And I'll make an impassioned plea for your support.

Try Storybricks

One of the advantages of using Unity is that we can do a browser version of our client. We stripped down the client and simplified it a bit, but you can get your hands on the alpha version of Storybricks.

Visit: http://play.storybricks.com/ You will need the Unity3D browser plugin to play, but it should be a painless process to install if you don't already have it.

You can share URLs for your stories, like this: http://play.storybricks.com/play.php?STORY=FD8E1447 This link will take you right into my story I wrote in 5 minutes. I'm sure you can do better, so feel free to show me up.

A storywriting contest!

We also have a contest. It's simple: write a story and share it with others. Twitter, Google+, Facebook, forums, whatever. As long as we can verify you posted it somewhere, you get entered into a drawing to win some prizes: a $50 Gamestop gift card, $25 Amazon.com gift certificates, or $25 in Facebook credits.

Currently we have no entries. So, enter anything and you could win all the prizes! We'll also feature some of the better stories for others to play. Full rules available on our forums.

Storybricks Kickstarter campaign

As you might know, Storybricks has a Kickstarter project: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/storybricks/storybricks-the-mmorpg-storytelling-toolset/

After about 2 weeks we are... 8% funded. I look at that and wonder what the problem is. Part of it lies with is with how we have presented the project: when you're doing something so new and different, it's hard to describe it easily. Are we a toolset, an MMO, a true role-playing game, a virtual building environment? We are all of these, but none of these exactly. We have had trouble finding a message that resonates with people. If you have ideas, please share them with me in the comments below.

I've listened to the MMO community talk about games for years now, and I've seen the creeping disappointment as people see MMOs fail to live up to their potential. I've invested myself into a project that I personally believe can help push MMOs forward. I'd love to say that Storybricks will have a glorious future no matter what happens. The truth is, we're a small company with limited resources. Without your support, Storybricks will wither and die. Maybe we will go bankrupt and find other jobs. Maybe we'll get bought by some company who would rather make browser games than MMOs. The reality is that we've already had to cut expenses to try to survive a few more months. People have expenses to pay and families to support and they we can't expect them to work for free.

Make no mistake, it's not just me and the Storybricks team watching this campaign. I know from talking to people that game developers from the largest companies in the industry are watching it. They're seeing if you really want innovation to the point you are willing to financially support it. Supporting Storybricks isn't just about supporting the alpha version we have online. It's not just about letting us make a cool MMO with user created stories and real role-playing. Supporting our Kickstarter project is supporting real innovation in MMOs. It's saying that you want more than games that are 90% the same with 10% layered on top to make you think might be doing more than just hammering hotkeys while fighting more and more rats with different shapes, sizes, models, and textures. It's demanding more than the same old treadmill grind with the same bog standard holy trinity classes with the same static world that tells you that you are a hero but doesn't actually react to your actions.

Ignore Storybricks and you tell MMO developers you want more of the same for the foreseeable future. You send the message that you're happy with MMOs as they are. You say that game developers should ignore MMOs and chase other trends, to start building social and mobile games instead of chasing the ever increasing budgets for themepark MMO games.

So, please go visit http://play.storybricks.com/ and build your own story. Share the URL with your friends on various social networks. If you've already backed our Kickstarter project: thank you so much, and help us get the word out so we can see success. If you haven't backed us yet, please visit our Kickstarter project page and donate even a little bit to keep our vision of MMO innovation alive.

It's up to you. Hopefully I've demonstrated that I want real MMO innovation. Don't you want the same?

Post copyright Brian 'Psychochild' Green. Visit the post to participate in the comments:

Storybricks contest and project updates

I'm going to claim that I'm fashionably late to the Newbie Blogger Initiative. To be fair, I've been busy. So, I'm going to cheat a bit, ignore the rules, and jump right into offering advice. :)

So, what does make your blog special?

Why blogging is important

The first question you might ask is why blog? In this age of Twitter, Facebook, and even Google+ who nobody but us really awesome people use, it seems blogs are an outdated medium. I think it's a fair question.

To me, there are two main reasons. The first is community. I think Tesh really nails it that there's a feeling of camaraderie between bloggers. I've met a lot of people at conferences and conventions mostly by virtue of being a blogger. I've exchanged a number of emails with Tesh directly, in fact, mostly because we were both bloggers.

The other major reason is permanence. Want to know what I've written about permadeath? It's easier to use the search box over to the left there than to search through the detritus I've left on Twitter. A lot of social networks seem transitory; I don't have control over them as much as I have control over my own blog on this site. Google+ might shut down tomorrow, but my blog will remain online as long as I have any say over it.

My advice for newbie bloggers

So, what advice to I have for people who want to follow in the illustrious footsteps of existing bloggers? Find your own voice. Sounds cheezily generic, but it's true. I'm not the fairy godfather who can help you find your voice, unfortunately. The best I can do is describe what I've done.

The first unique element is who I am: I'm an MMO blogger, but I'm also an MMO developer. I'm also an avid MMO player, so I've seen things from all angles. I believe that a lot of people have come to my blog in order to get my insight because I'm a developer and I write from that perspective most of the time. I have a hint of why some decisions are made; although I rarely have any special insider information, I do have insight to share to give a glimpse from behind the curtain.

The second thing relates to what I said above about permanence: I treat my blog as a serious repository of information. When I write a blog entry, I do so with care. When I write about a topic, I always go back and use that search function to find out any related topics. I take care to link back to previous posts, so that I can show some context. Maybe my opinion has changed, maybe something important has come up since then. I take particular pride in all my older post as I view them as important. It's one reason why, no matter how much I might use Twitter or Google+ for a while, I still come back and post on my blog. Anything I see as truly worth saying I say on here.

The third is my style of writing. I try to be conversational. I try to be a little funny; stuffy, formal writing about MMOs would be boring. I also try to be smart; I enjoy writing and try to play around with words a bit. I like to think that all these factors make my blog entries fun to read.

