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I just read a review of Planet Stronghold made by an user in my forums (not sure if he also visit lemmasoft):
http://beliar-cos.blogspot.com/2011/10/ ... eview.html
I disagree on some points, in particular on the fact that the game CGs are of "poor quality" (!!!)

But since the review can be summarized with: great battle/RPG system, super poor story/writing, I wanted to ask exactly when a plot of an Epic story/tale becomes banal? I mean, OK the classic "the hero must save the world" is really overused, but still if you have to make a game with a Epic story, what else can you try?

Aren't you kind of forced to write it that way? I like original stories, that's why I wrote Bionic Heart and other games, but sometimes as writer/author you're a bit out of freedom. Would players be interested in playing in the role of an average guy/girl? I don't think so (I'm talking specifically in a RPG game, VNs are different). I don't think Mass Effect or Dragon Age would work if you weren't the main hero who saves the day!

In my new RPG in development, Loren The Amazon Princess, the plot will be somewhat more interesting since indeed you aren't the main hero, but the loyal servant of the main hero, and that makes more difference than what it might seem. That's how I tried to make it original (also surely the fact that Aleema is writing it instead of me will mean the writing will be of much higher quality!! ).

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Thanks for linking beliar's blog (bookmarked) as he's one of the few VN players who judge both JVNs and EVNs equally on their own merits with no prejudice to the latter, so I respect his contributions to vndb.

Regarding the conflict of whether to star a hero or an average Joe, thankfully I don't have that problem with my game since the story is told from multiple perspectives... some POV are from powerful 'movers and shakers'... people who have the capacity to start and end wars, while other is from people down in the battlefield whose capacity to shape things is through their actions in battle.

The plot of Elspeth's Garden was patterned after real politics, since each faction was inspired by real-world countries and persona from WWII up to the present day. The end result is that the heroine is not so much a heroine as just a pair of eyes for the player to preview the situation in the field, but it's really rare that single individuals have the capacity to turn the tides in any major conflict.

If I may, I'd like to take FF12 as an example of good world, good gameplay, good art, good characters ... but crap for story. It wasn't the writing that was bad, it was the plot itself. The events and conflicts had little to no importance to me as a player, and for usually only ONE character (Ashe). Anytime anything character-related came up, I was intrigued, but then it would slap that out of my hands and shove my face in government politics. It also suffers from too many characters, where numerous villains and side characters are introduced in almost every scene, but barely explored or seen again. The flaw wasn't really that it was an epic world-saving plot, it was that it was never of any interest to me. I never cared. What I did care about (the characters) was put on the bottom shelf and I had to dig to find what I really wanted to enjoy.

In summary: The main problem was caring about what was going on. I felt out of control and I couldn't relate to anything happening. The only thing I could wrap my head around was the characters, and they had basically no relevance to the plot.

Having played most of Plant Stronghold, I can say its plot wasn't as bad as that, but I can say that the major branch of the story with the Prince came with no build up. This will lead to it being a superficial decision - you hadn't had time to really get to know either side, and it wasn't a thread being woven throughout the entire game (like mages vs templars in DA2). The entire conflict and argument, if my memory serves well, was basically introduced in one scene as soon as you brought the prince. We barely knew him, his parents, and the alien queen. None of these people were the party members you had been learning and caring about over the course of the game (while you did interact with the king/queen ... I honestly can't call that characterization), so it wasn't dramatic or anything. I haven't personally played each char route to weigh in on those, however.

So, I don't think any bad review on the plot for your game simply was because of the hero-saving-the-world premise. It was perhaps because it was more plot-driven than character-driven, with that major branch hiccup of not caring about either side. But I think PS did have room for improvement in the areas that that reviewer mentioned (better characterization, the game recognizing character relationships, a better epilogue).

But, uh, to answer your overall question: it became banal when I stop caring about what's happening.

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Ah I get it now and indeed, makes sense I agree that the "big decision" early in the game is badly presented to the player since he/she just met the Prince and doesn't know much about him or Shiler. And even if I left the epilogue a bit open/vague on purpose (I already knew from early alpha sales that the game would have a sequel for sure) I should have made a better job on that too.
Luckily for the sequel I won't have the same pressure I had with the first game, and also will use an external writer, so will have more time to think about the plot and make a much better work!
(seriously nobody should attempt making a big game like Planet Stronghold alone...!)

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WWII? More like WWI, taking into account the role that colonialism play in the game. Also, there are references to the Opium War, leper colonies, airforce pilots as the "knights of the sky" (as well as biplanes and dirigibles) and countries that are still in the process of industrialization. I'd say that solidly places the timescape between 1900 and 1930 in our world. (And beyond, of course... but it doesn't start with WWII...)

*edit* to do something for the OP:

An epic plot becomes banal if
a) it's so cliché that "epic" means "stereotypical" and you need only hear the first five minutes of it to know how it's going to turn out
b) it's epic on the outside but there would be a much less-epic solution that is actually better and would tell a better story.
c) it starts epic but goes nowhere, or to ever more ridiculous levels of epic. (DBZ is a good example...)

