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Ultima VII: The Land of Sub-Optimal Paths
By Corvus | August 27, 2008
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by–Robert Frost
Hey look–it’s a post on sub-optimal paths that doesn’t open with one of Justin’s comments pulled out of context! Instead, I’m going to open with a quick response to Krystian who asked what I meant by “optimal” in the context of this week’s posts.
In a narrative context, optimal paths are character actions that lead efficiently and directly to the goal of the plot. As Justin pointed out in yesterday’s comments–Sherlock Holmes is a character that invariably makes optimal choices, and it is only by virtue of his actions being narrated by Watson, and his sub-optimal perceptions, that our interest in the story is sustained. Unlike AI pathing, sub-optimal narrative paths are preferred to optimal paths. It is through making wrong choices, getting distracted by relationships, and struggling against their own impulses, that characters become real to us and evoke our empathy. Even the perfectly invulnerable Superman of the 40s and 50s eventually succumbed to physical and emotional vulnerability in order to sustain the public’s interest in this liberal crusader for justice.
Sub-optimal paths are all those things that, in both stories and games, typically make the journey to the goal worthwhile. As Justin and others have said, the seemingly optimal path in golf would be to walk over and drop the ball in the hole. That, of course, would completely remove the point of playing golf at all and is a great illustration as to why we’d want to encourage so-called sub-optimal behaviors in games. Not only is it more fun, but when the zombie apocalypse comes, it’ll be nice to have people around that are quite good at swinging golf clubs to great effect.
My interest is in tying the two benefits of sub-optimal paths together–good gameplay and good storytelling.
A great, perhaps even the greatest, example of a game that effectively uses sub-optimal paths for narrative purposes is Ultima VII: The Black Gate (U7). Amusingly, U7 also provides a ridiculously optimal route via a cheat room that was inserted into the game in order to give one of the studio’s speed run competitors an unfair advantage. The cheat room provides the player with all the items needed to complete the game and direct teleporter access to the final confrontation. I highly recommend playing through U7 twice–the first time by using the cheat room and finishing the game in easily under 20 minutes. The second time by following and completing every single possible sub-quest in the game. If you have the time and are so inclined, play through a third time following only the central plot. You can then make up your own mind which makes for a better gameplay experience–the optimal path(s), or the sub-optimal path.
Britannia, the realm in which the Ultima games are set, contains more than ten cities and a great many tiny islands. Every city has a story taking place within its borders. The Avatar herself is a reflection of the virtues upon which the Britannian cities were founded and the struggles of the citizens reflect the decay of those virtues. By diverging from the central plotline, which takes you to all of the cities at one point or another, the player learns about the culture of the world and her character’s own role in the creation of that culture. Additionally, the little simulated lives you touch bring greater purpose to your grand goals. No longer are you merely saving the world simply because you’re a hero, but because you want to save all of the individuals you’ve met along the way.
Not only does the sub-optimal path in U7 provide a deeper and more meaningful look at the Avatar’s relationship with Britannia’s cities and history, but it’s valuable to the gameplay as well–both directly and indirectly. In a direct sense–solving all of the secondary quests gives you experience points you can use to increase the power and skills of the Avatar and her companions (she can have up to seven companions in the party). It also gives the player access to better weapons, more gold, and more opportunities for combat, which also provides experience points. Experience points are applied, not via a character menu, but by visiting trainers scattered about the islands. Each trainer has a different skill set and can teach the Avatar and her companions different things. Visiting each island and actively participating in its trials and tribulations makes it easier to remember each city as a distinct place and easier to remember which trainer resides in which city and what skills each one teaches. This is a definite secondary benefit for people like me who never remember to stop and take good notes mid-game.
U7 does an excellent job at providing direct value to following a sub-optimal path–both from a narrative standpoint and a gameplay standpoint. The approach adds all the hallmarks of a great story to a great game. It explores relationships and flawed characters, and provides an enormous amount of context to an otherwise standard “hero saves the world” plot. Of course, all of these sub-optimal paths in the game wouldn’t be put to great use if the player was never exposed to them. So the central plot winds its way across Britannia, taking the player through every city in the game. It would be an exercise in FedEx-quest frustration if you didn’t stop and build relationships at every stop along the way.
Not all games do such a great job at implementing their sub-optimal paths as we shall explore tomorrow in a post titled Assassin’s Creed: Optimal Ennui.
Tagged:storytelling, sub-optimal routes, ultima vii, video games. | 5 Comments »
August 27th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
the zombie apocalypse is actually brought about after surrounding lord british with powder kegs and shooting a canon at him after stealing his rings.
actually, that’s what i loved so much about u6 and u7. you could kill everyone without any arbitrary, deus-ex machina consequences (the guards chasing you just made sense), but then there’s nothing to do, and if you keep everyone alive there’s almost too much to do. what it lacked in depth it made up for in breadth/sub-optimal paths.
August 27th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
Interesting read Corvus. Playing through Deus Ex for the VGC is highlighting many of the same issues. I’m playing it with a sub-optimal, almost obsessively-completionist approach, so perhaps after I complete it, I shall try the most direct narrative route and see how the experience is affected.
August 28th, 2008 at 6:08 am
Hmm, I’m still not quite sold on “sub-optimal”. Maybe it’s the name. The connotation is that there a “best” way to tell the story. Also I mistrust the idea of a “goal of the plot”. It’s like saying the goal of life is to die and we are all just terribly sub-optimal beings. It wouldn’t really insightful – it would be just a grave misunderstanding of the essence of human existence.
But besides that, you automatically seem to assume that “sub-optimal” paths improve the story. This isn’t true. I’m reminded of Shen-Mue and this Penny Arcade Classic. I think it would be important to work out WHICH KIND of sub-optimal paths improves a story/game and which doesn’t.
August 28th, 2008 at 6:33 am
@Krystian You’re absolutely right on all points. I agree also that the problem here is a semantic one. The concept of “Optimal” is widely considered to be a good thing, but as we’re seeing it’s not the strongest term for things like life and story. Keep in mind that I’m exploring an idea, not settling on a doctrine. I’m not convinced myself that optimal and sub-optimal are the best terms, but I’m finding that using those terms is generating a lot of great ideas.
It’s important as well to not take any single post of mine completely out of context of the rest of my blog. My recent post, character before plot, please, should be a strong indicator that I’m not an advocate of their being a “best” way to tell a story.
As far as sub-optimal paths automatically improving the story–no. There is obviously a skill to making the sub-optimal paths coherent and important without detracting from the central plot line.
Stay tuned, I’m in the middle of a post about a game that doesn’t quite pull it all together. Friday’s post will likely explore the ideas, the terminology, and recap my impressions. Thanks for your feedback!
September 2nd, 2008 at 6:21 am
Great analysis, I recall one of my favourite areas and quests in U7 was Serpent’s Hold featuring the cast of Star Trek:TNG. I was stunned by the fishy design of the puzzle for the locked armory.
One area Ultima 7 didn’t explore was sub-optimal paths in the context of quest solutions; The Witcher, is a recent title does a fair job with this, offering a sub-optimal morality path… but…
This sets the stage for a game I think did both really well. Fallout. The main quest can be completed in a 10 minute speed run while the permutations of the sub-optimal paths both in terms of content exploration and quest-solutions altered final outcomes and was based on a myriad of skills and stats. he idiot sub-optimal was gold.