Story support. Funcom please respond.

[_____________Codeini]

Point by point so this is very clear. And keep in mind that aisde from the bugs that are actually slowly being weeded out (I accept that financiers require release dates be met) that I actually applaud the game to date.

Point 1:

The storyline is currently being played for aproximatly only 10% of the players.

I would guestimate that at least 40% (of active players) wish to be involved and actively seek out story driven "scenes"

This being my perception I move to the next point.

Point 2:

On RK1 After Patch 13.4 there was the most perfect opportunity provided to really bring many characters into the player level storyline, or bring the storyline to those players.

The faction my Main is an executive of within OT, put forth great effort out of character for 4 hours post patch in Roleplaying the massive reprocussions of the patch and movie.

I had one simple request as someone who understands storytelling for large groups of people intimatly.

2 or 4 NPC guards (played by Members of FC staff or Advisor team to do what should have happened as the servers came up without any encouragment from the players.) Be on site of the explosion as members of the Actual Omni-Pol to secure the area of the terrorist attack so that (another NPC) an investigator from Omni-Pol or Omni Intern-Op came to investigate the scene for clues... onto point 3...

Point 3:

For 4 hours I with my character Dr. Gerry "Codeini" Ginsberg Director of Medicine for Omni Tek Emergency Responce attempted to present a realistic post attack scenario with other members of O-TER with the mistaken idea that maybe the Story staff would follow up In Game what they put so much Out of Game effort into bringing about.

Now some good things came out of it

1. Gained a new member who actually enjoyed the RP aspect of the scene.
2. For a short time added a great amount of "realism" to the story incident.

But some bad things happened... seperated into two catagories....

Cat 1: OOC View from players involved.
1: Without verifiable "Corporate" Characters to make an apearance it was viewed as a good hearted but failed attempt at roleplaying.

2: It showed to everyone that the Story staff had no intention of makeing their story arcs look plausable thus failing to lend to "suspension of disbelief"

Cat 2: IC ramifications of ooc Story staff apathy.
1: Omni-Pol looked incompetant in failing to secure the explosion site after a major breach of their own security.

2: The story released about the investigation looked like a complete lie since no one ever saw an investigation of any kind.

I never bash without provideing a solution....
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1: In the event of another story patch have some "scene" prepared when the server goes live that will continue useing characters like but not limited to "Derva" etc... Characters players can identify as being "Official" cast and thus allow themselves to enter a roleplaying mode.

2: Take the time to ask players for assistance in telling the story beyond sticking with the "Big Name Factions" (tm).

3: Make a touch more effort at putting out more "hooks" than just generalities and conjecture in which there is no way to verify or investigate like with the "Embezzelment" plot.

4: In general we are paying you to be the ST's for our Characters... and while as good players we need to provide something to you to work with... you as good ST's need to,
a. Listen to what we're provideing.
b. Bring the story to us.

I have and will continue to ignore the programming issues because I think the story here can be fantastic.

God knows I've ST'd and played many Paper and Live Action RPG's who's systems were far more broken that this one is simply because the storytellers/players/plotline were outstanding.

In closeing I will list my credits as to why I feel I have the right to say the above.

3 years as Storyteller, historywriter, plotkit designer for (unless I'm missing someone) the largest roleplaying organization in the world. With players in every EU country and thruout North America. Total worldwide membership of over 15 thousand.

And too many years (to mention here) ST/GMing multitudes of different RP systems working around their flaws to bring out great story on the small and large scale. From intimate coffee table groups of 5 friends to 150+ Member Live Action games.


FD
player of
Dr. Gerry "Codeini" Ginsberg
Director of Medicine
Omni-Tek Emergency Responce

[_________CaptFallout]

10%?

Well... the past events (Mutants spawning and coming and the bombing of Omni-ent) really didn't involve many people... a few dozen people (under 100) came and killed the monsters for no reason (just wait for a zone crash! They'll go away!)

Let's do the math...

I've been at every event that has been hosted by FC for Omni-Tek.

Let's just get a simple guess based off of one month old figures...

RK1 = 75% of players
RK2 = 25% of players

Okay. Since rk2 has been dumped by Funcom, that's 75% of players max who have heard of story stuff.

Now the "major" events I've been a part of...

Trial, TAG conference, Cyborg "press conference"...

Hmmm... about 60 at trial, 300ish total at all TAG conferences, around 80 at the cyborg conferences. The majority at all events were "overlaps" since it seems a majority of those at events are a bit more "connected" whether it be by friends or guildmates who are on top of the goings on on Rubi-Ka.

So about 250 people (yeah rough estimate)


Well I don't know what this proved or even how accurate it is... but either way. It shows that not enough events and participants are in the game.


