Morgan's Weekly Update 2: What Needs to Happen in a Scene

Whenever I write a scene, there are a number of questions I have to ask about it. Questions like: are the characters relatable enough? Are they even believable? Is the setting clear enough? Am I getting across what I want to be? The most important questions (and i may revisit the previous questions in later posts) are things like: Am I teaching the player what they want/need to know? Are they even enjoying it? These two questions are hands down the most important to a game like this, after all a large chunk of the game will be dialogue. My early scenes were pretty lackluster exposition dumps with each character droning on about how they feel about the "Federation" only inserting a modicum of character simply based on;

"I come from X background, thus I feel Y" 

"Ah character 1; I am different for, I am character 2 from background A and therefore, think B"

No fun for anyone.

GO FOR THE EYES BOO!

I then went back to my role playing background and realized characters aren't necessarily remembered for their contribution to the story, more likely we remember their quirks and the interaction with the player. Minsc isn't ingrained in RPG culture because of his relationship with Dynaheir, we remember and love Minsc because he was a burly barbarian who carried around a cute little hamster named Boo. Going forward These are the sorts of things I really need in my characters, not more dry stock characters droning. 

I have the structure laid out, now it's just a matter of filling it with enough life to keep the player interested and teaching them along the way. One of the things that needs to be overcome is the unorthodox nature of our game. There aren't many large scale naval combat games out there, let alone ones with the systems we're including. My goal then is to ease the player in to these things through the dialogue. One of my fears is players looking at the systems we've made an wondering why things are the way they are, why does a vee beat a line formation in assault? My hope is they'll have some of these questions but the dialogue will dispel some of that, especially if they choose to have those conversations with characters, and keep it interesting. 

Lot of work on the horizon for me, check back next week for more of my exciting adventures in writing.