Narrative

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Narratives (Meta-stories) that play out on a particular server are driven by various story arcs.[1][2][3][4]

There is of course a meta-story. That meta-story gets informed by regional stories and regional outcomes; and depending on how players progress within their personal stories, that could be either racially based or could be their class-based. They could be a per-node basis. All of those things support a grand structure of the meta-narrative.[2]Steven Sharif
Q: What is your vision for the overall player story when comparing the more emergent personal stories versus the more curated story arcs?
A: The narrative keeps in mind what the meta narrative is of the server; and that's something we have generally kept relatively close to the chest. It's something that we don't want to spoil leading up to our testers participating in Alpha-2 and Beta and eventually launch. It is however true that there is a meta narrative that exist within Ashes. There is a purpose why you are on Verra again; and the supporting narrative structures are there to reinforce what that meta narrative is. So, players will have insight into that as they travel and adventure within the world.[1]Steven Sharif

Narrative events

Narrative Events help shape the story of Verra based on the choices that players make during key questlines. While narrative story arcs take time to develop across a server, Narrative Events will show players that their choices play a bigger part in shaping the world around them through individual actions.[5]Peter Bisulca

Narrative events allow players to shape the story arcs that unfold on their server through the choices they make in key questlines.[5]

Story arcs

Alpha-2 early preview of the story arc UI.[9]

Story arcs are like a pre-packaged tabletop campaign. They contain all of the NPCs and quests and monsters- all the things you need to make a cool fantasy story. They're not procedurally generated... We write all the dialogue and we construct all the narrative beats and everything like that, but they will enter the world dynamically depending on the state that the world is currently in; how players have built up specific nodes, what races control various nodes. We have plans to include lots of different things on top of that, but we don't have any quest hubs or anything like that in this game, because players build up all the cities. So we had to get a system that looks at what players are doing and can inject content into the world that makes sense for what they're doing.[10]Skott B

The Blood Still Due story arc unlocking at The Tower of Carphin.[11]

When story arcs come online, they change a lot the environment. They update what monsters are in the world. They create quest NPCs... and then new Pathways can open up through the environment.[12]Skott B

Story arcs are unlocked by multiple types of player activity within each server.[13][11][10][14]

Every stage a node develops it's unlocking narratives, storylines, it's changing the spawn population of the area around it, changing what bosses exist, it's triggering events where you may have legendary dragons attack the city. It's basically writing the story of the server based on the actions and determination of the players. So, you may experience a dungeon one month earlier and have a completely different story that relates to this location the next month, because something has changed either geopolitically or from the node standpoint.[14]Steven Sharif
Even player driven mechanics will still have story components. There will be a reason why the player driven mechanic is available or required of the player; so every system that's created touches a story.[19]Steven Sharif
  • If there are too many other major arcs happening at the same time in the same zone, a story arc may need to wait its turn, even if conditions are right for it to be unlocked.[13]
  • Story arcs drive one or more storyline quests within the game.[21][22][23][24][4]
    • Story arcs can branch into different stories with multiple possible endings depending on the quest objectives that players complete during each chapter.[21][22]
    • The developers will try to ensure that story arcs in future expansions flow on from existing story arcs, regardless of the different possible outcomes.[21]
  • There will be a variety of different types of story arc content at different scales, with different cooldowns to suit different types of players in the game.[26]
We must provide enough of this content at varying scales such that it isn't worthwhile or economical to control every single story arc in the world. Some will be smaller in scale and production value, and thus, will move faster and have shorter cooldowns before they're reintroduced.[26]Skott B
info-orange.pngNiektóre z poniższych informacji nie zostały ostatnio potwierdzone przez programistów i mogą nie znajdować się na aktualnym planie rozwoju.

