Narrative Campaign General Discussion?

[ShadowOfHassen]

8 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

2-Having historical figures in the form of portraits will certainly give it depth.

I was wondering how we'd do dialogue. We don't exactly have voice actors so the Age fo Empires narrative strategy of cutscene + dialog in game might not work.

[Lion.Kanzen]

1 minute ago, ShadowOfHassen said:

I was wondering how we'd do dialogue. We don't exactly have voice actors so the Age fo Empires narrative strategy of cutscene + dialog in game might not work.

For now only text.

[ShadowOfHassen]

1 minute ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

For now only text.

Something like that with the text would work, though it might be smart to do something like how Wesnoth has a press space to continue for the dialogue, for slower readers.

[Lion.Kanzen]

2 minutes ago, ShadowOfHassen said:

Something like that with the text would work, though it might be smart to do something like how Wesnoth has a press space to continue for the dialogue, for slower readers.

As if it were an RPG.

[ShadowOfHassen]

12 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

As if it were an RPG.

Yeah, at least for the moment... It would take some coding, but it'd be the best thing we can do currently...

[Vantha]

Do we really need dialogue to tell the story?

Certainly a hot take, but I find cutscenes (especially with voiceovers) in RTS's very awkward. Why would Carthaginian generals talk in English? And with the moments of silence in between shouted lines, speeches sound very unnatural and feel everything else but "real". If anything, it takes away from the immersion for me.

But I have a strong suspicion I may be the only one here who thinks this way

[Lion.Kanzen]

32 minutes ago, Vantha said:

Carthaginian generals talk in English?

Like movies, they have an audience. The audience is the one who listens, they call it the communication process, if you interrupt them the message is not delivered.

Sí yo te escribo este mensaje en español, no lo vas entender especialmente si no usas un traductor.

Quiere decir que no  lo estás decodificando.

Edited Saturday at 17:30 by Lion.Kanzen

[ShadowOfHassen]

39 minutes ago, Vantha said:

Do we really need dialogue to tell the story?

Certainly a hot take, but I find cutscenes (especially with voiceovers) in RTS's very awkward. Why would Carthaginian generals talk in English? And with the moments of silence in between shouted lines, speeches sound very unnatural and feel everything else but "real". If anything, it takes away from the immersion for me.

In my mind, there are three ways to convey information in a video game (i.e. Plot)

The first way is atmospheric story telling. I.E. there's a skeleton right next to a dark cave. The player then gets the impression that something dangerous is there.

The second way is lore dumps. This could be a book or terminal in game, or the loading tip. They're nice to know information that flushes out the world. It's not necessary, though, and you can not look for it and ignore it.

The final way I think information is given is direct information given to the player that is necessary for them to complete and/or understand the game. I call this dialog, though there could be a better way to say it. Basically, it's the thing that says. "Hey, Player, you need to get these elephants over the alps"

Now, of course you could do this different ways. You could have a description before starting the scenario "One day Hannibal decided he wanted to take his elephants to go visit Rome, and to do so he needs to get over the alps"

Or you could have direct dialogue (which is how you meant dialogue) like:

"Hi Hannibal, what do you want to do today?"

"Well, I've been thinking and I kind of want to take my elephants to go see Rome."

"Well, first we'll have to get them over the alps"

I wrote the examples rather silly, but I think you get the basic point.

For scenarios for 0 A.D. We'll often need to make it very clear to the player what they need to do. And in those cases I think direct dialogue would be better. There's a rule in writing that isn't always right called show, don't tell. And I do think showing what is happening in cutscenes and dialogue is better than just telling with a text box that says. "Move the Elephants across the alps"

 

I agree with @Lion.Kanzen with the translation. We wouldn't probably have voice actors, so that would give us a bit more wiggle room if we just have written dialogue to help address at least the silence problem.

The only problem is you'd be brought out of the game whenever there's dialogue because you'd have to read it, so we'd probably use it sparingly anyway, mostly at the start and end of the scenarios.

