As you travel through the world in your MMO
flavor-of-the-year, you stumble upon a small village inhabited by a
number of men and centaurs. Curious, you go inside to see if there are
any quests to undertake inside the shabby town walls. Venturing in, you
notice that there are fewer citizens in the town then you had
previously estimated, and many of them are sick or wounded. Above the
head of one of the townsmen is the “gold star” that
signifies a quest-giver. Clicking on him, his quest dialogue opens, and
you read the well-written flavor text that accompanies the selection.
You’re tasked with killing a mountain troll that wrecked
havoc upon this town. You accept the quest and begin looking for the
monster.
Flash back to the real world. Let's rehash the basics:
you’ve just traveled
into a small village in your favorite MMO and accepted a quest.
You’ve
gotten all sorts of visual descriptors showing off the town, maybe a
bit of sound and music to add flavor, and certainly some programming to
make the characters move/react/etc.
But what has the writer done to this particular sequence of
events? Yes, I’m guessing you’re pointing at the
quest text, knowing that since there is text in the box that the writer
must have completed it. Indeed, the writer probably did complete this;
he may have wrote it or edited it.
However, there’s so much more that the writer may
have developed in this scene. The writer was probably charged with
creating the storyline for the entire game – or at least
penciling it out – and so this village may be intricately
linked to the storyline of the entire game. The writer could have been
the one to originally plot out this village, and then turned the
description over to the art team. Any sounds or functions of the
villagers probably came from his mind.
What is a video game writer?
At OGDC ’07, Jess Lebow, current Content Director
for Flying Labs Software and former World Creator for
style="font-style: italic;">Guild Wars, gave
a lecture on the functions of writers in the video game industry titled
“Writer: The Red-Headed Stepchild of the Videogame
World”. Aimed at non-writers and the pen-worthy alike, Jess
placed a common problem in front of the people in attendance.
src="http://media.tentonhammer.com/tth/gallery/albums/album288/jess_lebow_headshot.thumb.jpg"
name="photo_j" border="0" height="150" width="99">
Jess Lebow, Content Director for Flying Labs Software
Most video game companies don’t consider writers to
be a fundamental part of their world. Instead, writers tend to be
throw-away employees – brought in to handle dialogue and to
clean up any malformed text that the developers pushed into the game.
But Lebow argues that the video game writer is inherently more
important than that.
They may not be the most technically astute members of the
entire development team, but writers are just as essential as quality
sound, art, and programming members because they provide the backdrop
and the atmosphere in the entire game. Was
style="font-style: italic;">World of Warcraft
built
without writers? Absolutely not, and the quality of the game extols
that fact.
Writers, in Lebow’s estimation, are storytellers,
designers, “Word Gurus”, marketers, and
ambassadors. By breaking each of these individual segments down, Lebow
thoroughly covered what it means to be a video game writer.
Storytellers
Probably the easiest concept to pin on writers, the
Storyteller motif is one that Lebow brought up early in his
presentation. As storytellers, writers are charged with being the
entertainer in the company, not just for the in-game text but for the
group at-large as well. You tell stories to your friends, gathering
around the water-cooler to extrapolate the events of the last few
days. But you also tell stories of the heroics in your video
game, urging players to traverse the plots that have been swirling in
that melting pot of your mind.
src="http://media.tentonhammer.com/tth/gallery/albums/album288/Guild_Wars_Combat.thumb.jpg"
name="photo_j" border="0" height="113" width="150">
Writers need to act as storytellers to enhance the
atmosphere and actual gaemplay mechanics of their video games.
Storytellers – when working with in-game text
– needs a firm grasp on the fundamentals of writing: pacing,
character development, conflict and resolution. You need to be able to
craft a story out of the lowliest beings to the most epic of warriors.
Communication is the last key element of the storyteller, as
he needs to be able to communicate both the story that exists in the
game and “the rest of the story” to his colleagues
and the gamer. A story is worthless if no one can see it or hear about
it, so it is the storyteller’s responsibility to make sure
that story is voiced to the development team and to the player.
