BioWare co-founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk were the keynote speakers at Game Developers Conference Canada in Vancouver, British Columbia yesterday. Their speech was titled Emotionally Engaging Narrative: Gaming's New Frontier. Given BioWare's huge portfolio of successful story-driven games, it's no surprise they had a lot to talk about.Not all game-types need a good narrative to be successful or fun (e.g., Bejewelled, Tetris, etc.), but MMORPGs could probably benefit from a greater emphasis on compelling and engaging storytelling. Both Ray and Greg talked about various types of narrative, including linear and non-linear, active and passive, and internal and external.
We know that story will be the fourth pillar of design in Star Wars: The Old Republic and here's an example of external narrative they say we'll see when it releases: "Manipulation of world server data based on a broad range of user activities can actually change the game world." We're not quite sure what that means, but here are a couple guesses: Online voting to determine the next expansion race or fan fiction making it into the game's narrative.
