Design: Storyline

[BTAxis]

Purpose of this thread: Brainstorming the basic storyline and setting to use in the main UFO:AI game.

Preliminary ideas here (Hoehrer, update this with the improvements you made, please.)

[Killertomato]

Excerpt from my other post:

Idea 1) The Antareans are agressive and warmongering by default and are constantly seeking to expand their empire. Now they think they found a new inferior race which they deem easy to overcome and integrate into their collection of slave races.
Idea 2) They face extinction if they don't find a new planet suitable for relocation
or
a race which genetical make-up suits their need for repairing a bodily degration but need a constant supply of "spare parts" due to the fact that they can't reproduce the needed material artificially. Therefore they need to invade.
Everything started with an obduction here and there and animal mutilation for the purpose of studying what's available.

Conclusion for both ideas:
Getting what they want proved more difficult than expected due to heavy resistance. Therefore the attack on Bombay.

[BTAxis]

Idea 1) The Antareans are agressive and warmongering by default and are constantly seeking to expand their empire. Now they think they found a new inferior race which they deem easy to overcome and integrate into their collection of slave races.
Idea 2) They face extinction if they don't find a new planet suitable for relocation

Well, as it is, the draft is leaning towards idea 1. Idea 2 had occurred to me, but in that case some things just don't add up. If they face extinction, why gather information about earth? They don't need to know who we are, they just need us dead. Also if they face extinction, they would be migrating with their entire race at once. That wouldn't be in line with the typical build-up of alien military strength.

or
a race which genetical make-up suits their need for repairing a bodily degration but need a constant supply of "spare parts" due to the fact that they can't reproduce the needed material artificially. Therefore they need to invade.
Everything started with an obduction here and there and animal mutilation for the purpose of studying what's available.

That sounds very improbable to me. If they can't reproduce or even sustain themselves, how did they manage to evolve into a space-faring race? Chances are they'd have fallen apart due to a lack of parts on their homeworld far before then. No, I say we stick with warmongers.

[Hoehrer]

I'll update the text files as soon as possible .. until then consider the information in this post:
http://ufo.myexp.de/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=393#393
the most recent one.

Also FYI: overridetzx posted another version which i could'nt ready yet completly:
http://ufo.myexp.de/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=450#450

Werner

[Hoehrer]

I've updated the storyline file in SVN:
http://svn.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.cgi/ufoai/ufoai/trunk/src/docs/storyline.txt?view=markup

And i've added most (but not ever detail) of overridetzxs version.

Test readings and critics are welcome, but i think the basic background story is finished.

Now a more extensive storyline-progression is needed, including major plot points that are effected by the player and something like that

Werner

[BTAxis]

I've gone over that sotryline, and I have fixed some typos, rewritten some sentences, and changed a few things. The result is here, commit this, please.

[Hoehrer]

commited

[overridetzx]

Hey I just realised it's not Bombay any more, it's now known as Mumbai.

[overridetzx]

I've gone over that sotryline, and I have fixed some typos, rewritten some sentences, and changed a few things.

Nice edits

[overridetzx]

Committed a few more edits - changed Bombay for Mumbai, the odd spelling mistake corrected, and changed some grammar here and there so hopefully it will flow better.

[XCOMTurcocalypse]

have a large disagreement about the Storyline:

If Aliens can kill hundres of thousands in a city,and are barely driven back,then an initial tiny base and 10-12 soldier Unit PHALANX is ridiculous against such an armada,no matter how high tech.

Didn't mankind colonize Europa,Mars or at least Moon when it had fusion tech and sufficient prosperity at home?What about them?At least make a fine excuse.

PHALANX should be established after an abduction scene of a famous person in front of camera(NOT LIVE though),maybe the daughter/son of a president,vicepresident,or CEO,or at least after a lost Interceptor chasing a small metal shape.The fat big guys realize something is awfully wrong and pay up to establish PHALANX.World Governments take pains not to announce the threat,especially NOT NOW,just now,when wheels of a capitalist world is set finely enough to make the majority flourish and enjoy the world's bounty.

And yes I'm a nerd and a social democrat.And have no girlfriend.

[BTAxis]

See this post.

[altugi]

Hello,

I read the doc about storyline and I'd like to share some ideas about it.

