Storyline Discussion

[ruba1987]

@projectrpg/thinktank Since we don't have a good place to discuss the story I fixed I would open an issue for it.

What does everyone think of what we have so far?

[walterthearchitect]

There's a lot to like. I wanted to get some idea of what you are visualizing for a few of the elements. So as far as the science fantasy setting, is it magic? Like the force? Super advanced technology? What are we working with? If this is post invasion earth, this element had to be here all along, just discovered/awakened at some point. We need a believable solution to that if we go the supernatural route.

Also, I think we need to define a character past, or do the Bethesda thing and purposely start fresh. What is your motivation or unique perspective? Does it come from your past story? Or is it created by the player as a reaction to the environment?

Another concern is the alien invasion premise. We need a fresh take on it, as it has been done before many times. One simple way could be fresh take on the Venrok themselves, their plan, their methods. It would be special just to have an alien enemy that isn't black and white pure evil. Perhaps creating a believable foe could help escape the cliche hoards of alien invaders thing.

[ruba1987]

In response to what we are working with regarding the power here on earth I would suggest it's magic. I'm not sure what to call it yet but something like that rather than advanced technology.

For the fact that it must have been here all along, we just didn't have the ability to detect it as simple humans. Now that it has been discovered we and extracted many of the humans have been exposed to it and now have gained some magical abilities but since we are new to it and recently exposed our magic is much weaker than others.

As far as back story we haven't worked that out yet. We need to for sure but we just haven't gotten there yet. I think before we move into chapter 1 we should work on that but we need to hammer out the characters themselves first which I am working with issue #9.

I agree with you on your last point. I think we need to find a different reason why this is happening to get people interested and keep them going with the story. Which is another reason I think we need to work this stuff out before we move onto the first chapter. We kinda have a starting setting that @dakdaros is going to rewrite as we have recently changed it.

[dakdaros]

I definitely agree with changing the alien invasion part. Having them set in stone as "The Bad Guys" just doesn't sound original enough. That'll be something I'll be brainstorming on shortly.

I agree that it should be considered magic as opposed to technology. But, we definitely should come up with a back story that's solid too. Something like the Earth having a resource that's valuable to the Venrok that we never knew about, that when they started to harvest it, strange things started happening to people, and the other races taught humans how to at best get control of their newly found powers.

I think back stories are as we iron the kinks out of the main story and get that going solid.

[dakdaros]

Another thing to think about with the setting is this. @ruba1987 , you mentioned it might be easier to set the game in the past. Well, where in the past? Are we talking just Dark Ages (I hate using that term, they weren't so dark after all)? Or are we talking about a history on Earth that modern humans never knew about? Like, when everything was still Pangaea? And that modern humans didn't know about magic because the Venrok were removed from the planet and over that many years we lost the ability? Maybe the mining is what caused the tectonic plates to shift. What do you guys think?

[ruba1987]

Maybe for the reason then Venrok want the resource is to make themselves more powerful to overthrow some master race that has taken over their planet. Later in our story we find this out and we go and help them instead of wiping then out?

And as for when I am thinking taking a real point in history and diverging. Not as a thing that we didn't know happened, as in this is a different course of events. For what point I'm thinking just before we started making the technological advancements of guns to keep consistent with everything. That's when we got invaded but now since this resource was discovered it has changed things and advanced medicine and how we do things differently than what really happened.

[walterthearchitect]

Honestly, the alternate history thing would be tough I think. There are so many repercussions to suggesting the discovery of magic in the 15-17th century, it would totally change the way we developed. We already have one change to the world: the post invasion landscape. Seems confusing to introduce an alternate history as well. Perhaps a more mysterious approach to the magic. We don't know what it is, we just know what it does. Alien races use it as well, some better than others, but no one really knows where it comes from. We are divided on the wisdom of using it, and there is much fear and confusion surrounding it. It came into our world after we had begun relationships with some alien races, and surprised everyone equally. The world is still reeling from the introduction of this mysterious force, and it's origins are a mystery.

[ruba1987]

@walterthearchitect that's roughly what i'm suggesting. We didn't always have it, we started getting it due to the Venrok discovering it and "refining" the raw form of it. For the sake of discussion lets assume it spreads like an air born disease. After they discovered it humans started being able to use it due to this type of transmission.

