Needs more Richard Kimble: How PoE (Almost) Completely Fails to Deliver on Narrative

Some of the more observant readers might have noticed that I haven't used the terms "story" or "lore" thus far in the article. That's because what really matters is narrative -- the combined elements of both gameplay and story to tell a tale -- rather than the mere voice-overs and story text you might read on some stones in Act 1. (Even if the writing on those is fantastic, they won't contribute significantly to narrative, as I intend to show.)



Just as an example: the story of Diablo 2 is that of the adventures of Marius, a particularly pathetic example of a human being, and his adventures with the Dark Wanderer and the angel Tyrael. However, the narrative of Diablo 2 is: you are the chosen one, the only one with the power to overcome the evil about to beset the world. The story in that game feeds the narrative through contrast: in telling the story of Marius, we begin to see all but a select few of the humans in Sanctuary as weak, pathetic creatures, unable to cope mentally -- much less physically -- with the terror before them. Marius' cowardice makes our bravery all the more special. However, the driving force behind the player's side of that contrast isn't told through story at all; the story almost completely ignores the hero, instead using the gameplay of mowing through hordes of dangerous monsters to gain the feeling of power.

For more on narrative -- and how it can be told through mechanics -- I strongly recommend watching these videos: Mechanics as Metaphor (and Part 2)

So looking through this lens of narrative, how does Path of Exile start?

You are a prisoner. Your crimes? Depending on which character you select, a different explanation is heard; however, in all cases, you were found guilty by the powers that be, but you believe yourself to be innocent. Granted, in some cases it seems like a bit of a stretch -- the witch's belief that she's still in the right isn't something that Ned Flanders would buy into, but the point is that she still believes it, by her own personal morality. And who knows? Maybe, like Kira from Deathnote, she has a pretty good case for being a moral, if misguided, character in her previous life.

Then, an accident. You find yourself on a beach, alone. (Well, alone soon enough. Thanks, zombie!) No longer a prisoner, you seize this opportunity for freedom.

Sound familiar?
<-- the Exile, played by Harrison Ford

That's right, you are the Fugitive. Now, it's important that we immerse ourselves in the world of Wraeclast and always use their term -- Exile -- rather than Fugitive, but in modern terms, that's what you are. Are you a good guy, unjustly accused? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe fuck yourself -- and Dignam's words never rang truer, because that's what you are to this world. A hazard, a risky proposition. Not to be trusted.

The point I'm making here is not about the Exile's motivations; those are his own (and sometimes yours). Actually, it's best to keep the Exile as a mostly silent protagonist; you want the player to project his personal feelings and individually-tailored roleplay into the Exile. However, the point from a narrative perspective is in how he is treated by others; you want to set up a theme of "rejected by society" vs "I am self-reliant, I don't need them," and you want to do it with contrast. So like a fugitive, the Exile is guilty until proven innocent, the subject of paranoia and morbid curiosity.

The end of the Twilight Strand hammers this feeling home in a beautiful and subtle way (that unfortunately was probably unintentional). All of a sudden you're beset by this huge, sword-wielding zombie. Afraid for your life, you proceed to the door, and... it's locked. Nope, sorry, not going to let you in. I don't trust you.

I know I said Path of Exile doesn't deliver on narrative, but the important exception to this is the first few minutes of play. Without thrusting a ton of exposition at you, with almost zero words of dialogue, the game sets up a strong theme -- that of the Fugitive. Not necessarily a good Fugitive, or an evil Fugitive... just the Fugitive. The execution is actually brilliant.

The problem is that there's virtually zero followup on that brilliance, throughout the entire rest of the game. As we play, we quickly forget it ever happened.

Even though the initial level does such a great job of establishing a lack of trust between you and the townsfolk, what you get from them later is... well, trust. All of a sudden every townsperson you wander into thinks you're just swell. And perhaps, at least in Lioneye's Watch, that makes some degree of sense; you did just kill Hillock, after all. However, there should always be a general undercurrent of the Exile being shunned, referenced to even by friendly characters; they may like you, but they're not deaf and they hear the rumor-mongering of the (non-NPC) townsfolk.

And in every town, there should be at least one NPC who simply doesn't like you. He or she might begrudingly help -- but that doesn't mean they're not watching your every move. GGG does this right in Act 2, where it's clear that Greust just isn't that into you. We need more Gruests in the game; they give the feeling of ostracization that the Exile needs as a character.

But what totally boggles my mind is the reaction of the Act 2 camp after your unfortunate accident in the Vaal Pyramid. "Oops, I blackened the sun. Can you ever forgive me?"

No. No we can't.
Hey, guys... I told you so. Just sayin'.

The reaction of the townsfolk here is a great opportunity to reinforce a theme that may have been sitting on the back burner since the Twilight Strand. Yes, I understand they have their little lines expressing their displeasure, but it is nowhere near pointed and hateful enough. You don't come back from releasing the Oversoul feeling like a pariah. And, gosh darn it, you should.

Hell, I'd even make it so Greust refuses to sell items to you. After all, you did confirm his worst fears about you. Want to sell your crap? See if Yeena wants it, and get away from me.

Now, if your character is Dr. Kimble, then who is Piety?



But same difference; can't get John Malkovich for every role. The point is that Piety is the evil that keeps the Exile from directly pursuing freedom. Whether the Exile's motive is revenge or a lust for power or simply setting the world right, Piety -- and everything she represents -- is something that must be destroyed. Our Cameron Poe can't go home just yet.

And I need to say, GGG has Piety pretty much where they want here. The initial dialogue implies -- but not heavily enough -- that the Exile and Piety have a history; she recognizes our fugitive on sight, and has a fairly familiar and appropriately villainous tone. I think those points probably aren't stressed enough by the dialogue and voice-over work, but there's at least a trace there.

