Better Story Lines for the game...

[Cyr]

After playing DDO for 5 years I am in a reflective mood. The game has come a long way in those five years. Yet with all that growth I realize that one of the most compelling and interesting things that I love about D&D in general is lacking....good story lines and characters.

In DDO I never once read an NPC's text eagerly.

So now that Turbine is rolling in cash and Wizards is interested in DDO (finally) why don't you guys get some real authors (just not the ones who wrote the script for the D&D movies ughh) to write some story arcs for the game?

[Tunst]

Expedition to Undermountian, as a raid quest.
o.O
maybe make it like 5 parts long or so.

that was such a fun book though.

[Gorbadoc]

So now that Turbine is rolling in cash and Wizards is interested in DDO (finally) why don't you guys get some real authors (just not the ones who wrote the script for the D&D movies ughh) to write some story arcs for the game?

I watched the 2008 Dragonlance movie the other night, and my annoyance with it was mixed.

It was unabashedly corny, certainly, but that's to be expected. It's an animated movie based on a book written for a game where people in the dramatic situation of fighting for their lives attempt to resolve their problems by throwing dice to see whether they can hit a horrible monster with a sword. Frankly, I would have been disappointed if the movie had tried to pretend like it wasn't corny.

My biggest complaint was that it was a feature-length movie. There's a LOT of ground to cover in a fleshed-out campaign. It takes time to set up and resolve even one sub-quest, especially if each sub-quest requires 1) the buildup of dramatic tension over the prospect of a combat sequence 2) a combat sequence, 3) character development, and 4) a hook to tie it in to the overarching narrative that is the campaign. The movie's rapid-fire approach to covering sub-quests felt rushed, but I don't know that the people producing the movie had any choice.

In short, the movie's biggest problem was that it was trying to shoehorn too big a story into a medium with the wrong pacing.

DDO has a different problem. You need conflicts that feel fresh and new, yet you need those conflicts to invariably result in an extended segment of violence. The plot twist "Now we must fight!" gets awful predictable.

[Kemty]

It would be awesome to play through the temple of elemental evil, the tower of inverness, the city of the spider queen! the tomb of horrors!!

Still.. there IS an arc story to DDO, its in there somewhere, ive catched glimpses now and then, as OP said, not compelling enough to read eagerly and repeat dialogs of NPC's. but still, that's just dialoguing and no DM i know is good at it, corny, perhaps. lol Im one of em.

[Teech]

Here's a suggestion.

Organise a writing contest for players. Prize is to have your story inserted into the game.
Give them proper parameters and let their imagination run wild.

I'm sure you'll have takers.

Who's up for it?

[Primalhowl]

I think perhaps you are a bit jaded on some of the stories because of how often some of the quests get run.

Two early chains I think have interesting storylines are the Waterworks/Shan-to-Kor series (as long as they are run as a series and not piecemeal) and the Catacombs (in spite of it's run-and-fetch, back-and-forth mechanic...). While the Catacombs ends somewhat definitively, I had always hoped that there would be a direct continuation to the Shan-to-Kor series.

Threnal is also not so bad (in spite of Coyle), but could have been developed further.

And then there was a giant gap in storytelling.

But I think that storytelling has started to reappear...

For example, the Inspired Quarter quests had the *potential* to be a compelling and interesting storyline but it just wasn't fleshed out well enough.

And the whole Droaam quest series has a rather fun and interesting (if action-centric) storyline. Is it complex? No. But it is a good story.

[oskar581]

bring the lightling rail to xen'drik let us ride the orien express

[Phidius]

After having run the Lordsmarch P2P quests into the ground recently, and then moving on to Gianthold/Orchard/Vale, I was struck by the differences in story lines.

The Lordsmarch quests were a big improvement, although not on the same grand scale of the others.

I still get confused by the mechanic in Gianthold. "I'm sorry Mr. Quest Reward Giver - have we met before??", and "Wait, why is the Stormreaver trying to kill me yet providing me the only way to defeat him?"

I just know that somewhere there's a small novel that would explain the ins-and-outs of the Black Abbot. What is this dragon talking about?? What oath exactly did Ka-Teng betray?!?!

