Narrative story

[merlekitty]

I wonder if it's plausible to have a narrative story in a video game without having a main character - or more accurately, the main character is you. In most games, there is a defined main character and an antagonist that drives the main character's progression through the story

Comments

[boxie]

So narrative, quite possible. You would be limited to a certain amount of how much story is told, and you would probably have to have a patch system or quick expansion system to roll out the next part of the story. Maybe have a certain time frame to allow players to help decide the next part of the story.

I'll keep bringing up warcraft because they stubbled upon a lot of how to use player interactions to build up the story. I don't know if you remember, but when they released Zul Gurub, there was a disease you could pick up that would over time kill everyone in your raid. Players discovered the disease stayed put when you left the dungeon and infected Ironforge and other major cities killing NPCs, the Auction House guys and a bunch of level 1 toons that were in the Auction House. Blizzard remembered that and set up a zombie invasion that helped set the story for the last expansion, wrath of the lich king. You could actually get infected and become a zombie. Once a zombie, you could blow yourself up or you could try to spread the infection. So a bit of story right there, giving players a choice to be evil or be good. There were no negative affects to your character, but you could certainly piss off other players.