Designing Stories for Connected World: Where the Designer's Storytelling Stops and the Player's Begins
Tuesday, 21st September 2004 Jessica Mulligan, Executive Consultant, Online Games Download video (wmv) Online gaming presents designers with a unique challenge... and an even more unique opportunity. Most traditional entertainment media, including standard console and PC games, feature a beginning, middle and end to the story, a completion of the circle. Online worlds, on the other hand, have a beginning and middle, but no end. As well, players love a good story, but online players want to participate and have an effect on that story and this effect may be wildly different than that which the storyteller planned. How, then, is the story-teller to accommodate these seemingly conflicting interests? In this presentation, we'll look at what has been tried in online games the past, what has worked and what has failed, and try to reach an understanding of just what storytelling online is going to look like in the future. |