And when we finally do get Piety cornered in her grotesque Sarn laboratory, the environment is the stuff of horrors, giving Piety real cred as a force that simply could not be left unchecked. The Holocaust feel to the level makes Lunaris 3, in my opinion, the most well-done area in the game. I actually liked it better when it was larger; sure, it makes it a little more annoying for farming runs, but think about how the player experiences it the first time. Okay, corpses. Yet more corpses. Oh, here's some more corpses. I figure at some point I'll run out of corpses. Apparently not, because here's more corpses. The repetition actually serves a purpose there, giving us a strong feel that Piety's deprivation knows no bounds. I'd strongly recommend lengthening it again.

However, the core issue with Piety isn't her character in a stand-alone sense; it's her relationship with the character. There needs to be more of a Heath Ledger Joker intimacy there. Work on forging that, and the moment of finally putting the bitch down will feel even better than it does currently.

So far I've referenced The Fugitive and Con Air. Now what kind of villains did those stories have? Well, to be fair, Tommy Lee Jones didn't exactly play a villain in that movie; even went on to play the same role as a hero in a spin-off. But where is that kind of character in Path of Exile?

Meet the character that should be in the story, but isn't.

Bonjour, Javert.

The Exile is an escaped prisoner. Whether he's trying to do good or ill, we need some remnant of his past (other than the blatantly immoral Piety) to act as a proper foil for our protagonist. This isn't to say that our Javert is an upright, noble character... perhaps far from it. Perhaps he's looking for the Exile to exact revenge for the crimes the Exile wrought, or to tie up a lose end in a conspiracy plot (framing the Exile apparently wasn't enough). Or perhaps he actually is motivated by some misguided attempt at law and order. The point is: while Piety may be the Exile's prey, the Exile is Javert's prey. The hunter is now the hunted.

Now, Wraeclast is a harsh continent that's almost entirely shunned by the mainlanders. As such, it only makes sense that the journey for our Javert would be... difficult. Logistics would be a nightmare, and actual encounters with his prey would be few and far between. Perhaps it's only late in the story that he ever manages to catch up himself, and prior engagements just involve the Exile mopping the floor with his incompetent deputies.

However, it's what a character like this represents that's important. The details -- personality quirks, timing -- those aren't as important. Let Javert chase his chase. Let's see what happens.

Unfortunately, adding a character like this to the current story (Acts 1-3) would probably not provided enough bang for the buck to justify development costs. However, adding such a character for later content (Act 4?) might be effective.

Last but not least, the controversial bit.

All of these story and lore points are nice, but how can we tell the story of being a fugitive through mechanics alone? What kind of mechanics require no writing whatsoever, but directly convey a lack of trust, a little too much paranoia, a tenable hold on order?

Well, we had it. At least until the 0.11.0 announcement. The answer to that question was: free-for-all loot.

Ninjas: Actually a Good Thing

FFA loot was actually a brilliant mechanic for forging a lack of trust between players. Sure, that made everyone QQ all over the forums, but the point is that it did it's job. Much like communism, party rules could work in theory; the game even temporarily allocates the loot, so that you're given a hint on how you could distribute said loot fairly. However, FFA loot required you to actually trust the players in your party instead of depending on arbitrary, game-enforced enforcement -- because that enforcement was exactly what the game denied you. Trust issues, paranoia, greed... all told through a simple mechanic.

Yes, I understand that FFA loot is something that almost no ARPG does. But try to imagine the game if it didn't drop the ball on ostracizing you once you opened the door to Lioneye's Watch. Imagine that, without flogging you with exposition pieces, it kept you remembering that you're just a petty criminal, and your friends are, too. The mechanic definitely served a strong narrative purpose, in an environment otherwise devoid of narrative mechanics.

Yet FFA loot was hated. With a fervor.

Was there a problem there? Absolutely; that many angry forum-goers can't be that far off. However, how did the problem come to be, and what was its nature? The members of a fari and equitable group fear the greed of the possible ninja, and the ninja fears... nothing. Deficiency detected. In order to have a legitimate fear, there needs to be a legitimate threat. So how could we threaten ninjas, without prohibiting their behavior?

Now there are many different mechanics that could have been used. I don't think enabling PvP would have been good, as it just would have allowed more PK griefing like with bandits (which I actually really like as a mechanic, but let's not overdo it). So instead, let's look at how players actually tried to fix the problem: they tried to go to the forums and create threads saying "Player X is a ninja, don't trust him."

Now think about this for a second. The whole mechanic is supposed to promote the feeling of being ostracized. Can you really think of any better consequence than being ostracized in real life? I sure can't.

If you ask me, GGG's failure with FFA loot was its policy against name and shame. Name and shame could have been left completely in the hands of the players. By now, at the very least we should have had third-party sites that rate players by their trustworthiness in parties.

If they were really clever, GGG would have embraced the concept and worked the mechanic directly into the game, giving each player a "reputation" score that could be upvoted or downvoted, Reddit-style, and when trying to join a party the party leader would get a pop-up showing name, class, level, and reputation, along with an option to allow or disallow. Could you be a jerk? Sure, at any time. Would anything stop a player with a solid rep of suddenly turning to the dark side? Not really. But there would be a consequence for ninja behavior.

With a system like that in place, the mechanic could have been pushed to its limit. Name timers could have their duration shortened. Map to maker would be enforced by the players, not an artificial system.

GGG, if you care at all about giving Path of Exile a cohesive narrative, please remove the loot options in a later patch, along with some kind of system that makes it easy for us, as a community, to actually monitor the reputability of players from a loot-ninja perspective. I strongly believe you made the wrong choice by making a mechanic with such a strong narrative purpose optional.