Story Writing for Games?

[stray]

How is story writing for games done? Just curious. Is there an established format in how to present a story before it gets finalized in game form? You know, like how movie and television scripts have their formulas and general direction cues? Or how the writing side of comic books are basically just pure dialogue? Is there some kind of formula existent for games?

On a sidenote, what the hell is the relationship of the "writer" in games anyways? Can stories, on their own, ever be pitched to developers, or must everything be tied into design and gameplay ideas? If that's the case, then that seems to slim the pool to just what comes out of a developer's head (who may or may not be a good storyteller). Or do developers have vague storyline ideas, but clear design ideas, and go about hiring writers to implement that side of it?

Hope my questions make sense...

[Ingmar]

How is story writing for games done? Just curious. Is there an established format in how to present a story before it gets finalized in game form? You know, like how movie and television scripts have their formulas and general direction cues? Or how the writing side of comic books are basically just pure dialogue? Is there some kind of formula existent for games?

On a sidenote, what the hell is the relationship of the "writer" in games anyways? Can stories, on their own, ever be pitched to developers, or must everything be tied into design and gameplay ideas? If that's the case, then that seems to slim the pool to just what comes out of a developer's head (who may or may not be a good storyteller). Or do developers have vague storyline ideas, but clear design ideas, and go about hiring writers to implement that side of it?

Hope my questions make sense...

Best thing I can do is suggest that you go read as many of Dave Gaider's posts as you can at the Bioware Dragon Age boards. You could even ask him that sort of thing directly, probably, he's one of the more responsive dev types out there in terms of forum participation.

[lamaros]

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=13468.0

[Margalis]

The game industry has very few established formats for anything. Asset pipelines, engines, documents, job titles, etc.

The answer is nearly always "it depends."

[stray]

Fair enough. I knew it had to be sort of complicated. I don't really have any aspirations myself, but it'd to be interesting to learn about how the storywriting process evolves.

[Stormwaltz]

BioWare is unique. In most games, the writer is a contractor hired towards the end of production who writes "barks" (ambient lines from NPCs) and/or shoehorns a narrative into the nearly-complete gameplay.

The Mass Effect process is, broadly:

1) Producer (Casey Hudson), Lead Designer (Preston Watanmiuk), and Lead Writer (Drew Karpyshyn) hash out an overall plot for the game.

2) Plot is presented to the other writers for story vetting, the tech designers and programmers for feasibility vetting, and the artists for aesthetic vetting. Feedback and revision cycle until approval.

3) The "levels" of the game are defined by the writers and tech designers. What a level is varies. In ME1, it would be a planet. A level can also be a mission, like the ME1 Endgame fight.

4) The writers collaborate with the tech designers and level artists for their levels to create a summary of each mission. This is reviewed by all the leads - the guys listed in #1, art, programming, and cinematics. Feedback and revision cycle until approval.

5) The writer converts approved summaries to a "script" - a document that details every area in the level, what happens in them, and what NPCs are there. Traditionally this doc is analogized to a D&D adventure book.

6) Level scripts are presented to the three design-side leads (see #1), plus the lead artist ("No, we can't make you a two-kilometer long space hulk") and head of QA (to call out decision branches where it would be difficult to fully test all cases). Feedback and revision cycle until approval.

7) Writers create "placeholder" dialogue files that provide the gist of what each character says and script the major decision branches (using BW's internal tools). The tech designer creates blocked-out "white box" levels of geometry and enemies (using UE3 and Kismet).  Plug the two together and run through the result with an eye towards getting the "pacing and spacing" correct.

8) White box levels are tested in the "dailies" - a meeting held every afternoon to review the progress on levels. All leads provide feedback. If there are minimal changes, the level moves on to the next stage. If not, it is iterated again and scheduled to be re-reviewed two or three work days later.

9) White box levels that have been approved proceed to "orange box." The writer creates first pass dialogue and quest journal entries. The level artist turns the tech designer's "pacing and spacing" geometry into actual level art. The tech designer does all the hard work of getting mobs and level events working correctly 100% of the time, no matter what crazy tactics the player tries.

10) Orange box levels are tested by QA, read by the other writers, and sent to the dailies for review. Feedback and revision cycle until approval.

[stray]

Thanks man.. Interesting.

And it's a privilege having you around btw ;)

[TheCastle]

I think it depends on the companies individual structure when it comes to something like this.
While one game I worked on did have a writer who was very good and her talent for story telling was everpresent it was also the only project where writing was the bottleneck!