Certain story arcs can be unlocked through the bulletin board system. Certain requirements would need to be met in order to access story arc quests.[30]

Player driven narrative

One of the major goals I feel like we have is to allow player decisions to have consequences and to have meaningful results from the decisions that they make, so it seems like people can really create their own stories.[31]Aimi Watanabe

The world of Verra will be the same on each server, but Nodes will develop differently. Different servers will have different narratives. Things that happen on one server may not happen on another.[32]

We want as many people as possible to experience the main server Narrative. These will branch at different scales, but largely at the personal level. Where things change is at the Node level – different parts of the story will be unlocked based on where and when Nodes grow. Unlocking a part of the story in a certain way locks out progression of the story in a different way. You’ll see different antagonists, different NPCs, and different calls to action depending on what’s happening with the server at that time.[34]

It redefines what the players will experience in an MMORPG to come into a wilderness that is devoid of really any structure outside of what the community creates themselves; and then what can be created can be changed, if they want to experience a storyline that's been seen on another server, but you're fighting a dragon because you're near a mountain and the other server's fighting a Kraken because they're near the coast and you want to fight that Kraken because of its drop table. If you want to meta it or because you just want that under your belt: to be the server first to take out that Kraken and you have yet to develop the node there, it's incumbent upon you to manifest that in the game.[35]Steven Sharif

Narrative quests

Narrative quests will focus on gameplay that reflects the story and won't contain "filler".[36]

What you find in the Narratives category is where you’ll find most of what you might call traditional quests. Because we’re jettisoning filler, we’ll have the resources to craft a really excellent story, with gameplay that reflects the scope of that story.[36]

See also

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 Transmisja na żywo, 2024-02-29 (1:23:07).
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Transmisja na żywo, 2022-04-29 (1:05:37).
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Transmisja na żywo, 2022-03-31 (1:15:29).
  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 Transmisja na żywo, 2018-01-18 (39:08).
  5. 5.0 5.1 Types of Events on Verra.
  6. Wywiad, 2023-07-09 (59:31).
  7. Blog: Know Your Nodes - Scientific Node Type
  8. Transmisja na żywo, 2017-05-26 (15:37).
  9. Video, 2023-03-31 (14:14).
  10. 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 Video, 2023-03-31 (3:32).
  11. 11.0 11.1 Video, 2023-03-31 (1:22).
  12. Video, 2023-03-31 (6:30).
  13. 13.0 13.1 skotty-story-arc-2.png
  14. 14.0 14.1 14.2 Video, 2018-04-05 (35:01).
  15. Transmisja na żywo, 2023-04-07 (55:22).
  16. Transmisja na żywo, 2023-03-31 (1:00:16).
  17. Transmisja na żywo, 2022-10-28 (32:52).
  18. Transmisja na żywo, 2017-06-01 (37:39).
  19. 19.0 19.1 Transmisja na żywo, 2019-05-30 (1:18:16).
  20. Transmisja na żywo, 2017-05-26 (15:37).
  21. 21.0 21.1 21.2 Transmisja na żywo, 2023-04-07 (58:39).
  22. 22.0 22.1 Video, 2023-03-31 (14:20).
  23. Video, 2023-03-31 (12:47).
  24. Wywiad, 2018-10-20 (2:36:25).
  25. Video, 2023-09-29 (2:59).
  26. 26.0 26.1 26.2 skotty-story-arc-1.png
  27. Wywiad, 2023-07-09 (47:05).
  28. Transmisja na żywo, 2023-03-31 (59:10).
  29. Video, 2023-03-31 (16:42).
  30. 30.0 30.1 30.2 30.3 Transmisja na żywo, 2017-10-31 (29:50).
  31. Video, 2023-03-31 (28:11).
  32. Transmisja na żywo, 2017-05-19 (37:03).
  33. Transmisja na żywo, 2019-12-17 (1:10:30).
  34. Interview: Ashes of Creation on Building Their Virtual World, 2017-04-13.
  35. Transmisja na żywo, 2017-05-22 (28:02).
  36. 36.0 36.1 MMOGames interview, January 2017