How about this: *Writer*

[Slowhand]

My background is in the movie business, both as a senior creative executive at a movie studio (Universal) and as a producer (at Dreamworks and Disney).  In various roles, I've been involved with the development and production of such films as Field of Dreams, Liar Liar and (most germane to this project) Twelve Monkeys (Bruce Willis, Brad Pitt, dir. Terry Gilliam).

I'm an experienced PC gamer with an emphasis on flight sims, tac-shooters and racing sims and I have many hours in SC, both single player and Versus (PT and CT). 

The current generation of games emphasizes technical accomplishment over creative accomplishment in the conceptualization and execution of story.  Half Life 2 is very proud of the role played by its writer but even that game was under-developed from a story standpoint.

Spy vs Merc is not a "narrative" game per se, but it has tremendous narrative possibilities.  A compelling layer of story on top of the gameplay could add great depth to this project, especially if maps could be tied together in sequences influenced by the player's accomplishment of certain goals.  The gameplay dynamic you are after would not be affected but the emotional involvement of the player in the game could be enhanced enormously, even revolutionized.

Feel free to post here or email me if you have any interest in my proposed contribution.

[frvge]

Welcome :)

Would this be the kind of narrative element that the various Enemy Territory: Quake Wars maps have? They are linked together with some background story (displayed as text while the map loads). The same applies for the single player mode of UT3.

The idea sounds great, in my opinion.

[Bionic-Blob]

wow..

[Gui Brazil]

wow..

[Overstatement]

What?

[MR.Mic]

Oh man, I love Terry Gilliam films.

[LennardF1989]

I would love some kind of "story" in PS. It would give the opportunity for a Quake Wars like intro and maps with a story. It will certaintly add some depth to the game.

[LennardF1989]

Why don't you guys react!?

[iservealot]

Well I guess it wouldn't hurt to think up some kind of idea for the story, and PM it so one of the devs.

[Zedblade]

A long time ago it was implied that PS would have as little of a story as possible. The Main Organizations (spy/merc) would have a general backstory that explained who they are, but other then not, nothing else.

The idea was that every map will have their own story, separate from anything else. This would make it easier for their to be more maps and more imaginative themes rather then trying to keep every map on track to go along with some giant storyline.

Basically, we can have map that take place in an ancient mine, in a castle, outer space, another planet, secret lab etc without ruining the continuity of a storyline and stop anyone from ever going "OMG THIS MAP DOESN'T FIT IN WITH THE THEME OF PS!!!11"

But whatever... maybe i'm just biased because of the whole Pyrocryptic Bashing :(

Doesn't mean we don't need a writer. However, the map designer will probably have his own story down and seriously, how much detail do we need? This isn't an RPG...

I just don't see the point. We won't have cutscenes, we won't have pre-renderd movies and we won't have dialog...

[frvge]

We're still busy with voting. We'll have an answer within 5-6 days.