Disclaimer: I realize that none of the maps are probably final yet, so some of this might be in work already. I also realize that many people in this Beta couldn’t care less about backstory and narrative, but I’m not convinced that will apply to all the eventual casual players. A solid and coherent backstory is an important part of an immersive game and without it a game can feel like an empty shell to many people, not the kind of feeling you want to create if your livelihood depends on these people buying goodies for virtual characters…
At the moment the storyline behind each of the maps and their objectives still feel like it’s not fully developed. What is the fundamental mission goal and how we’re getting about completing it? Right now this is pretty much left to our own interpretation and some of it doesn’t seem to jive. This has no impact on gameplay, but limits the immersivity or believability of the game which is important if you hope to create player attachment to mercs and the DB universe in general.
Commander Intros:
The “shopping list” approach to the objectives (“First do this, then do that…”) just doesn’t feel right to me, it doesn’t feel like a mission briefing. A proper briefing should highlight the end goal of the mission (“Our mission is to steal drug samples left behind by the GH corporation”), then describe how it will be achieved (“We will secure and repair an abandoned EV then escort it to a location within sight of the GH building where it will be used to blow the entrance to the building” and so on).
Conversely, the defense briefing should describe first the end goal (“We’ve been hired to prevent an opposing force from stealing drug samples located in the GH building”) and then the means (“Intel says they plan to use a CDA EV abandoned nearby to breach the entrance, our objective is to prevent them from securing this vehicle. Should they succeed, we must make every attempt at stopping that EV from reaching the GH building.” etc…).
A more narrative approach to the briefing would give better context to the whole mission but also provide more meaning and coherence for some of the objectives.
Time Limit:
One aspect that is completely missing right now from a narrative standpoint is justification for the mission time limit on most maps. Pardon the bad pun, but DB does not happen in enemy territory, so the threat of eminent reinforcements is not there to justify an implicit time limit to the missions. Trainyard is the only map so far that has some sort of justification for this limit: the train that is coming. But that only makes sense up to the 2nd objective. And even then we never see the consequences of not completing these objectives in time (no train rolling by on the other track because we didn’t destroy the switch, or crashing into the blocker car that hasn’t been removed).
Whether there is an explanation specific to each mission or a generic one, it should be covered in the backstory somewhere. We are operating in a contaminated environment after all, maybe strict limits on exposure is enough to abort missions after a predefined time. But if that’s the backstory justification, let’s make it clear in the end game: “This is taking too long, you lot will be glowing in the dark before you’re done. Abort and pull back to the extraction zone” tells more of a story than “Mission failed. Ah well…”.
Objectives Purpose:
The majority of objectives on the current maps are coherent and make sense as a sequence to achieve the end goal of the mission, but in some case a bit more context could help give them meaning. A better intro and/or outro narrative could take care of that by filling in the “Why” behind the “What”. If I’d be risking life and limbs to blow up containers, EMP some servers or flood a tube station, I would sure like to know what it is I’m destroying and why it’s so important to take it away from the other guys…
- [li]Control Area Objectives:
[/li]Everybody seems to hate them from a gameplay perspective, but they are just as bad from a narrative point of view: what exactly am I doing while I just stand in this square?!? At the very least these should be depicted as hands-free hacking or something similar: just pop out your PDA to start the capture then put it away while it does its thing, signal is lost if you leave the capture zone so you have to reconnect when you return. If you really don’t want any player action other than entering the capture zone, then make the PDA self-connecting but throw in some connecting / disconnecting sound effects so we get the feeling something is happening…
[li]Trainyard:
[/li]Bringing back the doc run objective makes a huge difference in the narrative of this map, now there is a clear purpose to derailing the train. The bit that remains confusing however is the blocker car: why does it have to be removed (it probably wouldn’t stop the train from falling into the canal) and why does it need to be blown up from the inside (especially when the animation doesn’t destroy it but flips it over)? I’m not arguing about the gameplay aspect, but from a narrative point of view it makes no sense so a bit more fleshing out could help.
[li]Whitechapel:
[/li]The only loophole I see in this map’s narrative is why does the EV have to reach it’s final destination before we can carry the EMP charges? You might also rethink the outro animation since EMPs should not destroy a building…
[li]Bridge (Bridge Alt):
[/li]This one simply needs closure: what happens after the drug samples are put in the container? A simple helicopter pick up as in the new Trainyard would provide a proper ending.
[li]Dome:
[/li]The first objective on this map is probably the most confusing one from a narrative standpoint: how does blowing up either of these containers open the way to rest of the map?!? Please make those something that at least look like they could be related to the access way: a mobile command center, a power generator or transfer station, anything whose destruction could explain the failure of a containment door…