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

1 minute ago, ShadowOfHassen said:

In my mind, there are three ways to convey information in a video game (i.e. Plot)

The first way is atmospheric story telling. I.E. there's a skeleton right next to a dark cave. The player then gets the impression that something dangerous is there.

The second way is lore dumps. This could be a book or terminal in game, or the loading tip. They're nice to know information that flushes out the world. It's not necessary, though, and you can not look for it and ignore it.

The final way I think information is given is direct information given to the player that is necessary for them to complete and/or understand the game. I call this dialog, though there could be a better way to say it. Basically, it's the thing that says. "Hey, Player, you need to get these elephants over the alps"

Now, of course you could do this different ways. You could have a description before starting the scenario "One day Hannibal decided he wanted to take his elephants to go visit Rome, and to do so he needs to get over the alps"

Or you could have direct dialogue (which is how you meant dialogue) like:

"Hi Hannibal, what do you want to do today?"

"Well, I've been thinking and I kind of want to take my elephants to go see Rome."

"Well, first we'll have to get them over the alps"

I wrote the examples rather silly, but I think you get the basic point.

For scenarios for 0 A.D. We'll often need to make it very clear to the player what they need to do. And in those cases I think direct dialogue would be better. There's a rule in writing that isn't always right called show, don't tell. And I do think showing what is happening in cutscenes and dialogue is better than just telling with a text box that says. "Move the Elephants across the alps"

 

I agree with @Lion.Kanzen with the translation. We wouldn't probably have voice actors, so that would give us a bit more wiggle room if we just have written dialogue to help address at least the silence problem.

The only problem is you'd be brought out of the game whenever there's dialogue because you'd have to read it, so we'd probably use it sparingly anyway, mostly at the start and end of the scenarios.

 

May be skip the dialogue if you are speed runner.

[ShadowOfHassen]

1 hour ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

May be skip the dialogue if you are speed runner.

Well yeah, skipping it is useful. If I'm stuck on a mission, I don't want to have to read the beginning of the scenario over and over

[Vantha]

2 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

Like movies, they have an audience. The audience is the one who listens, they call it the communication process, if you interrupt them the message is not delivered.

Sí yo te escribo este mensaje en español, no lo vas entender especialmente si no usas un traductor.

Quiere decir que no  lo estás decodificando.

I don't think its comparable to movies. But you're right, players will click away if Hasdrubal starts talking in Phoenician.

 

1 hour ago, ShadowOfHassen said:

The second way is lore dumps. This could be a book or terminal in game, or the loading tip. They're nice to know information that flushes out the world. It's not necessary, though, and you can not look for it and ignore it.

i believe that's something we should provide as well. A small page called something like "historical background" that explains the campaign's historical context. And helps players embed the story told into their existing knowledge (Carthage, Rome, Punic Wars, Hannibal, ...)

 

1 hour ago, ShadowOfHassen said:

You could have a description before starting the scenario "One day Hannibal decided he wanted to take his elephants to go visit Rome, and to do so he needs to get over the alps"

Well, I'd actually prefer this. It's more like paging through a history book. But I'll leave that decision up to you writing minds.

[ShadowOfHassen]

7 minutes ago, Vantha said:

I don't think its comparable to movies. But you're right, players will click away if Hasdrubal starts talking in Phoenician.

 

i believe that's something we should provide as well. A small page called something like "historical background" that explains the campaign's historical context. And helps players embed the story told into their existing knowledge (Carthage, Rome, Punic Wars, Hannibal, ...)

 

Well, I'd actually prefer this. It's more like paging through a history book. But I'll leave that decision up to you writing minds.

So what if we had a kind of overview when you start the campaign, a section called historical background, then we have a description that shows up in the scenario selection area and during loading and finally there is some dialog/ objective information in game.

 

I mean, in a single scenario you might have multiple objectives I.E. destroy the tower, build a civic center, train 10 hopilites, and you kind of need to get the player to realize they need to do that.