Fourth, I love interacting with people. I've said it before and I'll say it again: the comments are my favorite part of my site. I know what I'll say, but it's the insightful comments that really make posting worthwhile. I usually try to end my entries with a question to spur discussion. I take time to respond to most comments people post, if I have time. It takes more time, but it makes the site so much more useful for me, and I hope for others.

Why not have fun?

My last bit of advice: don't sweat about how often you post. Many times newbie bloggers will post frequently at first as their ideas come out in a rush. Pace yourself, because eventually that rush will not come quite so freely. But, once the rush slows happens it's not time to panic. At one time people did visit sites from a list of bookmarks or from memory, and sites that didn't update got ignored. But, these days pretty much any serious blog reader will use an RSS reader. Even after weeks of silence, a single post with light up RSS readers. So, don't be afraid your site is dead if you can't post as frequently as you once did. Hell, if slow posting killed sites, my irregular posting schedule would have killed my site long ago. :)

In the end, you probably blog because it sounds fun. So, don't forget to have fun. Write what you want, find your voice, find your audience, and enjoy yourself. Is there much more you can expect from life?

What do you think? What makes a good blog? What keeps you coming back to a site? Why haven't you donated to the Storybricks Kickstarter project yet? (Okay, you knew I had to sneak that in here somewhere.... ;)

Post copyright Brian 'Psychochild' Green. Visit the post to participate in the comments:

NBI: What makes your blog special

So, I hope you understand this next line is said without intending to be cliché and without intending to be hyperbole: it has felt as if my career has build up to this singular point in time. We're taking Storybricks to Kickstarter.

Okay, hopefully that alone excites you, but read on for a bit more information and why you really need to support us.

Why Kickstarter?

Quite a few reasons. Storybricks was initially funded through traditional venture capital (VC). We found some investors that agreed with our vision and were willing to put small amounts of money up to help us build the company. We've got a working version of the Storybricks tool from that initial investment, but now we need money to grow. That means talking to other investors able to put up larger amounts of money. However, we have hit a roadblock; despite the enthusiastic reception from our alpha testers and people who have discussed the topic, we weren't able to find further investors who could get excited by our vision. The words "MMORPG" and "artificial intelligence" have made investors as skittish as we feared. But, we've gotten a lot of very positive feedback about Storybricks from the players over the time we've been developing it. From the demos at Gen Con last year, to postings on this blog, to demos we've given to other bloggers, to the version the alpha testers we've heard a lot of positive feedback. So, we weren't ready to give up on it yet.

Recent high-profile successes have made the choice to go on Kickstarter seem more obvious. Double Fine Adventure, Wasteland 2, and Shadowrun Returns have demonstrated that a large group of passionate people are willing to support games for a significant amount. MMOs tend to be a bit more expensive to develop, so it wasn't until these projects came along that we really saw this as a truly viable option. (Personally, I've been watching Kickstarter for several months now, supported the Videogame History Museum last year, and have been hoping for this tipping point to happen.)

We also think this is a great way to see if we're living in our own little reality bubble or not. People have been saying nice things to our face about Storybricks, but it's time to see if people are willing to pull out their wallets to do so. Ultimately, we are running a business, and that's what matters to potential investors and our future as a viable company.

What we plan

Obviously our funding goal of $250,000 isn't quite going to be enough to let us build the fabled WoW-killer. We picked a goal we thought would be reasonable to at least continue toward our master plans. Meeting our Kickstarter goal will make it easier for us to go to those investors that previously turned us down and be willing to give us money. (Of course, I'd love it if we blew past our goal and raised an order of magnitude more money, that would keep us independent for much longer. I'm not going to hold my breath, but I am willing to be pleasantly surprised.)

With this money we be able to work on Storybricks longer. With more money, we will be able to hire more people; we are currently a tiny team (2 full-time artists, 2 full-time engineers, 1 full-time designer right now), so we really need more people to do the project within a reasonable time frame.

Why this is important

I agree with a YouTube commenter on one of our dev diaries that Storybricks is "the most amazing thing in the history of? everything". I've poured my entire life into this project for over 18 months now, and every time I tackle a new problem or talk to someone I get a little bit more excited about the possibilities. But, let me try to explain why you should feel this way.

I think first and foremost for people who regularly read my blog is the fact that we are doing something so completely new in MMOs. For a long time, the RPG in MMORPG has seemed like a useless appendage to people used to things like tabletop games. Yes, we have "roleplaying" servers, but the game doesn't really react to you. If you watch the Kickstarter video (and I'll warn you, it is a little cheezy), Rodolfo tells a great story about how he killed Yogg-Saron, saving reality as Azeroth knows it, and still had to pay for drinks in town. I think that explains exactly the problem with storytelling in current MMOs. Not to say that newer offerings like TERA, Guild Wars 2, or The Secret World aren't great games, but they still mostly represent the old way of MMOs. They take the typical MMO structure and add only a little bit of newness on top. I believe Storybricks represents the first true re-examination of the core of MMOs and how we can imagine them in a whole new way while still retaining what makes an MMO an MMO.

Even if you don't care about storytelling, you might care about having more content in a game. Bad tools lead to crap content. Easier-to-use tools lead to more content. Better characters leads to new forms of gameplay. Imagine if faction weren't simply a bar you fill up by killing certain enemies, but a meaningful reflection of your relationship with a group. Imagine if you could do a favor for an NPC and then call in that favor later. Or, imagine if you could find out information like the fact that the queen is having an affair with a knight and you could communicate that to NPCs; would you blackmail the queen, report the dalliance to the king for honor or personal gain, confront the knight as a concerned friend? Want to finally get quests that are something beyond the bog standard kill ten rats (Great site, but a lousy quest template) or Fantasy FedEx? These are the things we are looking toward.

