[Workshop] Campaign Development

[thebrowncloud]

Okay, so to recap, here is what we have so far:

(Quoted from Krazy. Removed from quotes for organization)
Here's some of this, feel free to not only continue adding the characters but also to add details to the existing characters.

Character Related Items:


{Names listed are WIP}

A. "Resident" (POV character)
  i. Attributes: -("Jason Bourne meets Medium"), Partial Amnesiac
  ii. Skills - Paranormal Psychic [See Storytelling Related]
  iii. Job/faction - UED (ghost?)
  iv. Plot Related - One of two last remaining survivors of the UED ship "[name here]"
  v. Storytelling Related - Paranormal Psychic: When in-proximity to a carcass, sees the past.
  vi. Miscellaneous: 

B. "George Foreman"
  i. Attributes: -("I Am Legend meets Castaway"), Gruff, Rough-and-Ready, comes off as somewhat stupid, a bit of a reject
  ii. Skills: -Firebat-sort
  iii. Job/Faction: UED (firebat?)
  iv. Plot Related: - One of two last remaining survivors of the UED ship "[name here]"
  v. Storytelling Related: - Early dialogue is designed to introduce the player to the setting
  vi. Miscellaneous: 

C. Name
  i. Attributes:
  ii. Skills:
  iii. Job/Faction:
  iv. Plot Related:
  v. Storytelling Related:
  vi. Miscellaneous:

Plot Related Items:
   
Map 1 -
- The plot begins [give timeline notes here], when "Resident" awakens from stasis. 
- After (perhaps discovering a few bodies and seeing fragments of what has happened), he meets "George Foreman"
- Dialogue; Sub-mission 1 Mission Objectives Update (A source of O2 must be acquired)


First sub-mission:
- The ship is crashed on a planet (Possibly Abaddon) without breathable O2.  The breathing tanks are in the armory, however, the armory is currently sealed.  Alternatively, if they were more ambitious, they could restore the life support systems on the ship.
- "George Foreman" has a working tank, but now that Amnesiac is out of stasis, he is going to need one too.
- The Armory is blocked.  To get to it, they need to get Tool X.
- Alternatively, the Life Support System is damaged.  To fix it, they need Part Y.
- Unfortunately, there are Kimeran Pirates in the way, blocking their objectives.
- Lots of opportunities for corpse-flashbacks as they explore the ship.



Map Design Notes:

- The first mission is installation terrain 


General Notes:

- Try to avoid having voiced canon characters appear, so that if the campaign is fully voiced we don't run into roadblocks.

Topics in Discussion:

-Pronogo's idea of a zerg experiment from the Confederacy remnants went awry. Most likely would be an intelligent zerg that is under control of Infested Stukov and the New Swarm
-Comedic drunken soldier character that appears around the Kimeran Pirates spontaneously and strangely has an amazing shot
-Protoss prisoner on the Kimera (pirate BC) with the Umojan prisoners when resident and George Foreman get there. Possibly a working-class protoss citizen or maybe a dark templar
-Where does the resident and/or George Foreman end up in the end?

Factions in Question:

-Kimeran Pirates
-Umoja
-Dominion (form?)
-New Swarm
-Some protoss force (?)

[Thalraxal]

I whole heartedly support using the Umojans, poor guys never get any spotlight.

But if you do, you need to use Aqua as their team colour.

What are you talking about?  They had the whole of Aeon of the Hawk dedicated to them.

They've never appeared in any of the official campaigns, and their faction colour (Aqua) isn't actually avaliable in-game under normal circumstances.  As for in player-made campaigns, yes they do have Aeon of the Hawk, but really not much else.  Compare that to how many more campaigns use the Confederacy, Dominion, UED or the Combine.

Looks good so far.  I really like the idea of having a couple ways to solve the problem (Getting an airtank vs restoring life support).  If you do have a Zerg hero, I suggest going for the Zergling Hero.  Infested Terrans/Terran-Zerg  Hybrids have been done and Zergling heroes are just plain awesome.