We usually simply built fun blockmesh levels and came up with a setting then had our writer make a story around that.
It really really depends on the people you have on your team when you are working in a smaller house.

I honestly do not think you can easily apply a formula to design if your team changes a lot.

On a sidenote, what the hell is the relationship of the "writer" in games anyways? Can stories, on their own, ever be pitched to developers, or must everything be tied into design and gameplay ideas? If that's the case, then that seems to slim the pool to just what comes out of a developer's head (who may or may not be a good storyteller). Or do developers have vague storyline ideas, but clear design ideas, and go about hiring writers to implement that side of it?

Pitching a story might get you laughed at unless you are fairly well known writer...
It is a very strong mix of level design and gameplay ideas. In fact at the moment I feel that you can come up with the story after you come up with everything else. Depending on the type of game you are going to be working on next everything else can hang in the balance it all depends.

I would have to say that hiring a writer would be one of the last things I would do... In fact that could very possibly be one of the hardest ways to get your foot in the door.

[Soln]

5) The writer converts approved summaries to a "script" - a document that details every area in the level, what happens in them, and what NPCs are there. Traditionally this doc is analogized to a D&D adventure book.

yes thank you, this whole reply is terrific

and fwiw, if I had seen that quote above when I was still in high school I wonder how much different my life would have been 

[TheCastle]

5) The writer converts approved summaries to a "script" - a document that details every area in the level, what happens in them, and what NPCs are there. Traditionally this doc is analogized to a D&D adventure book.

yes thank you, this whole reply is terrific

and fwiw, if I had seen that quote above when I was still in high school I wonder how much different my life would have been 

I was reading Storms post a bit and there are some really cool things I like. Normally I never see designers create the dialog before creating the block meshes for the levels. I love the UE3 toolset I have to admit it is to this day the best engine I have ever worked with so I like to read about design pipelines using that tech.

But the above...

5) The writer converts approved summaries to a "script" - a document that details every area in the level, what happens in them, and what NPCs are there. Traditionally this doc is analogized to a D&D adventure book.

Every single project I have worked on. All of them.
The script changed dozens of times during the project and every single time we had a script like the above it ended up being redone multiple times to a point where we just decided to not bother with the script until we locked down game play.

Personal experience I find its best to keep the story separate from the events that unfold in each level and even sometimes the order of the levels themselves. I would also not have meetings every day if possible. Its better to have meeting like that once a week and even that is pushing it a bit imho.

[Stormwaltz]

Every single project I have worked on. All of them.
The script changed dozens of times during the project and every single time we had a script like the above it ended up being redone multiple times to a point where we just decided to not bother with the script until we locked down game play.

Scripts are supposed to be "living docs." QA tests off them, and anything out of alignment is filed as a bug. You fix the bug either in the game, or by revising the script.

We were slack about this in ME1, and it made QA's job harder than it should have been.

[FatuousTwat]

I'm gonna sound like a total fanboy, but ME had a great story(not to mention the great gameplay), and I'm still looking forward to ME-2.

[TheCastle]

Every single project I have worked on. All of them.
The script changed dozens of times during the project and every single time we had a script like the above it ended up being redone multiple times to a point where we just decided to not bother with the script until we locked down game play.

Scripts are supposed to be "living docs." QA tests off them, and anything out of alignment is filed as a bug. You fix the bug either in the game, or by revising the script.

We were slack about this in ME1, and it made QA's job harder than it should have been.

Oh I see how this can work when doing an RPG.
If you can do something that's not in the script it should be marked as a bug.
I never worked on anything beyond a Diku rpg before so I have yet to really have a project where the games main story has as much depth as what you are describing.

The closest I have come to working with a true rpg is when I worked on a personal mod for Oblivion. Its interesting how they incorporate their living document into the game!
Tes construction set actually has all of the game dialog and story arcs inside one tool so you can fairly easily keep your living document inside the game and have it update and change with the game. So if a designer wants to make it so you can ask the king a question or a new branch of dialog depending on what happens in game he can.
I love really insane pipelines like this because of how the system itself perpetuates a self organized order that handles everything from knowing when and where the dialog is used in game to who is speaking and even when in some cases. And I imagine this also makes localization much easier too though I have yet to see how that part of the engine tools works.

Doing a cinematic or dialog in kismet, however powerful it is, never had that degree of organization. Although in both cases yeah I have to admit for an RPG I would definitely want to place the Story document on a higher priority or keep it as a living document.

Does ME1 or ME2 have a system similar to what Bethesda has in Oblivion or does it stick with the core system UE3 already has in place?