+- The Matrix Online Server Emulator (//mxoemu.info/forum)
+-- Forum: The Matrix Online (//mxoemu.info/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=3)
+--- Forum: Role-Play (//mxoemu.info/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=21)
+--- Thread: Even more story ideas (/showthread.php?tid=326)
RE: Even more story ideas - Metalogic - 05-02-2010
I have done some thought on this, and I have typed alot of storyline ideas. Mainly because one of the major reason I love MxO was because of the RP possibilities.
1. IMHO, the Oligarch storyline sucked. The only thing that sucked worse than the Oligarch was the Unlimits with their pew pew. I hate the Oligarch storyline mainly because I just don't like the "Villain of the week" style of story telling. I do agree that the Oligarch storyline needs to be wrapped up in a satisfactory manner though.
2. I think that the war should be brought back, and that the storyline should move to focus more on the relationships between the orgs.
3. I think that if we do decide to continue the storyline, it should be done by a panel of writers. That way no one person has complete control over the storyline and do whatever with it.
4. As how to carry out the storyline, I have been thinking about this abit. I think that the critical missions should set up the scene, or situation for the Live Events to follow. The results of the Live Events will determine which direction the storyline goes in. Of course one of the drawbacks of this is that the server may have to be a Hostile PvP server. So let's say Zion and Machine has an event in which they have to be the first to achieve their objective. If Zion wins, then the storyline progress in their favor, if Machine wins, then the storyline progress in their favor.
That's my 2 cents on the whole matter.
RE: Even more story ideas - Vesuveus - 05-02-2010
(05-02-2010, 01:36 AM)Metalogic Wrote: 4. As how to carry out the storyline, I have been thinking about this abit. I think that the critical missions should set up the scene, or situation for the Live Events to follow. The results of the Live Events will determine which direction the storyline goes in. Of course one of the drawbacks of this is that the server may have to be a Hostile PvP server. So let's say Zion and Machine has an event in which they have to be the first to achieve their objective. If Zion wins, then the storyline progress in their favor, if Machine wins, then the storyline progress in their favor.
The realistic problem with this is that the writer or writers will have to constantly prepare alternate branches. When you bring web designed items like a sentinel or scanline, which I would love to see, then the planning becomes too complex and time crunched.
I read an article on players affecting storyline and the author was pretty innovative. However he explained it like this; You know players will show up and compete to be involved in the storyline. It's not what happens (because it is scripted) but who makes it happen.
I am very afraid of a panel of writers. The group must be small. When too many people get involved the tendency will to try and take over. Anyone who knows anything about Algorithm: Black knows this is a recipe for disaster.
1 writer, maybe 3 to help flesh out and advise. Then support staff that add flavor, to the storyline and help deliver to the community.
RE: Even more story ideas - QuiDormit - 05-02-2010
(05-02-2010, 04:22 AM)Vesuveus Wrote: I am very afraid of a panel of writers. The group must be small. When too many people get involved the tendency will to try and take over. Anyone who knows anything about Algorithm: Black knows this is a recipe for disaster.
1 writer, maybe 3 to help flesh out and advise. Then support staff that add flavor, to the storyline and help deliver to the community.
Couldn't agree more.
Either one writer with two editors who have veto rights, or two writers with one editor who has veto rights.
Of course, with a group that small, either we'd have to lose the EPN and Cyph lines (at least until the writer(s) got in a groove), or there'd have to be limited events and crits.
Another thing that always made me sad about how far in advanced things were planned out... I always wished that more player driven RP was incorporated into the storyline.
When Neoteny and I were running the code bombing arc, it would have been so awesome to have Rare pop in and toss us some code bombs, or even have the machines have a "hit" put out on us.
That's something I really thought was lacking... Maybe not affect the overall story, but to really incorporate player-driven RP into the whole story.
Fenshire was telling me that once, he was having a meeting in an office (Lith days, of course), and out of nowhere, Niobe popped in and picked up the conversation.
That would be awesome, and then take it a step further where interactions like that would actually MEAN something to the story.
High hopes early on, I know, but man would that rock.
RE: Even more story ideas - Praxedis - 05-02-2010
Of course, if that even becomes possible, there'd be a need for volunteers (Which I doubt would be very hard to find) for signature characters. As someone who always wanted to be an Agent, I can safely say it would be a little chaotic and no doubt there'd be some trouble with the handlers of MxOE having to choose who got to be who.
I consider myself reasonable, but I've seen what happens when you say "We need someone to be X" to a group of rabid fans like us (the community), almost everyone will want in. You can't quite go about using First Post First Serve because that's unfair to certain timezones, a format would need to be worked out.
Of course, in the case of a PC Agent...
There are loads of those programs. *Hint hint* Lol.I do absolutely love the ideas here though, and I agree that it would add in a lot of spice and immersion to have people who know the role suddenly drop in and engage with the players, in turn somehow having an affect on progression. It's a roleplayers wet dream.