So we pick a decent point somewhere in the 15th to 17th century and instead of the events that lead to today happening things make a left turn and we get invaded by the Venrok, they start working with this new resource that contains (for lack of a better word) "magic" and we start feeling the affects of it and when our game begins it's many years after the invasion has begun and the world has shifted a bit and we know a little of what this new found "magic" can do but we aren't experts on it...

Is that where you were going and I just didn't explain it well?

One thing I DON'T want to do is say that we discovered this stuff and the world is the same... It wouldn't work like that. I'm basically suggesting that we start our story at a point in time somewhere in the 15th-17th century range and move forward. Not edit history and say "here we are today". That would a lot to write and explain for a video game.

[walterthearchitect]

They seem similar except I'm taking exception to the notion that the magic is introduced in the past. It seems unnecessarily complicated. Why not just introduce it in the 22nd or 23rd century after human expansion? This way we can leverage a recognizable past with a changed future. We need a constant.

[ruba1987]

The game is set in the past. The 21st and 22nd century haven't happened yet in the game. That's what @dakdaros is going to rewrite based on the suggestions I put in the wiki.

[walterthearchitect]

Oh I see! So we would be doing a sort of, men are in a dark age, and discover a mysterious force, which suddenly puts them on the world stage against hyper modern aliens and such? That would be ridiculously badass.

[walterthearchitect]

I would think a way of balancing that idea is that humans discovered the magic (or whatever) and began being able to use it. The aliens saw it and wanted it for themselves, but have yet to master it. This way, the aliens superior technology is balanced with the humans ability to harness the power found on their planet.

[ruba1987]

I was thinking they come to earth as an oppressed people (we don't know this as players) to harvest this resource as a last ditch effort to overthrow the master race that have taken over the Venrok's home planet.

To balance things out with humans I was thinking that this power impacts races differently. Need some more thought on this but that's the general idea

[walterthearchitect]

Sure, that could contribute to the more complex enemy like we talked about before. Sorry, now that I'm getting what you were saying, I'm just catching everything up in my head haha. I like it a lot. I don't think I've heard of a mashup like this before. Whenever you see medieval scifi, there's always time travel. This is way more immediate and would have such cool effects on the world. I could imagine a lot of social repercussions including persecution, cults, wars between men, even before the Venrok come. I imaging we would have done a pretty good job messing up the world even without aliens coming for us. Perhaps the invasion is a chance for man to unite, after a time of darkness and great loss.

I like the idea of beginning with the Venrok as our enemy and getting the player to really see them in a bad light, with moments of doubt periodically causing you to question their villain status. Then the truth is revealed. Maybe the real baddies come to earth and start kicking some ass, trying to prevent the Venrok from attaining the magic. Through this, we learn the true story.

Maybe we help the Venrok beat back the new invaders, using the secret bases we have been building to fight the Venrok. The challenge with that would be wrapping that story up without leaving earth (and all the player's building and questing progress) behind.

Anyway, I was thinking about making a map of earth locales that could be hub areas and ideas for the potential cities/base designs.

[ruba1987]

I was thinking about the having then go help the Venrok on their home planet as a cool twist.

In what capacity are you thinking on making a map? In unity, 3ds max, maya, or sketching something out?

[walterthearchitect]

Just sketching it out for for now in Photoshop. Just a world map with points on it showing different regions/climates the hub areas could be in, and some mood images for ideas. I found this old world map from the 17th century. Would be cool if our map was something like this, implying a limited understanding of the world that comes with the era, but where travel is more possible aided by magic.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/JesuitChineseWorldMapEarly17thCentury.jpg

[walterthearchitect]

If we have ideas for the locales early, we can weave the story around them.

[dakdaros]

I really like where this story is going, especially the twist where we discover the true reasons for the Venrok invading. That right there gets me all excited in places I forgot I had.

One suggestion I have, depending on the size of the game, after freeing Earth, it's left open-ended as stating that the battle for Earth was over, but the war was just beginning? I don't know, just an open thought. Though I do like the twist of having to fight on the Venrok homeworld.