[Lion.Kanzen]

18 hours ago, Vantha said:

I don't think its comparable to movies. But you're right, players will click away if Hasdrubal starts talking in Phoenician.

A video game is not much different from a movie. Especially a campaign or story mode.

It has a script and a linear plot.

Synopsis and conclusions or plot twists.

[Vantha]

5 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

A video game is not much different from a movie. Especially a campaign or story mode.

It has a script and a linear plot.

Synopsis and conclusions or plot twists.

RPGs maybe, where storytelling is the primary focus. But to me RTSs don't feel like movies, even in campaign mode.

[Lion.Kanzen]

3 hours ago, Vantha said:

RPGs maybe, where storytelling is the primary focus. But to me RTSs don't feel like movies, even in campaign mode.

It depends on the generation. The first AoE was to use your imagination.

Starcraft does have a lore.

 

 

Edited 23 hours ago by Lion.Kanzen

[ShadowOfHassen]

28 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

It depends on the generation. The first AoE was to use your imagination.

Starcraft does have a lore.

 

 

My first RTS was Age of Empires 3 and even know the Knight's of Saint John campaign is probably one of my favorite stories in video games. (Nostalgia mostly, but it was pretty good)

[Lion.Kanzen]

4 hours ago, ShadowOfHassen said:

My first RTS was Age of Empires 3 and even know the Knight's of Saint John campaign is probably one of my favorite stories in video games. (Nostalgia mostly, but it was pretty good)

I only played the Japanese campaign of 3, my favorite will always be the AoE I one.

I don't remember what order I played the campaign in.

But I remember trying to play it without knowing how to control units in the battle of Actium.

I thought I was like Caesar II.

I bought AoE because I thought it would be like Caesar II.

It was better, I didn't know the difference between an RTS and a city builder.

 

Edited 19 hours ago by Lion.Kanzen

[ChronA]

Especially given that you guys seem to be trying to build a tutorial campaign, I recommend building your scenarios first and then writing your story around them, rather than coming up with story ideas now. It is hard enough to create compelling scenarios that are both entertaining and instructive. Trying to simultaneous line up those features onto a preset sequence of narrative beats is going to be nigh impossible. it will end up as an impenetrable jumble, where your story is constantly being interrupted by tutorial segments, and gameplay consists of a dry sequence of over-scripted set pieces intended to support the tutorials and story but lacking opportunities for organic creativity or challenge.

Setting and premise is pretty much all you should have at this point. Save the rest for after the scenarios are in a playable state. Personally I think the best development sequence is tutorial -> gameplay -> tutorial -> story. Basically you start with a general outline of what skills you want to tutorialize, then you build a fun gameplay scenario to test those skills. At that point you finish up the tutorial scripting to work around the dramatic beats of the gameplay scenario. Then and only then do you write your story and characters. The skills you need to teach will inform your protagonist's motivation and the story problems that they will face, and the gameplay will inform their characterization.

Starcraft 1's campaigns are a master class in doing this right, particularly the Terran campaign. Its tutorial goals are to teach you to control your units, how to build and defend a base, and finally how to command large armies. Thus we get gameplay and a story about an outnumbered group of refugees fleeing from the Zerg until they join up with an armed rebellion and overthrow on the colonial government. This ludo-narrative dramatic arc is supported by Jim Reynor's characterization: an inexperienced and reluctant leader who is radicalized by the scenario's unwillingness to give him the resources he needs to effectively protect his people, leading him and the player to get in bed with some really questionable characters and do some pretty messed up things to get the power to change that reality. It's a great tragic story arc that perfectly reflects the tutorialized gameplay progression of the campaign.

[ShadowOfHassen]

17 minutes ago, ChronA said:

Especially given that you guys seem to be trying to build a tutorial campaign, I recommend building your scenarios first and then writing your story around them, rather than coming up with story ideas now. It is hard enough to create compelling scenarios that are both entertaining and instructive. Trying to simultaneous line up those features onto a preset sequence of narrative beats is going to be nigh impossible. it will end up as an impenetrable jumble, where your story is constantly being interrupted by tutorial segments, and gameplay consists of a dry sequence of over-scripted set pieces intended to support the tutorials and story but lacking opportunities for organic creativity or challenge.

