Changing history?

[paxx]

I have been playing with the idea of making a few fundamental changes to the published history of the game. While I feel this is bad form, changes will be made regardless. But keeping them to minor changes, or fixing many of the story line/ player capability inconsistencies seems to be my personal focus.

And doing that will require some major story changes in some areas, and no changes in other areas.

Here is my dilemma. Published history should no be changed. If I change it then the next dev who sees a reason to change it will?.and so on and so on and so on.

I will not speak of what changes, or the types of changes. This is more of a moral question.

While some things will be changed, the extent of those changes might depend on your responses.

It really rides on making the best story for the game, or making the best story, and having a game that sort of fits, but not that much?all the names and places are there, but the player can?t do what some of the characters in the story can do. Or, it works, but what good is basket weaving if I can?t make any money from it, because baskets are useless in the game?.

Ok, I?m asking a stupid question because there are things I don?t like in the published story, and since we are making changes, I feel  we can make a MMORPG where the story line really fits the game, and where the actions of the PCs are inline with what the storyline says.

Like if there is no head chopping in the game, do we have to have head chopping in our story?

And I feel this is one of the last times that any major story line changes might be made, since some are being made anyway, and that soon the rules on many issues will start to be coded in.
Most games have a story, and have a system reflect that story, but allow many loose interpretations.

Few games make an effort that the story reflect the system to the best possible way, and that the system reflect the story in the best possible way.

Making planshift the latter requires some major changes. But I am not sure if I should be very surgical about it, or broadsword it?

[Vengeance]

I am fine with changing certain things, although I think the team should be careful that it is changing things for good reasons and not just because they didn\'t personally write what came before.

Also, I don\'t think it is important that every skill mentioned in the History is a game-playable skill.  The History is the History and the game is the game.  They should complement each other, but they don\'t have to line up 100% equal.

- Vengeance

[Kiern]

I think it will be fine to change whats needed to make it easier to understand/better, because, as the poll says, it IS pre-alpha, and isnt that planning stage orsomething like that? i cant ever remember these things...

[TheGeneral]

I think minor changes all over the place would not hurt. I would get rid of the uni-sex gods, and other confusing parts in the story, like the sun shining throught the crystal, you, the stuff that has been mentioned before. But i would not make any drastic changes, like at the end, all of a sudden, both of the gods die in a car explosion(you get the point) The reason why i would not touch it, is cause the story has been put together quiete well, and the person(Lanax) has worked hard on it, and making massive cuts, and changes to it would make him feel like....well, it would not be a nice thing to do.

[stickman]

my comments: ... i really thought it was odd to have such a set in stone story line like u did.

i think that if u wanna have a Game that has a story line that fits it should be based 90% on the present. this way u will have an evolving story line that will keep people interested!

i think u should prob just make the history breif... and build on it IN GAME through NPC\'s quests... live quest and so on. and write out the history as things happen... that way people can be apart of it...

EG... a clan war happens... one side wins... it gets judged by like a DEV or mod type guy and recorded in the history... i think this would be a good way to keep everyone invloved in the story line and keep it fun....

u ever noticed in most popular games that no-one cares about the history/storyline? i think this would help get people involved.

ya... i have a feeling this has no relation to this topic but whatever.

[Ognamus]

Like if there is no head chopping in the game, do we have to have head chopping in our story?

Ok, see.... IMO you\'ve got something backwards here.... If there\'s headchopping in the story, then you have to put it into the game, not the other way  around :]

[paxx]

You bring up a good point Ognamus, however somewhat flawed.

I can write a few of lines of story that will delay this game for at least  2 years. (Boris, on the back of Kelina, his dragon mount, spotted the Orc host, 5000 strong they where, and from their place in the clouds boris could make out the carriage of Helix, leader of the host. Soon Kelina was in a full dive. She gracefully avoided the ballista bolts, and bow arrows that came to meet them as she prepared to breath her fire on the Host.)  
For that scene to be interactively playable in any modern computer game on current hardware, would be a feat of incredible proportions.  

Yes there are games where you mow through hundreds of enemies, but you never see hundreds rendered, much less thousands.

To say a game is story driven is fine, but if certain things will not be in the game for whatever the reason might be (technological, political, otherwise) then should it be in the story?
That is the question.

You might reply that the game should be story driven no matter what? games are much more fun when they are player driven in my opinion, that is half the fun of MMORPGs and I feel the storyline/history should assist and add in that, not that the game should be a slave to the story.

[Xolon]

A good start would be to make clear what Laanx is.

In one part its a female, in the other she turned in a male....

Makes the story a bit confusing.

-Xolon-

[Princess Aelya]

actually, in my opinion every mmorpg should be player driven. the story should contribute a little, but for the most part the future of the story should be decided by the players. the story is very creative, but it only came from a few peoples mind.  each of the players will have creative personalities of their own, thus will give more detail to the game and there will be more to do, as there are more players than people on the settings team im not saying the settings team is useless or anything like that. they are important because they build the foundation of the story for the players to build on.

[paxx]

*This is my feeling on the subject, and not that of the author or the rest of the PS team, then again most of my posts are my opinion, but this is more opinion then often is the case.

Laanx is a god. Gods can be whatever they want to be, however I think the going from female to male and back to female is not properly articulated nor are the reasons why Laanx did this.

In truth what it represents is more of an issue.

About the time of the next release, I hope to have many other pieces of the settings picture in place for you, however some will be changed. (the amount is debatable) and is more of a philosophical issue then anything else.

I will not disclose the issues nor who is on what side, after the decision is made one way or the other, or another, or another?.
I?ll post a little on motivations on whatever changes where made. But there is much that will need to be kept hidden from the player community, because in a way we are planning the major possible events for about 2 years after release. It would be poor form to fail in safe guarding a lot of that.    

[Xolon]

yea, would be too bad if those secrets became known...
Nothing is better then a suprise event in the game

-Xolon-