ID:1332285
 
This post isn't going to be big, but the question itself is pretty important.

Btw, I am quite newbie in Game Designing but I am trying my best.

"How to make 2 Races in a multiplayer game interact?"

By that question, I mean what are the best ways through which we can make two or more races interact?

I know most of you would say 'Quests' but don't they just trigger single player mode in-game most of the times? And hence I would like to know other options through which a multiplayer game can have superb interaction between two races.

Right now I am out of ideas about what reason shall be given those two races so that they constantly fight each other.

Some help would be great!
1. Family Feuds (for whatever reason)
2. Opposite Elements {Fire || Water} (Maybe if it is a fantasy game)
3. Look at the story line. Could those families possibly have some sort of history?
4. Rivals in battle/business industry.
5. Joined with point 3, but a previous war, assassination etc.
6. Nobility, loyalty and honour >> Inferiority.
7. Culture and the way things are done.

-----

Those are just for reasons for the feud.

Hope I helped ^^/
Genocide.

Always good to throw that one out there. A nice inherent belief by one race that they are superior to the other, borne out of culture or religion, or some interesting inferences given their physical appearance. Such a race would probably be pretty racist to well ... everyone, but perhaps have a particular thing about another race due to reasons below.

Flipping it around, an inherent belief that the other race are inferior, are depleting valuable resources or otherwise impairing society / the planet. Such a race might well be entirely respectful of every other race, aside from this specific one. This can then be made worse by economic shortages, failed crops leading to general starvation, living space issues etc.

Racism, basically, is the cornerstone of having races in conflict, and the wonderful thing (for you) about racism is it doesn't even need to be too sensibly explained, it can be somewhat irrational fear and hatred.
You could go the battle of troy style, and one of the race's kings stole something from the other race.

or where one race is power hungry, and the other is a rebel type of race that is the only ones rising up against the power hungry one.

or where both races are just brutes and like to fight, so they constantly fight each other for fun.

or where both races hunt each other for sport in a means to gain honor among their own races as both races have become the most dominate species on their planet.
One mistake I see far too often (Hazordhu) is that they go with the "This race is evil" "This race is good" archetype, and it always blows up in your face because everyone will always pick the "good" race (and 50% of the people that don't pick the "good" race will pick the Human race because escapism is a lie apparently)

A good example is Planetside. They have three factions that are all not particularly bad, they all have their pros and cons and they all have their own story yet when you throw one from each into a pit all hell breaks loose because they have their reasons to dislike each other.

What the reasons are doesn't particularly matter so much as they're
a: ambiguous, no clear cut good/bad side
b: detailed, no "fight him because something happened one time"
c: important, Battle of Troy is awful, just awful.



Personally? I'd go with moral conflict over control. I'd have a third NPC race that is inherently evil, and one of your race just wants to survive and get on with the situations they're put into and the other race wants to fight against their oppressors.
Using that as a hook could create some really interesting motivations for battle.
Mimic something happening/or has happened in real life?
Cue the Notzis and Jows.
I've run a D&D world for the last decade or so. The friends have changed, but the world has only evolved.

There are three primary sentient races in my campaign world. The Humans, the Sons of Thoth (Dwarves, essentially), and the Elder.

The Elder are long-lived and when they are born, they are born with a LOT of innate knowledge, because they are the only creatures with "souls" (So they think). The Elder initially bred humans from the wild beasts to suit them for work. All human creativity and intelligence was a desirable trait that the Elder sought in a workforce. Our propensity for enslaving ourselves, also was bred into us. However, some humans escaped into the wild and created their own cultures, and created their own ideologies. Eventually, these ideologies led to a concept of self-determination, and human beings created their own empires.

Over time, the feral human numbers grew so great that the Elder felt the need to wipe us out as if we were an invasive species. After all, they domesticated us, and as such, we were not natural creatures. They were only protecting the environment from us.

Elder live such long lives, that they see little interest in study and interaction with humans. We are nothing to them. They aren't evil. They just adhere to a morality on an entirely different scale. The Elder are more concerned with the latent energy of the void. The Elder believe that the universe was created where void (which is the undoing of all things) encountered the Animus, which is a realm of infinite possibility. The Elder believe that when a possibility is undone by the end, it no longer becomes an archetype, but rather enters the universe as a real thing. All things that exist are a mixture of possibilities meeting an end. With a beginning, all things must have an end, so the infinite becomes finite in order to pay the cost of causality.

