Narrative in NS
invader Zim
Join Date: 2007-09-20 Member: 62376Members
Join Date: 2007-09-20 Member: 62376Members
<div class="IPBDescription">...</div>Been reading through IGNs blogs and reviews on GDC (which is probs where the devs have been). Alot of the articals are about some developer ive seen on a credits list talking about narrative in video games like it some sort of ancient oracle, which i find surprising since the quality of narrative in video games is often comparable to that of a children's television program.
Anyway this got me thinking about narrative in NS2. Now i dont mean that ns2 will have a single player or story elements in a linar order in the traditional sense, and imagine that narrative isnt discussed much in multiplayer games. But they do have a story each time you play a map. For example you may play ns hera on ns1 and u have a bit of a back story then the battle commences and how the players play the map gives you a story of the struggle. Now although the game is not scripted the way the game is designed will effect the story of each map, and the narrative experience of the players. I guess a strength o multiplayer game is to an extent the players create the characters rather than the devs. The way people play and the stuff they say down their mic can create their character and change the way the game runs.
I spose my questions starting this thread is what game elements in mulitplayer and in ns create good narrative? How can the devs influence the way the narrative of a game plays out? What cool experiences have you had in ns 1 that had good narrative? And what makes good narrative games and bad games with no real story?
Anyway this got me thinking about narrative in NS2. Now i dont mean that ns2 will have a single player or story elements in a linar order in the traditional sense, and imagine that narrative isnt discussed much in multiplayer games. But they do have a story each time you play a map. For example you may play ns hera on ns1 and u have a bit of a back story then the battle commences and how the players play the map gives you a story of the struggle. Now although the game is not scripted the way the game is designed will effect the story of each map, and the narrative experience of the players. I guess a strength o multiplayer game is to an extent the players create the characters rather than the devs. The way people play and the stuff they say down their mic can create their character and change the way the game runs.
I spose my questions starting this thread is what game elements in mulitplayer and in ns create good narrative? How can the devs influence the way the narrative of a game plays out? What cool experiences have you had in ns 1 that had good narrative? And what makes good narrative games and bad games with no real story?
Comments
The surprise attack of the kharaa lead to alien dominance in the early encounters(1.0-1.03). Then the TSA reclaimed lost territory through counterattack(1.04). The new marine technologies hand grenades and catalyst packs were introduced but the aliens proved to be more effective adapters. They unveiled improved lerk flight, improved fade blink, fade metabolize, onos stomp, onos devour, and unchained the onos from its 3 hive requirement(2.X). An uneasy balance of forces has been struck(3.X) while both sides prepare for all out conflict(NS2).
That's more in my own head than actual game narrative though.
the gorge sprays and the marine is down! the fade scores!
Imagine that you are commander on ns_eclipse and you want a squad to go to hive Eclipse, but the shortest way through Triad, is totally covered in OCs. So, you want them to go the safest way, through Station Access Alpha. In Warcraft you can order a unit to walk exactly how you want by shift+clicking the way you want it to move. If you apply it to NS2 the commander could shift+click at Station Access Alpha and then at Eclipse.
How will this waypointing system work?
About Marines buying guns..
I think its useless for the Marines to buy the guns themselves, since it can mess up the commanders resources if too much guns are being bought, (Maybe that can be solved by 2 pools of resources where the commander can divide the resources as he/she wants. One for weapons and one for upgrades). In clan matches it will still be the commander telling the marine when to buy which weapon.
Maybe you have thought of some other way to do this?
About Poff!
What if you could do like in Starcraft, use a Queen on Command Center to infest it. Instead infest Command Console, so that you could give false waypoints to an alien ambush. Or infest a spawning marine to become Infested Terran and sabotage <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" />