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Hello. The evil reviewer here.
To answer Jack, yes I do sometimes visit Lemmasoft, however mainly as a lurker to download some free games to play.
As for the main question, the cliché "save the world" plot is not necessarily a bad thing. Everything depends on the presentation. Go, save the world, but pepper it with veritable characters, smart and funny interactions, interesting locations and larger than life confrontations.
"Planet Stronghold" plot is mainly "unite the scattered tribes and kill the bad guy" plot and it might have worked with a better characterization. There was not nearly enough interaction for my liking and what's worse, the enemies were also so lifeless. I personally care about villains and antagonists even more than about heroes in the stories I read and PS fails to deliver on that front. They all come very quickly and fall even quicker and the final boss literally comes out of nowhere like Necron from FFIX. And I completely agree with Aleema - the choice came too soon and was largely unbelievable as in real life you wouldn't have enough information to join the prince.
When I talk about the perfect character presentation I always remember two of my favourite RPGs of all time Planescape: Torment and Anachronox. There characters felt really alive and managed to fully interact between themselves without breaking the immersion in the game. As for the main quest itself, Anachronox has that same old "save the world" routine going on, but the characters save the world with flair and flamboyance. In Planet Stronghold you just beat the boss of every tribe until they join you. Now just imagine if things turned out differently.
Our noble heroes go to the Dredan camp and encounter the Dredan healer. They start a boss battle, but the healer turns out too strong they have to flee. When fleeing in the desert, a giant sand worm comes and swallows our characters, but instead of dying, they find a colony of intestinal sapient amoebas living in the stomach of the worm. Amoebas capture our heroes with the intention of turning them into their sex slaves. With a well timed use of their combined skills our heroes manage to escape the imprisonment and confront the Master Amoeba who reveals himself to be Jacob's father's former roommate when they attended the academy of Evil before Miles the Senior dropped out due to being too good. Characters battle Master Amoeba and defeat him. The intense battle gives the sand worm an indigestion and he farts our noble victors out with such force that they slam right into the Dredan healer that is in the pursuit of the worm. There is little left of him and other Dredans seeing your awesome power prostrate themselves and swear their allegiance to the alliance. Thus one of the quests is completed. Now, how is that for a scenario. Obviously it's directly inspired by a certain scene in Anachronox, but I only wanted to show that saving the world is not necessarily a cliché and tedious business.
Cheers!

Well that was a good example Anyway thanks, now I know what to do for the sequel.
(in practice what I'm already doing with other games, use a writer so have more time to think about the plot and also the resulting texts are better!)

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EPIC plot becomes banal?

Well, for one if you use the same story type that has been done over and over again. If you want your story to be "EPIC" then it needs to be something that will stick in the player's mind even after they have finished it. That can't happen if you used the same story type, let's call it stereotypical. What happens then is people won't remember your game because it relates too much to an older story they've already seen, read, or played.

It really helps to have a well developed protagonist as well. Example give the character more reasons to want to save the world other than "because it's the right thing to do." Now of course you don't need to have another reason but it helps your character to stand out more and be more appealing when they have a deeper resolve.

Something I've noticed about amateurs, is that they like to make this all powerful character with no weaknesses or shortcomings. Now that makes for one bad protagonist but it leaves no room for character growth and makes the game one sided.

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One of my recent favorite audio programs, Yeah It's That Bad, discussed the movie Mr and Mrs Smith. They talked for several minutes about a turning point in the movie where they stopped caring about what was happening. If I recall correctly, it was not long after the central characters' relationship conflict had ended. There were still plenty of action scenes, but the reviewers no longer felt involved.

Obviously, writing games is different. And trying to create a consistent blend of internal/external conflict in any story driven game is never easy. Some examples that come to mind:

* In simulation games such as the Harvest Moon series and Game Dev Story, there's a lingering problem called the "boredom horizon." In other words, what does it take before the player has achieved all the objectives, and there's nothing new or notable to do before the game ends?

* There's several moments in Dragon Quest 8 where the characters should have asked, "So what do we do now?" (The major villain was seemingly defeated, but none of the curses were lifted.) As the characters tried to figure out what happened, my interest decreased. As much as I liked DQ8, I never quite finished it.

* Moments when the plot depends on the player doing something trivial or obtuse. I really liked Persona 4, but a few peculiar design decisions were frustrating. For instance, the player has to talk to NPCs in order to unlock some of the dungeons... but these sections of the game basically add up to "talk to everyone, and guess when/where to find the relevant people." And one of the most frustrating moments happened during a dramatic confrontation -- unless the player makes six correct decisions right in a row (no save opportunities), the rest of the party will act out their revenge, leading to the worst ending.

* Too many frustrating battles. I played Persona 4 on the easiest setting, and felt that was challenging but fair... managed to finish it. But while Sakura Wars 5 was a much, much shorter game, I never quite finished that game. Why? Because I found at least half the battles were frustrating. In the final chapter, there was a dramatic battle where the player had to keep the airship intact despite many foes. A number of plot threads were either ending or already over. It was then that I just didn't feel like figuring out the right strategy in order to win.

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I'm still very new to this writing bussiness ... but maybe it happen when "suspension of disbelief" fail?

