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Choices vs story (regarding my own work in progres

11 years ago

I'm writing a story, its one that has been in my head for many a year now. I'm not an accomplished writer, english being my second language, but I thought it's been so many years now that I really need to start writing it.

Anyway, for some reason I'm writing it on here, as a game. It's called Paladins:Salvation. 

The titular Paladins are avatars of the Gods themselves, though their purpose in the mortal world varies depending on the god they represent. Salvation is meant to be a story of war and turmoil, a story of adventure and unification, leading the people in the fight for a common goal; that being survival. It is meant to be a strict time-line based one because, well, the world is meant to be ending in it, because, a certain someone (the player) didn't do their job. -ahem-.

Anyway, as I'm writing it I started noticing that perhaps I didn't allow too many choices, especially in the early sessions (which at the moment is all of it!) and I was curious what people here thought about a storygame that has limited choices especially early on. And also what the opinion was on seeing their character do things/ask questions without having to be prompted through a choice.

I bring it up because I've heard some complaints about lack of choices or false choices in the past. Myself, I think I'll be allowing the major story choices to be player-enforced but I personally don't see minor things being an issue. Still I'd like to ask for further opinions? :D

Oh and I suppose that this would also be an unintentional announcement I guess. =)

Choices vs story (regarding my own work in progres

11 years ago

Yes, choices are important on this site - but if you're doing your project for you (and not for the ravenous masses) then you can do whatever you want with it - and to hell with the ratings.

That said, if you are concerned about ratings, then know that a non-choice story will get hammered - unless it is totally amazing or something. And even then it will still lose points for having little or no choices.

The site is here for everyone and all types of writing, so just do what you want and don't worry about it too much.

:O

11 years ago

Been a while I figure. Thanks for that reply by the way. =)

I've actually posted some of what I have written at COG and the feedback was decent, so I've kept writing. I admit I hate coding... Serves me right for trying to be ambitious and putting in codexes and stuff.

I'm almost done with my first chapter now, its a total of 7k words and eh, its taking some form, though I can't imagine I'll ever finish in good time! Still, it's experience(!)

I almost want a demo feature just to get further feedback but I know that's not a popular option on here. =o 

Back to the writing workshop I go though... =)

:O

11 years ago

I remember you posted this question over at COG and I answered you over there since I know you're more active there.

Anyway glad to hear that you're making progress.

:O

11 years ago

That you did and I'm grateful for the advice. =)

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10 years ago

Ooh. I figure I'll keep this topic around as my update topic.

So, I've finished the prologue. Have been work on Chapter 1.

Features so far that I think I have working correctly:

a) Morality System (Of course!)

b) Quests (mutually exclusive or otherwise)

c) A full codex - learnt via this site. This is filled with fluff among other more important details so far.

Features currently planned:

a) A 'war' system, where you influence the outcome of battles via command of a unit or an army. I'm hoping to upscale this to full on army combat. Results of the battle is determined by choice of action AND stats. I've made three stats, one for attacking actions, one for defending, one for stratagems. Hoping to pull this off without looking too... simple I guess.

Current Progress:

21k words written. I'm getting to the 'conclusion' of one of the unique routes available in Chpt 1. I'll then switch to one of the 'tails' that I have available in that same route. I've got, I think, six(ish) routes in chapter 1 all working to the conclusion. I'm confident I'll be able to do them all justice though.

Prologue: The End of the World - Complete.

Chapter 1: The Fall of Tazzar'nael - In Progress.

And that, as they say, is that. :)

 

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10 years ago

Sounds tantalizing - I'm really curious to see how the Morality System works (and how quickly we can break it haha!)  ;)

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10 years ago
And what about bane vampire king treasure conal barbarian bz?

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10 years ago

Got writer's block on the pending battle scene with the giant crabs. But I'll get back to it in a week or so...

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10 years ago

(Lol)

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10 years ago

(Really late)

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10 years ago

(it's more amusing since he's barley worked on it in 3 months.)

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10 years ago

This looks great.

*waits for it come out*

I hope it doesny take as long as eternal's update.

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10 years ago

Hmm I'm not going to proceed with a complex war-system, but it'll still be in there as a basic matter of if-true-then=result.

I have finally finished ONE route of Chapter 1; the Army- wiping out the bandit (quest) path. 

That means I've got it to the bit where all paths unite and continue to chapter 2... I think I finally have a good idea of how hard it is to write multiple paths so damn early when I want the story to kind of converge, something for me to think about going forward. 

Current Progress:

Prologue: The End of the World - Complete @ 7k unique words (or 14k if you consider it's gender divided - might change that though...)

