silent
Recruit
I've seen very few pure 'storyline' threads, though I've noticed some older ones, and while this post might not be totally 'pure' in that sense, I really want to air out a few ideas since I find that good and varied storylines with multiple possible endings are very rare and truly lacking in today's gaming industry, and to tell you the truth, I'm a bit sad to see that it hasn't been posted on as much as other topics.
There are two points I wish to start out with:
1- The game is very open in terms of gameplay options, even at this stage of its developement, the opitions of trader, knight, manhunter, slave-trader and other such 'unofficial' player professions in the game truly add a freeform element rarely encountered in todays games. And the combat simulation (I see this as a simulation, and the best middle-age combat simulation yet developed imo) is totally, utterly and god smackingly glorious!
but,
2- Sina touched upon a very important point, M&B1 is a singleplayer game, and hence I believe it needs and to have a good storyline (and would totally kick a$$ if it did).
The new gaming trend is unfortunately geared towards cpu-burning graphics and precious little in terms of true gaming finesse and immersive/interactive gameplay or innovative storylines.
Thus I would like to revive the storyline discussion with a few repeats and additions to various threads:
1- Character class and quests:
There already seems to be a certain 'division of labour' in the game, i.e. if you are a fighting man who commands troops you might opt for the more 'kill this, hunt down that', 'escort this' type of quest. If you are a merchant you could go for 'carry these goods' and 'find me 10 of these' type quests, while you do your daily trading routines.
I believe it would be great if these were somewhat embellished,
for instance, in its current state the game is very much geared towards the 'leader/fighter' character, you gather up as large a force as possible and go fight other bands of similar size, or escort caravans (going against bandits and such). Soloing exists only in the arena, and when you decide to take on an army of river priates by yourself or something.
What would make this game truly awesome is not only the option to become the 'leader of a band' or 'merchant with guards' but also some 'loner' quests like Sina talks about which make use of the battle/town engine, tombs and 'bandit hideouts' and such.
And another thing would be 'attribute specific' questlines, like coming across a wounded man as a random event/spawn, if you have a first-aid or surgery skill of 3 or above, the man lives and tells you that the bandits you are chasing ran east to a cave, or that his 'girl in Wercheg' is awaiting word from him, or 'I need to get this message to the king...ugh(dies)'. Similarly if one of your heroes has such a skill. (more heroes in the game please). And what if the message goes to an enemy king, might you get a reward if you just 'happen' to take the man back to your own lord?
Or tracking down a band of bandits could directly depend on the tracking skill of the party, and not just following the right arrows. And what if they are hiding in the forest? A spot check accomanied by a short dialogue with your 'spotter' (or yourself) would be sooo kewl.
And single player missions to assasinate some band leader? Anyone can work a crossbow, but can you take down a lord at the head of his column shooting from concealment at 300 paces while they merely walk from one corner of the combat map to the other? Then, because you didn't go alone your clumsy marnid is seen and you have to run for your life?
2- Your role in the game world: (as follows from 1- )
It would ver very very awesome if the game thus adapted to the player's chosen attributes, similar to the 'dying messenger' quest, what if you could use your leadership attribute to quell an angry crowd in a given town, thus getting a uniqe quest from the lord? Or varied quest completion options, someone tells you to intercept a message, do you assasinate the guy, do you just overwhelm him with numbers, or do you bribe him with your 'traders know-how'?*wink wink*
Would it be possible to haggle with bandits to pay them less money for passage? Or challenge the leader to single combat if you have enough of a 'warriorlike' look about you (i.e. hitpoints/strength) making his men wonder if he is a coward for refusing..? Or similarly, count whatsisname needs a champion to fight single combat in a trial by arms, and you are summoned to the capital to face single combat against the man who insulted his wife or something.
And another option might be actually becoming a bandit, if one had the option of attacking anyone they came across for instance (including those measly peasants), and once you are accepted by a given bandit community, or a price is set on your head by one of the towns or factions, you would officially be a bandit, and maybe start off a whole bandit questline, ending up becoming a warlord and capturing yourself a city even! (stop me if I lose myself in ambitious dreams).
Similarly, what if you make a great name for youself as a raider, hence gain respect from more than one group or faction on account of the 100million denar price on your head from the mayor of Zendar? Thus you have many more dialogue options with those gritty old river pirates or sea raiders. If Rivacheg wants you dead for pillaging millions, why wouldn't the mountain bandits want to join you for a share of the phat lewt? (loot)
One simple(er) yet effective function might be the implementation of a slightly more complex 'reputation' system. At the moment, if you attack a faction, your rating drops, granted, but what if you attack a faction they are at war with? Or friendly with? (ok, there are only two factions now, but that would be much more if each type of bandit counted as a seperate faction which you could become friendly with (have a rating above 0), or if there were a third faction added to make for some nice alliances and such.)