We should definitely capture that tension and mistrust involved when we have to join forces with our captors..

[ruba1987]

@walterthearchitect yea, I think that we can easily do the locales and the story relatively separate from each other. We just simply don't mention environment in the story. And there is really no need to as we are showing them the environment in the game rather than telling them. I think all we will mention in the story as far as location is the actual base names or something along those lines. Although, I guess if the base name has the word "Quarry" in it that might cause a problem... I don't think this is a big issue to worry about.

@dakdaros I really like where this going too. I think we just need to hammer out what the intro is going to be. I think we have enough of a foundation to do that properly now. And then we need to work on at least a foundation of a back story/description for each race and class that we have. Classes in this are going to be tricky because different classes with different races shouldn't be the same. For example, a Ranger from another planet would not function like a Ranger from Earth... we really need to put some time and thought into this. And then we need to start working on character sheets for these guys so I can start working on basic combat mechanics.

@ProjectRPG/designers @ProjectRPG/developers I think this should be the the order of operations to get things done for the near future:

1) Intro 2) Base character back story and descriptions 3) Class descriptions 4) Character Sheets 5) Basic world planning

Once we get these things done we can start hammering out the first real map the players will be on which will be big main base of the rebellion. I have some thoughts on getting this out quick without a ton of work and still showing the grand scale of it but we can discuss that once we get up and running with the 5 items I have posted above.

How do you guys feel about these items?

[walterthearchitect]

I think priority 1 is to nail down a time period. We need this to inform everything. Even a difference of 50 years could completely change who our starting human characters are, their location, and their backstory/motivation.

[ruba1987]

@walterthearchitect good call! I think we need to go way back, like 8th century way back. Gunpowder has been around since the 9thish century and we don't want to have the introduction of guns into the game. That was actually a big motivation in going to the past instead of the future.

This will be where the story itself starts, not when the players start playing. Keep this in mind. The intro will start off with the initial invasion happening in the 8th century (or whenever we decide) and then the player will enter the world a great deal later. How about this for a timeline:

• 705AD: The Venrok show up and the invasion begins
• 705AD - 851AD: In the time since the Venrok have shown up they earth has changed quite a bit due to the farming for this resource and as a result of this resource farming the humans were exposed to this new found resource and have begun to change. They now have some magical powers. The humans have formed some semblance of a rebellion but have not been successful at putting a stop to anything the Venrok are doing and it has died down to more of a silent and passive-aggressive rebellion of exchanging goods and moving people about on the DL.
• 852AD: The new Aliens show up to try to help us out. At this point the humans are at their breaking point and have simply resigned to complacency in the interest of survival when three new alien races show up.They help the humans fortify their current rebel camps and start on actual attacks against the Venrok once again. However, these attacks fail. It seems that large scale attacks aren't going to work to start with.
• 870AD: When the player enters the world and starts playing the game. With no luck on the raid front the rebellion decide it would be best to try to put together a small force of just a few elites to try to infiltrate a local Venrok base to take out primary defenses for a larger attack to come. The player is chosen to take part in this attack... And that's where your story begins.

Also, we need to figure out what this magical power is. What are we going to call it? I think I know how it should work, we just need a name for it so @dakdaros can put in the intro. I think how it should work is as simple as it will magically amplify what's in a persons heart. We need to phrase that better but what I mean is if a person is naturally caring and nurturing it might amplify that by giving them the power to heal. If a person is aggressive it might give them spells that allow them to do damage or something. I think this will also add a certain level of depth to level up and getting new spells as you do so. It will also help out with the ideas of "Focusing" and "Ascending" mentioned in the character page.

[dakdaros]

I think the time period in question here is a good one. I'm going to do a little bit of research on what humanity knew at the time, before the Venrok invaded. Granted everything beyond that can be changed, but for now I'll need to fully understand the time period so I don't add anything that could break the story.

