The Linear Vs. Interactive thread changed my outlook on "interactivity" in games. I suggest you browse through it if you want to get the most out of this. But it is a lot of reading, so I''ll summarize. Post-Structuralism is a movement in art. In a nutshell, post-structuralists believe that the "art" is in the viewer''s interpretation of a piece. Hence a piece of art can mean something different for each viewer, and perhaps none of them are seeing what the artist intended. The artist can only provide material for the interpretation; using the vast pool of subconsious human symbolism and allegory to direct the user''s interpretation (maybe). This material is called the "text." When the viewer interprets something other than what the creator intentionally created the piece for, the viewer is said to be "adding to the text." So essentially, when your english teacher calls on you to "Explain what the author means by this...", the post-structuralist response is "What does it mean to you?" Before I go any furthur I want to let you all know that I consider myself to be post-structuralist in my thinking. Games are different. Games... RPGs in particular (shudder), literally DEMAND that the user CHANGE the text. The text cannot resolve itself unless the user actively selects text from a kind of Supertext. So it''s definition time: --- Passive Text: A text where the viewer interprets a static text. Active Text: A text where the player affects the text directly, as well as interpreting the result. Viewer: A receptor and interpreter of meaning in the text. User: The person selecting text from the supertext. Supertext: The collection of every possible text available to the user. --- It''s important to note that a User is always a Viewer also, and an active text is always Passive in retrospect. Using some real-life logic: The future is a set of infinite branching pathways, the past is a straight line. The benefits of applied interactivity are too good to pass up. However, there are negatives as well. If the player is allowed to wander in a virtual world without limitation, games will become as mundane as real life. But think about this for a moment... wandering in a virtual world? Where will writers and designers fit in a medium dominated by reactive mathematics? I can tell you: we need to figure out the rules. All media throughout history have been governed by rules. Some of these rules transcend media; like three-act structure. No matter where we detect it, the human mind just seems to enjoy three act structure. So our question as the designers of future games will be: "How can we use three act structure in a medium where the player has control?" This question affords a simple answer among many others. But what are the rules that belong to interactivity alone? What examples do we have to learn from? How can we learn more? ===== Are you aware that the people who bring you television actually refer to it openly as "programming?"

If "reactive mathematics" means what I think, then:

The player may wander, but since the game is "interactive", there will be actions and reactions that will involve the player. The designers will make the world, and the ways the world reacts to the players actions, then the player will react to the world''s reactions, and so forth. The writers will tell the designers how the world interacts with the player, and thus, a story is born.

The only rule I think that games follow is that the player is involved somewhere along the line. Question everything else.

What do you think?



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"What's the story with your face, son?!?"

Well, I agree with that rule. By the same token, there are no real "rules" governing other media either. What I really mean to ask is, "What works and what doesn''t?" Those are rules, really.

I think there''s more to it than just a reactive environment. We need to create an underlying structure that guides that envirnment in the form of a coherant plot... otherwise the game would only end when the character failed... and we don''t want that.

Ok, I''m thinking about this a little differently now (just read the last page on Linear vs. Interactive), and perhaps the world should go on with or without the player, therefore incorporating non-reactive environment. This provides for more immersion* into the world.

* Immersion is always a good thing. While were at it, so is the character/player relationship. Even in nonRPGs, the playing piece needs to be something the player doesn''t mind being for a little while.

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"What's the story with your face, son?!?"

Feeling stupid, that''s exactly what you said Freak. I think what I was trying to say was that the way the world goes on w/o the player should be controlled by the writer, who would creat a lot of story oppourtunities, and the "story" would unfold to the player by whatever s/he did.

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"What's the story with your face, son?!?"

Hmmm. A string of "constant" events can only work in a truly non-linear story IF the story is in realtime, or semi-realtime. Time in the game cannot be event based, and time-passage itself would have to have consequences.

Unless you can think of another way?

Well, time passing would have to have consequences, which is fine IMO. In order to let "quests" be more accessable, certain ones could repeat every few days, such as something needing to be delivered. Maybe a monster would need to be hunted, and it''s location would change as time passes. Certain "quests" that couldn''t be repeated like this could have their "timeline" start once the player hears about it. The band of thieves have been planning for months, and now that the player has heard about it, they plan on striking tommorow.

Is this something that might work?

Just thought of something: if a player has to take care of something in the story, they won''t be able to wander aimlessly, killing goblins and amassing exp and gold (bye bye munchikins).

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"What's the story with your face, son?!?"

Munchkinning will vanish if you only reward players for contextual achievements. I wonder if we should make it easy to get at a subplot if you missed it... maybe missing it should just be missing it?

I think there should be a combination of some events that are reactive and only happen in reaction to the player''s actions and other events that happen on their own and involve the player.

One idea I was thinking about was that the one''s that happen on their own and don''t need any preceeding events to occur could be randomly set at the beginning of the program to happen on a certain day.

I am wondering if anyone has a solution to the one obvous problem:

If we''re dealing w/ a totally non-linear (where there''s reactive events), single-player game, how does the game end?

I suppose there could be a main plot that could have some different branches that could eventually lead to the end of the game (with multible ending perhaps)....any other opinions?

This is all assuming that a non-linear game is being created.

"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." --William Blake

"The road of excess also just ends up making me tired because I'm too lazy" --Nazrix