[MUD-Dev] RE:

[John Mariotti]

From: "Sellers, Mike" <msellers at origin.ea.com>

> Yep, this is the canonical excuse for not telling meaningful
> stories in games.  And IMO it's a piss-poor excuse.  All it means
> is that we don't yet know *HOW* to tell stories in a
> multi-protagonist, self-directed environment.  Well, the ancient
> Greeks didn't know much about the arc of heroic development in
> their fiction (their heroes start heroes and end heroes; if
> there's any transformation it's for the worse, and isn't a
> transition of character), but over time we've learned a lot more
> about story structure, character motivation and development, and
> avoiding "deus ex machina."

Well I would think that it would be rather simple to provide a
meaningful story to that kind of crowd. And your job is made easier
by the simple fact that you already have an idea of the kind of
crowd your giving your story to, so it's easy to gear that story to
them and mold it around them. There will always be those who want to
go against the grain or write their own story inside yours, but in
an on-line world comprised of sometimes thousands of people one has
to expect this, and work with it to make it interesting for all, I
agree with you in that it is indeed a piss poor excuse, any
write/designer worth his salt should be able to gear a story in any
direction and for any situation that may crop up.

Enigma
'Endless Passages'
a.k.a John Mariotti

'HA! An insect?! An insect couldn't harm a man, especially a man such as I' 
-- Last words of Chrin Okiland
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