[ruba1987]

Agreed, in fact everything after the start date will change since we are changing the direction of the world. If you just Google the century wikipedia has a decent article on it. Might be a good starting point

[dakdaros]

I guess another question for the intro here would be wondering where exactly in the world we can start telling this story from. Because there was a lot of different stuff going on in the world at this time. And the intro should be told by someone living in one particular region at the outset. I.e., would this be from the perspective of someone living in western Europe, Britain (because it's an island they had their own way of life), or Asia, Middle East...The list goes on.

[walterthearchitect]

Just did some research. This time period could work well! There can be Knights, Vikings, Arabs, and Tang Dynasty warriors involved in a pretty believable way.

[walterthearchitect]

I think realistically people will be most interested from an ethnocentric perspective. So, a knight.

[walterthearchitect]

Or at least European. Could be a mage or whatever.

[dakdaros]

The time period does appear to be a winner. And I definitely think European of some sort. It doesn't look too much like there was one leader that stood out, which makes it even better. Off the top of my head, for religion, Christianity was growing, but was not yet united under the Catholic church right? Because the Catholic church really came into power a few centuries later? I could possibly be an idiot.

[dakdaros]

At least that's what it looked like, that was the middle of the so called Dark Ages, so there wasn't even much of a unifying government at the time.

[walterthearchitect]

As far as the timeline, I'd assume that there would be a small time period, maybe 700-705AD where humans discover the magic and it throws our world into turmoil. Some people embrace it, some kill all who are found practicing it, some become drunk with power, some fearful and isolationist. There are wars between men as we are suddenly able to travel faster and further, and wield more power. Then, the Venrok show up.

I think this would establish an initial moral grey area. Are we our own enemies? Are these invaders really any worse? This idea can come into play later on when learning the truth about the Venrok.

[dakdaros]

I thought the Venrok come and magic starts to spread almost like an infection as a side result of their mining efforts? or is it that humanity starts to learn their magical powers, and the Venrok come in hopes to harness those powers?

[ruba1987]

Humans don't discover it on their own, they discover it because the Venrok are mining and refining it and it gets into the air and humans start having weird things happen. So the discovery of magic would start at maybe 706AD or late 705AD depending on how fast things work. By the time the game starts nobody, including the Venrok, have fully discovered the potential of this new found "magic"... that is something we "discover" as we level up.

and @dakdaros regarding where we start the narration... I would have this start as a tale that a father is telling his son in like the year 900AD or 1000AD so they are abstracted from the current events. Kinda like how Borderlands does it with the whole "let me tell you a story" bit in the beginning w/ the bus driver but not actually have them here.

[dakdaros]

@ruba1987 That's what I was thinking as well. Someone from the time that the game starts is telling the player (like a father figure) a brief history of how the world came to be like it is.

[ruba1987]

@dakdaros you are right about my vision on how magic comes about, sry I didn't see your msg while I was writing mine.

if we don't like it we can some up with something different, it's just what I felt to be natural. The idea here is that humans never knew this was there and don't have the technology to harvest it. The refining of it that the Venrok do puts it into the air and Humans pick it up. And another thing we can add is you may find refined versions of it in the game (maybe some cool orbs) and if you pick it up it would be XP to help you level as that is how you got your powers to begin with and that is how all of the races will advance their magical abilities. If the other Alien races didn't come to help us they wouldn't have gotten new skills... etc... etc...

[ruba1987]

@dakdaros you hit the nail on the head, that sounds exactly like what I was thinking. @ProjectRPG/thinktank does this sound good to everyone?

[walterthearchitect]

I think it would be better for humanity to discover it, and learn it, and the Venrok come try to take it. This way, humans have a special ownership over the magic, as it came from the Earth. It also gives us a fighting chance.

The idea would be that we were disorganized when they landed, because of our own foolishness. We were destroyed for a time, but a rediscovery of the use of magic is at hand. Other races are learning, but they can never be as powerful as a human. This gives the humans a unique weapon to use against the enemy.

[ruba1987]

my problem with that approach to the story is that what did we use to harvest it. that's some pretty advanced tech to harvest this magic that we would need to make believable as of 700AD.

Another approach to achieve what you are going for (I think) is to simply have this magic attune better to humans than anyone else but then we can't use it as the base for our XP system. BTW, I don't want to call XP "XP" I was thinking we should call it whatever the refined version of the resource is... Assuming we keep the story as is, If not we can always find something else to call it.

