So, I think ive found a way to make the work "easier" (per say). What i want to do is write each story line for the different factions (kingdoms) as their own game, that way i can have those out and have people test them, reveiw them, and give ideas for changes, while i work on the main story lines, therefore being able to theoretically almost double our productivity so the question is, is this reasonable or just a waist of time?

It is one possible approach. I was reviewing some of your massages about your game and i realized a good way of having some feedback is releasing the demo a little longer. It is simply too short for any good evaluation.

Also, it would be a good idea creating a sort of "press release", because we do not know anything about what are your intentions with the game, the scope it should be and the premises it should cover.

Empires of the Medieval age is basically (or at least we want it to be) a game where you can pretty much do what ever you want, the reason why the main storyline, or as we call it, the unaligned storyline, is undeveloped is because we are currently working in the faction story lines.

Honestly, stop thinking this. It is never a game where you can do whatever you want. If so, i may say you are having very little success on pursuing this objective, as there is not "soldier", "Tax collect" or "Noble" at the character's list.

I strongly recommend you on focusing. If you feel need, even skip a character creation and select a starting, fixed character for the player. If it is your first game, it may speed up things a lot. If you skip allowing player choosing things which are distracting you, it will allow you investing on presenting the player the choices which really makes the game special. On many Interactive Fiction, there is a budget problem: producers avoid having multiple story lines, because when you play and pick one, all the rest becomes unused work. Having multiple story paths grants you replay, but it becomes a huge nightmare to manage. If you want investing some time and effort about choices in the game, work on multiple story lines.

Another special suggestion for you is giving some color for your story. Many of the interactive fiction writers lacks the 'writer' component. I am not saying i am a blessed writer, but even celebrated IF writes has some problems when it comes upon writing. I still stumbling on the topic myself, but what i found is that IF is almost a book, but cannot be treated as a book entirely. It makes the challenge even more... challenging. So, give your player a little more context about the character, places and background. perhaps you may want writing prologue. Something like "It was a period of civil war. Rebel star ships striking from a hidden base has achieved its first victory against the evil galactic empire" would be good enough. If you feel stuck, ask Copola.

Also, for writing sake, perhaps you may want to compose your game book using gender as a class component. So, you will have actually 6 classes, as two will be "Farmer Boy" and the other "Farmer Girl". It will help you focusing on the perspective of the right class and gender. You will also find it makes better for taking in account gender differences, like world view.

I plan playing your work in progress once again soon to check if i may add anything else.

I've been working on my game for over a year and I have to say that focus is key. Focus on a small area then move on. Focus and move on. Keeping it broad like that takes A LOT of work. My game is over 550,000 words at least and I only have one area and a small one at that. The reason for the size is all the variables and the different scenarios and randomized events. Go small as a test run then try something big unless you are really, really ambitious and planning on working on the game you want for years to come.

Anonynn.

I write games as a hobby. I see no hope of profit in it. I merely see Quest as a way of writing games without having to wade through too much programming. People who pay money for games these days expect high tech, zap , shoot 'em up graphics. I (and most people) don't have the technological knowledge to do that.
I appreciate getting the occasional feed back ( good or bad) and feel that I have perhaps amused and entertainined a few people on my way through life. Add a little humour and surprise to your games. Make your characters believable. Describe things, even if they don't affect the story. Think outside the box. Above all, have fun, and don't give up. But don't expect miracles.( 1,000,000 hits, 100,000 downloads) whatever you do you will certainly be able to be better than me.

I am 100% with Anoynn about time and effort and specially, the focus thing.

And, Father, i have been very concerned these days - by coincidence - about what you said if "making characters believable" and describing things. I am facing a moment where i am not sure if i should be investing so much on characters and descriptions, because i fear the wall of text would be intimidating or boring to the player. Recently i am conjecturing about a lot of things connected to the narrative and have been wondering if i still contesting Emily Short's article about the topic or not. I am losing my faith, i would say. It is somehow comforting finding someone else focused on description and giving matter to the story.

Don't worry about walls of text, if the writing is engaging for the player and broken up into sections like with "PressToContinue" people will be on board with it. Breaking up the text also helps with people who's native language isn't English. I have tons of text walls, but I break them up into small sections so the player doesn't feel too overwhelmed. It could probably be better in some places, but I'm working on shrinking them :) Go for it. It's better to do it then break it up later, than to not have an engaging enough story because the players can't get into it. My opinion at least.

Anonynn

I think if you can describe a person or object in a few well chosen words, then you don't need great walls of text. I also find that if you introduce strange local animals and artefacts into the story, described as if the player were familiar with them already, then it pulls the player into the game.

Recently i have been working with the idea of scattering many of the components about a single topic on many places of the game. For example, if describing about a bedroom (what i am actually doing at the moment), i scatter some of the details on different objects present at the scene. This technique is helping me on thinning the main description, but preserving descriptive elements somewhere. Of course, i still have the problem about scene and action descriptions. The main problem about characters is Parser games does have a lack of identity for the "player character". When the game provides identity, it is minimum, as is somewhat expected the player fills the gaps in his/her mind because in general terms, the player IS the character. I believe this forces the parser games designers to skip making a solid character and, at other hand, they skip some dramatic elements. My main concern it would create a sort of sub-culture or etiquette or "call it whatever you want" that skips too much text and descriptions and i not be able to satiate the adequate demanded level of details and the pacing and format this public expects finding, making my games boring.

Well, i guess i am rambling too much and not expressing myself in the adequate way. Never mind. lol

The great thing about text adventures is that you can leave character and, to some extent, environmental description/development up to the player and NOT issue it as walls of text. Example... If you have an NPC in your game, a brief, interesting, well-worded description/interaction with that NPC opens the door for the player to discover more about that NPC. Talk to it, look at it, kiss it, give it certain things, ask about certain topics, etc. These optional interactions put the development/insight of the character/setting in the hands of the player. That's the joy of text adventures. In almost all cases, all descriptions should be interesting but brief. That's what makes text adventures great. The PLAYER can experience a thing as deeply as they want. It makes for a lot of writing/consideration by the author but that's what TAs are about. Right?