Storyline Contribution

[Prophet]

I'll try and address this topic to anyone interested in contributing to the storyline. Of course, I'm not the final source on this, so I'll hope you can correct me wherever I go astray, Andrew. I'll try and update this first post as things progress.

First, familiarize yourself with the original Hardwar storyline, there's no need for me to tell that here.
...
Okay, now on to the new game. This game (HW) is supposed a prequel. Well, sort of. The names and places have been changed to protect the innocent. Not all elements of your story need to coincide with the original game and none of the same faction, character, or building names should be used for copyright reasons.

Things to remember:
- The story you're writing is going to be told through the video game medium: keep this in mind. The story should easily translate into a series of missions and cutscenes, ending with a beneficial result, preferably one that coincides with the path the character has taken. Of course nobody says the main storyline has to end well... just try not to blow up the planet.
- The game world is persistent and diverse. (it's a REALLY LONG game and a LOT of stuff happens) Your story does not have to be about the main storyline of the game. You want to design one of the major factions? Try writing a story about how the player rises through the ranks of this faction and becomes the leader. Or perhaps you've always dreamed of joining a band of the most feared pirates around. Maybe you think no sandbox game is complete without a racing element...

Writing for the main storyline:
- The story begins when our main character arrives on the planet, or moon, as it were. From there, something happens that seperates everyone on the planet's surface from the outside world, and for some reason nobody outside the planet's atmosphere is coming to help. The reason nobody's coming to help can't be some impending doom or annihilation because the game world is supposed to be persistent. So for example: alien virus is unearthed, people die, planet is "quarantined," people stop dying... or people mine, mines go dry, corporations leave, corporate cover story...
- Upon realizing that they've been abandoned your character and most others in the world panic, and want out. This should be the goal of your main storyline: escaping the planet's atmosphere. The game is completed when your character escapes, though there are no restrictions on how your character escapes...
- The main populace back on Earth isn't real keen on abandoning mass quantities of people, so there has to be something preventing return to the planet. One thing that helps make this easier is the fact that your story doesn't have to cover what's going on outside the planet's atmosphere.
- There isn't going to be one answer, no one main storyline. Obviously there can be only one accepted reason for the planet being abandoned, but after that it's fair game. Any good story that can be told through a series of missions and results with the player "escaping" may make it into the game's official release.

[Andrew]

Here's a couple of my own ideas based on what I wrote in the google wave mindmap.. These aren't set it stone, just some things I thought up myself.

Some background would be perhaps that the reason humans are there is to harvest the oil that was found there in ample supply. All the oil is harvested by one corporation that uses convicts or volunteers that are promised payment.

• Player starts game in space
• You get to walk around the space station and learn about the lore (Half-life2 city 17 style)
• You customise your character and name. I had a good idea with this in that depending on which line or doorway you picked when walking over to the registration desk selected your gender. For example maybe there is a male and female line.
• A space elevator begins to take you down to saturn's moon titan

One of two things happen

• You arrive then the space station the elevator was attached to explodes, destroying the only transport off the moon
• The elevator begins to crash with you in it later on with you being rescued

All communication with earth is gone because the space elevator and the space station it was attached to have been destroyed. Different theories as to what happened come up but no one knows the truth.

At this point the game allows you to pick different story branches to go down. When you go down a certain branch is locks you out of other story branches. I'd like to include as many different branches as possible and try to move away from the complete or fail style of game play. So rather then failing a mission and showing "game over" perhaps instead it would take you down a different story branch.

The mining colony is transformed from a peaceful dictatorship overseen by a corporation into violent territorial warfare for different reasons. Pirates appear, traders buy weapons, some craters begin adding border controls and more factions pop up.