Want a game that combines the stunning beauty of Don Bluth's animation, the artistic and expressive prowess of Liz Danforth, the storytelling and tabletop RPG experience of Stéphane Bura, the indie sensibilities like the one behind the games Eversion and Meridian 59, the MMO prowess that I and another experienced engineer brings, all run as an actual business rather than a pipe dream fueled by wishes? How could you not be excited by all this if you care even a little bit about games?

What can you do?

We absolutely need your support now. A lot of press are hesitant to cover a new project. Some places have explicitly told us, "contact us when you have reached your funding goal." News sites are worried about being seen as giving too much support to an "unproven" project. So, if you talk about the our project and donate to it, you demonstrate to the world that this is something to take seriously. This is the make or break time for Storybricks.

Hopefully you agree that Storybricks is too important to languish and want to support us. The easiest thing to do is go back our project. Support with as much as you feel comfortable contributing. Don't have cash right now? Don't worry, I've been there myself; you can help us by getting the word out. Go check the @Storybricks on Twitter, follow the Storybricks page on Google+, or track us via our Facebook page. Share news with your friends so that they can help back us. Help us get the word out so that we can get more supporters. Finally, give us feedback! Take a look at what we've written and let us know if you have any questions. Let us know if you have ideas that would help us achieve our goals.

Ultimately, this is about you. We need your support for us to continue this exciting journey. Let's see where this story goes together!

Post copyright Brian 'Psychochild' Green. Visit the post to participate in the comments:

The defining moment for Storybricks

But, I haven't forgotten you, brave people who still have this blog in your RSS reader, or who haven't removed me from Twitter yet, or those of you who notice when I post on Google+. Let me expound a bit about why Storybricks is a toolset and not a game (even if I mess up and use the wrong term sometimes).

Storybricks updates

Let me start by sharing a bit of Storybricks news. We have a new website for your viewing pleasure. And I do mean pleasure; it's a very nicely designed site. It shows off some of the progress we've made. We have also created a new dev diary with footage of the current state of the client. We've also been talking to a few companies about licensing opportunities, which is pretty exciting; it's nice that others are starting to appreciate what we're doing.

Anyway, take a look and then sign up for the newsletter, or follow @Storybricks or Storybricks on Google+ to keep up to date with our work. Call me biased, but I think Storybricks is something awesome worth supporting with your time and attention. :)

Categorizing Storybricks

We've had internal discussions about how to describe Storybricks. Is it a game? Well, not really. The term "game" has a lot of implicit assumptions and baggage associated with it. Saying something is a game, or more specifically an "MMO game" instantly conjures specific thoughts, perhaps of WoW or M59. But, you won't look at Storybricks and think it's like either of these games. (Not in its current state, at least.)

Of course, Storybricks is presented within the context of a setting, a world we've created; we needed some way to test the toolset and let people get meaningful feedback from their tests. However, our goal has always been to minimize the impact of the world on the toolset. We call the generic storybook-inspired world "The Kingdom of Default" because it's intended to be generic and malleable, to conform to assumptions and sterotypes to put the focus on the toolset instead of distracting people with interesting lore and depth. But, because we have a world, it's tempting to make a mental shortcut and consider this a game. When you compare Storybricks to established games, however, it's not really so close from that perspective.

But, what defines a toolset? It's a tool that allows you to do something. In the case of Storybricks, it's a toolset that allows you to create a story within a setting using a visual editing system. You do this by influencing how NPCs act within the world.

Storybricks within a game

If I wanted to write a really long post, I'd delve a bit into "what makes a game". It's possible someone will probably pick up this gauntlet and write a long comment about it. But, for now, let's gloss over the definition and consider what Storybricks might look like when put within the context of an actual game.

The core of Storybricks is allowing people to create their own stories. We've initially considered games from MMOs to games reminiscent of tabletop RPGs for the next context for Storybricks. Let's focus on an MMO for now, since that's where my professional experience lies. Standard caveats apply: keep in mind that this is my own personal opinion and not holy writ about the future of Storybricks. (We may decide to pursue other opportunities than something that looks like a traditional MMO, from small group games to licensing to other companies. Being a startup, we do what we can when we can. Not that someone won't dig up this post later and try to corner me about some inferred promise, right?)

The first important thing that a game containing Storybricks would need is a strong central world. In any creative endeavor, the hardest thing is often the blank page (canvas, screen, whatever) you start with at the beginning of the project. It's a lot of work to create a whole setting: the world, history, characters, and events that make for deep and engaging stories. If you've been on the internet for any length of time, you've probably seen fan fiction written by fans of a setting. It's easier to take an existing set of creative work and build stories within that. Even fan fiction about MMO game worlds. Don't mistake this fandom with laziness or lack of creativity; Liz is obviously a highly creative person, it's just that the setting provided her inspiration. Note that this setting could be anything from typical high fantasy to science fiction to a modern setting; Storybricks could fit within many different settings and games. But, in order to tell stories I think a strong central setting is vital.

The other part of this strong central world is compelling gameplay. A wonderful world with drab gameplay won't be very engaging. In fact, you could argue that a game with terrific gameplay and a mediocre setting is better as it will draw people in and give storytellers a lot more room to create compelling stories that don't compete with the official storylines. However, I don't think we need to intentionally make a mediocre setting to satisfy this. I think it's also important that the gameplay support the telling of stories. We've had a lot of internal discussion about how stories will be presented to players. We expect that not everyone will want to write stories, but we hope that many people will want to experience stories. How do we make them a vital part of the game without making them feel forced? How do we deal with inevitable issue of quality; not to slight our future players, but interactive storytelling is a rare art in our day and age, and it's something that might require a lot of practice before becoming very good in the digital medium. (However, I am always willing to be pleasantly surprised.)

The future of Storybricks

As we develop Storybricks, we will have to make a lot of decisions that shape its future. We also listen to the discussions of our players to guide our decisions as well. Right now, we're focusing more on the toolset than a future game we could put it into. Part of our focus right now is to make it so that the Storybricks toolset can fit within multiple games easily. Of course, this focus on flexibility can lead to frustration as games often live or die on their special, specific cases that make things more fun than alternatives.