The Vale just makes me want to go out and get some tickets to whatever rock band is playing at the local reservation casino. I still don't have a clue as to how the 5 flagging quests figure in to the Shroud.

I totally agree with you - better story lines make the quest more fun for me.

[joaofalcao]

Surely better storylines would improve the game. 100% agree.

Now in the regards of content, I would disagree with the guy who says the player base should do it. I am not to do the math here, but seems quite cheaper to have a serious author with 100% certainty of sucess write a story or two than having someone read the thousands of submissions(90% of them hardly good enough to fit it) and select one or a few of them.


Perhaps a poll like this would be more sucessfull.

Wich storyline/content would you like to see on the game?

1 - The Truthfull One and his draconic plot.

2 - Droam and invasion.

3 - Xoriat re-aligning.

4 - Chase through the planes after a famous/wicked villian (Ashardallon Style)

5 - Insert your favorite plot here

6 - Bacon

And the poll winner option woul have a hired author to write about it and a DEV team to work on it.

[Saravis]

I don't think the issue is so much the quality of the story line as it is the manner in which its presented. Typically the story in a quest is presented via dialog progression in the quest. The problem with that is that only the person who talks or interacts gets the progression and typically those who already know the quest are the ones who do the interacting. This leaves those who don't know it in the dark in regards to the quest's story accept for what you get when you take the quest and what you get when you turn it in. This needs improved before they worry about concocting elaborate stories, else those elaborate stories will mostly fall on deaf ears

[Stormanne]

I think perhaps you are a bit jaded on some of the stories because of how often some of the quests get run.

Two early chains I think have interesting storylines are the Waterworks/Shan-to-Kor series (as long as they are run as a series and not piecemeal) and the Catacombs (in spite of it's run-and-fetch, back-and-forth mechanic...). While the Catacombs ends somewhat definitively, I had always hoped that there would be a direct continuation to the Shan-to-Kor series.

Threnal is also not so bad (in spite of Coyle), but could have been developed further.

And then there was a giant gap in storytelling.

But I think that storytelling has started to reappear...

For example, the Inspired Quarter quests had the *potential* to be a compelling and interesting storyline but it just wasn't fleshed out well enough.

And the whole Droaam quest series has a rather fun and interesting (if action-centric) storyline. Is it complex? No. But it is a good story.

Actually, if you follow the text and spoken dialogue closely, you'll see one continuous story arc that stretches from Waterworks all the way to Reaver's Refuge that contains WW, STK, Threnal, Gianthold, and Refuge. It also contains relevant text that ties in tangents for Xorian Cipher and Tear of Dhakaan.

[Falith12]

Surely better storylines would improve the game. 100% agree.

Now in the regards of content, I would disagree with the guy who says the player base should do it. I am not to do the math here, but seems quite cheaper to have a serious author with 100% certainty of sucess write a story or two than having someone read the thousands of submissions(90% of them hardly good enough to fit it) and select one or a few of them.


Perhaps a poll like this would be more sucessfull.

Wich storyline/content would you like to see on the game?

1 - The Truthfull One and his draconic plot.

2 - Droam and invasion.

3 - Xoriat re-aligning.

4 - Chase through the planes after a famous/wicked villian (Ashardallon Style)

5 - Insert your favorite plot here

6 - Bacon

And the poll winner option woul have a hired author to write about it and a DEV team to work on it.

Definitely #1!!! I wanna fight a Dracolich!!

[FlyingTurtle]

More modules!

Less nonsensical hack and slash that looks like it was written by a 3 year old playing with his action figures, while drunk, and on crack!

[learst]

Actually, I'm more amazed at the fact that DDO has invested time and effort into building plots and storyline, considering that majority of the players just wanna click "ok, ok, ... -> let's do it/kill now!"

Unless you're in an RP or PD, most groups you join will move quickly that new players will often not realised what they're doing, or why they're doing it. Or why did suddenly a new quest objective popped up.

I agree with Saravis that one of the issues is how it's presented, where only 1 person talking to the NPC gets to read and chose the (limited) responses, though I'm not too sure what's the best solution for it.