What’s next in game narrative, with Emily Short

Something that I tended to think was unfortunate about certain MMO storytelling… you get these narratives where the NPCs have lots of really emotive things to say to you, and they want to throw you into this narrative. Then on the other hand, your interaction with the characters played by humans — even if theyre inclined to play it in a very role-playing way and theyre not running around shouting trollish remarks and that sort of thing, even if theyve entered into playing that role, because of the way its structured, none of the conversations you ever have with them are ever going to be acknowledged by the story as meaningful pieces of the story. And that seems weirdly frustrating. Youve got other people who are the greatest possible source of dynamic content to the material, you the author did not have to create this, but theres no way for the system to acknowledge that interplay. — Gamasutra