The power of the written word....

Velociryx · May 31, 2002, 21:58

Yet another topic of discussion on the game.

Having recently read till my eyes bled the excellent suite of articles that Papa GP pointed out to us not long ago, one point was underscored for me and really stood out in my mind.....okay, so actually there were several points like that in those articles, but I wanna take a moment to zero in on one of them in particular.

The Writing.

I think it's a safe bet that most everybody who spends time here prolly plays their fair share of computer games. I know I have.

And in all honesty, much of the writing in most of the games I've played has, well....sucked.

I think this represents another opportunity for us to shine, in the sense that if we weave into the game world excellent, descriptive (and dramatic, where warranted) writing, we'll add yet another layer of detail to the game world.

It's not enough to say "the citizens of province X are revolting!" Yeah, that gets the message across, but wouldn't it be refreshing if you got something a little...MORE?

For example - How hard would it be to come up with half a dozen different ways of saying that, and have one selected at random when something like that occured:

"Highness, the citizenry of Province X feels that their concerns have gone too long unheeded....they've armed themselves and are demanding satisfaction!"

"M'lord, the citizens of X have taken up arms against us!"

"Majesty! Our garrisons in X have been turned out! Rebels now control the province!"

etc.

How hard would it be to...I dunno...jazz it up a little? I know that when I'm playing a game, I get tired of the same old messages popping up for the gazillionth time, and that strikes me as being very easy to fix. Text files have an extremely high rate of compression, so it's not like adding in numerous variants for game standard messages would take up an ungodly amount of room or anything....and it's details like that....those are the things that tend to stand out in my head. Those are the kinds of things that make the game experience more immersive to me.

So...am I alone in this thinking, or on the right track?

-=Vel=-

ravagon · May 31, 2002, 22:44

Sounds interesting - although I don't really know if just randomizing text messages would add a lot to the game ... might actually make people worry about why messages x & y are different while they seem to be seeing the same effects?

How about different formats for each of your factions perhaps, or maybe different viewpoints depending upon your honour level?

"Sire - the people are distressed over the recent losses in food production. We should move to alleviate their suffering"

[Sith voice] "Master - the treasonous scum are revolting. We must teach them a lesson by wiping out the instigators ... all of them!" [/Sith voice]

I do think you have the right idea about putting more creative text in the game proper though. Flesh it out a bit so to speak.
Events/quests especially. Nothing worse than having a message "Quest completed" or "The Gryphon has been slain" after you've invested blood, sweat and tears in a mammoth task only to have the PC treat you as if you're the dog who's just brought in the paper ...

Incidentally there are rumours floating around that there is a writer on the team already ...

TCO · June 1, 2002, 00:34

My advice is to work on the crispness of your writing, Vel. Especially if you are writing the manual/strat guide/help screens. These need to be short and logical. no room for fluffy, "jam session", verbose phraseology.

In terms of player screens. I think ti is good to dress up the reports in a bit of story-related verbage provideed they are clear. I agree with Rav, that you shouldn't switch the wording for a report that is the same info...

moomin · June 1, 2002, 06:01

What he said. Great writing has a place, but strategy gaming isn't it, I believe. Strategy, after all, is about shaping your own story, and being molded into someone else's just doesn't - vibe.

Perhaps the best writing in any strategy game to date was in SMAC and I turned it of during my first game because I found it irritating.

Now, an superior script for a RPG, that'd be interesting. But I don't know how feasible it would be - anyone ever read those choose-your-own-story D&D books? They were all pretty abysmal.

MarkG · June 1, 2002, 08:39

i'm all for it vel, but one thing you should be carefull is not to confuse people or make it harder for them to easily realise that message x has the same meaning with message y

e.g. if the revolt message is always the same then it's ultra-fast for the player to, well, get the message

SpencerH · June 1, 2002, 10:35

It wont hurt, but after my 10th 20th or 1st game I ignore the pop-ups anyway. Yeah, Yeah the peasants are pissed off! Nerve staple em!

actually I never nerve stapled the drones- they needed me they looked up to me

Velociryx · June 1, 2002, 10:50

Good points all 'round so far...I agree that our opportunities are more limited in a strategy game than they'd be if we were crafting an RPG, but I *do* think there are some opportunities for us to let that aspect shine. A few things that come to my mind (and building on the comments so far):

1) Province effects, esp. unhappiness. Given the fairly complex nature of the societal model that we'll eventually be introducing, we can subtly change the message to be displayed, based on what's causing the unhappiness....that way, the central message is clear (there's trouble in province X), and the writing, slanted in different ways will provide cues as to exactly what's causing the trouble. (Examples: "The Free-Folk of Trentare are chaffing under the presence of our garrisons" or "Foodstores run critically short in Eastgate!" "I fear that the Merchants in Ironport, unhappy at the recent Temple expansion may not be paying their fair share of taxes.")

