[MUD-Dev] narrative

[Brandon J. Van Every]

Matt Mihaly wrote:
> Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>> John Robert Arras wrote:

>>> I am not interested in writing stories.

>> Then we're not on the same page.  Maybe you could start a new
>> thread with a different title?

> Why? It's called "Narrative" not "Writing". They aren't the same
> thing. Writing is just one way to convey a narrative, though you
> aren't willing to recognize that apparently.

Ok, so it appears you're going to branch off into how people make up
their own narratives for themselves.

> Frankly, for me at least, the sophistication of Morrowind is
> almost enough for me. I am having such a good time in that world,
> and the stories coming out of it are actually interesting to me. A
> good friend of mine who is also playing Morrowind and I have spent
> literally hours on the phone to each other eagerly relating our
> trials, tribulations, and triumphs of our characters, and to me,
> this is the best kind of storytelling.

Oh dear!  We are most definitely *not* on the same page.  So pardon
if I don't respond further to any of your points, and instead refer
you to my long rants about the storytelling problems of Morrowind:

  http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=hFlY8.13073%24Kx3.3991%40newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net

<EdNote: Quoted>

--<cut>--
From: Brandon Van Every (vanevery at 3DProgrammer.com)
Subject: MW - what's the point?
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg
Date: 2002-07-14 14:02:23 PST

Last week I binge played Morrowind to the exclusion of most other
life activities, including sleep.  I uninstalled it once and
reinstalled it.  My positive takeaways were:

  - interesting scenery.  The graphics are good.  But, having said
  that, they're not infinitely good and they do get old.
  Particularly when elements are reused, like Vivee style waistwork
  buildings, and every shop looks like every other shop.  Actually
  I'd even criticize the lighting, coloration, and texture as far
  too uniform.  It looks pretty the first time you see it.  It looks
  pretty the 100th time you see it.  It gets old the 1000th time
  you've seen it.  Morrowind offers a lot graphically, but it's not
  the be-all end-all of either aesthetic achievement or artistic
  variety.

  - found a shrine that allows me to fly for a really, really long
  time.  Well, at least it seemed like a long time to me!  I hadn't
  done any flying, and it seemed like my potions only lasted 60
  seconds or whatever.  With this shrine, I flew halfway across the
  continent.  I could have made it the whole way, but I stopped to
  look at things and to get out of the way of cliff racers.  I
  thought it was cool to get bird's eye access to the entire world
  model.

  - murdered many townspeople.  I liked wearing fucked up
  cross-dressing outfits and one of my characters was named Silence
  Of The Lambs.  But, having said that, it wasn't as much fun after
  the 20th victim or so.  People take too long to die, they die in
  the same way, and they have bad fighting dialogue.  I'd like to
  make a CRPG someday that is more rewarding for those playing
  serial killer, but isn't explicitly about serial killing.  Like, I
  got a real thrill in Thief the 1st time I knocked someone out,
  then threw their body over my shoulder, dragged them down a dark
  hole, and dumped 'em in the river.  They drowned, it was so evil!
  I didn't succeed at my ultimate goal however, which was to murder
  everybody.  First off, the guards are too tough.  I levelled up a
  lot, it took a long time, I could probably beat a single guard but
  it would take awhile and I'd have to use a bunch of magic items,
  healing potions, blah blah blah.  Second, "murder everybody?"  I
  started to realize how many people that would be, and how un-fun
  it would be.  Like I said, it got old after the 20th victim or so.

  - I stole a lot.  I know where pretty much all the good stuff in
  all the shops is.  Problem is, stealing everything, selling
  everything, and then training everything takes a long time.  It
  got old.

In contrast to these positives, I found the quests I went on
completely boring.  Thieves' Guild quests suck!  Like running out
for coffee.  The only thing you get out of that is a rank, and I
have no idea if the rank is worth anything, only that it's painful
and tedious to get.  It certainly isn't worth the money, they don't
pay you shit for what you steal compared to what you can do for
yourself.  As for levelling up, I seriously don't think it's worth
the time, because if you're making a lot of money you can buy your
experience, and if you just spend tons of time you'll level up
anyways.

I never actually did the Blades quests.  For a long time, getting
the Dwemer Cube was way too hard.  I'd get fried just by the stupid
magician at the bridge!  So I'd go steal everything instead.  Made a
lot of money, learned that Thieves' Guild quests suck, so I figured
Blade quests probably suck too.  Now I've got a guy who's powerful
enough to kick a lot of things ass, but what's the point?  I've seen
the Dwemer scenery, iron doors and all of that.  The outsides look
kinda cool but the insides?  Big deal.  It's not really very good
level stuff as compared to Thief II for instance.

Really, I've gotten no story out of Morrowind.  Well, no *focused*
story.  There's plenty of backstories and atmospherics.  But what
the hell am I doing here?  Why should I care about any of the quests
at all?  My attitude is ok, I've seen what everything looks like, so
I've extracted the play value from the game.  Is there something
spectacular that I'm missing here?  If there is, then Morrowind does
a lousy job of delivering it and making me aware that it's
available.

Really, you get off the boat and are told to "go here."  Well, like,
why should I care about that?
--<cut>--


Cheers,                         www.3DProgrammer.com
Brandon Van Every               Seattle, WA

20% of the world is real.
80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads.


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