More events = more participants.

That's math we all can agree on.

[_____________Codeini]

I was being nice in saying 10% I understand well that it is actually less than .10%


FD

[______________Windie]

the main problem seems to be getting the info on events out. I can only speak from the clan side, but in general events go to people in clans who have leaders that a) listen to the leader channel, and b) care enough to tell their followers. They put in those 'news' channels, and they should actually use them...

The people that take part that helps people who are involved be so is organization... in the mutant/clone attack event, the second part of the event involved an omni exec. (Duco, 313 omni crat) investigating the place in the longest road... Due to our orgainzation and intel, 4 of the 6 people in duco's team were clan leaders, and at the end there were at least as many clans as omnis. I think the lesson here is, once again, about dissemination of info. we shared teh info quick, and were there... others... were not.

[_____________Codeini]

I understand that the info on events is mainly distributed thru the Faction leader channel...

But the communication of planned events is not the issue in my mind, at least not top priority.

Top priority is...

Haveing support In Game for Out of Game story. 13.4 as prime example.

Haveing story rather than intances of planned event slaughter accessable to more players even if in a passive onlooker phase.

For instance....

Large building in O-Ent destroyed by Terrorist bomb.....

Crowds gather (when servers come up after watching the acompanied movie) wondering what is really going on.

Some players take the initiative and (because it's what their "guild" is designed to respond to) make efforts to "rescue" the "Survivors" and keep others around safe from debris while Omni-Pol (the people who realistically should be second on the scene though they happen to be played by GM's Devs etc....) arrive to secure the area and investigate the explosion.

Instead the Animated movie they must have spent much money on went effectivly to waste because the only thing that occured regarding the bombing specifically didn't include any "recognizable" corporate hardliners (NPC's) because they didn't plan on actually supporting the obvious plot hook with In Game activity.

Now I have to say that I did speak with a member of the ST staff that day and found out basically that they had no intention of supporting the storyline event that sprung from the storybackground they created untill the events later that evening, which if I'm not mistaken were nearly entirely combat oriented.

FD

[___________Chagidiel]

there are four acctually quite simple things to solve the most serious problems. Im sure you all figured this out already...neverthless ill write them down...

1: More events

2: Make sure everybody has a chans to interfeer with the events.

3: Let people interfeer in other ways then by shouting or killing something.

4: More active story GM:s that are speaking WITH the players, not TO the players.


And i agree...the game in it self is quite ok, and has been for quite a while now.

I havent got chrashes in quite a while.

To fix gamebalance in PvP is acctually not a good idea to do before you provided some content to the game, because this will never be a good PvP game anyway. So there better be a story (content) and things happening in the game NOW, or there wont be any people around to PvP with.

My humble opinion anyways..

[_____________Codeini]

"1: More events

2: Make sure everybody has a chans to interfeer with the events.

3: Let people interfeer in other ways then by shouting or killing something.

4: More active story GM:s that are speaking WITH the players, not TO the players. "

Ahh yes good points to elaborate on them one at a time.

1: More events with larger scope and possibilities, I understand haveing thousands of muties showing up and running rampant but without any way for players to investigate anything regarding them it just seems like a way to devolve the game into something like a standup shooter arcade game.

2: Allow players to make an impact, this means actually have Storytelling staff to watch what the "average" player does and look out for inteligent actions, maybe even provide for a "downtime action request" so that those who want to can go above and beyond. Maybe thru E-mail or tells...

3: See number two and actually follow thru with answers there...

4: Narrators maybe... instead of ARK's maybe start another branch of vioulenteers who are under the Event/Story development team. Who can activly seek out people who are wishing to become involved in the story. Of course this could come with a stiff price such as haveing to never play a character on that dimension again, because your character and duty to FC in return for free gametime is to spend 10-15 hours a week playing a plot device and NPC... this alone would make a world of difference.

A post to come on what this team could look like.

FD

[_____________Codeini]

In Your Own World: A Player's Guide for Running Events in Anarchy Online was published yesterday on the main site.
http://www.anarchyonline.com/content...articles/1680L

And it is a good guide for what players and specifically faction leaders can bring into the game...

But what I'm proposeing goes much further and should be as much a part of the game as that is.

Next installment...

Rubi-Ka Player Involvment Team
or
Historians of Rubi-Ka
or
oh well on to the idea.

[___________MrTeatime]

Yeah, more events would be nice..but..if they decide to do something like Codeini suggested, let me know so I can get away from the relevant zone as fast as possible.

