Insight into the Martine stories, Part 1
January 02, 2002
Original Link (now dead) - http://acdm.turbinegames.com/?cat=0&id=211
Insight into the Martine stories, Part 1
By - Ken Troop
Earlier this year, I wrote a small article for the Asheron’s Lore website. The article described the development behind a slightly controversial quest of the time, the Singularity Weapons quest. I mentioned in the article how there was a big gap between how the players viewed the content creation process in AC and how it actually occurred, and why that gap in perception was understandable due to a lack of us describing how we decide what to work and how we do that work.
Whether or not players agreed with my reasoning in the Singularity Quest, virtually all of them loved the idea of seeing inside the process of content creation for AC.
So one goal of this website will be the publication on a weekly basis of articles written by current AC Live developers discussing various topics. They will come from all members of the team: artists, designers and programmers. Our hope is that these articles give you a better sense of what we do and why we do it, and perhaps a little insight into the people who create our Events each month.
A Battered Leather Journal (the story was originally published in the October, 2000 event: Hollow Victory)
In the beginning, I think I wanted Martine's story to be a comedy. Light-hearted. Droll and witty.
As a new Content Designer for Asheron's Call, I was excited about the possibility of giving depth and character to some of the lesser explored sentient monster races. Creatures like Banderlings and Mosswarts, whom I had fought over and over during my first two months of playing, but I had no idea who they were or why they were there. AC didn't have any quick and easy references for the Tolkien/D&D generation, no orcs or trolls, no elves or dragons.
So I wanted to help provide those connotations, make these creatures something more than ciphers to be killed for experience points. My idea was to create a viewpoint character, someone whom I could have fun writing travelogues with, and have him explore the land, investigating these various races. Mix him up in some hijinks every few months, throw in a quest or two...voila! Instant content.
I ran into a problem with the whole concept by the second paragraph. As Martine writes, "Who could have imagined a world in which death is no longer the end of ones thoughts and experiences but merely a temporary stage in between? Unless, one day, it changes...but useless for me to think of that now."
I hadn't considered the problem before I started writing, but as I tried to generate a compelling plot, it was looming quite large before me: how do I generate suspense or interest in a world where no one dies? Martine is captured by Mosswarts? Who cares! Let him lifestone recall! Could I ignore lifestones and just pretend that these characters could die? I could, but that answer was highly unsatisfactory.
My solution: give Martine a distrust of the whole setup, make him fear the actual death experience so that he has no wish to risk the Mosswarts' vengeance. And the more I incorporated that attitude into Martine, the more the story got away from me. I found myself trying to bring it back to its original comedic concept:
"I was covered in muck and mire, every step I made was swallowed by the grasping wet ground, and I stank of things wet and rotting. At first I thought this would help me, as visually I blended into my surroundings, and the mud softened my footfalls.
A note to my fellow Society members: Mosswarts possess an excellent sense of smell."
only to see the tone slip away once more:
"While I have not yet suffered a death in Dereth, by all accounts I will be reborn and renewed. And yet the fear remained, cold and implacable, as if it knew that the immortality offered by Dereth is merely dew on the morning grass, seemingly real for a short time and then gone as if it had never been ( The howling and clash of metal is right outside the walls now. My guards have left to join the fighting outside). But I digress. Again."