Creating a Scripted Adventure using Twitter Threads and Polls
Contributors
In August, we were tasked with coming up with ways to hype up the latest raid that was being released into the game. One idea that we came up with was a “Choose Your Own Adventure”, which would be posted on social media to get players inspired and excited for the raid. To achieve this, we had to develop a themed story connected to the raid and make it short enough to meet Twitter’s character limit while still being a compelling story.
The intention behind this was to engage players, who would be allowed to vote on what path they wanted to take in the story while also getting them in the mood for content centred around the same theme. Players were already excited about this raid, which had been on the horizon for several months, but we wanted to raise that excitement and draw in those who might not have been as invested in the lore and plot behind the raid. In writing a short story like this, we would do precisely that and hopefully reach even more players to encourage them to participate in the content.
After discussing the basics with my colleagues, I took over this project myself. For this, I worked out a plot that wasn’t too long and could be written in a condensed form to fit on Twitter without taking multiple threads and posts while not being so long that it risked losing attention or boring players. For me, this was a fascinating project to have the opportunity to do, as I am an avid writer and enjoy any chance to utilise those abilities.
This took several hours to plan out, and I went through various versions. Originally I had wanted to include imagery related to each section to make it even more enticing and eye-catching, but to maintain some surprise for the raid, we decided against this. I also wanted to expand and make branching paths to several different storylines, but in the end, I decided to have a somewhat linear plot with a few branching sections. This was so that I could focus on the quality of the writing since we had a limited time to get it ready and enough time to post it on social media.
Once I had a basic idea of what I wanted, it was time to start writing. This involved a lot of planning, and I used both Miro and Confluence to work through all of this. Using Miro’s sticky notes and arrows, I devised a clear and concise way of showing what each choice would lead to, with a few different paths that would make sense with the options. Each choice got its unique continuation; for example, when the readers were prompted to vote on what weapon they wanted, the winning choice would be addressed in the next post before carrying on with the story.
As I mentioned, the Twitter character limit was a big concern for us, as we didn’t want to make a large thread each day, which risked losing the players’ attention. To avoid this, I utilised Twitter, writing each section of the story in the text box on the website and deleting and altering what I was writing to fit.
After the story was created, we posted one part every day, including a poll for the viewers to vote on. Once the survey ended, we would post the next part following their choice.
This lasted for eight days, finishing two days before the raid was officially released, and gained a lot of positive attention from the player base who followed the account. While the numbers slightly declined as time passed, we saw votes on the initial posts reaching over 5.7k. It was received well, with players enjoying the story and the ability to vote on what they wanted to do.
