Staff Writer Paul "LockeColeMA" Cleveland learns all
about Storybricks, an upcoming MMO that will put the power of creation
in the hands of players.



“I could make a game better than this!”
“Really? That's it? Well now what do I do?”
“I just saved the village and villagers still make me pay for a room at the inn?!”

I would wager that since the advent of
video games, players have muttered one or more of these questions and
comments to themselves. It seems that no matter what video game
designers give to us, it's either too little or too poorly done.

A new company, Namaste, agrees; and their upcoming game Storybricks
seeks to put the power back in the hands of the players. While the game
is still years away, they revealed a prototype at Gen Con this year,
and I had a chance to talk to Community Manager Kelly Heckman about the
plans for Storybricks and check out the demo. Keep reading after the
jump for all the details!


Namaste
is a relatively new company that began working on Storybricks just this
past November. The goal was to make both a game and a toolset for
players to contribute to the game. According to Kelly, “Our CEO Rodolfo
Rosini was a hardcore World of Warcraft raider and went through all the
content (he was injured for a while). He hated running out of content
because he loved WoW, but he also hated the fact that he could kill gods
and god-like beings and still have to pay for water. He wanted
meaningful NPC interaction in his games, so he founded Namaste. This
gave us two problems to solve: content and NPC interaction.”



The goal of Namaste is not only to
provide a new MMO to players, but to work directly with them and give
them the tools to create new games and content outside of what the
company itself can provide. But before any of that could occur, the
company had to make sure there was an actual market for this. Rather
than releasing a full alpha or beta, Namaste made a basic prototype of
Storybricks and unveiled it at Gen Con. The feedback was immediate:
players loved the idea.


Storybricks' name gives an idea to how it
works: players can make "bricks” and “chains” to flesh out NPCs.
Additionally, NPCs come with basic traits and moods; for example, nobles
naturally acts “like nobles” in that they have money and power, and act
according to that state.



“But,” says Kelly, “imagine you have an
NPC and you want to define that NPC as a prince. How would you do that?
Normally, you'd put on clothing and then define a bunch of text. Imagine
if you could just say, 'Noble wants fame; Noble wants order,' and the
rest was filled in - what 'noble' 'wants' 'order' and 'fame' all mean in
advance." It saves players the extra typing to fill out how a noble
would act... because what is a prince but a noble with more power and a
sense of order?

The idea, according to Kelly, is to make
the toolset quick and easy for players; and not players with experience
coding and designing, but the average gamer. “My 12- and 14-year old
sons easily understand this and explain it to their friends,” Kelly
laughed. “We don't want coders, we want Joe Roleplayer. People who tell
sophisticated stories but with less computer experience than the average
video gamer.”



To this end, Namaste is working directly
with players every step of the way. The interface is pretty easy to
understand. Players select an NPC, input their relationship to the
player or another NPC, and a desire. So, say you have a citizen who
innately is friendly to the player. The block sequence would simply be
Citizen → Feels Friendly → Toward → Player. Easy, right? But that's just
the beginning.


Staff Writer Paul "LockeColeMA" Cleveland learns all
about Storybricks, an upcoming MMO that will put the power of creation
in the hands of players.


Storybricks isn't only about the player,
it's primarily about relationships. “NPCs have relationships,” says
Kelly, “so the actions you perform with NPC B affect not only your
relationships with NPC A, but the interactions that then become
available to you with NPC A.”

In the demo that I was shown, for
example, the captain of the guard wants to fall in love, but when we
first approached him he was upset. Why? Not because he's lovesick, but
because a brigand was standing nearby. As the definition of a captain
of the guard includes him wanting “order,” having a “chaotic” character
like the brigand around made him inherently stressed. If the player
scared away the brigand, the captain of the guard would probably go
from neutral to friendly with the player; but the brigand might go from
neutral to hostile and attack the player. Meanwhile the citizen from
before might see the chaos in town and be worried, and change from
friendly to neutral, potentially barring the player from quests.

Kelly detailed a scenario similar to this:

“In the past, a Kill Ten Rats quest went
something like this: Kill Ten Rats and Bring Me Ten Rat Tails. With
Storybricks, the quest goes like this: I am the Alchemist and I need Ten
Rat Tails.

The NPC no longer has to define how
to solve the quest, only what the quest is. But because each NPC has
traits, desires and moods, one has to take into account the
relationships between the Alchemist and the method of gaining the Ten
Rat Tails. Why? Well…

1. If you set traps for the rats, the
local rat catcher may become angry. Why? Because one of the definitions
of a tradesman is that he will want to protect his trade.

2. If you buy the rat tails from
shopkeeper A, you could anger shopkeeper B. Why? They are shopkeepers.
The definition of each will be that they want riches and you will be
choosing one over the other.

3. If you persuade the rat catcher to
give you the rat tails, you could anger the rat catcher. Why? Well, it
depends on your persuasion technique. Threatening (as the most common)
rarely puts you in another's good graces and the rat catcher will have
relationships with other NPCs.

4. If you barter with a friend for the
rat tails, you could anger anyone. Why? What's the relationship your
friend has with the rat catcher, the shopkeeper, the alchemist or anyone
else for that matter?

Notice I didn't mention killing for the
tails. At this point we're not sure if we're even considering combat
because that option is what players are so used to they may not consider
anything else (or the repercussions).”

The ending quote is one of the key issues
I see potentially for players. Right now, the developers are leaning
toward not having any sort of combat option for the players. The idea
instead is to have the players focus on realistic relationships and
situations. Sure, in real life someone might complain about the
neighbor's dog barking, but you going over and shoving a sword down its
throat likely won't help the situation too much. Instead it makes
players think: I can't just kill the dog, so what could I do? Confront
the neighbor, call the guard, find out why the dog is barking and taking
care of the problem... the possibilities are huge.

“If we make combat available, players are
so used to it that it becomes the choice of default,” Kelly said on the
topic, so instead they want players to think up more creative solutions
based on interaction.