Or you make a name for youself hunting outlaws, and people in towns see you as a great and honest man, hence giving you more quest options from the counts and merchants, friendlier opening dialogues, (or nastier if you are a great knight of one side walking into another side's city) and maybe a teensy bit lower/higher prices?
In the middle ages, many 'freelance' warlords ended up being granted titles and newly conquered land as a reward for their services, and many rich men would buy themselves such titles and land. Might this be one way to keep an endgame score?
Two sides declare peace and your out of a job? Or do you try and start a new war by raiding the other sides caravans or killing that princess who is to be married to one of the lords who are party to the ceasefire? But this may get you outlawed by your own side? Such is the intricacies of medieval politics...
3- Politics/religion:
I already saw a suggestion or two about religion, which was definitely a crowd-pleaser in the middle ages, somebody declares a 'holy crusade' or 'jihad'? and now you're killing in the name of your church, and rewarded with gold from those bottomless church coffers? New units such as 'howling fanatics' who attack naked? Taking your band of horse archers to wear down those troops of holy order knights, you can't kill them all, but maybe you'll get payed for just taking down some or killing their pack horses?
Knocking holes in the water stores of a bunch of crusaders crossing the dessert (implemented in the form of a barrel or two with hitpoints).
Of course, one other point would be heroes that have loyalties/principles, or lack thereof. Marnid might not have the stomach for slaughtering innocent peasants and leave you or something, while borcha gets bored with trudging around the countryside carrying tonnes of salt and wants some action, and 'booty'? And those vaegir knights might start deserting if you raid one too many of those vaegir caravans?
Politics could also be one way for non-combat player characters to get xp, intelligence would count for a lot during negotiations or thinking up that suitable reply to a ceasefire proposal?
And if towns actually changed depending on the outcomes of the war? (oh the joy)
I'm pretty sure you have already thought of many of these, but I'm a big storyline fanatic, (and rather big on fantasy/medieval literature, who actually reads the dialogues in games), M&B is an excellent medieval close/low bodycount combat simulation, I believe it could be a good political simulation as well.
I was at best an indifferent student to my programming classes, but I believe many of these may be implemented for the final version's 'Official Campaign' and with only small tweaks to utilise the existing engine.
(I'm out of time, and sorry for such a long post, but I've fallen in love with both this game and the developmers' approach to creating it, I live in Ankara and am glad to see such a quality endeavour this close to home. Especially after years of complaining about 'hollywood' style games, ridiculuously pointless plotlines and the whole 'console' approach to gaming which is a slave to multiplayer for any sort of prolonged enjoyment or quality replayability).
There are two points I wish to start out with:
1- The game is very open in terms of gameplay options, even at this stage of its developement, the opitions of trader, knight, manhunter, slave-trader and other such 'unofficial' player professions in the game truly add a freeform element rarely encountered in todays games. And the combat simulation (I see this as a simulation, and the best middle-age combat simulation yet developed imo) is totally, utterly and god smackingly glorious!
but,
2- Sina touched upon a very important point, M&B1 is a singleplayer game, and hence I believe it needs and to have a good storyline (and would totally kick a$$ if it did).
The new gaming trend is unfortunately geared towards cpu-burning graphics and precious little in terms of true gaming finesse and immersive/interactive gameplay or innovative storylines.
Thus I would like to revive the storyline discussion with a few repeats and additions to various threads:
1- Character class and quests:
There already seems to be a certain 'division of labour' in the game, i.e. if you are a fighting man who commands troops you might opt for the more 'kill this, hunt down that', 'escort this' type of quest. If you are a merchant you could go for 'carry these goods' and 'find me 10 of these' type quests, while you do your daily trading routines.
I believe it would be great if these were somewhat embellished,
for instance, in its current state the game is very much geared towards the 'leader/fighter' character, you gather up as large a force as possible and go fight other bands of similar size, or escort caravans (going against bandits and such). Soloing exists only in the arena, and when you decide to take on an army of river priates by yourself or something.
What would make this game truly awesome is not only the option to become the 'leader of a band' or 'merchant with guards' but also some 'loner' quests like Sina talks about which make use of the battle/town engine, tombs and 'bandit hideouts' and such.
And another thing would be 'attribute specific' questlines, like coming across a wounded man as a random event/spawn, if you have a first-aid or surgery skill of 3 or above, the man lives and tells you that the bandits you are chasing ran east to a cave, or that his 'girl in Wercheg' is awaiting word from him, or 'I need to get this message to the king...ugh(dies)'. Similarly if one of your heroes has such a skill. (more heroes in the game please). And what if the message goes to an enemy king, might you get a reward if you just 'happen' to take the man back to your own lord?
Or tracking down a band of bandits could directly depend on the tracking skill of the party, and not just following the right arrows. And what if they are hiding in the forest? A spot check accomanied by a short dialogue with your 'spotter' (or yourself) would be sooo kewl.
