Worldbuilding

[Flinch]

I'm not sure if this is the proper forum or not, but since it's about creative works and not existing works, I assume it's safe to go in here.

I know a lot of folks on here are armchair game devs, or do it as a hobby, or are involved in D&D and have built their own campaign worlds or what have you, so I figure this would be a decent place to be asking something like this and getting some feedback.

The big question: How exactly is it you go about with worldbuilding?

I'm curious as to what sort of process other people utilize when they are creating their own imaginary worlds. Do you start off with one little corner and flesh it out as need be? Do you get possessed with some sort of grand theme or concept and build your world in accordance to that? Or are you (like me) mildly-to-severely OCD and try to account for as much as possible before you get down to dealing with any kind of story or ideas?

Are there any resources that you find valuable when you are working on world building?

I've been working on a vaguely steampunk/fantasy world since about October for a writing project of mine and I've been enjoying it immensely. I've been doing all sorts of research to assist with this project, which was borne out of my playing around in WoW and the expansion (my 'grand theme/concept') and since then I've been running around and filling out various aspects of my world.

Other things I'm interested in,

Is having an interesting/engaging world of importance to you? By that, I mean, does having a game where it's simply fun to play 'do it' for you, or do you need something 'more'?

A good example of this, at least for me, was comparing say, EQ1's Kunark or Velious expansion with the WoW expansion. In the first, there is a ton of backstory and development, which was bolstered by in-game events leading up to the release of the expansion.

When you went into zones, you generally had a sense of, I dunno, coherency to things.

Compare that to Burning Crusade, where you have aliens with dicks for beards and Blood Elves going hardcore Horde 'just cos' and it seems to ruin a bit of the feel and the backstory given was somewhat unconvincing.

So, do things like story and that matter and help make a game fun, or is it something like a garnish on a salad, meant to improve your enjoyment but is by no means necessary?

I understand that people (generally) don't play video games because of the story, but is that an attitude that game developers SHOULD have or no?

I went off on a tangent here, wow. Um, well, share your thoughts on world building, whether you're a builder yourself and want to show off, if you want to talk about your own experiences, or if you just want to talk about the importance of it in the games you've played in the past.

[x1hundredregrets]

As a current game programmer for Reactor Zero, I'd just like to say that having a very rich and detailed story laid out in your design document and/or story bible is so vital to the game development process.

Even if those little tidbits of information or justification never are apparent to the player or even if they never get used in the story, they are invaluable to the designer, artists and programmers as they make design decisions during dev time.

Artists in particular benefit from ridiculously rich and thought out backstories. For example, the player may never notice or care that dark elf cities are built underground because of the dark elves' infravision, but thats what the designer and artists were thinking when they designed it.

[Grave]

I consider the world and the lore that builds it absolutely vital to a game, especially an MMO.

I'm reminded of a discussion my friends and I were having regarding how different WoW feels compared to EQ. To me, EverQuest was a world, Norrath was like a living, breathing place and the game just happened within it. WoW on the other hand, while it does have lore backing it, just feels like a game. Every decision the designers make is about the gameplay and even if it completely trashes the lore and makes no sense within the context of the world, they will do it anyway if they think it makes the game more fun. Is this a bad idea? Obviously not, considering the monumental success of WoW and the undeniable gameplay advancements it has made over EQ. But still, I would argue that they lost something along the way. Their lore is absolutely laughable and at this point I don't think anyone cares about the world at all, other than who will kill what first and what loot it might drop. I would much prefer to see devs strike a balance here and deliver both fun and engaging gameplay alongside an engrossing story and immersive world.

To answer your other question, how do I go about worldbuilding? It's something I do enjoy very much, and usually I will try to do it side by side with the game design. What do you want your players to be able to do? What races should they be able to play as? What will the overall conflict be? How important will exploration, crafting, combat, socializing, etc be in this game? As you answer those questions you can begin to make a world that will accommodate these things, and then it is simply up to your creativity as to how interesting the world itself will be. It's important to achieve a balance between interesting lore and fun gameplay. For example, it may sound cool on paper to design a world where Magic has been outlawed, but would it be fun for players to limit or deny their ability to play magic users? Probably not.

[Flinch]

Originally Posted by x1hundredregrets

As a current game programmer for Reactor Zero, I'd just like to say that having a very rich and detailed story laid out in your design document and/or story bible is so vital to the game development process.

Even if those little tidbits of information or justification never are apparent to the player or even if they never get used in the story, they are invaluable to the designer, artists and programmers as they make design decisions during dev time.

Artists in particular benefit from ridiculously rich and thought out backstories. For example, the player may never notice or care that dark elf cities are built underground because of the dark elves' infravision, but thats what the designer and artists were thinking when they designed it.

Are you involved with working on the design document or the story bible at all?

And that's actually a very good point, re: artists. Part of my own work has involved just yanking any pictures that I find interesting to use as reference for later. I'm writing a book, so pictures aren't going to be vital, but it's a good stimulus for me and what I am trying to go for.