Chapter 1 - Fall of Tazzar'nael - Incomplete, 1 route finished @ 23,937 words... O_o I dunno if that's big or small but... meh.

Codex: around 3,000 words, incomplete so far.

Total; By my calculations 35k words give or take... 

N.B - I know word count doesn't amount to much but it' gives me an idea of how it's going. I think it's still small, but then you know... at this rate I'm scared.

NNB - I have sneak preview on, so if you have the know how, the thing is accessible I suppose. I've 'locked' off all incomplete routes with a dead 'demo' page in any event... Which will obviously be removed when it's finished. Don't quite want to publish incomplete, don't really want comments page being active either, but hey(!) cake and cookies -->

 

Final note; delay of three months was due to my finals exams at Uni and moving house(!) I'm not lazy, honest! =p

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10 years ago

35k words? I'm pretty sure that's already longer then the longest story game on the site. 

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10 years ago

i'm fairly sure that Dead man walking alone was at about 500K words, and Eternal around that or more...

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10 years ago

I shall give myself a holiday in some hot country if I ever make 500k words... O_o 

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10 years ago

Ya know what sucks? Realising the flow chart software you've been using has a hidden trial of 100 pages... /huff

Now I just had to waste an hour or two putting everything into Twine and it's not as snazzy. :(

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10 years ago
Eternal and Dmw are over 650k I guess. We should call Guinesse World Records!

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9 years ago

Quite crazy that.

I've moved house and I got a job in care home for the disabled. Shift work and 10+ hour days have kinda killed me on the writing front. Also that fiasco with the flowchart software. I don't have my chart notes now, so I've had to do it by hand manually and count each and every variable and codex trigger inside the story. =/ That's a lengthy process. Also, I've had to use math. I hate math, that war-system I coded in, I went the simplistic route, basically each choice in the game adds or subtracts to the variable stat (attack/Def/Strategy) and I planned to have units in the game that would be recruitable and would lead to higher/lower stats. But that made my work troublesome, keeping track of the values and trying to make it so you can't over score on certain points, but at the same time ensure that you can't pick choices that would definitely eliminate options for victory for the player.

So I toned it down and allowed the first battle to be very generic insofar as there is only a singular unit available anyway and one of the options was a soft-instant win button. Problem is, I still need to count the variables for each route in the future so I have rough estimate of what the numbers will be later. That way, the next battles can be done more smoothly. I can also create units for those later battles, or route-restrict them. 

What I've learnt so far;

Creating routes is easy.

Creating a smooth 'union' for those routes is not. If I want the story to progress along the lines I want it to, I have to limit the impact of certain choices or else, I'll be writing three or five different stories for each route option and it just gets silly. So, now for the first chapter I've thought that the routes should change the information you gain, the backstory so to speak. I've some ideas on how to do this. 

I've also decided that I'll put off any massively game-changing choices until chapter 2. But I'm not planning that out yet, because it's taken me two years as it is just to do the Prologue and I would say almost 1/4 of chapter 1.

Good news is, I've still got my planning file and my codex plans. So all I need to do really is write the damn thing. I should have more time in the next few weeks as I lost my job (hah! The joys of temporary contracts that!)

So anyway, my plan so far is;

Next two weeks:

Finish up the missing codex entries,

Double-check the count for the variables and stats,

Touch-up any pages on Chapter 1 war route that I'm unhappy with,

Start and (hopefully) finish the 2nd route within the war route. - This isn't particularly a lengthy job, but I don't want to fudge it by speeding it along. I'll write it slowly and try and ensure it flows well. I also need to introduce certain tutorial elements in the blasted thing (This is really why, you shouldn't do route-splitting when you're starting up the story and you're still introducing certain gameplay elements!)

--

Once all that is done... I have a choice to make;

Write the 'union' part of the story to it's full conclusion which, effectively ends the chapter. 

OR start on the 2nd main route (The Investigation route) all the way up to the union part and then do the union part after. 

I'm considering both options with some difficulty. I may just do the union part and then consider if the investigation route is so different that it would require me to skip the union part and just have the story 'unite' again at the start of the new chapter. But we'll see.

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9 years ago

Nice to see you're still working on this behemoth. 

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9 years ago

You support this necro? Bah. 

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9 years ago

It's not a Necro if it's by the same person who made the thread in the first place and has reason to update it.

 Try thinking about what your going to say before you say it.

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9 years ago

Instead of saying what you think before you think it.  ;)

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9 years ago

Instead of saying what you think before you think it.  ;)

Instead of saying what you think, think before you say it. 

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9 years ago

And remember kids - 'Say it; don't spray it'

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9 years ago

Your dedication is awe inspiring, best of luck to you.