I have a weird experience with these two animes, the first one is Fate Stay Night and the second is Fate Zero. When I watch FSN, I think that this whole holy grail stuff and summoning RPG class-like servants is ridiculous and forced ... . probably the author just loves to play rpg so much and just trying to find some reasons to include it in the story.

but when I watch FZ, I didn't notice any flaw, everything seems so reasonable and make sense even though the premise is totally the same with FSN ... . @_@;

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I'll focus on the Dragon Ages for a moment.

Dragon Age Origins was epic. Hero has to save the land from evil and destruction. I ran through the main story line because it felt like it was urgent. I was almost afraid to waste time on side quests because the blight was coming and the archdemon was lingering in the background ready to attack. And there was even a pretty decent Revan moment there. I was seriously at the edge of my seat most of the time. Awesome writing. Awesome Characters. Just, Awesome story! I still play this game.

Dragon Age 2...however...They focused too much on just Hawke, imo. The story felt tiny and insignificant in comparison to DAO. It only really affected Kirkwall, some city state in the middle of nowhere. (well except for what a little apostate mage did there at the end) The Characters lacked depth and Hawke was suppose to be some bad ass hero but s/he came off as some nobody, no more important to me than the Exile (which is of no importance to me at all, equally some nobody. Unless you personally know me that comparison doesn't make a lot of sense lol. You're not privy to my numerous rants). This game is on the shelf. I really hate sequels, they can only disappoint.

I didn't even finish FF12 the story was so bad. I don't think I was even playing the main character in that game.

I guess when it comes down to it, for me personally, I want Heroes saving the world/galaxy/universe in my RPGs. Those are the epic stories. All of my favorite games involve this basic plot. KOTOR, Jade Empire, Mass Effect 1, Dragon Age Origins, FFVII....all epic, all "Hero saves the world", all badass. And All Different. Different reasons, different story, different setting and different characters. Sure you'll find some similarities, but you can do that with any genre.

(In case you couldn't tell I'm a Bioware fangirl. I can'ts help it. I stalks them.... )

The artwork was great in Planet Stronghold. If anyone says that it was of poor quality, it can mean two things-
1. He/she is almost blind.
2. He/she is trying to discourage you.
3. He/she doesn't know the meaning of the word "quality".
Don't take it to your heart. Planet Stronghold was one of your best games.

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Yes I really have no doubts about the art, since everyone said the art was great (and immodestly it is). About the game, maybe I could have done something better

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For me, the "epic" plot becomes rather stale and boring when it focuses on the main characters too much.
"Epic" is hard to write. It literally needs to be, well, epic.

You need to cover the world, and when you do that, you need to cover the history. Why the world exists in such a way.
All of this stuff may or may not seem to be rather arbitrary on it's own, but as a whole it really brings the world/universe together to create something that is truly "epic".

Take Star-trek for example, each episode may differ in quality, some of the stories may suck balls, and many of them follow the land on strange planet, encounter indigenous life, shit goes down and is then resolved formulae, but the rich history that has been created for each of the races, hand each race having it's own functional language crafted for it...
That's pretty fucking epic, and I don't even like Star-trek.
I'm not saying you need to create your own functional languages, but creating an intriguing world can be the first step to crafting an epic story, you need to create a world that players at least give a shit about.

Twists in the story that radically change the perceived ending for the player (Just a shitty example but; OH DAMN I CAN'T WAIT TO KILL THE EVIL KING AND... OH SNAP I SMACKED THAT BITCH UP ONLY 2 HOURS IN! OH FUCK DAMN NOW I'VE STARTED A WAR OH SHIT FUCK) can really create a sense of "epicness" for them, even if it's really a mundane occurrence. I mean, look at a lot of the RPG's, many of them have that kind of twist in them, where something happens and then a new big bad rocks up halfway through that the player must defeat.

Crap like that can up-the tension quite well.
But don't go overboard with it.

Also, I apologise for my French.

To make your reader care about your plot, you have to make it the most important thing in the world, sure. But that doesn't mean the world needs to be in danger. The reason that kind of plot is so popular is that it's easy to pass along to the reader the idea that the world ending is extremely important. But that's not the only kind of plot you can use.

Sometimes, a character's world is something else completely different. When I say that the plot must be the most important thing in the world, I don't mean the most important thing to the world but to the character's world instead. If you are writing a romance, write it in a way that you make your reader thinks that nothing else in the world matters more than the relationship between the two characters. Is the world still spinning? Is pollution still a problem? No one cares. What matters is those two characters in love with each other.

Be it a romance, a murder mystery, a drama, a coming of age story, or anything at all, you must make it so that the characters' world is described in a way the reader can empathize with, in a way that the reader won't want to know about anything else, in a way that he'll be just as compelled to know whether Romeo and Juliet will get together(spoilers: they won't) as they would be to know whether a certain planet would blow up or not.

The key to making a great plot is to create a conflict, then treat it as seriously as you humanly can, remind the reader of just how important to the characters that plot is, then you'll have yourself a plot. The hero can try to save a friend, he can try to save himself as he struggles with self-doubt, he can try to fulfill a promise he made to a friend, anything really.