[thebrowncloud]

If you do have a Zerg hero, I suggest going for the Zergling Hero.  Infested Terrans/Terran-Zerg  Hybrids have been done and Zergling heroes are just plain awesome.

Hehe, I can't get the idea out of my head that the zergling hero would be stukov's version of brian from family guy. talking zergling that does pretty much whatever he wants. hehe 

[GnaReffotsirk]

Okay, awesome. A bit of an interruption just to attempt an explanation of why we need the infos, and probably help the process we're at now.

For example, taking off from our Psychic guy:

Characters:
#1 Psychic Guy

Attributes:
a) No recollection of past

> possible development route: (story structure)

Main Character Issue:
“Am I making this mean like this, or are they lying to me?”
                                 
MC Concern:
Something about what he does/doesn’t remember

MC Issue:
Putting something to a close; closure.

Overall Story Concern: Obtaining/Establishing/Abolishing Something
This new program that is very dangerous and inhumane

Overall Story Problem: Directed, Controlled
This shadow organization’s unchallenged and unchecked operations, going too smoothly,
kept under wraps, that no one even knows they exist. (until our MC progresses in his
struggle for something regarding his memory)

Overall Story Issue: Self-interest vs. Morality
Doing something considering others vs. Doing something regardless anyone

b) Not a ghost operative (nor former), has Psychic abilities, reason unknown.
Is it natural? Due to some exposure? Latent one activated by some event?
Was it suppressed and now unleashed, which is connected somehow to why he survives?

Abilities:
Can see info through direct contact of an object/person/area (Dead Zone-esque)

Char Plot
- As he awakens from stasis, he sees fragments of his former crewmate’s lives, whenever he comes near a
dead body. He sees: -- reports from the UED expedition -- the ship being attacked -- the ship crashing.
That's when he meets...

- Found by Kimeran crew/team/Pirates (Led by Duke-esque character)

- Meets with Dumb (but not dumb, "I am Legend" or "Castaway"-esque) character


Direction/Development hints (along the lines of possible structure above):

The answer to the nature/origin of his Psychic abilities may give us our story’s prerequisite. Or that item that needs
to be attained or reached in-order to begin the quest towards facing the story’s central problem.



Okay, here’s a sort of template (added with some items that needs to be defined). It’s just an example, using what
we have as basis for certain storypoints – a picture of something we’re going to be making and finalizing for our story.


Still following the above example structure:

Our Character (the Psychic) will be concerned about either: Something he doesn’t remember; or something he remembers that’s out of place. And he will be trying to bring closure to something. This closure might come from
abolishing/establishing/obtaining something. Or it could be that abolishing/establishing/obtaining something and his
quest for closure is a mutually-exclusive thing.

His unique ability is getting info (as per described), but he has trouble making moral judgments about what they
seem to be. The suspicions he does end up with helps things progress. Often, though, it’ll be hard to get something
done or push them through because he assumes too much responsibility for everything that could happen. His sense of
excluding others out of the equation gets him into trouble, and often everyone else. His, “this is my responsibility”
kind of thinking is the thing that leads things astray.

This “personal quest” will occur as everyone else is concerned over Obtaining/Establishing/Abolishing Something.
Probably a deeper thing connected to the very operation that gave/unleashed our guy above his abilities. Our Guy up
there could be a weapon of the sort, or not at all.

Everyone could very well be concerned about this psychic obtained by/poked into to extract info/etc by someone/some
faction that’s very dangerous and has a twisted sense of “doing for the greater good”. Or that they are focused on
dealing with this organization almost completing their project, and the psychic is their “lost key”. Or maybe, he’s
just someone with a vendetta that’s going to destroy something good, which he falsely finds evil. This something good
is almost about to abolish something bad, and thanks to our misguided psychic, everything plunges to hell.




The above is just an example of what we want to have and are going to need as gathering point: Structure or
Perspective -- something solid about our story, where each storypoint fills a specific role, each one connected
to form context, and thereby gives our story meaning.