Official events that last longer than 15-30 minutes always end in chaos, because too many people want to a) check out the action b) try to kill an ARK or a GM c) be an ass d) shout "I roxxors" to as many people as possible or e) all of the above.

Maybe I'm just jaded by what I've seen at the other events, but in my opinion FC should concentrate on arranging small, shorter events than doing more large events that always end in chaos.

Oh, a small exception: the TAG conference in west athens was kinda fun to attend, maybe because it was in a 100% zone..

[_____________Codeini]

Okay To begin I will give a description of the Members of this team.


On the Staff side of things. (I know makeing more work for the guys we're paying... err wait thats their job.)

Story Development Team(or Online Events Development Team): <Added to thier Job description>
In charge of reviewing and approveing Storyline development proposed by Lead Storyteller

Lead Storyteller: (Can be an added duty to one of the Lead GM's)
Overviews implimentation and progression of storyline and the involvment of said story by playerbase, utilizeing the reports and first hand experiance given to her/him by the Dimension Storytellers.
Reports to the Story Dev Team.
Is responsible for the Implimentation and prgression of stroylines developed by the Story Development team.
Oversees the Narrator Training/Development Program developed by the Dimension ST's and The Lead Narrators of each Dimension.

The Job that can be either Volunteer or Paid Staff is...

Dimension ST: (One per Dimesion)

Reports once weekly to the Lead ST.
Responsible for Developing and Implimenting a recruitment and training program for the Narrator staff.
Works with the Narrator Team Leads to bring the story actively to the playerbase.
Responsible for reviewing the progress of the storyline on a player level useing both In Character (IC) interviews and Out Of Character (OOC) surveys of the players and their characters respectively.
Coordinates training and information with their counterpart on the other dimension.
Plays other NPC's as needed within reason.
Must understand how to seperate their knowledge of the storyline from their PC's interactions with other characters.

Narrator Team Lead: (one each for each political side on each Dimension, 6 total for current Dimensions)

Responsible for Reporting the involvment of their assigned side of the conflict of the storyline to their Dimension ST.
Responsible for the activities and honor of their subordinate narrators.
Responsible for the actual player involvment in the current story arc proposed by the Story Dev. Team.
Participates directly in self concieved, Dimesion ST approved, Events or discussions with players to further the storyline.
Plays an active NPC with goals set and approved by the Dimesion ST in line with the story arc. Examples are Omni-Pol Guards or Derva etc...
Follows the ARK rules set forth in their Non Disclosure Policy except when needed to push the storyline as nessisary.
Plays thier primary NPC no less than 15 hours per week.
Plays other NPC's as needed to further good roleplaying set forth by Player created Events.
Must understand how to seperate their knowledge of the storyline from their PC's interactions with other characters.

Narrators: (Each team should have 5-10 Narrators per Team Lead)

High Level Narrators: (Currently only one to two High Level Narrators would be needed per team)
Be assigned an NPC of high level to interact with and bring the story to those involved in the high level game.
Follows the ARK NDA with regards to Game mechanics and story issues except when directly involved in an IC conversation and only when it will further the persuit of that story arc.
Will play the NPC no less than 15 hours per week and follow the guidelines set forth by their Team Lead and Dimension ST in regards to activity.

Mid Level Narrators: (2 to 4 needed per team)
Be assigned an NPC of Mid level to interact with and bring the story to those involved in the high level game.
Follows the ARK NDA with regards to Game mechanics and story issues except when directly involved in an IC conversation and only when it will further the persuit of that story arc.
Will play the NPC no less than 15 hours per week and follow the guidelines set forth by their Team Lead and Dimension ST in regards to activity.

Low Level Narrators: (3 to 6 Needed per team)
Be assigned an NPC of Low level to interact with and bring the story to those involved in the high level game.
Follows the ARK NDA with regards to Game mechanics and story issues except when directly involved in an IC conversation and only when it will further the persuit of that story arc.
Will play the NPC no less than 15 hours per week and follow the guidelines set forth by their Team Lead and Dimension ST in regards to activity.

:Note on Low level Narrators:
These will be the meat of the player retention efforts. Most players I would gather either play to 60 and quit or stay. Setting them in a good involved plot would most certainly help with player retention and also bring in a lot of new players based on refferals.

Definitions of Low Mid High
Low is defined as 1-75 stretching to 100th levels
Mid is 75-125 stretching to 150th levels
High is 125-200
As such NPC's assigned to them should be of the upper end of their respective level ranges.
Low 75
Mid 125
High 175
Team Lead primary NPC's would be of 200th Level
Dimension ST Primary NPC would be of 225th level
Lead ST's Primary NPC would be of 250th level

Of course Other NPC's created as needed based on storyline needs, and played by the most availible story team members.