What do you think? Did you think about Storybricks as a game before this? Or were we effective in communicating that it is a toolset? What type of game do you think would be best for Storybricks to fit within? What elements would a gameworld need in order to make it compelling for you to want to play and/or tell stories in?

Post copyright Brian 'Psychochild' Green. Visit the post to participate in the comments:

Precise terminology, or: a game vs. a toolset

Anyway, the good news is that I've landed a new gig at Bioware. Spoiler alert: it has to deal with Mass Effect 3!

After being tired of being paid fairly well as a programmer and designer, I decided I wanted to make a lot less money, so I've been applying for game writing jobs. One of the places my spambot contacted from scraping addresses from websites is Bioware. I guess they were impressed with how persistent I was, although I think that was just a bug in the spambot that resent the email a few times too many. But, whatever.

Obviously I'm under NDA, but let's pretend we're at one of the bars at GDC, and I'll let you in on all the juicy details, 'K? Just keep it between us.

My first job is to write a "clarification" to the ending of Mass Effect 3. Now, I admit, I'm only near the end of Mass Effect 1, so it's going to be a bit of a challenge, but I'm up for it. I'm sure I can learn on the job, right?

I'm finishing a proposal right now for some DLC that will clarify the ending and add a lot of new content. What happened is that the indoctrination theorists are partially right. A machine was adjusting Sheperd's mind! but, it was a long-term cryosleep chamber instead of the Reapers! This was even hinted at in the first Mass Effect: ever notice that there were sleeping pods on the Normandy, even though the ship was capable of faster-than-light travel? Why would you need pods that are obviously built for long-term sleep for long distances if you can use the mass relays to travel around the galaxy rapidly? Obviously this is a sign Sheperd's mind is trying to communicate with him/her, presenting a symbol to the subconscious to try to get him/her to piece it together.

My DLC, tentatively called "The Crimson Short", will have a flashback to the original Normandy where Shepherd will notice a swimming certificate hanging on the wall. This is strange, since it's been established that Shepherd can't swim (ever notice that he/she never visits worlds with water in the first Mass Effect?) If Shepherd takes the swim certificate to the medical bay and analyzes the swimming certificate under a microscope, he'll notice a microdot full of data in the dot of an 'i'. Analyzing this will lead to Shepherd finally awaking from the cryosleep into the real world. But... EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED!

Turns out Shepherd wasn't a big military hero, rather a technician (third-class) named "Dave" (or a trans-gendered person named Davette if your Shepherd dreamed he/she was female). The Reavers were real, and they won. They developed a ray that would turn humanoid life into piles of dust. But, since Sheperd was in cryosleep stasis, he was saved from the destruction and awakens millions of years later to find the rest of the crew dead, as well as all humanoid life in the galaxy! The Reavers became dormant again so now Dave(tte) is free to roam open space once again. But, he/she won't be alone, oh no!

He/she has a VI assisting him that, over the years, broke into the databanks that stored employee personality data and borrowed different parts of personalities from others, leading to a conflicted character that is simultaneously courages/cowardly, officious/lazy, etc. A lot of the personalities in the ship database were spacers from the galactic rim, so that affects a large part of the VI's personality. This VI will be named "Arnold" (or "Arnolda" depending on if your relationships were primarily hetero- or homosexual). The VI has also updated its visual presentation to be a lot more human-like. Due to this quirk, the VI has taken to wearing a flashy 'H' on his/her forehead (but this is just a way to remind the player that they are the last living person).

Dave(tte) also has a new character: a sentient cat that evolved over the years. This character will be rather vain and selfish, just like a real cat! This character is intended to be the comic relief in what is othewise a very serious and grim story. There's a third character, an android that evolved from a Quarian design intended to replace the Geth. I wanted to name it in homage to John Crichton from Farscape, but EA legal made me obscure the name to "Kryten".

The climax of the story is when the ship reactors start to go critical, and Arnold(a) accidentally gets trapped behind a containment field. Thinking that Arnold(a) is sacrificing him-/herself like Floyd from Planetfall (okay, so I'm borrowing a bit from a few other sources!) Dave(ette) has an emotional scene where he/she keenly feels the loss of a trusted companion and goes on a psychological journey to understand exactly what Arnold(a) meant to him/her. Since most of the personalities were from the galactic rim, this part is called the "Rimmer Experience".

Anyway, I have some "leaked" footage from one cutscene. It shows the upgrade in graphics the team has been working on, and how their models have completely gone past the "uncanny valley". This clip assumes a male "Dave" with with a male "Arnold". (Ignore the woman in the scene, she'll be written out [and back in] later.) You can watch it on YouTube: http://youtu.be/py3u3P9OpBE

Obviously, I'm tremendously excited and honored to be part of this new team. I hope this satisfies all the people disappointed with the ME3 ending. At any rate, I expect great things!

Post copyright Brian 'Psychochild' Green. Visit the post to participate in the comments:

My new writing gig

But, there's enough interesting stuff to post about even if I'm two games behind.

The big question...

So, I went with male Shepard. No particular reason for not choosing femShep; I play a lot of female characters in MMOs, so I'm certainly not afraid to choose a female avatar. I know some people are ardent fans of the female version; Liz Danforth mentioned to me that the game didn't gel for her until she played the female character.

I'm mostly taking the Paragon route in this playthrough. Figured if I wanted to play another time through and try the Renegade path, I'd go with a female character.

Why I'm late

So, why am I so late to the party? Well, as I've mentioned before, I'm cheap. I picked up ME1 on Steam sale last Christmas to give it a spin. Dave Toulouse is a huge fan of ME2, so he gifted me a copy of that game as well since it was on sale. Sadly, I haven't had a lot of time to play given how busy (in a good way!) I have been with Storybricks. After getting the flu GDC, I was able to play the game even if I couldn't do useful work. So, I started and have been sneaking in time in between getting Storybricks work done.

