good phone or what ever was stolen. It should have been just an exchange of feedback and that's it.

 

Come on, there are plenty of other threads to go into this. Whether you agree or disagree with him (I personally think he was initially in the wrong) it does open up the idea that if this developer was standing in the way of something then perhaps we can't trust them on whether something is possible or not.

[FyzE.3472]

> @"thruine.8510" said:

> > @"FyzE.3472" said:

> >

> > He was not the catalyst. It's like saying that if a person got robbed, it's that person's fault for having a good phone or what ever was stolen. It should have been just an exchange of feedback and that's it.

>

> Come on, there are plenty of other threads to go into this. Whether you agree or disagree with him (I personally think he was initially in the wrong) it does open up the idea that if this developer was standing in the way of something then perhaps we can't trust them on whether something is possible or not.

 

I believe you can always be a decent human being when you choose to do so. No matter the situation.

[thruine.8510]

> @"FyzE.3472" said:

>

> I believe you can always be a decent human being when you choose to do so. No matter the situation.

 

Of course but that's not today on the internet. Regardless, lets try to keep this focused. Do we want this and if difficult means undoable. For me, if you want to have story, and good story, then you're going to have to make that commitment. I can't be the only one that has just accepted the story as passable since its a MMO. I think SWTOR does story so much better its just incredibly slow coming out. GW2 seems to be in much better shape plus keeps highlighting its story as a reason to buy. But if you're not putting resources towards it to that level of advertisement then is there really a commitment to story? Living World is what supposed to keep us returning and so here are better fractals and WvW changes? Huh?

 

[Menoitios.8375]

I would have to argue SWTOR's story isn't that great though. It got a lot of hype and support for the multiple story options in the beginning yet in the long run none of those choices actually mattered.

 

Also, I would argue that they are putting resources towards their story. The cut scenes have been better and better, it's fully voice acted. Due to it being fully voice acted it's likely not financially viable for them to have a branching story with tons of different meaningful choices. I said it before and I'll say it again, they already record the 'Commander's' voice lines 10 different times, once for each race and gender, and every branching option they implement would increase the number of voice lines they have to do and in turn that increases the cost and time needed to do the updates.

[thruine.8510]

Menoitios, I like SWTOR's story when its really well done which even their latest one was quite satisfying though it had a terrible beginning. But we know that game has not only a lower income but developers pulled off for other games. One thing that easy to see with GW2 is there are many more players participating in the cash shop from personal observation (better quality in that regard too). So unless something is way off, GW2 seems to have the cash coming in and assuming its not all going to Fashion Wars solely. Both are doing the same with player character voice with SWTOR having even more races to deal with the male and female if you're at all familiar with their cut scenes. Plus there are the romances where you have the different matches to deal with. I'm not saying its not a drag on resources. Just putting the question out there if GW2 are putting in the resources they are taking in to everyone's benefit. Like I said in my original post, I'm not sure we're getting the entire bill of goods being sold.

[Menoitios.8375]

To be fair none of us can really say whether they actually have the cash coming in to afford it or not unless we know all of their expenses and gains. Also, how much more time would their updates need to make that happen? Would you be willing to wait several more months for it? I know I wouldn't.

 

Ultimately there are a lot of factors that go into the decision we as players may not be aware of or even think of and it is likely something they themselves (Arenanet) have thought of and decided it wasn't worth the time and/or investment compared to other content. At the end of the day they are a business after all.

[ReaverKane.7598]

> @"Vayne.8563" said:

> No, we're not, because the reason we're not getting that stuff hasn't changed. It's great for single player games, but almost impossible to do in an MMO. The more you branch, the more you separate players who are all supposed to be coming together. In a single player game you can change the world around decisions made by players. In in MMO you really can't. Even in a bioware game like SWToR, there were people complaining that your choices didn't come to anything. They made no real difference.

 

Coming together? In the personal story? Except for taking a couple of buddies with you in the story for achievements, or because you need help, when did the story ever bring people together in the last 3 years?

It used to do that with the dungeons sub-plot, but that was gone, and Arah was made a solo instance because it was the only "mandatory" story dungeon.

 

The only reason it's not done, is that it's too time-consuming... Has nothing to do with bringing players together. You can easily write a branching story that only gives the illusion of choice, like the original Personal Story did.

Also, having 3 separate teams working on the story, apparently with it's own writing staff, instead of a single writing team writing the whole story won't help consistency.