2) Fate Cards...the plan is to have a listed effect and then some Magic: The Gathering-style "flavor text" that's relevant to the game world....in my mind, this is the *best* opportunity we've got to really show off our ability to write.

Total agreement though, that help text and tutorials need to be clear and concise, but one of the things I have *always* found to be a nice touch is that, for example, if you're playing a middle agesy type game, to have in-game text come at you that sorta *feels* middle agesy....true, there's nothing wrong with saying:

"Pestilence has been cast on Province X." That's clear, concise, and to the point.

In my mind though, it's just got more oomph to it if you dress it up a tad:

"Sire! The cursed Wizards have lain down Pestilence across the lalnd! Our people in province X are dying!"

Same message, but the first method is simply reporting the fact, the second makes it feel like a personal attack to me....am I barkin' up the wrong tree tho?

-=Vel=-

BigRich@home · June 2, 2002, 09:38

Interesting thread.

A (probably unnecessary) word of caution though. Beware the Call to Power 'random words in stock sentences' model. To me, that just looked and felt like what it was - a cheap and dirty way of introducing 'variation' into game messages.

Rich.

moomin · June 2, 2002, 09:50

I dunno. I like a distinct icon with a nice, easy to read number attached below or beside it in my pop-ups

The fate cards are probably the best bet, at least if there are enough of them so that you could play for quite some time without seeing them over and over again (which is difficult, some of the new 'Poly post quotes are becomiong old already...) But as long as I can see at a glance at the icons and numbers what the fates have handled me, I probably could live with having an nice, well-written text to go along with it.

JMarks · June 18, 2002, 18:04

Personally like the idea. For events it can be extremely varied based on: Why the event is happening, where the event is happening (is it a main province, outlaying, newly conqured, etc), to whom (faction, honorability, military strength, economic strength), who did it.

Just mix and match whatever flips your wig. Add more where needed of course. However, those who play the same stratedgy over and over again will probably not see a lot of the varients. I noticed this a lot when I look at similar stuff in other games. (hey, how do I get THAT message? It looks cool) You get the idea. But pop-ups (at least when I've played a while) I usually just click right away.

Which brings me to another idea. Could we have a messages/events window/column to one side? What I'm thinking is you can have those messages in length, making them clickable and zoom to where the 'action' is. This way, you still know what is going on but you don' t have to be interupted and dragged across the screen for the pop-ups. Save those for real important stuff like quests or something. Anyway, the events then can be organized by turn, and one can go back/scroll up and check on previous turn's concerns. Just an idea.

Am I making any sense?

FrustratedPoet · June 18, 2002, 18:08

You make sense to me JMarks ... something I hate in many games (especially the 'Tycoon' games for some reason) is when you get dragged over to the other edge of the map for some pointless and trivial reason and have to scroll all the way back to where you were before. We must avoid that ...

alva · July 3, 2002, 01:37

hi, i'm trying to catch up on this project (pfew, you guys are doing a great job

anyway on topic:

Quote:

[size=1]posted by Vel[/size=1]
For example - How hard would it be to come up with half a dozen different ways of saying that, and have one selected at random when something like that occured:

"Highness, the citizenry of Province X feels that their concerns have gone too long unheeded....they've armed themselves and are demanding satisfaction!"