[walterthearchitect]

@ruba1987 it could work that way too. Maybe we can have both, in a sense. I think you just touched on it in your last comment.

The Venrok come and begin mining it, and it is released into the air. In doing so, the Venrok discover unexpectedly that humans are very attuned to its energy and quickly pick up the powers. This is an unexpected reality that the player discovers throughout the game.

Later, it is revealed that the Venrok saw after some time here that they would not be able to harness the magic like we can. They used to have a source on their own planet, but it has run out, leading to a dark age, ruled by chaos. They realize now that they need us to help restore order to their world.

[ruba1987]

Well, something that I was thinking as or foundation for how it works is it amplifies the person by adding corresponding magical abilities. Maybe we are (and the other aliens that come to help us) are just better people.

Also, in the end we are going to be getting the Venrok because they are here because they need more power to overthrow a master race that has taken over their home planet. So that master race of Venrok (a sub race like how our characters work, the ascended) doesn't have access to it which is why we kick their assess.

[dakdaros]

VERY rough draft of a new intro is up. Obviously a lot to change, but I feel this is more inline with what we're trying to go for.

[dakdaros]

The way I have it set is that the players are new blood along with a few elites that are making a sabotage mission against the Venrok. And this effort is essentially the first time something doesn't end in tragedy for humans.

[walterthearchitect]

I understand the idea behind going back to the Venrok planet and kicking ass, but I think progression wise it will introduce a lot of problems if it is the end point of the story. I have an idea to fix this.

If players spend all this time building bases and fighting for earth only to leave at the end of the game, it may feel detached from the previous gameplay. Maybe the travel to the Venrok world isn't the end of the story, but only a second act. Maybe they have some success, but the humans soon realize that their power weakens when they are far from the Earth. They have to return home, but now the Venrok's overlords are going to come to earth in search of this new power. Now the Venrok and humans must work together to defend earth and kill the Overlords.

Act I: Resistance

-build 2 resistance bases to attack the Venrok -discover truth about Venrok

Act II: Alliance

-go to war with Overlords on venrok planet -retreat back to earth

Act III: Resurgence

-build 1 more base in anticipation of Overlord invasion -final battle

[dakdaros]

That could be a pretty cool idea! I definitely agree with you on the idea that if we're going to be fighting on the Venrok world, that it should be more of a midpoint in the story. And I like that humans are, all of a sudden, a source of fascination for all these alien races because they all feel that it holds an immense power that not even humans are aware of yet. Maybe towards the end, it is then that humans are starting to grasp the immense power that the magic has. Maybe have a non-playable main character or two who have a strong grasp on magic, so we see one destroying a big ship or giant building, or summoning a power from the unknown that restores life to a battlefield full of fallen soldiers. It's at least a thought.

[walterthearchitect]

@dakdaros Oh hell yea.

[walterthearchitect]

As far as the naming of things, I'd propose we take a more abstract approach. Sometimes the most cringy thing about scifi or fantasy is all the made up names.

If the point of this game is like, an unexpected event, why would everything have an agreed upon name? I think it should be like in The Walking Dead. Some call them Walkers, some Biters, some don't have a name at all. it should be more organic than some mysteriously agreed upon name,

[dakdaros]

Maybe for how the humans refer to the Venrok early on. But in being on friendly terms with the other races, wouldn't they learn their names? That being said, we as humans love having nicknames for everything. so in missions and dialogue, they can refer to the other races with nicknames. Like the other races would have nicknames for us.

[dakdaros]

The next problem will be how we all understand one another. A side effect of the magic?

[walterthearchitect]

Hmmm yes... perhaps ignoring that is best. It is being told as a story, so the translation problems would be glossed over.

[dakdaros]

Agreed. Lol, I thought I was overthinking it.

[ruba1987]

I like all of this so far, it's great stuff guys! The only part that I don't care for is humans bring dependent on earth for their power. They shouldn't get weaker if they leave bc that would mean the others would need to as well.

[walterthearchitect]

I think we can benefit from the naming ambiguity. It will reinforce the sense of confusion and lack of solidarity. Even the magic need not have one name.