Well, ok, not quite infinate but is it feasible for an online game to have so much story and history that it will almost be impossible to find a crack in it? At the moment I have five writers doing nothing more than refering to a time line, updating it with large events (and their smaller ones on a different scale) and writing stories from war to romance, evil, distrust. etc. you name it. I also want to open the doors for players to submit stories that will become part of the history or quests once their checked against the current history to see if they fit. The timeline method seems to be working, but is it really worth the time and effort? Now to be fair I''ll let you know that we''re using this world to create more than one game, and possibly even to write a few short stories. And last question is, any ideas on how to make sure that cracks don''t form in the story? I know no game withstands the first encounter with the player.. but I hope to stay one step ahead.

I would think you need not just a timeline but an expanded structure schematic to see where each contribution fits into the whole. For example:

2002 - battle of X (timeline)

|

story of heroism in the battle - A is killed.


2003 - Victory parade and ball in the capital (timeline)

|

story of A''s romance during the ball
(but he died last year!!)

It would be quite a lot of work to link them up in this way, but once you had this basic structure in place you could quite easily see where new additions fitted in.

I think that you could go a long way by having books in the game. Start with a few - some legends, a few stories and poems, and a couple of reference and pseudo-academic books. So a player can learn more about the world, hunt down adventures, find stories of other characters they meet so they know what to expect from them, or research some creature or something which they just have''t been able to figure out how to get passed by themselves. You could also have books telling players about the different weapons and armour available and how to use them effectively in the game. Just don''t make them too long or you''ll bore your players very quickly, and make the game playable for those who don''t want to read (they just don''t get the extra benefits). Ultima 7 and 8 did this quite nicely, but players must also be able to write their own books (poems, stories (both from experience and just plain fiction), journals, notes, letters, songs - anything they want. There should probably be a couple of libraries, and it would be cool if you could take a book to a scribe to make a copy (to balance this out, it should be possible for books to be destroyed). The diversity of source will make the players sufficiently cynical so it won''t ruin the suspension of disbelief if something turns out to be untrue, as long as you keep on injecting some new books so the balance of them remains useful information.

Just my humble opinion.

Hmm.. I had never though of it being possible to destroy works. But If I can balance that properly it could add some amazing things. In another thread we were arguing how a sage like wizard could be actually played and I had said they could have spells created for questing. Perhaps picking up on hints could be one of those spells. So even tho a work has been destroyed there is still a way to piece together the past and the quest.
Now, I see what you mean by the expanded version, almost like an events tree. This would work best, I think, if I complete the timeline with the major events then boil those down into trees and use event trees in the empty spaces.
This is for an mmorpg (dont roll your eyes I use that term as loosly as possible, I know the market is flooded with them) So I believe there could be player written works that could be found in libraries and such. That way theres a full culture that isn''t neccessarry but adds to the imersion in the world. If a player seems to have a skill at writing we could also start submitting thier works under an npc name. So in some way their stories would come from the world. Like having a shakespear suddenly rise up that becomes known across the world. (I say npc because I know I wouldnt want all my plaing time to be taken up by people hunting me down to complain or compliment me.)


Thanks for the ideas.. keep them comming.

Ah, but history is never 100% accurate, and people know this (or at least will after the game bangs it into the players'' heads). And if you can inject your own literature at any time, you can make ammendments. (Ever read Dragonlance books - the Raistlin Chronicles trilogy directly contradicts the original stories, but it''s justified by a letter at the end by Caramon - one of the central characters - saying that now that he has accepted his brother''s death he''s been able to tell the entire story as it really happened). And with player input (that writing books example), you can get an array of different opinions of what happened. So the "why" question won''t be such a problem, and may even end up as a good thing.

Astrum: The well-known npc author thing could work wonders. In forgotten realms this guy Volo writes about half the books that exist, and in the Forgotten Realms game Baldur''s Gate (in which there are in-game books by Volo and even the manual is made in Volo-style with his name and signature at the end of chapters) you actually meet the guy. That has an excellent effect.

For inspiration, try reading the Lord of the Rings and the Silmarilion. The world that Tolkien has constructed is flawless. I would recommend that you try, almost to make a prequil to your stories. I have found that trying to create entire histories and cultures takes a lot of time, and I think you should get those five writers together and have a brainstorming sesion on where you want this story to be going, and how it would affect the cultures and mythology. You need to consider every facet that the player may look at. Keep at it, and always keep it co-ordianted. No-one works in a vacuum. If you allow yourselves to be isolated, then that is when the cracks will appear.