And Event Team Staff will continue playing NPC's such as Derva and the likes as needed but will be less nessisary as this team flourishes into being as they will have a reliable source to go to.

Implimentation Notes:
From existing staff find staff members who would like to see this come to fruition, place them in the nessisary possitions down the chain to Lead Narrator. Use also existing players who have the idea and goal in mind. To fill out the teams up to and including Lead Narrator.

For instance:
FC Web Designer A loves the idea and has shown to be reliable in ethics to work well within this.
You now have a good candidate for Dimension ST 1.

Dimension ST 1 Now seeks other reliable members to flush out his Team Leads and they seek out players who have shown alot of RP ability and honor.

Then Utilizeing E-mail and Websites provide a worldwide communication network for the team to share ideas and impliment them...

Cz or Cosmic or other please feel free to ask any questions regarding this.

FD
fsullivan@starband.net

[_____________Codeini]

Mr Teatime,

The event following the 13.4 Patch went as smooth as could be expected, there were of course people who did as you mention put with the large amount of people roleplaying and the utilization of /ignore on a large scale by most people participateing we were able to bring a level of maturity not seen often in MMORPG's. That being said the visual of an enlarged Homo Nano in a gstring was a bit annoying but was worked around.

It should not have taken but 30 minutes and could have been a very impressive 30 minutes had 4 Omni-Pol shown up to end the "scene" by secureing the area.

Why do I say it was a failing on FC's part to respond to this Player created event?

Because any ST should have known that something like this would occur post a patch like that and movie to boot.

It was begging from inception a armed contingent of Omni-Pol to show up and secure the area and that alone would have made that patch and movie So talked about that it would go down as in the history books of events. Especially following so closely on the coat tails of one of the largest acts of terrorism in the world.

And with Half of the playerbase of this game hailing from North America that should have been expected and obvious to anyone involved in the creation of the Patch Event / Movie... of which I'm sure there were many staff involved.

Originally posted by MrTeatime
Yeah, more events would be nice..but..if they decide to do something like Codeini suggested, let me know so I can get away from the relevant zone as fast as possible.

Official events that last longer than 15-30 minutes always end in chaos, because too many people want to a) check out the action b) try to kill an ARK or a GM c) be an ass d) shout "I roxxors" to as many people as possible or e) all of the above.

Maybe I'm just jaded by what I've seen at the other events, but in my opinion FC should concentrate on arranging small, shorter events than doing more large events that always end in chaos.

Oh, a small exception: the TAG conference in west athens was kinda fun to attend, maybe because it was in a 100% zone..

FD
fsullivan@starband.net

[___________Chagidiel]

Yes the players guide is good indeed...

But it HAS to be overwatched by FC personall...It cant be ALL up to the players to create everything by them selves. To make such events happend, means somewhat of a sacrifice from the players in charge.

Now this is a "sacrifice" I am happy to do in RL as a GM, since I will be able to get a "reward" by my friends, in form of theire joy of playing. But at least i find that somewhat different in computergames... The "reward" is simply not enough when I makes effort for people I dont really know, and whom I never meet in RL...

I dunno if you folks understand what Im getting at... but my main point is that I dont think players will pull this off all by themselves...I thought so earlier, but I recently found that that was not the case.
FC personall, we need you to help us do these types of events..

[____________eleetist]

Originally posted by MrTeatime
Official events that last longer than 15-30 minutes always end in chaos, because too many people want to a) check out the action b) try to kill an ARK or a GM c) be an ass d) shout "I roxxors" to as many people as possible or e) all of the above.

If Funcom wanted to avoid GM or ARK deaths it would be simple.... let GM/ARK's have 100% reflection shields... so the players kill themselves rather than injure the ARK or GM, that would end people trying to disrupt the story tellers..... and the GM/ARK's should take the time to transport all the griefers out of there..... I've seen them use it on innocent people at the DC trial... now maybe they can use it on people who actually need to have it done to them.

There's only so many times someone will come back to grief an event if they find themselves in the middle of Mort as a result....

PLEASE GIVE US A LOT MORE EVENTS!!! And make it easier to here about them. I've been at every event I've known of....
DC Trial, TAG Conference, Omni-ECPCS Conference, Invasion of 4-Holes, Cyborg Attacks on HQ, Mutie Attacks in Omni-Forest, Escorting The Noble Prize winning Omni back to HQ when she was turned over by the CoT, The Haywire Computer Facility in Perpetual Wastelands, Radiman's visit to HQ..... I participate..... but it has now been a month since I have even heard of anything....

Eleetist

[_____________Codeini]

Exactly why I propose the above ST logistical system.