Occasionally, primal entities enter the universe from the void, as the material universe is consumed by it. As the void "bubbles" through, so too do the darker possibilities. The Elder mostly exist to seek out these entities, and contain them. Basically, the Elders exist to protect their existence from the monsters that threaten to unbalance it. Humans are sort of a distraction. Vermin almost to that goal.


Dwarves, on the other hand, believe they were created by the blood of Thoth, a primal entity the dwarves worship as a god. The Dwarves also believe that the Elder were created by Thoth, but they betrayed him by calling a dragon out of the void, which mortally wounded Thoth as he fought to protect it from devouring the sun he created to warm the world, and waken life from its sleep in the cold darkness.


Dwarves believe that the Blood of Thoth permeated the earth, and from the impregnated rock, was born the dwarven people. Thoth's final act was to curse the Elder with horns and scaled skin. (Elder might well fill the niche of Elves in my world, but they look more like Dranei).




Dwarves are long lived, but not immortal, unlike the Elder. They believe in Honor and Justice, but their versions of honor and justice are much harsher than the general human variety. They hold grudges forever, and they are quick to mete out punishment should the feel a reason to do so.

Dwarves don't really understand that human rulers have to retire after every few decades. Since Dwarves hold their father's contracts in honor without exception, they have strained relationships with humans. Over the years, too many promises have been broken, and too many alliances crumbled for the Dwarves to fully trust humans. Dwarven crops also need no sunlight to grow, and they have no need of lumber, using only coal for fuel and stone for construction. As such, humans and Dwarves have no need for trade. The crafts of humans are too simple to attract Dwarven attention. Their warriors are too poorly skilled and inexperienced to be of reknown among the Dwarves. Their songs too young to pique the interest of the Dwarves.

The Elder view the Dwarves as brutes, and have little need for their technology, as the Elder have magic and alchemy. Elder live in the forests, and in cities above the ground, so they have no need to interact with them either for trade or compete for resources.

On the other hand, Elder do not feel that displacing a nest of humans is criminal, nor do they feel that consuming the humans that were hunted for food is harmful, as they are simply wild game. Because of this, Humans fear and loathe the Elder. The Elder no longer enslave humans, as they bred the Oruk from a crossing of Troll and Human blood. They use the Oruk to clear their lands of dangerous creatures, and to ferret out humans hiding on the borders. For more delicate tasks, the Elder bred Oruks with humans again to produce the Goblins, which are smarter, but much weaker than the brutish Oruk.


Players in my campaigns are always human. It might be a little less diverse, but I just think Tolkien was naive. Something that lives as long as the elves do, I don't think would view the needs of the few as outweighing the needs of the many. Needless "breeding" on the level that the humans do would concern them, and the shortsightedness of human beings and their societies, including their volatility caused by their short lifespans would ultimate decimate any relationship between them. At best, they would be tools to be manipulated and kept under control. At worst, they would be hostile competitors and something to be wiped out.

Dwarves, I view the same way. They are too long-lived, and too honor-bound to much approve of the humans. At least there is some room for interaction between humans and dwarves, but the long picture of the "greater good" seen by the Elves would have made them something much more "evil" than what J.R.R put across in his "perfect" race.
In response to Ter13
I'm afraid I'm going to need an A.D.D. edition.
In response to Ter13
I'm afraid you're a nerd-bad-ass. If you ever want to chat on skype about game design, themes, and lore please page me.
In response to Rushnut
Rushnut wrote:
I'm afraid I'm going to need an A.D.D. edition.

It's actually Edition 3.5.

*rimshot*
Sorry Ter. I tried to read your post, took a break to glance at how much was left and gave up.

In my opinion. there's no real clear-cut way to go about this. It depends on the basis of the game's story. I am a fan of Assassins Creed's conflict basis though. Especially in AC III where they give you somewhat both sides of the story.

Basically, two sides believe they're doing what's right but have different methods to approaching their respective solutions.
In response to SilencedWhisper
SilencedWhisper wrote:
Sorry Ter. I tried to read your post, took a break to glance at how much was left and gave up.