Such story branches the player could go down:

• Police - You start off by helping out in the investigation of why the elevator was destroyed. As the game progresses more police are killed as the world gets more violent at which point they hire you.
• Corporate Assassin - You begin working for the corporation that is in charge of things.
• Mobster - Kind of the same but independent
• Freedom Fighter - You work to get rid of the corporation and free the prisoners working in the refineries.
• Army - You somehow end up as part of the defense force.
• Businessman - Trading, dealing, scamming, etc

In each story branch the player would receive information that would begin the main game mission however perhaps in different ways. If you're a businessman maybe you find something important within a piece of scrap metal. If you're taking the corporate assassin route then you'd find important information that your client doesn't want you to know.

Rumors about a way off the planet circulate as you begin investigating. Like the old game it ends in a chase with everyone trying to kill you for a way off the planet.

Well those were my ideas anyway.

[Kilagain]

I like the introduction part, I think thats really cool. But thats not quite how I remember the original storyline (although I haven't played in a while)...

[Prophet]

I like the introduction part, I think thats really cool. But thats not quite how I remember the original storyline (although I haven't played in a while)...

The original game actually has a very weak (or perhaps I should say tenuous) storyline, told only through e-mails. "Lazarus is down at port working on the Mass Drivers. They haven't worked since the corporations left 120 years ago. Go down and give them a cheer, don't expect any miracles though." It's not verbatim, but something like that. I actually don't even have the game installed any more..

[Kilagain]

I wish I had memory like that

[metamartian]

Hi, just found this site by accident. I must now re-install Hardwar and get the feeling back. Everything is looking good so far. I just wish I could help out, but I can't code and I can't draw.

I really like the intro ideas of the space station and space elevator and the setup of the corporation. What I always thought that would have been better about the original background storey would have been that there was no mulitple corportations, Just one. One huge mega corporation 'owned' titan. The brought everything and everyone to MisOp to exploit it's resources.

Now how this would link in is that all of the factions that existed in MisOp arose from an 'event' that split the employees of the mega corp. This elevator incident could be the driver behind it.

Hence the overall story arc could be about the demise of the mega corp and the battle between the newly formed factions to gain control of the resources to get their leaders off the moon. The player involvement would be to get off the moon at all costs. Why I am not sure, Spy, Earth Government investigator - I don't know

[Andrew]

Everything is looking good so far. I just wish I could help out, but I can't code and I can't draw.

You can help by posting regularly and giving feedback/input. No one wants to hang around dead forums or in a project with little community.

I like you ideas about the one corporation and factions.

[nirokugraphic]

One of my biggest peeves about the original game was the 'aliens' . It seemed so random and out of context against the whole 'future is greedy' mantra of the game . To keep things simple I would have much preferred that you physically worked your way up the ladder of things, to gain enough money, power and influence to get you off world . If we really do want to keep an alien aspect to the game, random relics would be as far as I would like to go so that they don't have much if any bearing on the story .

[Andrew]

Yeah, the alien crash at the start is pretty random. I like the idea of alien relics because with each discovery you can slowly release new technologies into the world. Not sure how you'd write that into the story line.

I'm now thinking that it would be interesting to do a prequel in an alternate universe rather then a sequel to the first game with regards to storyline. What do you think?

[nirokugraphic]

I suppose it depends on how much of the previous game we can use in terms of story, characters and factions etc .

If for example we can't go on the same story of Lazarus vs KlampG then an alternate reality could make sense or as you mention a prequel, before the factions became those with the names we know . Except 'Police' I think we're safe with that one !

I agree, incorporating alien relics into the story would be tricky - it might even be worth dropping the notion of aliens completely and we can unlock more advanced technology from player actions like raids on faction ships/warehouses or something like that . Greed dictates that you can't get enough of one thing or another so you would go to extraordinary lengths to obtain it, finding alien relics around the place doesn't really fit with that notion to me - and since most of the population seem to be out for the same thing, what makes you as a player so uniquely positioned to find such alien objects ?

Story wise, Hardwar did seem pretty thin on the ground but then again so did many games back then - the question becomes whether as developers we now particularly care about it - I do .

Something that I also wondered were questions like "where did I come from" "how did I get here" - perhaps the player classes can help there, giving you a bit of a backstory ?