Okay, for example, with the information we’ve produced regarding our Psychic character, we can generate more ideas by putting
things into perspective. We can structure the items above and make them mean something else for each case. After that, we can
further add more storypoints or refine what we already have.


Let’s say for our event: “Kimeran crew/team finds Psychic”

Case 1: As Sequence 1 Resolution

We can have this event as the resolution of our first sequence. Say, a character/group of characters
start from “Trying to make sense of something fishy” to “finding the Psychic”.

This effectively generates questions for us: what is the role of our Psychic? Is he the character we’ll
be viewing the story from subjectively? Is he the one who goes against the team or someone else? Is he going
to be just someone who represents emotional responses in our story? Etc.


Case 2: As Story Goal

We can have “Kimeran crew/team finds Psychic” as our story’s goal. The very thing our protagonist
will try to achieve.


This effectively gives us a story without the Psychic even being anywhere until we get to our ending sequence.


Case 3: As Story Requirement

“Kimeran crew/team finds Psychic” as a requirement -- the very thing that must be achieved/reached in order to
reveal the path which leads our protagonist into the final confrontation.


Case 4: As Story Cost
“Kimeran Crew/Team finds Psychic” as a cost. Or, something that our protagonist (and his/her forces) will
have to suffer as they press on to solve the story’s problem.


Case 5:  As Forewarning

“Kimeran Crew/Team finds Psychic” as forewarning. Or, something that foreshadows the coming of the story’s
consequence – something that our characters will have to endure if the goal is not reached/achieved.


Case 6: As Central Problem
“Kimeran Crew/Team finds Psychic” as Central Problem. This effectively makes our Psychic character and him being
under custody of the Kimeran Crew/Team the core thing that must be dealt with, else “something bad is going
to happen” (consequence).


Case 7: As Sequence 1 Setup (Event that kicks everything into motion)

As the setup of our first sequence, which resolves to say, “they learn of something very terrible
threatening [story consequence]”.



As we can see, things can mean something else in each case.


In any of the cases above though, it becomes apparent that we need more storypoints. We need a Story Goal, Story Consequence,
Story Requirement, Story Cost, A protagonist (one who leads the charge to solving the story’s problem; may not be our perspective
character), etc.

Let’s see where our muses lead us from this point on. But we need to proceed slowly one at a time to avoid setbacks and excess.


Now, with the data we’ve accumulated, it is advised that we should at least make our givens mean something specific for our story
to have a single perspective. We need to structure them all, so we can proceed having avoided creating divergent ideas on each
storypoint. This way we start solid, having a good grasp of things, and proceed smoothly without spreading out beyond necessary.

This is adviced since we want to conserve our "creative energies" and complete our story with a sweeter sense of satisfaction.


Now, regarding plot progressions:


For example, thebrowncloud has proposed a plot progression which goes like this:

1. Psychic awakens, and is found by castaway-esque guy.
2. Pirates finds crashed ship and castaway-esque guy.
3. An event occurs that leads to the Pirates finding “the Resident”.
4. Pirates confronted by Infested Stukov and Kaloth (new Swarm). They compete over the Resident.
5. Umojans rescues Kimeran Scientists, and thereby castaway-esque guy and the Resident.


We can deepen this by adding essence to each event. But before we can do that, we’re going to need structure. Each event plays
a part in unwinding a tense configuration of things (or crisis), and we first need to have that in order to create events that
have direction.

For example,
“An initial assessment” is amplified by “gathering evidence to resolve questions of validity”, and “questioning
validity without investigating it to be sure” is amplified by “reconsideration of previous determination”.
“Initial Assessment” is in Conflict with “Reconsideration of Previous determination.”