RE: Even more story ideas - Metalogic - 05-02-2010
(05-02-2010, 04:22 AM)Vesuveus Wrote: The realistic problem with this is that the writer or writers will have to constantly prepare alternate branches. When you bring web designed items like a sentinel or scanline, which I would love to see, then the planning becomes too complex and time crunched.
I read an article on players affecting storyline and the author was pretty innovative. However he explained it like this; You know players will show up and compete to be involved in the storyline. It's not what happens (because it is scripted) but who makes it happen.
Well I was (and still am) trying to find a way to have the players be more involved in the storyline, so that instead of feeling like you're just watching a movie, or a play, you feel like you're taking part in the action. You feel like you're actually contributing to something. I thought that having a more player driven storyline would achieve that.
Quote:I am very afraid of a panel of writers. The group must be small. When too many people get involved the tendency will to try and take over. Anyone who knows anything about Algorithm: Black knows this is a recipe for disaster.
Ahh so that's what happened to A:B. I just like the idea of a panel because it distributes the workload, and like I said, there's no one person having his way with the storyline. We all saw what happened when one person gets ahold of it. I do agree though that the group should be small, and it should be well structured with a clear division of labor lines, and clear rules.
(05-02-2010, 07:47 AM)Praxedis Wrote: Of course, if that even becomes possible, there'd be a need for volunteers (Which I doubt would be very hard to find) for signature characters. As someone who always wanted to be an Agent, I can safely say it would be a little chaotic and no doubt there'd be some trouble with the handlers of MxOE having to choose who got to be who.
I consider myself reasonable, but I've seen what happens when you say "We need someone to be X" to a group of rabid fans like us (the community), almost everyone will want in. You can't quite go about using First Post First Serve because that's unfair to certain timezones, a format would need to be worked out.
Of course, in the case of a PC Agent...There are loads of those programs. *Hint hint* Lol.
I do absolutely love the ideas here though, and I agree that it would add in a lot of spice and immersion to have people who know the role suddenly drop in and engage with the players, in turn somehow having an affect on progression. It's a roleplayers wet dream.
I dunno, we saw what happens with Volunteers when it came to the LESIG. Story lines got leaked, live events got leaked, the liaisons real name got leaked. It was just a very corrupted org. I think the only reason Rarebit commission the LESIG was to take some of the workload off of him. However, if we do have more than one person working on the storyline, then what's the point of a LESIG?
RE: Even more story ideas - Tornadic - 05-02-2010
I'm a comic book nerd, and a pen and paper RPG'er (oh yea, I'm old school). I do have some problems with continuing the story/ A LESIG group, and it goes a-lika this.
Continuing the story. (Or, why you shouldn't)
I only played for about 3 months before MxO shut down, that's not important. What is important is that I NEVER figured out just WTF was going on story wise. MxO Story is probably the single best resource for MxO's story but even Cloudwolf's coverage stops at like chapter 9 I think. I still only have a rough idea with WTH happened after that. To continue where MxO left off is going to further alienate new players (myself included). Plus, and this is just personal opinion, I hated all that story stuff that happened in the real (it's not called The Real Online is it?).
NO LESIG, LET, or any live events.
This may can me some ire, but hear me out.
1) People from other time zones or people who work evenings/weekends may not be able to make the events, this means that they're missing out on plot points.
2) If major plot points are divulged during these Events, new players (think someone who starts playing 3 months later) Will have no idea what's going on.
This is very frustrating to new comers who are also story-philes (like myself)
Besides, with my idea, you just let the RP'ers RP. This fleshes out the story, and all the little opening and closing cinematics (machinimas) would give new players a heads up on what happened in the past. This way, new players who are huge story nerds could check out the archived vids, jack in and see Praxedis and be all "OMG that guy fucked up all those zionites a few months ago! I better not fuck with him." And since Prax is in character, it's like a little LE just happened.
One last thing, People that role Alts and who might want to add some weight to things may want to "take one for the team" and kill a character permanently in order to add a lit of drama to the story "episodes" (my D&D experience has taught me this). THIS IS JUST A SUGGESTION, I'M NOT PROPOSING MANDATORY CHARACTER KILLS
RE: Even more story ideas - QuiDormit - 05-02-2010
(05-02-2010, 03:56 PM)Tornadic Wrote: I only played for about 3 months before MxO shut down, that's not important. What is important is that I NEVER figured out just WTF was going on story wise. MxO Story is probably the single best resource for MxO's story but even Cloudwolf's coverage stops at like chapter 9 I think. I still only have a rough idea with WTH happened after that. To continue where MxO left off is going to further alienate new players (myself included). Plus, and this is just personal opinion, I hated all that story stuff that happened in the real (it's not called The Real Online is it?).
Once again, I agree with you partially; I agree only in the regard that I don't know who I would trust to run the characters/storyline. Otherwise, I see it this way... the really hardcore people, the people who have been there longer... They know what MxO once was, and I think to neuter MxO like this would be a great disservice to the players and the game itself.