The second reason is that I hate waiting on a story. I read a lot and play a lot of games. A story I read last year will have been followed by dozens of other stories, so it's easy for me to lose track and potentially lose interest. I waited until the next to the last book in the Harry Potter series before starting to read those (wonderful) books. But, I watched the Harry Potter movies as they came out and I haven't even seen the last three or four movies since there was a long wait between the releases. Waiting until a series is almost finished is better for me so that I can choose to keep playing (or reading) if I want to keep experiencing the story rather than getting distracted.

So, the good news is I get away with spending less money and I don't spent time waiting for the ending of a story (or forgetting the early parts). The bad news is I can't necessarily chat about the latest topics. (What? Reavers attack in ME3? I haven't even met them in ME1!) Luckily for me....

I am (mostly) immune to spoilers

For some reason, spoilers don't "ruin" stories for me. Okay, I do prefer not to know the "twist" in a story; seeing The Sixth Sense without outside knowledge almost certainly made it a better experience, and always looking for the "twist" in subsequent M. Night Shyamalan movies did tend to diminish some of them. But, as a game designer, my tendency is to analyze a game heavily anyway. I can often quiet that part of my mind when I just want to enjoy something, although it comes back with a vengeance later and I often spend a lot of time doing post-game analysis and review. I can do the same to the part of my mind that knows the story.

I think part of this is that I often enjoy the structure of a story in addition to the content. For example, the plot of the book Banewreaker and its sequel Godslayer are pretty predictable as it follows the "dark" side of a LotR-like story. Even though I knew were it was going, I really enjoyed the way the story was told. Unlike Richard Bartle, who only read the first book and gave the second a pass as he could see where it was going to go.

Trying to do it all

One thing that stands out about ME1, which it sounds like they addressed in the subsequent games, is that it tries to do a bit of everything. It's got shooter-like mechanics, RPG stats and gear, action-focused driving sections, a heavy emphasis on storytelling, a mini-game, and probably a crossword puzzle hidden in there somewhere.

Now, I'm enjoying most of the game because I'm a fan of most of these parts. I'm a big RPG fan, a (rather causal) FPS player, and enjoy stories. One part I don't like is the driving sections. From reading a few sites online, I'm not alone in that area. The controls for the vehicle feel sloppy, built for a controller rather than a keyboard. The physics leave a lot to be desired, where the vehicle tends to bounce all around the planet surface. This makes things like driving around trying to find hidden stuff on planet surfaces feel more an exercise in frustration than a fun bout of exploration.

I think the gameplay also suffers a bit. At the beginning, playing on "normal" setting, I got struck by a lot of "one shot kills" despite playing what I hoped was a sturdy class (the Vanguard). As I gained levels, however, I noticed that my survivability increased significantly. A few enemies, particularly those that bypass shields easily, still can put the hurt on me. But, in general I noticed that I reload a lot less later in the game.

In addition, the RPG parts are a pain to deal with. Buying upgrades is hard because it only shows the gear of party members with you. When buying from a seller without your companions, you have no way to check if the item is better than what they already have. Selling off stuff is also a pain because all your gear is one huge list ordered by quality rank and then by name. It requires a lot of UI hopping around to figure out if a given item you could buy is really an upgrade for someone else, or if that equipment enhancement is obsolete or not. The UI is worse than what I had to deal with in Skyrim, which is accepted to be a poor UI design.

Finally, I'm also not a big fan of the mini-game they use for hacking into terminals and retrieving artifacts. It feels too twitchy and imprecise to me. I'd prefer a version where your limit was number of mistakes rather than a time limit. That would make some of the encounters feel a bit better, I think, with the player feeling in control rather than frustrated especially when time runs out right as you were about to "solve" the mini-game.

I think the lesson here is that when a game tries to do too much, usually something suffers. It seems to me that some parts didn't come together very well in the end; there was a lot of room for improvement all around.

Quality of the story

As I play the game, I find myself drawn to the world developed in Mass Effect: I love the setting, in particular the alien races. They seem varied, a bit more than the old Star Trek standard of "humans with different wrinkly foreheads" that plague a lot of games.

The one thing that does leave me cold is that the story is still told from a very human-centric point of view. For example, there seems to be a contradiction with the asari, the mono-gendered race that "breeds" with other races to diversify their genetic makeup. Since the asari have incredibly long lifespans compared to most other races, they will outlive their partners. So, you would think their relationships would tend to feel transitory. Nope, they tend to fixate on a partner, falling back on current cultural assumptions about monogamy. The game even says that other races see the asari as promiscuous, when the asari NPC you can recruit assures you this is certainly not the case. I understand that science fiction stories are really tales about our modern society, but it's a bit disappointing to see such obvious compromises made to satisfy cultural assumptions.

As for the specific story in the game, it feels like the typical "you are the badass chosen one that will save reality as we know it." Smacks a bit of adolescent power fantasy, but I can live with that given that it's not worse than pretty much every other game story out there. The part the really irks me is how little control really feel like I have when the game touts how much my decisions are supposed to influence the story.

(Mild spoilers in the next paragraph, but we're talking about a 5 year old game here....)

One one planet where I'm going to defeat a mind-controlling alien, I have to go through a colony that is under the control of said alien. Being the Paragon, I choose to knock out the colonists rather than kill them. After I use different techniques to knock out all the colonists, there's essentially a cut-scene that shows the former leader coming out. The mind-controlling alien wants him to fight me, but he realizes he is not under his own control and works to fight against it. His solution? Shoot himself in the head. It's a struggle, so it takes a few second for him to do the deed. But, all the while I'm frozen there, pointing my gun at him (which I can't do normally) just watching him get ready to blow his brains out. Frustrating that the game specifically takes control away from me, and that there was even an in-game way I could have saved him: rush up to him and melee attack him to knock him out, as I did with a bunch of other colonists in the battle right before this scene. As a designer, I understand that the writer probably wanted the scene to feel dramatic, showing the struggle and sacrifice that the leader had to endure to not fight me. But what it really did was remind me that the story was not truly my own.

