Campaign Creations

Also, August/September is the new school year. People get tied down with that sort of stuff.

I think school/work is a major issue, indeed, but also many people are losing in SC1 rapidly. It's been a long time coming, for sure.

Legion wrote: I think school/work is a major issue, indeed, but also many people are losing in SC1 rapidly. It's been a long time coming, for sure.

People are losing? There is a surplus in n00bz? When did this happen? I think the main reason why this thread in particular is dead is because Gna decided to stop posting in it and so did many others. For many, including myself, this thread ended up just being too much reading even for the people who were interested, but that's just this thread. There are many explanations for why threads fail.

Indeed. I personally stopped making those pages since they are not organized. They're like bits and pieces of a bigger book which anyone can find on google.

It fell on me not to go beyond what was presented, as it was the most efficient way to get someone looking for his/her own answers by first obtaining questions through the cryptic nature of those pages.

Anyone can make a story, we develop our ways through personal exploration of the subject, trial and error, mentoring, or the gazillion books and internet sites. As someone once said, "To comprehend is to live what we know, discover we know nothing at all, but able to live." 

I'd love to continue posting more, but it sounds much better if someone posts his/her own thoughts, methods, or techniques, as well.

Cheers!

thebrowncloud wrote:

Legion wrote: I think school/work is a major issue, indeed, but also many people are losing in SC1 rapidly. It's been a long time coming, for sure.

People are losing? There is a surplus in n00bz? When did this happen? I think the main reason why this thread in particular is dead is because Gna decided to stop posting in it and so did many others. For many, including myself, this thread ended up just being too much reading even for the people who were interested, but that's just this thread. There are many explanations for why threads fail.

Hee hee. Forgot a word.

Losing interest was what I meant to say. As for Starcraft online, I don't care. May be a surplus in newbies there, who knows. I can't remember the last time I logged on Battle.net. Must have been '96/'97, when I was overwhelmed by pk's in Diablo (fuckers all used bobbafett's trainer to get badass weaponry and spells!!). Is it still like that?

Legion wrote:

thebrowncloud wrote:

Legion wrote: I think school/work is a major issue, indeed, but also many people are losing in SC1 rapidly. It's been a long time coming, for sure.

People are losing? There is a surplus in n00bz? When did this happen? I think the main reason why this thread in particular is dead is because Gna decided to stop posting in it and so did many others. For many, including myself, this thread ended up just being too much reading even for the people who were interested, but that's just this thread. There are many explanations for why threads fail.

Hee hee. Forgot a word.

Losing interest was what I meant to say. As for Starcraft online, I don't care. May be a surplus in newbies there, who knows. I can't remember the last time I logged on Battle.net. Must have been '96/'97, when I was overwhelmed by pk's in Diablo (fuckers all used bobbafett's trainer to get badass weaponry and spells!!). Is it still like that?

I have no idea. I don't play StarCraft online. Only the occasional WC3 and very rarely some D2. I was just making a joke based on your grammar. 

Back to Story Development, other than the epic classics that Tipereth mentioned, look into folk and fairy tales at the 398.2 section in your local library. I found these are the quickest ways to get stories and examine their structures. I'm storytelling club and this is what I recommend to all my members - to borrow a book from this section of the library. Also some compilation classics to look into for classic story with stories are:

- Arabian Nights (1001 Nights), the story of Scheherazade
- The Decameron [Boccaccio]
- Canterbury Tales [Chaucer]

The story itself, for a game like this anyhow, requires really solid dialogue to bring it to life. You won't have flesh and blood people to look at on-screen to 'convey' emotions and you can't rely on your imagination (as with a book) since there will still be 'something' on the screen. If it's not voiced, that makes it even more difficult.

So in addition to a good story, make sure your script is solid and not wooden, cliche, boring, or written to where characters say things that sound 'unrealistic.' A tight script will go a long way on its own to carry your story forward. The script will also be the vehicle that the characters will develop.

The Oracle wrote:So in addition to a good story, make sure your script is solid and not wooden, cliche, boring, or written to where characters say things that sound 'unrealistic.' A tight script will go a long way on its own to carry your story forward. The script will also be the vehicle that the characters will develop.

A good way of summarizing this is to look at SC2 and see it as what not to do.

IskatuMesk wrote:

The Oracle wrote:So in addition to a good story, make sure your script is solid and not wooden, cliche, boring, or written to where characters say things that sound 'unrealistic.' A tight script will go a long way on its own to carry your story forward. The script will also be the vehicle that the characters will develop.

A good way of summarizing this is to look at SC2 and see it as what not to do.

Back to literature, I recommend people also look at plays for nice dialogue or just listen to people in a cafe. Plays by Sam Shepard? Gritty and gruesome dialogue. However, as IskatuMesk put it, just looking at SC2 is really nice for this as well. SC have some of the nicest examples when it comes to shaping dialogue to set up the circumstances ultimately helping the players learn some strategies and gameplay.

People always tell me my dialogue is one of the strongest parts of my writing. I'm still not sure how that came to be, though.

The Oracle wrote:So in addition to a good story, make sure your script is solid and not wooden, cliche, boring, or written to where characters say things that sound 'unrealistic.' A tight script will go a long way on its own to carry your story forward. The script will also be the vehicle that the characters will develop.

That really depends on the kind of character you go for. But then, one of my signature characters includes a genre-savvy jerk followed by a successive line of jerks in various shades being jerks to each other.

(Substitute asshole for jerk and it's even funnier)