Just because SOE didn't have a great way to immerse new people into the storyline doesn't mean that we should just drop the story. You only played for 3 months before the end. 3 months before the end, there WAS no storyline anymore. There was no real activities. There was nothing at all. Literally, you had to be level 30-40-50 to even participate in the bleeding and dying corpse that was the story at the end. That was bullshit, and I'm sorry that you had to see it like that.
Even I only started TWO YEARS ago at the end of this month, and I still got to see more of a living, breathing story than you. (and the oligarchs fucking SUCKED). We had daily LE's back then. There was always something going on, and people were talking about the story, and you could go up to a redpill and shoot the shit about the latest events.
By the time you got into the sim, there were no events.
So I think that we can really circumvent all of that by having real, true, actual resources for new people to catch up.
RE: Even more story ideas - azarazamataz - 05-02-2010
(05-02-2010, 03:56 PM)Tornadic Wrote: NO LESIG, LET, or any live events.
This may can me some ire, but hear me out.
1) People from other time zones or people who work evenings/weekends may not be able to make the events, this means that they're missing out on plot points.
2) If major plot points are divulged during these Events, new players (think someone who starts playing 3 months later) Will have no idea what's going on.
This is very frustrating to new comers who are also story-philes (like myself)
I agree with you somewhat on the story as I, being from a PvP server was not all the interested in the story but I can understand if people from Syntax or Recursion were as they were the main RP'ers and I think if the decision was made to drop the story, like Qui said it would be a shame as some people have been following it for 5 years. Sure, it's not been a great story but nevertheless it was one of MxO's features and to take that out of the game would be like taking PvP out for some people.
As for the No Lesig Idea, I do agree with you slightly on that but I totally disagree with the No Live Events idea. The live events made MxO somewhat unique in the sense that no other game had ever done events like this and to take that out would be a big dissapointment. The live events were not just for RP'ers but in some events it offerd PvP'ers to kick some ass too. While I disagree with you there is no certainty whether it will be implemented in-game and if they do they would either need to plan it out and execute them or get other people to do it.
As for the time zones I disagree completely. The event screenshots were posted upon the forums for all to see if they missed out. I come from the UK and a lot of the live events were extremely late for my time zone but for the ones I could stay up for I enjoyed them throughly and I wouldn't want to take them away just because I can't make it to them, it seems somewhat selfish tbh.
But then again you could say because I'm mainly interested in PvP I'm not too fussed about the story but even though I wasn't interested in the story, it was the taking part which was the fun bit.
RE: Even more story ideas - cloudwolf - 05-02-2010
(05-02-2010, 01:28 AM)Valaro Wrote: The I don't understand the SOE part. Screw legal mumbo-jumbo, I mean it just seems like they stuck a dagger into the heart of MxO and twisted while pouring salt on the wound. I just didn't think players would choose to go with a story implemented by that company. Obviously I was wrong. Sorry folks.
Had enough of this misunderstanding on the official forums. Say what you will about SOE (we all know how lovely their business practices were in regards to budgeting) but they never had any input on the storyline. They brought the game and left the devs to their work. They never enforced creative rights, that always belonged with WB.
When the game was with WB the story was written by Paul Chadwick and the mission designers. When the game went with with SOE the storyline was written by Paul Chadwick and the mission designers. Then later Paul Chadwick and the single designer, Ben Chamberlain. Then later just Ben Chamberlain. The same people were writing the story throughout. That's the reality and no amount of SOE hate will change that.
So yeah.
*waits for the conspiracy theories to roll in*
(05-02-2010, 03:56 PM)Tornadic Wrote: I only played for about 3 months before MxO shut down, that's not important. What is important is that I NEVER figured out just WTF was going on story wise. MxO Story is probably the single best resource for MxO's story but even Cloudwolf's coverage stops at like chapter 9 I think. I still only have a rough idea with WTH happened after that. To continue where MxO left off is going to further alienate new players (myself included). Plus, and this is just personal opinion, I hated all that story stuff that happened in the real (it's not called The Real Online is it?).
Not my content, that's SuperJenius'. Technically, my work only went up to something like Chapter 5. I've got materials for the rest, just not the drive or time to overhaul the site yet.
As for the comments on the real, you'll notice all 3 films were called "The Matrix:" but were just as much about happenings in the real as they were The Matrix. Moot point and one I always supported Rare on. If the story was ever gonna evolve it needed to leave "Villian of The Week" storylines behind and have some real clout behind it. The only way of doing that (damn EJP) was to move it into the real.
Man, I hope tatanya (sp?) never finds this thread.
RE: Even more story ideas - Metalogic - 05-02-2010
The only problem with taking the storyline in the real, was that you couldn't take the player base to the real too. At that point it's just like a movie, which I think peeved alot of people off. Honestly, I think all that was needed to get rid of the "Villain of the Week" storyline was to simply stop creating Villains.