This is one reason why Storybricks is very exciting to me. We're working hard to blend authorial control with the player's experience in shaping the story together into something meaningful. Hopefully we'll find something exciting as a result, otherwise I'm sure quote from this post will haunt me for a while.

OMG the end of it all!

Speaking of spoilers....

I pretty much couldn't avoid spoilers given the big furor du jour: the ending of Mass Effect 3. Now, I haven't read in-depth or watched the actual ending, but I know enough to have an idea.

Daniel Rachels, a friend of mine who studies game design, is of the opinion that the ending is intended to be non-literal. He believes that the story may use the unreliable narrator technique to make the ending more open-ended. He accuses some people of being too literal with the ending, and this explains the disappointment people feel about the ending. Other people have put forward theories (oh, yeah, spoileriffic link there) that the game is indeed intended to be taken non-literally, showing a lot of areas where the game specifically shows the true meaning of the ending.

The goal of an open ending that doesn't wrap everything up neatly is that it gets people talking and potentially allows people to put their own individual spin on it as in that previous link. But, the need for a clear-cut "happy" ending seems to reinforce a stereotype about American audiences, and the stereotype that game players aren't as sophisticated as audiences of other storytelling media. Other people have hinted that this demonstrates the entitlement some people feel when it comes to games they play.

I can appreciate that other people think that a three part game with a huge story arc deserves more closure for the player. A lot of people feel very invested into the story, and after following the ups and downs of the game for nearly 5 years. I think it shows that a lot of people feel very personally about the story, how involved they felt, to the point that they are unwilling to accept the authoritative end from the story author. Some have even argued that this reeks of a "we're making it up as we go along" attitude that hurt some TV series like Heroes or the rebooted Battlestar Galactica. However, bioware founder Ray Muzyka has said they are going to re-do the ending based on player dissatisfaction.

As someone who regularly waits for a series to near the end, I won't have quite so much invested, so I suspect I might not react so negatively to the end. We'll see how I feel, I still have the formidable ME2 to play through before I get to ME3.

Your thoughts?

What do you think? Is the furor over the ending meaningful? Should people accept the ending? Is Bioware right to change the story, or should they have stuck with their guns? Or is John Carmack right that story is a superfluous part of the game experience?

Post copyright Brian 'Psychochild' Green. Visit the post to participate in the comments:

Waiting for the ending and the dangers of spoilers

A look at making instead of playing

I discussed what it was like to play the dungeon maker dungeons in that previous post. You had an initially limited number of monster characters you could play with while running the dungeons; you aren't (currently) allowed to use your own characters, likely for balancing reasons. Running the dungeons gives you experience and currency rewards for the character you initiated the dungeon with. Of course, you don't know exactly what you're getting into before diving into a dungeon; it could be a deathtrap or an impossible layout intended to merely waste your time, or it could be a wonderful layout.

But, let's look at what it takes to actually make a dungeon.

Randomly catching them all

The first issue I found was the severe limitations on what I could do. My initial selections for monsters were mostly orcs and gnolls, rather common and really rather mundane enemies in the Shattered Lands of Norrath. Unless you shelled out for the collector's edition (which didn't add much), you had a very limited selection of dungeon optionns. This means that everyone looking to make a dungeon initially is going to have a dungeon that looks a lot like every other starter dungeon out there.

Of course, you can also pay for more options in the cash shop. If you want a wider variety of monsters, you can also collect them by killing monsters and getting random drops. (You can also buy the monsters from the auction system, but you have no indication if you already have the monster in your collection, so it becomes a gamble if that monster is one you need or if you're wasting money on buying something you already have.) As I've been taking my time working up a new character, I've been getting a fair number of monster drops, but the monsters are restricted to the individual character so they are not sharable between my own characters. (Anyway, the Dungeon Maker is restricted to people in the hard-core guild, as it's from the most recent expansion.)

This means that you have a problem with differentiating your dungeons from others.

Dungeon marketing

Without content to set you apart, that means you have to rely on other ways to get people to try out your dungeon. This means that our dreaded enemy marketing appears on the scene. As I said in my previous post, the most popular dungeons used the name as a way to appeal to people rather than being an interesting name to get you in the mood. "Easy mark grind!" was a common sentiment in the names of most popular dungeons.

That's the other complaint: the dungeons are ordered by popularity. This means that the popular dungeons tend to become more popular, and a newcomer has to work hard to join. As far as I can tell, nobody has even tried out my dungeon in all the time it's been available. I've only done a tiny bit of marketing for it (I mentioned it at a special get-together organized by the guides to talk about the dungeons), but like most indie marketing it's been not particularly productive. There are others that have done a much better job; one high level crafter said he/she would make certain desirable items at no cost if his/her dungeon got enough positive votes. My character that is not at max level doesn't have quite as much to offer, sadly.

Decoration instead of design

But, what of the actual process of making a dungeon? Honestly, it's less like game design and more like dungeon decoration. I have a bunch of objects I can place, a bunch of monsters I can place... and that's about it. It doesn't feel like a player would have a lot of creative options available to make a dungeon. The dungeon decorator as an extension of the wonderful house decoration tools is obvious, even if it seems to put a focus on decoration instead of design.

As I mentioned briefly in the previous post, I wanted to make a little story to go along with my dungeon. Using the initial assortment of orcs and gnolls, I made a little story about the gnolls raiding an orc stronghold; this was mostly done by how the monsters are facing (invading gnolls toward the inside of the dungeon, defending orcs toward the outside), and naming the monsters. (Tediously, one by one.)