Designer
Not as obvious as the storyteller role, writers also need to
act as Designers of the game that they’re working on. They
need to be able to work hand in hand with the development team, as
story can often enhance mechanics and give the players a very
“real” feeling as they’re playing the
game.
Lebow concludes that the designer portion of a
writer’s responsibilities is more of a hybrid role. While
you’re not technical, it’s the writer’s
duty to try and see certain concepts implemented into the game.
Jess’ favorite example was when he was working on Guild Wars,
he had wanted a trebuchet to help explain part of the story. While many
programmers had said, “Nope. Can’t do
one.”, one of his peers took him up on the offer. In a few
minutes, Jess had a trebuchet that functioned to truly heighten the
story.
“The Word Guru”
Dialogue, such as this quest text from Lineage 2,
should reach the editting eye of the writer.
When you think of words, you think of writers, correct? This
is the idea behind Jess’ next writerly responsibility:
“The Word Guru”. As the word guru, the writer is
place with the task of analyzing every single portion of the game that
has words in it. This editorial role is seen as a real boon to any
development team, because if words are misspelled or misplaced, it
becomes very obvious to the player that no effort was put into the
final polish of the game.
The word guru is also where character names are generated.
Writers will be the forefront of character naming, and while this
doesn’t sound like a hard job (just add a couple apostophres
and hypens), the sound of a characters name is very important when all
is said and done.
Marketer
Like the word guru, the marketing portion of the
writer’s job is to just check over every single piece of text
on the game boxes and advertisements before they are sent to the press.
Lebow mentioned some examples of advertisements he’d seen
where the name of the game was misspelled. It’s a terrible
blow to public regard if you can’t even spell your own name
right.
However, a video game writer can also be tapped to also write
particular catch phrases or marketing slogans. Writers are often
talented members of your team, so why not use them to your full
advantage. Lebow also suggests that if you are a writer, it’s
your responsibility to make yourself extremely valuable to your team.
You can do this by acting in multiple roles at the same time.
src="http://media.tentonhammer.com/tth/gallery/albums/album240/She_s_proud_of_that_hut.thumb.jpg"
name="photo_j" border="0" height="90" width="150">
Writers should also act as hubs of communication for
their office partners to insure that their games are as fluid and rich
as possible.
Ambassador
Finally, Lebow’s final “role” is
that of Ambassador. The ambassador takes all of these various
responsibilities blends them together, and then travels from all the
different areas of the game development studio to make sure that each
of the various teams understands the other. Writers typically work with
every single piece of the team, so it’s almost a natural duty
to be able to step between each team and let them know if things need
to be changed or not.
This role also goes hand in hand with the communication aspect
of the designer responsibilities. Since you take on both of these roles
when you become a video game writer, it’s natural to act as
an ambassador when you’re communicating your story to the
various teams.
The Challenges and Final Outcome
But being a video game writer isn’t without its
challenges, Lebow contended. Writers are like strangers in a strange
land; the tech-heavy speech of programmers and designers can often
sound like a foreign language to our ears. This lack of communication
can often make the writer feel isolated, but if he is doing his job he
should communicating with the various branches of the design team
anyway.
The writer is also the first one in on the game and one of the
last out. He builds the story outline, but he also edits every single
piece of text in the game. Thus, he insures himself that he
won’t be cast off quickly, but it also means that the art and
sound production teams may be long finished by the time the game is
released.
In the end, Lebow argued that the writer is truly an important
member of any development team, although they may still be considered
the “red-headed stepchild” of the games industry.
Every year, more and more emphasis is placed on story, and with
companies like Bioware scooping up authors to produce their games,
it’s almost inevitable that eventually the writer will become
an integral part of every game development company.
Make sure you check out the
rest of Ten Ton Hammer's
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/235">OGDC
'07 coverage!