To bring the Story right to the players...

Of course no it won't bring it to them all...

But it sure could bring it to alot more..

For instance...

Low Level Narrator 1 (Primary NPC is a 60 Agent)

Is assigned the task of putting out some information to other Omni-Tek Agents regarding some information that is crucial to some factions figureing out about the embezzlement plot.

Would silently talk to a small group of agents one by one and bring them to a location in Omni-Ent Sewers area...

Then disclose the information to those that show up.

All of it done In character and in hushed tones etc...

The info would get out to certain leaders and pieces of the story puzzle would start to fit together.

And then someone who has been active enough to catch it all (and a little luck and intuition) puts the pieces together and reports it to whomever it has been passed to contact if you know the answer.

FD
fsullivan@starband.net

[___________Chagidiel]

Acctually i think there are quite an agreement among at least the few people posting here what should be done...

and looking at Codeinis big ass post gives some inspiration... I dont say thats the exact way to go, but the main thing is to get GM:s to act NPC all the time...to get GM:s entertain the players...as in regular RPG


Now everybody starts to cheer whenever a GM enters the door, and the only thing GMs do (when not giving a short speech) is to chitchat... Thats just wrong. GM: and living NPC should be a common thing on the streets, and they should be there to entertain the players, as GM useally do

[__________Merkaba715]

the only time I have seen GM's is when they answer a petition, and half the time I get an ARK or they dont even show up, just ask if its happening anymore and then just ignore me and leave.

[_________CaptFallout]

Well, since there is 0 interaction right now going right to Codini's idea is pretty damn obvious... IT WONT HAPPEN.

I was told months ago that ARKs would be "actors" in mini-events all around the game.

I asked, gave tons of suggestions and... I was told:

"Those are great ideas and I can tell you that many things like you describe are coming VERY soon".

VERY must not mean within a few months.

Right now, Funcom doesn't even know how to walk and then fall on it's face.

Let's push them to learn to stand up and walk slowly before we try to get them to run...

Personally, I expect them to lay on their faces smashed into the concrete and wiggle around a bit. I doubt they'll even try to run.

I reccomend reading the interview with Ragnar Tornquist about his vision for the storyline in Midgard and how Anarchy Online's story was going to be "a lot like Everquest's story" in that players can't do jack, of course... Midgard's story would be immserive and player-shaped.

Hmmmm, dunno about your Anarchy Online box but mine clearly says: "Immersive storyline that is shaped by individuals."

Right now, it's anything but immersive and even the largest and most well-known groups can't even dent it.

[______________Scorus]

Absolutely incredible that there has been no FC response to this and the many other threads desperate for just a little bit of Customer Service feedback.

Scorus

[__________Merkaba715]

Originally posted by CaptFallout
I reccomend reading the interview with Ragnar Tornquist about his vision for the storyline in Midgard and how Anarchy Online's story was going to be "a lot like Everquest's story" in that players can't do jack, of course... Midgard's story would be immserive and player-shaped.

will you ever back any of the statements you make on this forum? where is this interview?

[___________Avatarius]

I think Fallout is referring to this:

http://www.shift.com/web/profile/profile005a.asp

Which was derived from:

http://www.RagnarTornquist.com/

And yes you should be a little ticked off about the whole thing (read it all, both sites).. Alot of what was implied or outright stated was going to be in AO initially basically got shifted to Midguard it sounded like. And Tornquist does compare EQ and AO directly in one sense [but not quite like fallout implies] but the general idea is there.

Now keep in mind Tornquist is not the company president or the chief game designer, so if you dont like all this let the people above him know your feelings [and I wont go into the "oh they never listen why bother"] arguement. If you like the game enough to care then say something...

Of course Midguard is shelved for now...

Funcom - as a player of AO I want and expect more out of the game, as originally advertised and perhaps beyond. If you do this, you will keep me and my $13/mo for the long haul. I like AO but it many ways it has a hollow center, we players can fill some of that ourselves, but we need the tools and abilities to make it happen. And this does not alleviate your responsibility to add content, events, zones and whatever needed to hold our interest. We are paying you higher than normal fees than any other MMORPG in the world for a better than normal service and gameplay: AO has awesome (outdoor) graphics and decent indoor graphics, good sound/music, decent concepts and ideas- it has become more stable over time- Beyond that though there are many shortfalls and its now been nearly 2 weeks since any official from Funcom has had any positive or concrete data for players. This is giving us the strong impression of Chapter 11 around the corner because you have done nothing to debunk the notion nor given us any indication of progress since the 3rd week in December (except for a few rogue postings deep in some forum threads, but nothing *official* or formal.).

Avatarius