Let’s say,

Our Psychic has been discarded of the sort by whoever once held him, thinking he was rather a mistake to
begin with and is to be thrown away dead in some uninhabitable planet.  Now, someone in-charge of him during
the process (of whatever he came from) has discovered something in him which “whoever once held him” was really
looking for. The “in-charge” who considers this experiment to be wrong before it even began, injects a serum
into the guy, made sure he’d survive the crash, and gave him his abilities, as “the in-charge” thinks he/she can
now bring down this “whoever once held him” which previously seemed impossible to do.


We have a crisis in this form, and with a sense of danger:

“Whoever once held him” may discover “in-charge” and his/her deeds, and therefore their prize
and elimination of the only person that could stop them: “the in-charge” and the Guy working together.


Why this is something we don’t want “whoever once held him” to attain is something we have yet to establish.



That’s just an example. The idea is, we need a crisis for thebrowncloud’s suggestion so we can make it more dramatic and mean something.


Let’s say, from our givens which are:
Kimeran Pirates
Umojan Scientists
Umojan Rescue Team
New Swarm
The Resident and Dumb guy pair
UED ship


Crisis:

Umojans have been looking for a missing link in some experiment which they don’t actually know much about
in regards to its use and effects. Unknown to them, this research is Dominion in its conception, abandoned
for some time and deemed impossible to complete. Since then, a private Umojan Character has been funding the
research, almost hopelessly trying to see if it can be completed.

Her persistence has involved Zerg in the past, and Stukov while in human form had people looking into this
thing before the UED invasion commenced. By then it was still under Dominion funding.

Now, Stukov who, while still human, has found great interest in this before, rekindles his quest after the
research (now Privately funded) took steps to give the research one last shot. With frequent threats and
probing of the New Swarm on the research team and compound, the Umojan benefactor gives up her chase,
and thereby:
1. Psychic guy ends up in a cryo-chamber.
2. Pirates got Umojan Scientist (maybe for transport, but now hostage thing)


Our Sequence one’s Setup – the nature of things as we start the story. Same thing, but we’ve established perspective.
It means something now, and thebrownclouds events can now mean something as well.

Plot is something we’ll have to consider after we have identified the static elements of our story, like characters,
goal, issues, etc.


Let's see where we end up with. Until then, as we see from above, the recap is vital for the next steps. We may even
need to vote on things later on.

So, maybe when we reach page 10, we'll have to take a break, and I'll be providing a gathering point for us to begin
the next step.

(p.s. Also, I totally am not good at communicating stuff, especially when I go into dissection mode. Need all the help
we can get. Someone among us has the skill to make things more clearer?)

And for ideas that's left in the air, no feedback, or hasn't been incorporated along the leading glob of ideas, don't worry. We are going to do votes on these stuff.

If you find yourself somewhat outside the glob, keep building your own "spin". It would be much better if we can have everything into our recaps. This way, when the time comes, we'll have more clay to shape with.

Edit: Just got the recaps, and will try to put them together to help in the process.

[thebrowncloud]

Yeah, I think you might have gotten some of the early details mixed up (or were they suggestions?). I'll help you fix it up tomorrow. 

EDIT: My bad! I was just skimming some of the early stuff and some of the concepts of events you mentioned weren't things we had discussed yet (or rather not the correct associations). You've got it pretty much right. The only thing I noticed that was wrong is that the "Dumb" guy is actually on the Kimeran Pirates' side, but they find him as an annoying nusance, so they try to get rid of him despite his skills. He would stay on the pirates' side for the whole thing, but would periodically fade out of the scene (be it from the pirates getting rid of him or he just flat out leaves on his own accord). He's a bit of a wanderer. Of course, this is all unless someone else thinks there is a better way.

[GnaReffotsirk]

[n/a text removed]

Edit: Sorry for the interruption, just realized something. Anyway, you guys are doing great. PM me if you need anything.

[thebrowncloud]

So I'm not sure where we go from here. I've posed a few ideas and haven't received any feedback on them, so I'm having trouble continuing until I know what I should be working with here. 

[GnaReffotsirk]

These could help us through.

Topic: POV Character (the Resident) Critical Items

The answers to these items will help us narrow down our story to a single perspective/structure, and will help us find the direction to take in developing our previous illustrations and topics further.

