End of Progression, End of Story... of the World?

[septembervirgin]

Imagine yourself in 2016 or maybe even 2018. Our cities aren't using jet cars yet like people thought we'd have, but we're playing games with computers and it's not three dimensional chess. We're playing something that might be called Eternity. It's a CRPG. You might know what I'm talking about, yes, I think you have an inkling of the picture I'm sketching here. A silhouette: our protagonal character is immensely high level, we're about the beat the most recent Eternity CRPG game, let's call it Eternity 3. Upon winning, we congratulate ourselves, and then as we relax with a drink (oh, I dunno, absinthe maybe), we wonder what Obsidian will do next.

 

Eventually the protagonal character becomes so powerful, some conceive of story progression becoming difficult to plot. Some claim it's hard to generate a meaningful story with meaningful characters around a god. Yet the story simply needs take a different style to it. Yet there are a great many stories about gods and superheroes and even dangerously powerful evil spirits -- literature and other forms of fiction media abound with such stories.

 

Or the story might end.

 

If the end of the character's story comes before godhood or super power, we have an idea exactly what happens. We miraculously defy the wicked deities, any number of these, and decide to enjoy the sanctity and blessing of anonymity to future titles, if any future titles are forthcoming. Oh, yeah, if the designers are clever we might appear as an immensely powerful being and guide or patron/matron of new protagonists, but the designers might run a risk of betraying each players' own build of their old character as well as their private dreams about their old character. So we might see this character, we might gain distant assistance or brief contact, but we probably can't expect to even have as long a conversation as we would with Lord British in an Ultima game.

 

So maybe we'd best hope for a continuing character who exists in godland or in a new godland created by that being? Yet where do we go from there? I can see a CRPG that has a spin-off game, a godgame or tactical game that uses the CRPG saved game files to construct a starting position. I can see a CRPG where one is a deity among companion NPCs who are all deities, and such a thing might not be too derelict from superhero gaming. If you've played Champions (the Dice and Books RPG version) at the three-hundred point level, it's not like you're too far beyond to converse with mortals and have meaningful interactions with other superheroes. Alot of possibilities present themselves. Can there be mystery? Yes, gods are not always omniscient and an opposing deity might be clouding our awareness of a single matter or obscuring our precognitive capability. Happens all the time in comic books. Can there be horror? Not so much: I've noticed that horror is sometimes beggared when it happens to a deity. Horror becomes tragedy or unintended comedy or just confusing when a deity seems incapable as any mortal might be. Horror depends largely on the feeling that a terrible situation might happen to oneself too. And we're not deities in the mirrorland of our souls. Comedy is possible to find among the doings of the gods, even if horror is not, as the Greeks proved.

 

What else is possible? What seems impossible?

What have you noticed done before with gods and super powered beings that works? What would you like to see work?

Edited October 11, 2012 by septembervirgin

[Orogun01]

Meh....video game fan with video game ideas.

[Rink]

The idea of a fantasygame, where I start out as a god, is quite unappealing to me. I like it to start out as someone who dies of rats first and the slow transformation from "normal" person to strong person that can change history is really more interesting than the change in history itself. So I would like the game-series (if there will be other games) to know when it is time to draw a line and start over. We often have seen prequels where you play the part of someone that dies early (and heroic) in the first game or the protagonist of the first game becoming the antagonist in the second and stuff like that. I personally enjoy it more, if the end of the first "¨book of eternity" will feature the death of the protagonist and the second plays maybe 20 years after the first one with new opponents that maybe somehow were influenced by book 1. Probably with a new protagonist from the same bloodline than the protagonist of book 1, Of course it is great to see the npcs and what the years have done to them, a fragile girl may have become a strong woman, a willfull paladin may be broken by his own weakness to change history himself, a thief may have somehow managed to steal a crown and now is king of a region (and maybe realises that owning so much money means nothing without adventure). I rarely have seen that in games, because it may be hard to do that if you point at a new audience every single time when you bring out a new game. I think Project Eternity is different, because we have been here waiting for this game for 10 years, we surely will wait 2 years for a second game.

 

I haven't played a lot of games with gods in it, because maybe they usually target the gamers that just want action without a lot of storyelements (for example god of war).

 

edit: damn spelling...

Edited October 11, 2012 by Rink

[Lorfean]

Should there be any sequels (fingers crossed), I would imagine Obsidian might be more interested in telling several different stories in this universe than in continuing the same story across multiple titles. And looking at KotOR2, NWN2, F:NV, DS3, and even Icewind Dale II back at Black Isle... I think I would actually prefer that. Story-lines for individual games can be continued in expansions, like they did for NWN2 and F:NV, but sequels are a great opportunity to explore other stories and areas of the world.

[Silver6986]

Should there be any sequels (fingers crossed), I would imagine Obsidian might be more interested in telling several different stories in this universe than in continuing the same story across multiple titles. And looking at KotOR2, NWN2, F:NV, DS3, and even Icewind Dale II back at Black Isle... I think I would actually prefer that. Story-lines for individual games can be continued in expansions, like they did for NWN2 and F:NV, but sequels are a great opportunity to explore other stories and areas of the world.

 

True,

 

And what better way to do this then by playing the son/daughter of the protagonist of the first few PE games who has now reached godhood, as the setting could be in a completely different part of the realms of PE and also then begin an entirely new story arc, imagine if the previous save files could be used to transfer major consequences that were experienced in the previous games which changes the structure of the new game. I feel THAT would make for an epic backdrop for a new PE game.