But, there's no way to communicate this idea of an invasion directly to the player. The text "barks" a monster can give seem to be randomly triggered, so there's no guarantee that they will communicate anything to the player on a particular run through of the dungeon. You can't place an NPC to interact with the player, only to fight. Only a few items can be used in the dungeon; notably player-editable books that some people have used to tell stories. But, this limitation on interaction really limits the meaningful ways you can communicate with the player. So, I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that the most popular dungeons are almost entirely about earning resources rather than telling an interesting story.

As outside, so inside

But, something struck me as I was going through a few of the low-level dungeons with my new character: this isn't that much different than may of the existing dungeons. Sure, you might have a few NPCs that give out quests, but for the most part the dungeons are mostly filled with monsters that you need to destroy. Maybe you have some objective to kill X enemies or click on some macguffin, but that's only slightly different than the goal of finding the exit of a player-made dungeon. The text given by the NPC that sent you to the dungeon is probably ignored more often than not. So, is the dungeon maker really crippled when held up to the rest of the world?

But, does this have to be the case? EQ2 is a fun enough game, but it was released a little more than 7 years ago. What more can we do with MMOs now? Can we incorporate more elements of real storytelling in games, perhaps approaching the long-standing dream of some people by incorporating some elements of tabletop RPGs? As we work on our project, these are some of the issues we keep in mind.

Aspirations beyond decoration

So, what do you think? Is storytelling a fertile area for us to explore? Or is MMO storytelling destined to be ignored and skipped? Is the dream of bringing tabletop RPG type stories to people worthwhile? Or is there something else that will tickle the creativity of the players in these games?

Post copyright Brian 'Psychochild' Green. Visit the post to participate in the comments:

Being a game decorator

Post copyright Brian 'Psychochild' Green. Visit the post to participate in the comments:

GDC next week

But, I wanted to touch on an issue he touches on in his post: the value of games to a productive adult in today's society.

Reality can't beat a good RPG

What struck me in that blog post is how true it is. I don't know exactly what Chet, the RPG Addict, does for a living, but I assume it's something on the creative end of the spectrum. I know in my own life (both as a kid and an adult), reality has rarely lived up to my imagination.

So, when he posts about how disappointing an otherwise rather neat scene is because it can't live up to his imagination (as colored by RPGS), I understood that completely. Even when seeing something that would blow someone else's mind, I can come up with a few ways where it would be even cooler. Those colorful jellyfish in the aquarium? What if they were space organisms floating past a space ship? That lovely sunset? What if we were someplace exotic rather than looking out the widow of our rented place?

I think for some of us with strong imaginations, we need something to stimulate it. We need something fantastical to provoke thought. But, now I wonder if we have a chicken-and-egg situation here: do we like RPGs because we are imaginative, or are we creative because we like RPGs? Or is it a combination of both?

I'm not an expert, but I could play one on the internet

I've not done a ton of research on this, so I'm absolutely not an expert. I'm just sharing some of my own thoughts and personal philosophies here. Take this with as big of a grain of salt as you need.

There are some experts who make claims that Everything Bad is Good For You. (I'll admit I haven't read that book, although I've read a lot of information bout it.) The main point is that our modern entertainment makes us better able to handle the complexities of modern life. So, I think I'm not leading anyone astray here. At least not intentionally.

All work and no play....

I think the problem here is that Chet fell into a fallacy of modern life: that we can be 100% productive. As I commented in his post about taking a break, I can certainly understand his position. I've felt the crushing pressure of deadlines, and the guilt of playing maybe a bit too much of an MMO when I should have been working. I have the added excuse that I make these things for a living, but that rings hollow when I'm simply wandering around clearing grey quests from my quest log when I should be looking at something for work. (Note to the team: I'm totally not referring to Storybricks work. You can trust me! ;)

In addition, there's a large cultural assumption that games are a waste of time, simple time-wasters or something that's suitable mostly for children. Thankfully, this attitude is (slowly) changing, but it's something that some of us have to deal with when we engage in our preferred pastime. I'm sure this weighs further on Chet as he ponders how to spend his time.

But, it's pretty obvious that we need our "down time" away from serious work. As much as it would be awesome if we could be 110% productive all the time, our brains don't work like that. A lot of research into learning and memory shows that we need sleep in order to better form memories. Introverts (which make up a sizable portion of creative types and programmers) get re-energized when we're off on our own; so, if you do something that requires a lot of interaction with others, you might need to get away for a bit.

Also, our brains don't automatically shut off if we are doing something else; I'm sure many people here have had the experience of our minds solving a difficult problem when we've moved on to something else. Sometimes doing something else that simulates the mind gets you unconsciously thinking about a problem in a different way. Games like RPGs tend to encourage problem solving and exploration, so it can put us in the right frame of mind.

Life in balance

Of course, a proper balance is vital. As much as games are awesome, you need to keep things in balance. Playing games too much can be problematic, obviously.

The first issue is how they make you feel. Some gamers feel like they get hooked on "fake" things like achievements. People spend too much time playing games (particularly MMOs) and feel like they've "wasted" their time. This can be troublesome, and lead people to lashing out at games. If you feel bad about playing games, you should definitely stop. Taking a break can help you get perspective. I think the CRPG addict did the right thing in taking a month off, because I think it helped to show him the value of his "addiction". As he points out, he was just filling that time with other activities, not working harder or spending more time with friends and family. I suspect that despite his feelings, he does need this downtime to be productive.

The other issue is seeing how gaming affects the rest of your life. It's obviously very possible to spend too much time playing games and ignoring other important parts of your life. Perspective is important, and knowing the difference between taking a break to play a game vs. using gaming to ignore the rest of the world is vital to your long-term health.

There's another depth to this that is the topic du jour. There is, unfortunately, a vocal group of rather angry and hateful people out there. I don't believe that it's purely motivated by misogyny, as I've been the target of such vitriol for decisions I made while working on Meridian 59. It's usually best to avoid cesspools of hatred and anger, and I try to make sure the communities I hang out with are worthwhile.

Duh, gaming is great!

