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Joe Andrieu wrote : --> I understand your position, but still, I would be more careful: It is almost sure that the "result" of Interactive Drama will not go through a good story, as defined with linear stories. Yet, these interactive drama will be engaging. When narrative becomes interactive, things change, and it is good news: we do not have to make systems which implement all subtelties of human story writing. Which narrative features are common to non interactive narrative and interactive narrative, and which ones are different? I don't know yet... So I also target a good story as a result, but I am aware that the solution is elsewhere...[...] What I do want is for a player to be able to be in an interactive context, where their actions have meaningful results and the system manages the experience so that the resulting experience tracks along a well-formed story arc. So the player can do anything they want, and as long as they aren't acting schizophrenically or intentionally acting inconsistently, the result goes through a good story: introduction, complication, climax and resolution driving by their own interests and motivations. They get the emotional power and engagement of a good story while being the interactive lead protagonist. --> At this point, it would be great to give details about these "flawed models of story"... and what is a "non flawed model of story" (maybe the end of your post is the answer...)I agree with some of the negative comments, especially that many of the folks chasing interactive drama are committed to technology for technology's sake. I think more importantly, almost everyone I've talked to has a flawed model of story. [And I've made a focused effort to learn the latest thinking in the game and academic communities: I've published a paper at the 2002 Technologies for Interactive Digital Storytelling, attended the 2003 International Conference on Virtual Storytelling, and both attended and spoken at a few AAAI conferences on the matter, and of course gone to many GDC sessions]. --> The situation is still more complex, to my opinion: Even if those authors who both write great stories and are conscious of the mechanisms behind would provide some inputs to Interactive Drama system, I believe that it would be unsufficient: Being involved in programming a system which generate narrative actions on the fly, I realize that there is plenty of knowledge about storywriting that is not formalized just because this knowledge is obvious!! Obvious for a human being, not for a computer...Unfortunately, many of the people writing top-notch stories understand it at an unconscious level. You see or read a good story and you can recognize it immediately, you don't need to have a formal understanding or representation of the story to appreciate or to write in that fashion. I would also say that most of those who have mastered the art of writing and DO have a conscious, formal understanding, are busy enjoying that craft and making their livelihood at it: they aren't looking for computers to reinvent what they know so well. Especially as the vast majority of them don't grok computers and programming the way they do story. I also fight the idea of "steering the player back onto the intended plotline" even if I believe that this approach can provide interesting results in the short/middle term.[...] Instead, you see discussions of branching decision trees or nodal plot graphs or "steering" the player back onto the intended plotline. Stories aren't the sequence of "plot" events any more than they are defined by a sequence of words or images on the screen. And yet that is how many many people are thinking about them. Once you strip away a particular manifestation of story, a particular interpretation in a particular medium, I believe you can define the core story elements in a way a computer can work with, so you can consistently generate experiences that feel like a good story. A good author is required to craft that core story and an as-yet unbuilt system has to find a way to deliver it to the player. It's a hard problem, but I believe strongly that it really is just a matter of time until someone finds a way to make it work. Yes, it is a hard problem... I have been working five years on it, and I have produced a working system. It is far from perfect, the narrative experience is still bugged, but by playing with it, I think that one now understands that such "real" Interactive Drama is feasible. Nicolas Szilas www.idtension.com -- Dr Nicolas Szilas Department of Computing Macquarie University Sydney NSW 2109 Australia ph: +61 2 9850 9113 fax: +61 2 9850 9551 |
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