No problem. It's a lot of lore that's been building for almost 15 years now. It's targeted to Pen and paper roleplayers, who regularly absorb 200+ pages of fluff just for fun.


I guess I can summarize:

1) Think about the KINDS of races you want to add.

2) After defining their characteristics and attitudes, try to think of their motivations. Don't just stick with "good" or "evil". They should always have a rational justification for their actions. A truly great conflict is made when you can only decide who is wrong when you don't have enough information to really know.

3) Start building lore. Start from the beginning. Don't EVER tell the truth. Conflicting belief systems make it more convincing, and give you more room to play.

4) Now, getting to the current day. Remember that you defined your creatures and their beginnings. Think about their goals, their ambitions, and what resources they need to survive.

5) Extrapolate their resource requirements and attitudes. Think about how these races would have met, and how they would have competed with one another.

6) Once you have their needs figured out, you have their stresses against other societies. Think about strengths and weaknesses. Now you have military and political history to write.

7) You have politics from the past. Move them to now. Fast forward, think about how old grudges would play out today.


That's it. There's no one way to do it, but notice how my thought process starts out with defining characteristics, then pulling actions and thoughts out of them.
Wow! Those ideas you guys posted are great!

Rushnut wrote:
Personally? I'd go with moral conflict over control. I'd have a third NPC race that is inherently evil, and one of your race just wants to survive and get on with the situations they're put into and the other race wants to fight against their oppressors.
Using that as a hook could create some really interesting motivations for battle.

This is a great idea! However, I have created something like this as quest, to add a twist in the game and story.

Ter13 wrote:
I guess I can summarize:

5) Extrapolate their resource requirements and attitudes. Think about how these races would have met, and how they would have competed with one another.

Will the idea of personal benefits be a good way for them to fight? Like Players get this and this by killing a player from opposite race? Right now, I havent thought of a way the races have met... I think I am focusing too much on quests so that players can either choose to be in their own world and being the part of the story or go out and have fun with others and kill some enemies for fun or for gaining stats.

Also, is forcing players through side quests to go fight opposite race a good way of race interaction

I feel like asking such questions to much more experienced people can be the key to success :P

Anyways,
The 'Inferior' 'Superior' idea by Stephen001 is great but I've modified it to fit the idea of my game!

I now realize that I had written down was great as well, but just needed little bit of adding and subtraction of content to make it better.

Although after reading all ideas, I feel as if my idea wasn't that unique :(
Oh OFF-Topic:

I was wondering if having too much of story in the form of cutscenes is good or bad to have in game? I personally feel it can be exciting sometimes but boring and annoying as well, but the story parts can be skipped, so it kind of balances it?
In response to A2J2TIWARI
In response to FIREking
FIREking wrote:
See: http://indiegames.com/2013/07/ the_essential_checklist_for_ma_1.html#more

5.4. Skippable Cut Scenes

That site needs to be bookmarked.. I wish I had discovered that site before...

But havent they focused a bit too much on controls? I am not sure how good controls can be developed, but again if I spend time thinkingI might come up with a good idea

Anyays, I think what they said is pretty much obvious, no?
In response to A2J2TIWARI
But havent they focused a bit too much on controls? I am not sure how good controls can be developed, but again if I spend time thinkingI might come up with a good idea

Anyays, I think what they said is pretty much obvious, no?

You'd be surprised how important control is. So many games lack solid controls, that when you find a game that is fluid, you are blown away.

And yeah, most of it is obvious, but game developers often forget to remember the obvious bits, and need to be told their baby is ugly.
Control is the most important thing, it is the gateway to the interaction and the experience.
In response to Ter13
Ter13 wrote:
But havent they focused a bit too much on controls? I am not sure how good controls can be developed, but again if I spend time thinkingI might come up with a good idea

Anyays, I think what they said is pretty much obvious, no?

You'd be surprised how important control is. So many games lack solid controls, that when you find a game that is fluid, you are blown away.

And yeah, most of it is obvious, but game developers often forget to remember the obvious bits, and need to be told their baby is ugly.

Hmm. Thinking too much and designing solid controls for BYOND games might be difficult task, because BYOND lets us set macro keys through which players can have controls they want; I heard players like personalisation a lot?
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