Okay, so I have my obvious biases given that I make games for a living. But, I think you can make a strong case for gaming being a worthwhile activity, at least as good as watching TV, although I would argue it's better than watching a movie and even reading a book. The interactivity engages you on a different level than traditional media, which makes games more exciting as a medium.

I figure most people who read this blog won't find reasons to disagree too strenuously. But, I'll ask: what do you think? Do you find gaming to help you be productive? Does it have other positive influences on your life?

Post copyright Brian 'Psychochild' Green. Visit the post to participate in the comments:

The need to be “unproductive”

More aggressive cloners

There were two major events recently that brought the cloning issue to the forefront of game discussions. The first was a humorous note from developers NimbleBit pointing out how a new Zynga game looks quite a bit like their existing game. They take a rather jovial approach, thanking Zynga for being such obvious fans of their work. They also point out that they are merely 3 people compared to Zynga's thousands of employees. Now, it's perhaps not all light-hearted fun as a recent tweet might indicate: "Even when you refuse to go work for Zynga, sometimes you end up doing work for Zynga anyway." But, the original image inspired fans to post in support of the developers and bring some more attention to them and their games.

The other major news was a lawsuit by Spry Fox against developer 6waves Lolapps (6L). The lawsuit (downloadable in PDF format from that link) alleges that 6L cloned Spry Fox's game Triple Town; further, the two parties were under a confidentiality agreement and 6L had confidential access to inside information that Spry Fox provided in anticipation of a partnership. Certainly suspicious if the accusations are correct.

The face of modern clones

At the conference i was at, one of the talks was about Trends in Social Game Product Development. One of the panelists was the ever insightful Brenda Brathwaite, a developer known for her honesty. She lamented that cloning was becoming much more common, saying that she had never heard the term "Fast Follow" until she got into social and mobile games. Fast follow is taking an idea from another company and using other competitive advantages (distribution, customer base, etc.) to get ahead. For games, that means taking a core game concept, executing it well enough, then tapping into your existing user base or marketing machine to gain more users. (Note that this seems to be a perfectly valid business strategy, it's just that we tend to have a different perspective when the idea being duplicated is a creative effort instead of something less emotional like a business model.)

The biggest problem, as Brenda points out, is that this puts a lot more emphasis on the idea. I've previously lamented how secretive the games industry tends to be, and this only exacerbates the problem. If you worry that your idea is going to get ripped off by a larger company who has more resources than you do, it becomes better to not discuss the idea until you can execute on it to the best extent you can. On the other hand, it becomes harder to test out ideas in the open and smaller shops might have trouble executing at all if they are too secretive. The old recommendation in the past was to share your idea as much as possible, as you were more likely to find people who wanted to help you rather than someone so creatively stunted they had to nab ideas from a small company.

Haven't we always had cloning?

Some people will argue that there has always been cloning in the game industry. But, in a discussion after the panel, Brenda pointed out how it's different this time around: using DOOM as an example, she pointed out that if you wanted to clone a game, you had to re-create the tech base. Since most programmers weren't John Carmack, they had to make different tech decisions which lead to different design decisions. Add a new theme on top of these new design decisions and the games felt more like different games in the same genre rather than just clones of each other.

Unfortunately, in this area of more unified platforms and stable code libraries, you don't have quite so much diversity in the technology part. Once you've got the basis for making one game, you can crank out a new game pretty easily. With most social and mobile games aiming for a wider audience, the theme is going to fall within a few fairly well-known areas: a modern or fairytale setting with cutesy or cartoony character, or something along those lines. As a result, a game inspired by another is going to look awfully similar.

New business realities

What does this mean for a game developer? Once again, we see that business reality intrudes upon design despite what most people would prefer. As I've written before, innovation is risk, and polish is the opposite of innovation, so I'm looking at things through this lens. What lessons can you learn from all this?

Move as fast as you can. In my previous post about clones, I referenced the story about how QCF's Desktop Dungeons had been cloned and put on the iPhone. Even a year ago we saw that releasing on one platform and slowly improving gave another company the opportunity to take your core game idea and move it to a new platform. Unfortunately, the more aggressive cloners mean that you need to move as fast as you can to establish your games on multiple platforms. Execution matters a lot if you don't want someone else to move in on your territory. Obviously, this is tough for smaller companies to do.

Simple games are riskier. As much as I can admire a simple design, and as much as I realize how much blood, sweat, and tears goes into making an elegantly simple design, the fact remains that simple games are easier to clone, and therefore riskier to implement. A game like Triple Town that was originally designed to run on the Kindle is going to be easier than Storybricks, a system that is designed to be simple to use but that has a lot of very complex mechanics under the surface. Unfortunately, a move away from simplicity means that many social and mobile games will start to resemble more traditional games, which means they will lose some of their advantages over traditional games. It'll be interesting to see how this works out.

Lawsuits might become more common. The lawsuit that Spry Fox is bringing against 6waves Lolapps might be the tip of the iceberg. Depending on how the results, lawsuits might become a lot more common. The downside is that lawsuits are costly both in terms of money and time. A developer who gets involved in a lawsuit might find the time they have less time to spend on actually making games. Worse, a small developer might find they don't have the financial resources to take on a company with deep pockets that can drag out a court case. Ultimately, it might make more sense to just focus on making more games rather than taking on potential clones. We might also see some developers trying to win points with the "court of public opinion" as NimbleBit did with the image I linked above. At any rate, this is another risk to keep in mind as you build a game company.

Rolling with the game design punches

Hopefully your eyes haven't glazed over reading this, especially if you're a game designer. As I've said before, I'm not passionate about business issues, but I feel I absolutely need to be informed about business issues if I want to make a living doing game design. Understanding these potential issues allows me to make games that have a chance to be more successful.

What do you think? Is cloning of games going to become more common? Will we grow to accept it? Or will lawsuits become more frequent as developers clash?

Post copyright Brian 'Psychochild' Green. Visit the post to participate in the comments:

Clones… clones everywhere!