(10-02-2013, 05:32 PM)Lament Wrote: I haven't reached the end of the main storyline, myself, but I read Ildur's spoiler tag anyway--
I don't think anyone should exclude the main storyline's events from their roleplay.
But I can see why people would.
Unlike console games, MMOs can't change much, visually, as the story progresses, because you have multiple people playing, and each person may be doing a different story step. So, as Ildur mentioned, the world itself is in a sort of permanent stasis. Story events aren't actually reflected in the world.
They are, just not consistently in every single area.
Quote:When there are changes that are reflected in the world, they tend to come in the form of patches. Now consider this scenario:
A patch comes up. Ishgard opens to foreigners.
Consider we have players A, B and C. Player A finished the story, player B just defeated Titan, player C just started.
Ishgard opened to foreigners at the same time to players A, B and C. But for player A, this was after the main story, for player B this was right after Titan's fall, and for player C, it opened before the main story actually happened. If all three players are taking what they know of the main storyline into consideration, you have three completely incompatible timelines.
But in the overall meta-plot of the game, it occurred after the Main Storyline concluded. Â Personal stories always come second to the main meta plot of the game itself, because the developers dictate what is and is not canon, and they control the storyline and its progression, not us.
Quote:This is generally why people tend to disregard the main storyline when it comes to RP - timelines get very messy.
Only if people refuse to follow canon. Â :-\
Quote:Now, you absolutely can set up a scenario where you consider the main storyline has happened, for RP purposes (disregarding which step of the main storyline you're actually on in the game itself). But this also brings up a few potential problems:
- New players will not have experienced the full storyline yet. Reading about it is different from experiencing it, so it's likely new players will be unable to take part until they're done with the main story (which can take a long time if you prefer RP to leveling).
They can still experience the storyline. Â There's absolutely nothing preventing them from experiencing it.
Quote:- Like Ildur has stated, most other people/groups will not be sharing that timeline. This makes it difficult to cross-interact or to absorb new players, unless they specifically roll a character to fit the timeline.
How exactly are you determining that most groups will not be sharing the timeline? Â Do you have a count? Â Why are you speaking for everyone? Â :-\
Quote:- It rules out or complicates several character concepts/ideas and limits what those characters can accomplish. Consider:
None of that is ruled out. Â None of it. Â I don't even know why you would say that.
Quote:Obviously, you don't need to disregard the main storyline if you don't want to. But it does severely limit entry into the group, it does rule out some concepts that people are likely to think of before they finish the main storyline, and it does severely limit interactions with people outside the group.
I really disagree with this. Â But in the end, there's nothing that says that everyone has to play with everyone else. Â I'm fairly certain there will be plenty of people available to play with them, even if some others will choose not to. Â It's a big server.
Edited to Add: As an example, let's take World of Warcraft. So you have Vanilla Warcraft, and it had a specific storyline that took place during that time period (there are even websites that have delineated the timeline). I started playing in BC. I never got to experience the events of Vanilla WoW. Does that mean that my character can't have been a part of that? Or that somehow I can't progress my story because I didn't do those things? I never played the Warcraft RTS games, despite the fact that what occurred in those games and the storylines that they followed are absolutely integral to the storyline of World of Warcraft. Does that mean that I can't include that stuff in my character? Should I just pretend it didn't happen, because I didn't get to go through it? o_O
No. It means that I write my background taking into account the things that happened before. When new players started playing in Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm, or Mists of Pandaria, they hadn't experienced anything previous to the expansions they started in. Does that mean they should ignore those Canon events? Because they didn't get to see them, therefore they won't get ideas about their characters and so they should just do whatever they want and ignore the story itself? I mean, seriously, people can do whatever they want, but I reserve the right to walk away if someone is ignoring events out of the main freaking storyline. :-\