Storybricks is an MMORPG storytelling kit and Kickstarter project intended for both players and developers, backed by an all-star team of game luminaries, including Steve "Zork" Meretzky, Chris "Planescape" Avellone, Brian "Psychochild" Green, and Richard "MUD, the first virtual world EVAR" Bartle. Watch the pitch:
While Storybricks can be integrated into existing MMO and RPG projects, the developers will also include in the kit a general world called The Kingdom of Default (LOL), which players can use to create their own stories and post them online, so other Storybrick owners can play them.
If all that sounds familiar, it should:
It's very similar to what Linden Lab's newly-acquired game studio LittleTextPeople is working on. As Rod Humble put it:
[T]he product LittleTextPeople is working on is going to be a creative shared storytelling space, where you can make your own stories and have people share them and play them.
That product is 2D, however, while Storybricks is 3D by default. LittleTextPeople's project is also coming from an all-star team, since it's comprised of AI researcher Richard Evans, who developed the AI for Electronic Art's The Sims 3 and Peter Molyneux's groundbreaking game Black & White, along with award-winning interactive fiction writer Emily Short. It'll be interesting to compare and contrast the two projects as they develop.
Storybricks needs to $250,000 by the end of this month to get started -- go here to consider pledging.
Tweet
If they've got Professor Bartle on board, I'll have to take a closer look. What I've seen so far is definitely a step in the right direction in the evolution of the genre.
Posted by: Arcadia Codesmith | Wednesday, May 02, 2012 at 06:51 PM
This looks 'quest giver' in model.
I see a problem with that as a dated method of MMO design. YES it is what 100% of the industry used for 90% of the content... but a few more recent MMOs have started 'event based' instead.
Tiny bits in old MMOs - how battlegrounds can start in WoW and phase people from quests to events. More event driven in new MMOs like Star Wars from what I read.
And then there will be Guild Wars 2, which is almost completely quest free from what articles describe - most of the content is in events.
A flow chart 'do this, then that, and so get such' model might be outdated already. Its the winds of days gone by, and not the coming season.
This tool might end up feeling very dated in about a year - despite being amazing in copying what City of Heroes did and putting things in the hands of players... what is put in the hands of players might feel like giving up a home sewing machine that could only make disco outfits. :)
Posted by: Pussycat Catnap | Thursday, May 03, 2012 at 10:01 AM