Setting and premise is pretty much all you should have at this point. Save the rest for after the scenarios are in a playable state. Personally I think the best development sequence is tutorial -> gameplay -> tutorial -> story. Basically you start with a general outline of what skills you want to tutorialize, then you build a fun gameplay scenario to test those skills. At that point you finish up the tutorial scripting to work around the dramatic beats of the gameplay scenario. Then and only then do you write your story and characters. The skills you need to teach will inform your protagonist's motivation and the story problems that they will face, and the gameplay will inform their characterization.

Starcraft 1's campaigns are a master class in doing this right, particularly the Terran campaign. Its tutorial goals are to teach you to control your units, how to build and defend a base, and finally how to command large armies. Thus we get gameplay and a story about an outnumbered group of refugees fleeing from the Zerg until they join up with an armed rebellion and overthrow on the colonial government. This ludo-narrative dramatic arc is supported by Jim Reynor's characterization: an inexperienced and reluctant leader who is radicalized by the scenario's unwillingness to give him the resources he needs to effectively protect his people, leading him and the player to get in bed with some really questionable characters and do some pretty messed up things to get the power to change that reality. It's a great tragic story arc that perfectly reflects the tutorialized gameplay progression of the campaign.

Yeah you’re right. we already have a rough list of what we want to teach so we’ve kind of already done that , we’re just keeping the other stuff in mind while be build the maps.

what I think both you and @Vantha are touching on is on the story to gameplay slider rts usually focus more on game play and I agree. But we can still do a pretty good story while we’re at it.

 

but obviously with the tutorial gameplay and game mechanics first .

[Lion.Kanzen]

43 minutes ago, ChronA said:

I recommend building your scenarios first and then writing your story around them, rather than coming up with story ideas now.

That is what we are doing, in fact, we are going step by step as we see the technical difficulties.

First we are designing the scenario map.

Then we will analyze the starting point or places, then enemies then objectives...

And from there we will see the historical figures involved.

[Lion.Kanzen]

48 minutes ago, ChronA said:

it will end up as an impenetrable jumble, where your story is constantly being interrupted by tutorial segments, and gameplay consists of a dry sequence of over-scripted set pieces intended to support the tutorials and story but lacking opportunities for organic creativity or challenge.

We already talked about that a month ago.

I'm going to put the video again.

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

It is basically the same idea of creating a base or colony and defending yourself from some hostile enemy incursion.

 

[Vantha]

3 hours ago, ChronA said:

Personally I think the best development sequence is tutorial -> gameplay -> tutorial -> story. Basically you start with a general outline of what skills you want to tutorialize, then you build a fun gameplay scenario to test those skills. At that point you finish up the tutorial scripting to work around the dramatic beats of the gameplay scenario. Then and only then do you write your story and characters. The skills you need to teach will inform your protagonist's motivation and the story problems that they will face, and the gameplay will inform their characterization.

Yeah, that's essentially our plan. We already have a list of features to teach in each scenario (a couple of pages back in this thread) as well as an idea how to wrap a story around it. That means, at the moment, we're at step two: creating the scenarios - for which we first need maps.

[ChronA]

8 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

That is what we are doing, in fact, we are going step by step as we see the technical difficulties.

I'm glad to hear it. It sounds like you have a good plan.

My confusion stemmed from the recent discussing being dominated by the question of how to present dialog, which I interpreted as an internal call to action, rather than a theoretical discussion to pass the time while you sculpt the maps. Mea culpa. Carry on.

P.s. I think the right answer on how to do RTS dialog is: it depends on the type of dialog. If you're going to have a lot of character interactions, cut scenes or CRPG style portraits + text block are both good options. But you could just as easily have a situation where most of the story is delivered by a disembodied narrator, in which case portraits might not be the best use of resources.