Story for a game in Design Philosophy

ID:152041
 
Apr 30 2008, 1:55 pm
(Very rough draft)
Summoner Universe

Once there was a great human , with a mind far beyond human intelligence & limitations
his name was Magnus & he was the first to experiment & be succesful with drawing his imagination into the
world in the form of a creature. Magnus named this new practice "summoning". Magnus attempted
to teach others to do this, but there minds were to weak and held down by human ignorance.
After a while magnus began to withdraw himself from society and gave up his hopes of teaching
a human these powers, but as a great mind Magnus began to contemplate ways he could teach someone
these arts before his end. He started his plan slowly , he decided to tear a hole in the universe where
earth was, knocking out all human life from ever reaching him and his new society. He started by cacooning
him self in a sphere of oxygen and pressure and propelling himself into space. After this he created a massive
Celestial spear and struck it into earth, somehow the spear coagulated with earth's chemical structure to rip
the universe apart . This made magnus beyond happy and he went to explore the darkness that would soon be
known as Ukod, magnus was pleased. He made a celestial body that resembled earth, & a new type of human that
was at his level of intelligence, And gave it a book of everything he needed to know about summoning Then
he converted into a star. & thats it!! dudndudndudnaudnauddudnaduddndadna

Basically the game is set in a open world with lots of unexplored regions and map for players to conquer sell, buy, trade, & war for
#1 Apr 30 2008, 3:51 pm
Sounds like a bible story.
#2 Apr 30 2008, 4:07 pm
o.0 does magnus seem godly cause thats the effect i was trying to give him
#3 Apr 30 2008, 4:26 pm
In response to Pyroclastic (#2)
Not really, the whole thing just sounds like a bible story.
#4 Apr 30 2008, 7:26 pm
In response to Darkmag1c1an11 (#1)
No, sounds like trash.
#5 Apr 30 2008, 7:30 pm
Ow my pride :(
#6 Apr 30 2008, 8:01 pm
In response to Obs (#4)
[Insert obvious Bible insult here]
#7 Apr 30 2008, 8:22 pm
So you come up with this long, drawn-out backstory that has next-to-no relevance to the actual game? Brilliant.
#8 Apr 30 2008, 10:00 pm
In response to Obs (#4)
And I'm sure you were outwriting Shakespeare when you were 12.
#9 May 1 2008, 9:32 am
Not to throw a wet blanket on the creative process, but this is kind of a train wreck.

What you've got here is kind of jumbled and ill-presented. The first and most obvious problem is the absence of good grammar and spelling. Paragraphs are non-existent, capitalization is dodgy, and there are line breaks inserted kinda randomly. But these only serve to highlight the flaws in the story, which comes off a lot like (meaning no offense) a young kid describing a wild dream he had.

The key problem with the story is credibility. For a story to work, your readers have to be able to suspend disbelief and let it work. Yet each sentence introduces a new layer of "Huh?"; it doesn't build on the foundation of previous sentences, but seems to jaunt off on a brand new tangent. Key points of WTF include:

"...somehow the spear coagulated with earth's chemical structure to rip the universe apart ."
"...Then he converted into a star."

Suffice it to say this summary is outlandish and incoherent even by anime standards.

Yet as fantastical as the story is, it dips heavily into the mundane. "Summoning" is used across a swath of games so wide you could truck whole cities across it, and if nothing else the concept deserves a better name. The name "Magnus" is neither unique nor awe-inspiring; it sounds more like the company that handles his warehousing needs.

In general I think most of the problems stem from lack of structure and discipline. The story seems to haphazardly cast about for the next improbable thing to say instead of feeling like a unified whole. This kind of problem is easily corrected by reading. If you're not reading a lot, chances are your writing won't have very good quality. I've found I'm always at my most creative, my best writing ability, when I've been reading steadily for a while. And it helps to read different types of books, by authors with very different styles. So the best and simplest advice I can offer is: Dive into a good book! Or heck, even dive into a bad book; a book that's poorly written will show its flaws right away, and as you find yourself not liking it you can ask yourself why, and learn from it.

Lummox JR
#10 May 1 2008, 2:35 pm
Well thank you the only person who offered any form of advice *cough* Lummox *cough* But then again i wasnt asking for advice i was asking for a response :( So i guess i got what i asked for
#11 May 1 2008, 4:02 pm
In response to Pyroclastic (#10)
You are aware that the way a forum works is that you reply to the person replying to you, not yourself, right?
#12 May 1 2008, 5:09 pm
In response to Popisfizzy (#11)
Does it at all affect you if i dont o.0?
#13 May 1 2008, 5:53 pm
In response to Pyroclastic (#12)
It totally screws up the way the thread works, so yes. The thread is designed to easily navigate the conversation. By messing it up, you make the whole thread more difficult to follow. Someone may click your posts and wonder what the hell you're talking about.
#14 May 2 2008, 1:29 pm
In response to Popisfizzy (#11)
When addressing several people simultaneously, I usually respond to the post which other people responded to at that depth. For instance, if I make a post and get twelve opinions and want to respond to them all at the same time, I'll respond to my own post and address all twelve people, rather than respond to a single person's post arbitrarily. Pyroclastic did just that, I figure.
#15 May 2 2008, 4:22 pm
In response to Jtgibson (#14)
He made a post responding to Lummox JR, and only Lummox JR.