With the right writing staff, coordinated properly, and the willingness and budget to have it voiced and coded, you can easily have the same story, the same outcome, and yet be allowed to at least control your character's personality, instead of having a two-times dragon slayer, that saved the world, and the next best heroes a few times, getting cowed by a angsty teenager that now thinks he knows the mother he dispised better than you, the guy that was mentored by her, saved her a couple times, and was the person that brought him and his mother together. (Yes that still smarts).

 

A great way to do this would be to bring back the abandoned **Personality** system. You get a few different choices of dialogue, each with in-episode consequences that get resolved in a self-contained manner. Just get the writing staff on a workshop on how to write for sitcoms, or tv-series, those have a great way of encapsulating everything inside a episode, and pretty much get back to status quo by the end of it

.> @"thruine.8510" said:

> > @"zealex.9410" said:

> >

> > Nobody said she was wrong... Even deroir disagree'd slightly. such thing would require resources and man power which i would honestly prefer used elsewere. This is an mmo after all not a sp rpg.

>

> Sorry to do back to backs but I can't get quote to work the way I need it to. But about "mmo after all not a sp rpg".... are we not being sold this? The casual nature of the game, whether you think it good or bad, with everyone having skills making playing with others unnecessary in most cases. Basically saying you can play it solo. Players should expect as much a well done single player experience as a massive online experience. The game is much better with others and a bit tedious solo so its already failing to do half of what its promising.

 

It's a mmoRPG. There's a difference. Basically we'll get the quality we settle for. People settled for this, so Arena Net had nothing to gain from pushing for better. As long as people are willing to blindly defend Arena Net in all matters, even against self-interest, they'll never feel pressured to excel.

It's quite obvious from the formulaic nature of the last several releases that Arena Net lost a lot of it's drive to be at the forefront of innovation, and we allowed it.

[lagrangewei.8516]

we saw what they did with POF, where u can side with joko's minion but in the end your choice can't matter because if it did, they can't write joko into a single dimensional villain, so that only piss me off that I was given a false choice then if i was not given a choice at all.

 

unless they intentionally create discardable "filler" story with character they can just throw away later... and make GW2 episode more standalone. but having the story link together was kind of a feature of gw2 story.

[LetoII.3782]

If you cut a worm in half, you technically get two worms...

 

[RoseofGilead.8907]

Much better title now. Actually shows the content of the thread.

[apharma.3741]

> @"zealex.9410" said:

> > @"thruine.8510" said:

> > Are we going to be getting branching story lines so we can have more connection to it and our characters? That's what started the whole Twitter thing and I admit, I'd like to see this. Apparently we had some developers standing in the way of it and now that O'Brien has taken action to remove that problem, how soon can we expect this change to start? Next couple of Living World episodes or next expansion? And does ArenaNet need to set up some kind of player council to help in this regard? Perhaps its something they have difficulty in understanding.

> >

>

> Nobody said she was wrong... Even deroir disagree'd slightly. such thing would require resources and man power which i would honestly prefer used elsewere. This is an mmo after all not a sp rpg.

 

This is where I see things from Deroir's perspective but likewise differ slightly from him. He's asking for meaningful decision but we don't really need that to have some form of character in our PC.

 

Look at the latest LS episode where you have to defend the asura at court, multiple ways to complete it with different text which you can use to reflect your impression of the PC and how they would respond. No voice acting needed, the same end state achieved with little to no real difference in how we got there to everyone else in the story and we were allowed to express our idea of the PC. Yes it's extra work, no getting away from it but that is kept to a more manageable level without having to deal with a spaghetti mix of you chose the funny responses all the time so your character does something different.

 

I dunno I just really liked that court room part and it's something I would love to see more of. Other things I've liked about the story so far is Rox being interested in the Olmakhan and progressing her narrative of not being in a warband. I'd love to see Rox pull the commander a side for a minute and say what she's learnt, how she feels and what she's planning to do. Even if the commander gives a generic "do what you think is best" option it's something a real person would do to a well respected friend.

[GDchiaScrub.3241]

> @"LetoII.3782" said:

> If you cut a worm in half, you technically get two worms...

>

 

Twice the food right?

 

D:

[Lord Trejgon.2809]

the finish line of the drama did not circumvent anything in terms of the topic discussed when it exploded.

 

it doesn't matter if you believe it's global issue for all MMOs or if it's more of restrictions of living story format, the devs abilities are on this front limited.

 

(court scene was nice indeed)