PAX East is awesome, though with the frustration that rooms are too small and things fill up before everyone gets in who wants to. I was sorry to miss the Wil Wheaton keynote, which was reputed to be cool.
I was also sorry (though kinda surprised!) that there were a bunch of folk standing in line who got turned away from the IF storytelling panel. I’m assured that the panel was recorded and will be made available in the future, though; and there are some notes online courtesy of Jenni Polodna.
In other news, if you’re at PAX East and would like to chat with IF people, you should come on up to the IF suite. (Open Saturday from noon to midnight or thereabout.)
That’s in the Hilton, room 2305. (Leave the Hynes in the direction of the food-courty stuff, go through the Sheraton, cross the street to the Hilton. No, I don’t know the compass directions. You don’t need a PAX badge to get in.)
Emily Short's Interactive Storytelling 
If you get super confused inside the hall, you can leave the Hynes from the Boylston St. entrance, walk southwest (turn left), turn left on Dalton, proceed south-by-southeast, and enter the revolving doors to your right (southwest). Going through the Sheraton is way preferable though.
Also I’m just using compass directions to be a smug Google-Maps-using dick.
It was a pleasure meeting you, Emily.
You’re right. I think everyone, including those standing in line, the organizers, the panel, all were absolutely taken aback by the number of people who lined up for the “Storytelling in Interactive Fiction” talk. I arrived nearly 40 minutes ahead of time, and I estimated almost a thousand people were lined up.
I saw Don Woods in the lineup. Not sure if he got in or not. I hope to hell he did. I saw many other people I recognized from the IF Suite and other places who also were in line, and did not get in.
On one hand, I’m a bit upset because I went to PAX for two reasons. That talk, and Get Lamp. Luckily I had no trouble getting lamp.
On the other hand, it means that there were nigh on a thousand people interested in this talk. That is never a bad thing.
And there is no real way to predict demand for these things without submitting polls asking which talks you would line up an hour to see…
Wish I had made it in, but I look forward to seeing the recording, if it should appear. If it does, I hope you link to it here.
Sean.
Oooh. I just had a thought. “Bureaucracy” needs a sequel. It shall be called “PAX East”.
Emily: “recognizing that the player & PC are not the same”.
Yes! This is something I bang on and on about, and is my biggest frustration with most story in games… the convenient (& lazy) assumption that the interactive parts of a game suddenly change the basics of storytelling. The distance between the reader/audience and the protagonist(s) is what creates the unique combination of thinking and feeling that powers story-telling. If a player “is” the protagonist, then it’s not story… it’s just fake life.
A big part of _Silent Hill: Shattered Memories_ was about re-addressing this balance. If I had a pound for every time during development I talked up Hitchcock (who as a director really understood the difference between the spectator and a movie’s characters) I’d be quids in. And it seems to have worked — the responses I’ve seen from those who played it seemed to really dig this aspect of the game, specifically calling out that the story is one that could only have been told in an interactive medium.
Hi, it was great meeting you this afternoon! Did you get a chance to go to the panel on choice in games this evening, by the Obsidian folks?
I was thinking a bit afterward about that conversation about meaningful choice in games and I wish I’d brought up the game Arcanum — rather than a good vs. evil dichotomy, it used player choice to place the PC in a magic vs. technology dichotomy. I wonder whether it works so well because of the relative non-judgmental aspect of it, with neither option being “right” or “wrong”, just different.
Did you get a chance to go to the panel on choice in games this evening, by the Obsidian folks?
I wish, but no, I had somewhere else I needed to meet up with people. Did you go, and if so, what kinds of things did they talk about?
I did! I need to go through my notes at some point and type them up. Short version: Avellone and Co. talked a lot about meaningful player choice, mostly in the context of their upcoming spy game, Alpha Protocol, though they went through what they saw as the history of choice in RPGs, starting with the faux-choices in the NES game Dragon Warrior, on through Ultima, Fallout, and more recent titles. They repeatedly expressed disdain for the slider-style good vs. evil continuum, and preferred to talk more in terms of consequences of different kinds of choice, including choices that players already make, such as how they equip their characters (so, showing up to talk to a politician while wearing full body armor ought to have consequences).
The player in Alpha Protocol, I gather, has the most choice of action over the course of the game in terms of both the kind of missions you take on, and how you take them on (e.g.,stealth-style vs. kill-em-all-style vs… not sure there’s anything else). The dialog interactions during and between missions that they showed were never a matter of picking what you want to say, but of picking the character’s style/posture: aggressive, sarcastic, etc. (There’s also a very short time at each juncture in which to pick that posture, putting pressure on the player to pick quickly and go with their gut reaction, “because we hate you.”)
One interesting thing he talked about, in response to a question, was that there was no middle ground in terms of consequence: every action has a small immediate consequence (“Person A now thinks you’re more of a smart-ass!”) as well as long-term consequences (Because this person thinks you’re a jerk, they won’t team up with you later, cutting out potential paths). So, there is always some instant gratification as a kind of reward or acknowledgement, and then the available paths and conversations change down the line.
They also rejected the notion of obsessively balancing to prevent there being a “right” answer — some decisions are just smarter than others. I didn’t get to ask my question, but I think that they have very little time for completionists: while they might envision people playing through a couple times, they’re more interested in everyone who plays having at least a slightly different experience. Avellone said at one point that he wanted two people talking about the game to feel like they’re talking about different games.
I was one of the people who missed the Storytelling panel; I’m very glad to hear that it was recorded and that the notes are available in the meantime! Reading about that panel in this blog was the entire reason I decided to go to PAX, so that was pretty disappointing.
Today was a day of solid concerts for me, so I didn’t get to see any IF-stuff at all. If the IF hospitality room open tomorrow, or is the day pretty well covered between Action Castle, No Hints Please and the MIT thing?
The hospitality room is open tomorrow (Sunday) noon-4 PM, and is where No Hints Please is happening, in fact. And the MIT thing is not until Monday. So drop on by and see some people.
Ahh, thanks for the clarification! I am apparently too sleepy to read properly. :)
Also also, I’m sorry that was disappointing. I hope you at least enjoyed the concerts!
I did enjoy the concerts, quite a lot. I think I saw eight bands perform today (ten if you count Rock Band groups), several of which I’d never heard or even heard of before today. A few completely blew me away, and all the rest were at least fun. :)