I think what is presented in the document is rather backstory than storyline. Only one part of the text suggests a storyline but does not go into detail. It is told that its progress should be built on development in research on items secured by successful tactical missions (I think paragraph three with the sentence "the story develops in a classic manner"...)

My first reaction to this focus on backstory was that I remembered that many sci-fi stories do not reveal any information about the alien species at all. War of the Worlds and Alien for instance... The aliens come and kill... and are defeated. The rest is unknown. Some do, but never the whole story right from the start. So I thought it is a bad idea to have a Ufopedia entry right from the beginning telling us what the alien want and who they are.

I'd suggest that the only thing we should find out about aliens immediately is that they come uninvitedly and shoot at us. And if we don't organize soon and learn to use the means we have available to answer their attacks, it appears, we lose the game. This is the only information that we need to get a good kick in the ass at game start.

Any other info should be obtained as a result of successful missions. Best is that the info rewards us with a new item that solves a problem that we could not quite solve before. At least we should enjoy a few easier missions until the aliens come up with another lethal thing. If no new items, then the info should prepare us to possibilities of the game world that we'll be introduced with in later stages of the game. Not really revealing what it is, but helping us to feel comfortable with the new parametre of the game world... enhancing believability. (You don't get sceptical when the hero finds an axe in a hut in the forrest to defend himself against a monster when you showed the hero talking to the owner of the hut before - while he was cutting wood.)

Another thing is that you treat "story" as some information to be provided to the player beforehand and not as the planning of a row of interesting events that regards the gathering of this information as one of the ways to keep the player immersed and entertained by the game. Don't give information when noone asks for it. Make them beg for it first. Then they will appreciate that you share with them what you know.

Many players have enough knowledge of popular sci-fi culture and they will love to fill the gaps of the story themselves... and it will be more surprising when you tell them later that it is quite different of what they initially were thinking.

[BTAxis]

You're right, what's written down right now isn't a storyline. It's meant as a background from which we can build the storyline. However, you labour under the misassumption that the information in the documentation is given to the player at the start of the game. It's not. It's just design documentation.
As for keeping it a "secret", well... That kind of goes against the "open" nature of this project. This project has had closed development before, and that ended up in the usual hiatus of the people involved. It's probably better this way.

If you have any concrete ideas about story development, please do share them.

[altugi]

First I shall apologize: I hope you didn't perceive my comments as disrespect to all the effort that people put into this project so far. It's a great project and it seems to have progressed very good. So my comments are not critiques, they are my concerns on how I believe this project would be even better. I would feel really bad if you think "Hell, who is this guy? He's falling from the roof into this forum and thinks he can give us advise?"

I see what you mean with "secret" and why it isn't possible for an "open" project to keep things as a "secret". But you say this from a "community" or "designer" perspective, isn't it?

I am speaking of a "player" perspective. The person I have in mind is someone who downloads the "finished" game, installs it and starts to play it. Now the question is, what is the best way to lead the player through the story that we as designers know all aspects of, but which the player has to discover and figure out step by step? All my comments are regarding this question.

I'd like to give this example: If we write a detective story, we know the whole plot of the story and who the murderer is and why he did it etc. But we would keep the murderers identity as a secret until the end of the story and make it the goal of the detective to find out. We would mislead the detective (and readers) by introducing bits of new information that result in a theory on what happened. But then we would introduce additional information that cancels this theory in order to maintain the mystery. For example I'd let the autopsy expert say that the the victim was killed by a left-handed person and voila, during investigation of neighbors our detective would toss at a left-handed man... who had an argument with the victim a few weeks ago. But just a minute later the neighbor would introduce his girlfriend... which is left-handed too... and who, so it turns out, is still the wife of the victim etc

So I am talking about a knowledge regime for the story, of creating point-of-view, mystery etc... not about the knowledge sources that the open source community naturally must have access to in order to realise this project.

As players, when are we going to find out that the Aliens already have conquered other planets? When are we going to find out about the mothership on the dark side of the moon? What impact will these bits of knowledge have on the players perception of the game. Is there a better, more shocking or intriguing moment to reveal this info? Is it relevant info anyway, e.g. does it succeed to elevate the story on a higher level?... Things like this are my concern.