And single player missions to assasinate some band leader? Anyone can work a crossbow, but can you take down a lord at the head of his column shooting from concealment at 300 paces while they merely walk from one corner of the combat map to the other? Then, because you didn't go alone your clumsy marnid is seen and you have to run for your life?
2- Your role in the game world: (as follows from 1- )
It would ver very very awesome if the game thus adapted to the player's chosen attributes, similar to the 'dying messenger' quest, what if you could use your leadership attribute to quell an angry crowd in a given town, thus getting a uniqe quest from the lord? Or varied quest completion options, someone tells you to intercept a message, do you assasinate the guy, do you just overwhelm him with numbers, or do you bribe him with your 'traders know-how'?*wink wink*
Would it be possible to haggle with bandits to pay them less money for passage? Or challenge the leader to single combat if you have enough of a 'warriorlike' look about you (i.e. hitpoints/strength) making his men wonder if he is a coward for refusing..? Or similarly, count whatsisname needs a champion to fight single combat in a trial by arms, and you are summoned to the capital to face single combat against the man who insulted his wife or something.
And another option might be actually becoming a bandit, if one had the option of attacking anyone they came across for instance (including those measly peasants), and once you are accepted by a given bandit community, or a price is set on your head by one of the towns or factions, you would officially be a bandit, and maybe start off a whole bandit questline, ending up becoming a warlord and capturing yourself a city even! (stop me if I lose myself in ambitious dreams).
Similarly, what if you make a great name for youself as a raider, hence gain respect from more than one group or faction on account of the 100million denar price on your head from the mayor of Zendar? Thus you have many more dialogue options with those gritty old river pirates or sea raiders. If Rivacheg wants you dead for pillaging millions, why wouldn't the mountain bandits want to join you for a share of the phat lewt? (loot)
One simple(er) yet effective function might be the implementation of a slightly more complex 'reputation' system. At the moment, if you attack a faction, your rating drops, granted, but what if you attack a faction they are at war with? Or friendly with? (ok, there are only two factions now, but that would be much more if each type of bandit counted as a seperate faction which you could become friendly with (have a rating above 0), or if there were a third faction added to make for some nice alliances and such.)
Or you make a name for youself hunting outlaws, and people in towns see you as a great and honest man, hence giving you more quest options from the counts and merchants, friendlier opening dialogues, (or nastier if you are a great knight of one side walking into another side's city) and maybe a teensy bit lower/higher prices?
In the middle ages, many 'freelance' warlords ended up being granted titles and newly conquered land as a reward for their services, and many rich men would buy themselves such titles and land. Might this be one way to keep an endgame score?
Two sides declare peace and your out of a job? Or do you try and start a new war by raiding the other sides caravans or killing that princess who is to be married to one of the lords who are party to the ceasefire? But this may get you outlawed by your own side? Such is the intricacies of medieval politics...
3- Politics/religion:
I already saw a suggestion or two about religion, which was definitely a crowd-pleaser in the middle ages, somebody declares a 'holy crusade' or 'jihad'? and now you're killing in the name of your church, and rewarded with gold from those bottomless church coffers? New units such as 'howling fanatics' who attack naked? Taking your band of horse archers to wear down those troops of holy order knights, you can't kill them all, but maybe you'll get payed for just taking down some or killing their pack horses?
Knocking holes in the water stores of a bunch of crusaders crossing the dessert (implemented in the form of a barrel or two with hitpoints).
Of course, one other point would be heroes that have loyalties/principles, or lack thereof. Marnid might not have the stomach for slaughtering innocent peasants and leave you or something, while borcha gets bored with trudging around the countryside carrying tonnes of salt and wants some action, and 'booty'? And those vaegir knights might start deserting if you raid one too many of those vaegir caravans?
Politics could also be one way for non-combat player characters to get xp, intelligence would count for a lot during negotiations or thinking up that suitable reply to a ceasefire proposal?
And if towns actually changed depending on the outcomes of the war? (oh the joy)
I'm pretty sure you have already thought of many of these, but I'm a big storyline fanatic, (and rather big on fantasy/medieval literature, who actually reads the dialogues in games), M&B is an excellent medieval close/low bodycount combat simulation, I believe it could be a good political simulation as well.
I was at best an indifferent student to my programming classes, but I believe many of these may be implemented for the final version's 'Official Campaign' and with only small tweaks to utilise the existing engine.
(I'm out of time, and sorry for such a long post, but I've fallen in love with both this game and the developmers' approach to creating it, I live in Ankara and am glad to see such a quality endeavour this close to home. Especially after years of complaining about 'hollywood' style games, ridiculuously pointless plotlines and the whole 'console' approach to gaming which is a slave to multiplayer for any sort of prolonged enjoyment or quality replayability).
