"Story Generator": any plans for the history-UI, or connected-ness of events?

[AileTheAlien]

TLDR

   
• history -> messages reads like server logs, not a story
• random, separated events -> not a coherent story

Anyone know of plans to change these systems?

Longer Version
I've played a lot of Rimworld, and had a really good time with a lot of it. Learning how to farm, optimise a base, hunt animals, deal with raids. All of the small, minute-to-minute stuff is pretty good. The medium-term stuff is also pretty good - trading caravans, sieging a raider camp, and planning the next cycle (year) of your base, are all enjoyable. Even the romances, friendships, tantrums, and mood-swings of pawns, are enjoyable.

However, it seems like the long-term portions of the game and the related interfaces, are lacking. They're what made me dissatisfied enough to stop playing the game last year. Afterwards, I realised that about the last half of my game-time before I'd actually quit - I was mostly going through the motions, and didn't enjoy that either. The things which got me to quit seem fairly core to the game - not easily modded (at least by me). The game is subtitled as a "story generator", but I think it's got some major shortcomings there, compared to the very fleshed-out mechanics in the rest of the game.

The one that seems easiest to address, at least with an MVP first slice, is the interface for the history -> messages. The one where it shows when a raid happened, or when people got married, etc. For a story-generator, the story-events seem like they haven't received much attention. The UI is just a flat list of events, that reads more like computer server-logs or scientific data-points, than a cohesive story. There's no separation of months, years, and no way to make your own groupings, like the war that lasted 4 years. After a quick search for my starting-message text, it seems the save game is plain XML, with this history located in <savegame><game><history><archive> for both the <archivables> and <pinnedArchivables>, so it's definitely possible to export this somewhere else. (But I probably would be unable to write an entire editor myself, and I have never seen mods or editors for this.)

The larger problem I always came back to, is that all of the events in the game are almost totally unrelated. The Burger Snackers raider gang doesn't hold a grudge, because you killed their current leader's father, and their grandmother before that, and their great-grand-uncle before that - they're just sending raids all the time, because of their constant -100 aggression, and random timers. The game hints at what might have once been intended - when a faction's leader dies, it gives you a message of who their successor is, but it goes no further. Even smaller-scale events, like a new infection in your colonist, are just random. Jane's old unhealed wound from a previous raid didn't predispose her to sickness; It was just some dice.

Reading the recent dev blogs, and searching some of the forums, and Steam's discussions, it doesn't seem like there's much related to this, and nothing related in the devs' plans. (I also installed the game, and verified the UI is at least the same. I haven't read anything about the random events having been overhauled, so assume they're the same now in 1.1) Does anyone know of any plans in these areas (like, maybe I missed some forum thread, with my terrible searching skills)?

Thanks in advance! :)

(Originally posted in Steam discussions, but I figured that might be a demographic that doesn't follow dev-logs, plans, etc as closely as on these forums.)

[Bozobub]

I get your point and it has merit, but you should also consider that it's very easy to go too far, when supplying a game-generated framework for events, when the player very likely will, and really should by design, generate as much as possible of that "story" themselves.  Too much framework = herding the player into a given narrative, not something I'd support.

*shrug* It's a fine line.

[Prologue]

I do have to agree that it feels like there could be some improvements made on the story part of the game.

For example, perhaps you could get a summary a the end / any point of the game which is a full story about all the random things that happened. This should read as a story and indeed not like a log. Perhaps focusing on some of the more dramatic events and leaving a lot of the small stuff out can help make it feel like a story about your colony.

But if that is too much to ask, perhaps just add more details to the log or add filters for specific types of information that you might want to include or exclude.

[AileTheAlien]

you could get a summary a the end / any point of the game which is a full story about all the random things that happened. [...] Perhaps focusing on some of the more dramatic events

The game could take events from the history, then fill in a short-story-template like MadLibs, but I doubt that would be very satisfying. As far as focusing on "dramatic" events...that would pretty much require human insight. Building any kind of AI system, would be pretty well beyond the scope of a game right now. AI systems / libraries keep getting better, but I don't think we'll have anything for creating "interesting" stories for at least a few more years. Maybe a few decades.

it's very easy to go too far, when supplying a game-generated framework for events, when the player very likely will, and really should by design, generate as much as possible of that "story" themselves

Yup. That's why I also pointed out the lack of interface-support for the player to alter the written history of events. (Although maybe I fumbled the explanation a bit - this post went through a few revisions, and I might have missed a key sentence.) I think a simple interface for the player to rewrite history, highlight key events, embellish others, or write down their own ideas for the motivations of the people involved, would help a lot. It might not even be too hard to write one. I could definitely write an import/export script, that would allow editing the history in some other existing program, like a CSV editor or something.

[Prologue]

I think you can get a significant improvement over the current situation without havin to use any fancy AI story writer. All the devs realy need to do is create a framework that can be build upon in a meaningfull way by modders and the community. Which is true for most game elements I suppose.

[zizard]

It's more of a meme generator than a story generator. Connectedness and making sense aren't a priority.

[RicRider]

Even if you are gonna argue about semantics with people and school them about their choice of words to describe the game, OP has a good point. The game could use some kind of a player written journal or system that would help remember the important events in the game. Something like the 'Days Matter' mod is a good idea that a player had along this vein. Sadly it's not updated for 1.1 yet.

[Bozobub]

Even if you are gonna argue about semantics with people and school them about their choice of words to describe the game, OP has a good point.

First off, OP is arguing semantics, themselves; it's the basis for their main point.  Second, I don't see any inappropriate comments here, in the context of OP's post.  Relax a bit, perhaps?

[RicRider]

Nah I disagree with you that OP is arguing semantics. They're arguing for a new feature that won't bother anyone who doesn't use it (like a journal) but it will be there for players to make an easier to remember story. Like I wish RimWorld had something like this too, because I'm an amateur writer and have written RimWorld fan fic before but it's so tedious having Word open or something while I'm playing and taking notes because if it feels like a job it loses all its charm for me. But I think with something in game that I could edit and then view outside the game later in a nice file could be a great way to get some of those stories into an actual tangible format that can be used later.

Maybe I'd like this feature, maybe others don't. But RimWorld is lacking an option like this for sure.

[jager666]

I ALWAYS highly recommend to take a look at Space Rangers 2 galaxy news system - one of the best I've seen in years of playing, it combines the "raw" messages that Rimworld currently uses and takes a spin at them to give a feeling about a living, breathing galaxy full of events, and it's even usefull if you are trading.

[Prologue]

I ALWAYS highly recommend to take a look at Space Rangers 2 galaxy news system - one of the best I've seen in years of playing, it combines the "raw" messages that Rimworld currently uses and takes a spin at them to give a feeling about a living, breathing galaxy full of events, and it's even usefull if you are trading.

Could you please describe this system so the people who do not know thins game / the devs that might read this. So they can understand how to implement this suggestion?

It is good practice to be very descriptive when talking about anything we want to see added into the game, we can not expect the devs to understand these tings if we provide them minimum information.

[LWM]

That would be awesome if you would describe it!  Also...maybe I'll take a look at the game - that sounds like a good recommendation.