I've been thinking about missions, and stories in ED for some time.
The problem:
The overall galactic story lines are quite slow, interesting, but slow. It's easy to miss a revelation, such as the alien ruins, or alien encounter. The real big things are generally only done once.
Discovering alien ruins, crash sites, etc. Once it's done, no other player can repeat it.
BGS missions are quick, 1 off missions, with no real story. Go here, kill this, collect that, etc, done. Millions of missions, and not much changes.
Solution!
While reading a few crew biographies, I notice some seem to have issues they need resolving. Kidnapped children, money issues, etc. (Didn't see any "I took an arrow to the knee" back stories though!)
These stories could be made in to scripted playable missions.
They don't need to effect the BGS, or involve other players.
They can simply be a way for players to make a difference to a singular NPC.
The missions should be multistage, but relaxed enough to be done when you feel like it. I'm no story writer, so I won't bother trying to whip up an example.
But the basic principle is, you hire a crew member, and their biography hints at a possible story, such as kidnapped daughter.
After spending some time, and money with this crew member, they request some help.
It could be something as simple as "fly me to my ship, I have a lead on who took my daughter".
Once that's done, you lose the crew member while they do their own private mission.
(They show up as "busy")
RNG can dictate if their mission moves the story on, or not, or they get in a pickle and need help.
For example;
1) Mission moves on, they have a lead on a ship that might know something. You can help.
2) dead end, no more information, mission is paused for a while.
3) they get attacked/shotdown and need your help.
The more they trust you, the more you can become involved.
All while trying to keep them alive.
For the kidnap scenario, eventually it would be cool for you and your crew member to go on a rescue mission together in separate ships, all very cool and scripted.
But with multiple possible endings.
•100% Success, aka rescue the daughter, crew lives.
•50% success, rescue daughter, crew dies.
•Fail, Daughter dies.
•Fail, Crew dies.
Once the entire story is completed, your crew member can either leave, or work for you much cheaper, or offer you an upgraded module or something.
With multiple endings, it won't matter too much if the story is then repeated by a different crew member, offering a bit of replyability to them, while giving us CMDRs a bigger sense of purpose.
What do you think?
CMDR Cosmic Spacehead
The problem:
The overall galactic story lines are quite slow, interesting, but slow. It's easy to miss a revelation, such as the alien ruins, or alien encounter. The real big things are generally only done once.
Discovering alien ruins, crash sites, etc. Once it's done, no other player can repeat it.
BGS missions are quick, 1 off missions, with no real story. Go here, kill this, collect that, etc, done. Millions of missions, and not much changes.
Solution!
While reading a few crew biographies, I notice some seem to have issues they need resolving. Kidnapped children, money issues, etc. (Didn't see any "I took an arrow to the knee" back stories though!)
These stories could be made in to scripted playable missions.
They don't need to effect the BGS, or involve other players.
They can simply be a way for players to make a difference to a singular NPC.
The missions should be multistage, but relaxed enough to be done when you feel like it. I'm no story writer, so I won't bother trying to whip up an example.
But the basic principle is, you hire a crew member, and their biography hints at a possible story, such as kidnapped daughter.
After spending some time, and money with this crew member, they request some help.
It could be something as simple as "fly me to my ship, I have a lead on who took my daughter".
Once that's done, you lose the crew member while they do their own private mission.
(They show up as "busy")
RNG can dictate if their mission moves the story on, or not, or they get in a pickle and need help.
For example;
1) Mission moves on, they have a lead on a ship that might know something. You can help.
2) dead end, no more information, mission is paused for a while.
3) they get attacked/shotdown and need your help.
The more they trust you, the more you can become involved.
All while trying to keep them alive.
For the kidnap scenario, eventually it would be cool for you and your crew member to go on a rescue mission together in separate ships, all very cool and scripted.
But with multiple possible endings.
•100% Success, aka rescue the daughter, crew lives.
•50% success, rescue daughter, crew dies.
•Fail, Daughter dies.
•Fail, Crew dies.
Once the entire story is completed, your crew member can either leave, or work for you much cheaper, or offer you an upgraded module or something.
With multiple endings, it won't matter too much if the story is then repeated by a different crew member, offering a bit of replyability to them, while giving us CMDRs a bigger sense of purpose.
What do you think?
CMDR Cosmic Spacehead