Resolve -- at a very crucial point in our story, the Resident will
have to either change his essential nature or press forward keeping
who he has been throughout our story. Ex. keeps being the lost soul,
ever passive and unsure, than taking a risk with something that might
be true.

Question: Will the Resident change or remain steadfast?


Growth -- throughout our story, we will either wait for something
to start or end regarding the Resident. ex. The Resident starts finding
connections of his memories, or finally make sense of the crash and him
surviving it alone.

Question: Regarding the Resident, do we (as audience) wait for
  something to start, or something to end?


Approach -- The Resident will prefer either to let things be or do something
when trying to solve both internal or external problems.

Question: Is the Resident being dragged along for the ride,
  or getting into the action?


Topic: Overall Story

Overall Concern -- All of our characters will be concerned about something.
It can either be doing something, learning something, understanding something,
or establishing/abolishing/obtaining something.

Question: What will all of our characters be concerned about all
  throughout our story?

[thebrowncloud]

I think I actually just got an idea on how this story should progress (well, a brief summary).

So, the resident will be someone who just goes along for the ride and isn't really sure what to think about himself, his powers, or the people that are currently in possession of him (except for the Kimeran Pirates. He knows their interests are not in his own best interests). In a desire to find his place in the universe, he willingly helps whoever currently "owns" him and wants to learn more about himself along the way (which some of the factions promise him that they will be able to help him with that). After a while of witnessing what his "help" does, he realizes that the only thing his powers bring is knowledge for his captors to warrent more violence and destruction. Witnessing this karnage makes him realize that he and his powers are being abused and used to destroy (as well as him regaining memories that this is all he was used for before the ship crashed). He then decides to break free from his captors (perhaps with the assistence of the protoss prisoner and some of his own brethren that I posed) and find a way where he can no longer cause such violence (be it going into hiding, finding a way to remove his powers, or killing himself). Thoughts?

[Pr0nogo]

I can't really comment on most of the ideas in that post, but I think we should make "Resident" be the protagonist of the campaign (as in, through the player's eyes).

What I mean is that when in the ready room, you ARE the Resident. The Resident speaks, but his portrait isn't shown because you are looking through his eyes.

Thoughts?

[thebrowncloud]

I can't really comment on most of the ideas in that post, but I think we should make "Resident" be the protagonist of the campaign (as in, through the player's eyes).

What I mean is that when in the ready room, you ARE the Resident. The Resident speaks, but his portrait isn't shown because you are looking through his eyes.

Thoughts?

Wow, that is actually a really interesting idea. I'll try to think of some ways as to how that would work, cause having the first mission be just George Foreman running around getting the stuff would be a little..... boring? I'll work with it and see what I can come up with. 

[GnaReffotsirk]

That's fine, Krazy. I'm sure we'll figure out a way to make recaps to help get you up to speed.

I'm currently trying to fit things into the puzzle with what we have. Keep them coming though, the more we have, the smoother we can establish a structure for our story. Everything will then go faster at that point on.

[Pr0nogo]

Should we start out the mapmaking yet? I'm willing to work on a briefing tomorrow, but I'm not sure if we're at that stage.

I don't do terrain as well as the more advanced guys, but I can get better-than-average map layouts if I know what I'm supposed to be making.

Also, my MSN Messenger is f***ed up. I can use XFire, AIM (probably) and Steam, and I can download Skype, but MSN Messenger is out. It won't install on my Vista. :/

Anyone is more than welcome to add me on XFIre/AIM/Steam (the accs are all Pronogo, and my e-mail is Pronogo@hotmail.com).

[Pr0nogo]

Downloaded it, but it only imported like ten of my MSN friends. >.>

What was your e-mail again? lokiarexon@live.com?

Nvm, I just sent you an e-mail invite. >.>

[Lavarinth]

This is a very intriguing thread, Gna, I'll look into inputting my own thoughts as well.