"M'lord, the citizens of X have taken up arms against us!"

be carefull when doing thing like this. If you are going for an international market make sure people can understand it

Allthough English is very widespread, you have to realise that as soon as you start using uncommon phrases/words/grammar people will stop following you. ( unheeded might be a good example

)
And it's not all that much fun having to use a dictionairy all the time just to play a game

I'm not saying you should keep it simple, just don't go overboard. Don't confuse them as this could well be an gamebreaker IMHO

goodluck

JMarks · July 3, 2002, 10:17

Quote:

Originally posted by alva848
hi, i'm trying to catch up on this project (pfew, you guys are doing a great job

anyway on topic:

be carefull when doing thing like this. If you are going for an international market make sure people can understand it

Allthough English is very widespread, you have to realise that as soon as you start using uncommon phrases/words/grammar people will stop following you. ( unheeded might be a good example

)
And it's not all that much fun having to use a dictionairy all the time just to play a game

I'm not saying you should keep it simple, just don't go overboard. Don't confuse them as this could well be an gamebreaker IMHO

goodluck

Thats a good point. However I do want that kind of stuff in there. Sooo, what to do? We just get 'translations' into the nearest old sounding version of whichever market we're shipping to.

Of course thats exactly the same problem we have in America too. People don't grow up with Older English (don't go to church with KJV) so they say 'thats too hard for me to understand'. That just gets me all upset, but I should be more understanding. Still, grrrr.

DeepO · August 17, 2002, 12:50

Sorry to keep reviving old threads, but I'm more or less reading everything here (long weekend, not much to do), and I want to chime in with some comments, and add some ideas.

I basically agree with both moomin and alva. While many distinct, well written messages might give that extra level of detail, they will grow old at one point or another. Further, non-English players do have a disadvantage when needed to decipher things, there's more then one game term I use, but don't know the exact translation of.

Moomin's idea of having a clear icon (which doesn't change) for a message is part of the solution, and the other part can be given by adding titles: If you have a title of "Unhappiness in X", you can add whatever text you want, it will satisfy both types of players. Scripted messages (like "your people are starving in X" type stuff) again can be implemented in a title(bar), by having a summary there, and then have a large, literature, RPG like text below. Further, additional texts can be added by patches, XPs (if there will be) etc. thus lengthening the time it takes to get bored by the texts.

DeepO

Velociryx · August 19, 2002, 10:10

Mayb33z w33 cudz mak3 a11 d3 m3ssag3z for 1337z?

-=Vel=-

DeepO · August 19, 2002, 11:56

maybe 1337z would like it, but I thought you were aiming for elite players (morre complex then the more commercial TBSs), script kiddies most of the times don't classify for that.

But, what creative writing is concerned: everybody complains about the diplo / cultural / conquest / domination endings of CivIII, as they don't give you anything, in CB it would be nice to have some stories there... And different stories, so players read them a few times, instead of just once.

DeepO

Velociryx · August 19, 2002, 12:16

Amen, DeepO! And, while we won't have any 1337 messages lurking in the game, there might be a few 3azt3r 3ggz built in....

-=Vel=-

DeepO · August 19, 2002, 13:34

34z74 3§§z? Cool!

DeepO

Kuciwalker · August 26, 2002, 15:50

Could we have SMAC-style interludes?

DeepO · August 27, 2002, 06:01

Quote:

Originally posted by skywalker
Could we have SMAC-style interludes?

Looking at all the stories that have been written so far, my guess is that we'll need those interludes to be able to store all the texts the literature team writes

One of the ideas here is to make the Fate Cards have a story telling role as well, which would provide for some nice tension, and a lot of different story threads for those interested in reading on the CB world, instead of just playing in it. More on this the following weeks, so a little patience, please

DeepO

Kuciwalker · August 27, 2002, 11:51

Yipee! Those interludes were some of my favorite parts of SMAC.

DeepO · August 27, 2002, 11:59

Well, what I've read so far was at least of the same quality, possibly better. The background story on top is just one example, and maybe I'm biased, but I think it's better than the SMAC background story that appeared as teaser before the game came out (you know, with a few pages every week). Vel is a very good writer, and he's not the only one on the team...

DeepO

alva · September 5, 2002, 18:00

Is catt on this project too?

because he has a very natural rythm when writing sentences. I don't know if he is very creative

, but he sure is very eloquent

@vel : was that you on the civ3 strategy board --> Iz-NooB ? (or something like that)

DeepO · September 5, 2002, 19:09

Hi alva... as far as I know, Catt isn't in (yet).

Isn't it a shame we have to translate all our thoughts to English? If only the rest of the world would learn Dutch, all of a sudden we would become master writers

Nah... I'm not a literature guy... but I'm glad we have a few of them, it adds a whole lot of depth to this game.

DeepO