Affecting the Storyline? Truth or Fabrication?

4 posts · 2006-06-05 10:52:00 to 2006-06-08 12:50:00

#11500004581 06/05/2006 10:52 Affecting the Storyline? Truth or Fabrication?

I haven't pulled this rant out of the bag in a while so WHHHEEEEEEE!!!! Here we go.

We've all heard that we can affect the storyline.

Can we?

/shrug

No official mention is made on the website of the fact the Veil was arrested for example. At least not that I've seen. I know 2fist and I busted our butts to win the event for our server .. but ... nothing.

"Toorima escapes..."

Bah.

Appearantly NOTHING before august exists either according to the SOE MxO website ...

I don't care for that very much.

They deactivate the killcode without so much as a "how do you do?" with a one liner about how the assassin is dead and it's not needed anymore. This makes no sense. What did the Killcode have to do with the assassin? Hmm? It didn't even effect him on the rare occasion that I actually ran into him. Didn't affect players either. All it did was give a MINOR debuff to mobs and use the Blind graphic for coolness to my knowledge. Compare that to ... oh ... The Assassins Mask.... for example. Ah. But the Killcode was inconvient. Bunch of people cried because they didn't realize that the item that magically appeared in thier inventory is the killcode in disguise. :smileyindifferent: Maybe that's why? I really don't know. NO explaination has ever been given to me. I've asked a few times too. Perhaps they couldn't wrap thier heads around the Neurophyte question? I know one of my friends was so disappointed in the whole deal that he just .. deleted .. the now useless killcode.

/shrug

They ignore 2fist and everyone else that won the Double Cross event ...

Then quickly nullify that event too.

You would think Veil would recognise the people who helped put her behind bars wouldn't you?

Do you have any idea how disappointed we were when there was no call for retribution? Or even simple recognition for that matter?

Can we actually affect anything at all?

Is it just me?

Or does anyone else feel they are just along for the ride and nothing we do really matters anymore in terms of the story?

:smileywink:

((Bitter? Me? