For me it is our job as players to record and tell, propagate the story. Bards songs, historians books, sculptors and painters art. .... we will be the ones remembering and telling the events, shall we fail to do so and things will be forgotten

To me, it's better for some players to be "left out" of macro-story scenarios like a lich king. You can't exactly expect everyone in the world to try fighting them, can you? Even if they did, it would just be ridiculous.

Imo it's more immersive for isolated pockets to be isolated pockets.

Posted By Scheneighnay at 12:20 PM - Tue Oct 17 2017

To me, it's better for some players to be "left out" of macro-story scenarios like a lich king. You can't exactly expect everyone in the world to try fighting them, can you? Even if they did, it would just be ridiculous.

Imo it's more immersive for isolated pockets to be isolated pockets.

I should have clarified, I didn't mean they had to directly be involved in the events but to have knowledge that the story was happening and a somewhat accurate representation of what is happening (official lore/source). Not that a farmer would need to be involved with the Lich King but he should at least have the opportunity to know what he was, what happened and what was the outcome officially. A bonus would be to just put it in the prologue package mentioned at the end of the OP so the live server doesn't even have to be touched or modified to accommodate. Wanna know what the Lich was? play that story arc in the prologue editor after your server unlocks it. Or just have an official lore source.

Posted By markof at 11:59 AM - Tue Oct 17 2017

For me it is our job as players to record and tell, propagate the story. Bards songs, historians books, sculptors and painters art. .... we will be the ones remembering and telling the events, shall we fail to do so and things will be forgotten

I think that's cool works well for micro story plots such as coups, propaganda and cover-ups but it's not a matter of if players can accurately record the event, it's a matter of how long until the event is so different that the original never happened?

While this in itself has some value in a game like CoE it's best left to Micro-Story or the player created story. To me that is fair and makes sense. Players record player created events and story while developers record developer created events and story. It allows you to use the understanding of the world to connect to your character, that is something that is lost if a player group is in-charge of delivering that lore to you and it's not really fair to the player. This also creates a layer of false information to integral pieces of the world. A players whole understanding of Elyria could be shifted and slanted due to players being able to change these iconic events and it's not really fair to rob them of that understanding of the game-world. That goes for current players and potential players looking in. If current players decided to change an iconic story arc to "it was just some random serial killer, the end". You just drove away every player that might have heard of that story arc and gave the game a try while gaining nobody for the sake of being able to gossip.

An event that could have changed the way you see an entire race of players in-game could be turned into a collection of player's random fan-fiction getting distorted by the game of telephone. To me that just robs the recipient of that experience for no real reason other than just to be "realistic". It doesn't really add any meaningful event to the game but rather has opportunity to take it away. While players having control of the game-world adds meaning, this specific aspect of control largely detracts meaning by having the potential to erase these iconic stories or turn brilliantly written story arcs into crappy player fan-fiction making anyone looking into the game from the outside even more cautious of it.

Imagine if the LK was said to just be some crazy serial killer with daddy issues and his army were all just thieves and and other crazies. All of things that made the LK him were just made to be rumours and untrue. That just killed an iconic story for the sake of player gossip. To me being able to make gossip on the story doesn't outweigh the value that the actual story gives to the world. Especially in the above example. You ruin a story, your ruin a game. That rule has been made true over and over. The only time this is allows to happen when story doesn't inherently exist such as in minecraft.

I can see your Issue about wanting the whole story and background of the 10 year Story arc as we go. With a standard game that an accepted point that everyone has access to the same story and History. CoE is slightly different by design than most games have or will be.

Having far reaching information contacts becomes much more important to any group from a simple village to the entire Kingdom. The arrival of a Bard from far away could create a stir as they share their news with local authority and then in the Tavern that night. A well traveled Bard my have much to pass on and may require several nights to retell their adventures and stories. The local mayor then has much to place in dispatches and pass on to their Noble Leiges. The local Mayor will also have to plan for any short term that affects their township.

This is a different level of RP and game interaction than you see if everyone knows the details before, during or even after the event. Locally a hero is seen as playing a major role in the 'Dance of Destiny' by his Township, County or Duchy. Yet if the entire tale is known that Heroes efforts are seen as a trivial and almost valueless day dream.

History and more current news is filtered via the people exposed to it. Today's news is filtered and impart becomes a portion of a people's History. When history is written no one knows all the facts and details. It is not til much later that a concession of beliefs forms what becomes the 'Official' History of an Event.

The LK from WOW is an example. Yes, some few of the heroes involved in the final encounter would know the complete History of the LK. That would leave the very few who FIRST completed the Quest to know the entire tale. Well at least as much as they would know without being spoon fed the story Arc. This really would leave you in the same situation you speak of in CoE. The Difference is that in WOW and other games they spoon feed the story Arc to everyone directly.

I think the game and its players would be better served by a player generated News and History effort. It would afford players a chance to shine at their writing skills and storytelling. A wandering Bard who knows the latest details and the deepest History of the land could be a hero in their own right. What Kingdoms Library would be complete without the complete works of the Kingdoms Lore Masters. Such a book or collection of books becomes a Grand gift worthy of any Nobles collection.

I think I am confused. Wouldn't players telling the story trivialize the event? Think about it. If the largest group there basically get's to decide what happens (via telling the story) why does the actual event matter? Killing a death dragon could be turned into fighting a deity or covered up into a hunting trip or some other irrelevant event. This makes it so the events of the actual story arc are irrelevant because they will become what ever the players said they were. That's by definition trivial.

triv·i·al ˈtrivēəl/Submit adjective of little value or importance.

If your just allowed to make up what happened to the player base and npcs, what actually happened doesn't have value and is not important because it is unknown and lost to time.

I am also confused why you cited modern news and history because that is the primary reason support for the news has steadily been dropping over the years. People can't even trust the history they learn in school because a huge portion of it is just false. Iconic historical events taught in schools that every takes as fact is fiction. Why replicate the dark side of media that afflicts and torments society when we don't have to?

Posted By Snipehunter at 4:09 PM - Tue Oct 31 2017

Hmm, there is a palpable difference between "because I was there I get to write the account of what happened" and "Because I was there I decided the course of events," right?

........

........

........

Anyway, I'm rambling, but those are pretty much the thoughts behind why you find me in the "let the world unfold, even if no one is there to be watching" camp.

^^^ The dynamics Snipe lays out here is exactly one of the reasons I'm so enthralled with the Idea of COE.

basically, what I'm understanding the OP complaint to be is that, like in life, you may not get to be personally involved in every big event that happens?

kinda one of the main points of this game isn't it - the real world similarities?

Snipe's post just made my hype meter go up a couple more notches.

This is the kind of thought process that keeps me believing that CoE will be a true "virtual world", as opposed to simply being another GUI for loot pinatas...

While I agree Snipehunters post is quite enticing the entire scenario(s) rely on information propagating via the rumor or some other system.

Big bad dies and NPCs do not see it the world at large would never know. Animals and such would change behavior as he mentioned but would the killer ever gain fame for the kill? Or could someone else claim to have killed the beast and have people believe he was the big bad killer?

Rumor and “evidence” systems will have a major impact on not just the justice system but also fame.

In addition the stated goal at one time was for every NPC on a given server to eventually be a player character. At what point does meta gaming break the rumor or evidence game systems? Does the engine track what each character “sees”? Ie via vent I organize my entire city guard to gather and fight the big bad yet I say nothing via the in game chat system. Will the game assume everyone magicly decided to show up at a single cave at the same time or will it assume it was an organized raid even though the in game systems were not utilized?

The whole thing posed by snipe hunter sounds incredible I see many many ways the system can be worked around and or broken.

Honestly I think this thread should be moved out of early access and in to the general forum.

nothing in here NDA, and I believe alot of people's hype meters would jump a few notches at snipe's post.

Posted By MayorFreyrDonovan at 3:15 PM - Tue Oct 17 2017

I can see your Issue about wanting the whole story and background of the 10 year Story arc as we go. With a standard game that an accepted point that everyone has access to the same story and History. CoE is slightly different by design than most games have or will be.

Having far reaching information contacts becomes much more important to any group from a simple village to the entire Kingdom. The arrival of a Bard from far away could create a stir as they share their news with local authority and then in the Tavern that night. A well traveled Bard my have much to pass on and may require several nights to retell their adventures and stories. The local mayor then has much to place in dispatches and pass on to their Noble Leiges. The local Mayor will also have to plan for any short term that affects their township.

This is a different level of RP and game interaction than you see if everyone knows the details before, during or even after the event. Locally a hero is seen as playing a major role in the 'Dance of Destiny' by his Township, County or Duchy. Yet if the entire tale is known that Heroes efforts are seen as a trivial and almost valueless day dream.

History and more current news is filtered via the people exposed to it. Today's news is filtered and impart becomes a portion of a people's History. When history is written no one knows all the facts and details. It is not til much later that a concession of beliefs forms what becomes the 'Official' History of an Event.

The LK from WOW is an example. Yes, some few of the heroes involved in the final encounter would know the complete History of the LK. That would leave the very few who FIRST completed the Quest to know the entire tale. Well at least as much as they would know without being spoon fed the story Arc. This really would leave you in the same situation you speak of in CoE. The Difference is that in WOW and other games they spoon feed the story Arc to everyone directly.

I think the game and its players would be better served by a player generated News and History effort. It would afford players a chance to shine at their writing skills and storytelling. A wandering Bard who knows the latest details and the deepest History of the land could be a hero in their own right. What Kingdoms Library would be complete without the complete works of the Kingdoms Lore Masters. Such a book or collection of books becomes a Grand gift worthy of any Nobles collection.

Well put my friend...Well put and this is a great discussion on all of you. Leaving the players to tell the tale is different and genius on SBS part. It brings CoE alive in a way never before.

Posted By Snipehunter at 5:09 PM - Tue Oct 31 2017

Hmm, there is a palpable difference between "because I was there I get to write the account of what happened" and "Because I was there I decided the course of events," right?

I might, for example, fight and defeat some massive and looming creature, but keep it a secret so that I can cart of its horde of treasure before anyone else knows. Because I told no one, NPCs and others operate as if they don't the monster existed, or if they know it was there, don't know it has been killed and so don't act on the death. That doesn't actually change that the monster was killed, however. Anyone who wanders into its lair while I'm out organizing a treasure hauling caravan would luck into an unguarded horde despite my efforts to keep the secret.

If no one finds out, the world will go on as if the event never occurred, except that I'll have that treasure and the monster will no longer be a threat, so even in my best case the world still responds to what happened in the form of me having more resources and the ecosystem adjusting the monster's absence. These changes will be felt even if their source is not understood.

I didn't dictate history through my lie of omission, I simply obfuscated it.

The same scenario works if a great evil or threat rises where no one saw it, doesn't it? Say this monster is actually the nascent form or avatar of some dark power from another plane. No one knows it's there in its lair, growing more powerful by the day, and so life goes on. I show up and try to kill it, but it kills me, instead. Thinking I might return someday, I tell no one. But in the meantime, it grows to the point where it can properly house the true power of the extraplanar being it represents and stalks out from its lair to wreak havoc. Completely unaware of the threat, Elyria moves on, until it's too late and this thing is eating cities, or turning children into Kypiq, or whatever other dark schemes it might have in mind come to fruition. And maybe even then all we hear at first is rumors, rumors we might ignore as ridiculous tales until the beast is at our gates and it's our kids turning into squirrels.

I admit some bias here based on my own consideration of how world narrative should function, but I think that in terms of world legacy, imperfect knowledge among the world's denizens is actually pretty important, as it helps to influence the course of events that is the central narrative thread of history to evolve along believable lines.

I feel that, if we messaged major events to all players equally, you couldn't ever see a single hero rise up, for example - you would see the world organize outside of the game so that everyone could take organized action in-game to address the event, even though that's just not how events flow in real life.

Now, that doesn't mean that clues wouldn't be there to be seen and acted on - there's a difference between forcing awareness of an event on people and providing the cues needed for players to become aware on their own. Perhaps that monster's rise sparks ill omens across the world, for example, or perhaps the dangerous wildlife in the area starts to diminish and dwindle as the monster feeds, so that people can become aware that something is happening out there. Whatever the messaging method, hints do have to be there so people can realize a call to action has been raised and respond to it.

And, in the same vein, allowing you to visit those events after the fact doesn't exactly work, either - you might make choices differently than the choices that were made at the time if you played it yourself, which can't really propagate out to the rest of the game. That sounds pretty unsatisfying to me, but the idea of just "recording what happened" and letting you watch it like it's a TV show doesn't actually sound much better to me. Some "arcs," for lack of a better term, could take in-game years to unfold, leaving you with large swathes of "security cam footage" to review in order to find "the important bits," if that analogy makes sense.

Anyway, I'm rambling, but those are pretty much the thoughts behind why you find me in the "let the world unfold, even if no one is there to be watching" camp.

Snipe this is absolutely AMAZING my friend

" imperfect knowledge among the world's denizens is actually pretty important"

i find in this know everything/broadcast everything about everything (no matter how unimportant) world we live in right now, that this is something we have sadly lost in our real lives.

More isn't always better.

But I am old and cranky lol.

I’ve been thinking about this too, but in a larger sense than just major world events. One of the big points about this game seems to be immersion and storytelling. There are games out there where there are great stories out there, but you generally have to find out about then out of game on forums etc which I find frustrating. Relying on players to spread news has its challenges, may not be on at the same time etc. I would like to see something along the lines of a town crier or news picked up at taverns. News could be tiered depending on level. For example say you are in a remote town. Local news is solely based on interaction. News about the wider area such as county, duchy, kingdom and world could be picked up at the tavern, but may take some time to reach you and the level of information would be inverse to the size. You would get more information about stories and happenings at the county level than the kingdom level if you are far away.