[Szlia]

In your situation, I would probably first determine the themes and stakes that will be at work in the story and then create a world that works in good synergy with these themes. It's in a way doing the same process than writing an historical novel, but the other way around. In an historical novel, you chose an era and then create a story that works with the themes and stakes of that era, in a fantasy novel, you pick the themes and shape the world around them.

Now, if you are set in doing something steam-punkish, I think the first question to ask yourself is "What is steam-punk? What does it mean?". Myself, I have no idea, but it probably has something to do with a Victorian era, a transformation toward modernity, that never gave birth to the XXth century and its horrors.

[Flinch]

Haha, what is steampunk. Yeah... :P

It's one of those things that can mean many things to many different people.

Yeah, that's sort of how I have been gearing things. However, you have to make a divergence from the historical setting at some point and that's where I get to have all the fun (and awed by the fact I could work on anything/everything.)

I'm just having problems deciding when 'enough' is 'enough'

It's helped that I've written some short stories to accompany this world, but still!

[Faille]

It also depends a lot on your goal. Are you building this world for a book, a single player game, an MMO? They each require different amounts of detail and have different ways to bring it across. MMOs in particular can have their story killed by too much success as your wow example shows, though EQ did that first with GoD and beyond. It's too their credit they were about to keep the lore somewhat cohesive up until then though.

I've got a logical mindset so I like having a world that makes sense. There needs to be good reasons for everything to be somewhere or for things to happen. Way too often in games you come across things that look pretty cool, but then think wtf is that doing there.

Having a good and detailed history can help stop that happen, even if you fill it in as you go along. If you want to have this great big fort in the middle of nowhere, then you tie in a bit of history that says this spot was once neutral to all these factions and they built the fort together for meetings, etc, or some of reason that fits.

[Cloud9_]

Didn't the lord of the rings novels get developed like that? Flesh out the world, its inhabitance, areas, make it a living breathing world, and write the story around that?

In fact the world is so vast and deep, that the trilogy only touched on a small portion of the world that was created? I don't know if there is any truth to that but it was a rumor I heard a long time ago.

[x1hundredregrets]

Originally Posted by Flinch

Are you involved with working on the design document or the story bible at all?

And that's actually a very good point, re: artists. Part of my own work has involved just yanking any pictures that I find interesting to use as reference for later. I'm writing a book, so pictures aren't going to be vital, but it's a good stimulus for me and what I am trying to go for.

In my studio, the designers and writers typically flesh that out. Programmers and artists are very welcome to make suggestions and comments. We have an intranet newsgroup and wiki that gets used for that very purprose.

[Grave]

Originally Posted by Cloud9_

Didn't the lord of the rings novels get developed like that? Flesh out the world, its inhabitance, areas, make it a living breathing world, and write the story around that?

In fact the world is so vast and deep, that the trilogy only touched on a small portion of the world that was created? I don't know if there is any truth to that but it was a rumor I heard a long time ago.

It's actually a really interesting way to write, although it prevents you from getting the main story done in a timely fashion.

I try to practice it myself when I write, and though I am nothing compared to Tolkien, obviously, I find it greatly entertaining. For example, if a particular scene takes place in a small village, before continuing on with the scene I will stop and and ask questions like: how long has this village been here and what is its history, what is the history of this region of the world, what events have the townspeople lived through? I generally keep a separate document full of these types of details, and then when I write a scene I feel like I know the place I am in even if all of those details don't come out in the story.

I think it would be really cool to see something like this in an MMO world, and even if all of the history wasn't laid out for the player through quests, it could be contained somewhere online or held within in-game libraries for people to peruse if they want to discover more about the world. I know some other MMOs have done this on a small scale, but usually the lore is made up on the spot or patched in to previously written material, resulting in retcons or just bad storytelling, which is always annoying to those of us who try to enjoy the lore aspect.

[Faille]

One of my favourite scenes from the lotr movies, don't think it had as much impact in the book, was the end of fellowship when they are on the boats traveling down the river, and you see the statues of the old kings I think? It really hits home that the world is so much bigger then the story you're watching.

[Believe]

Cool thread.

I think about different fantasy worlds all the time. I have one I've worked on in my mind for quite a while. I don't think I'm quite good enough at writing to really be able to flesh it out into an entire living world. But this thread inspires me to perhaps give it a try. I like the idea of a Wiki for your world. It sounds like the best way to make a world that branches out in different directions (ie: Can describe the area, and easily describe all the towns in the area, with pages for each town that describe the history.)

[Faille]

Feel free to discuss your ideas or ask questions. Who knows, might end up having a few people with ideas close enough they could merge them!

[Cloud9_]

Originally Posted by Faille

Feel free to discuss your ideas or ask questions. Who knows, might end up having a few people with ideas close enough they could merge them!

IMO a lot of people in this community has a lot of great ideas.. hell we've all been playing MMO's since before it was a household name lol.. and in this forum in particular there are a lot of creative people working on their own projects so I'm sure there are some great ideas floating around

[Believe]

My idea is interesting to me, but I'm sure people here would find it too generic or probably even too similar to other things to find it worthwhile :P

It's still fun to think up and play around with though. I wish I had more time to actually develop it more, but they keep us pretty busy here at DLI.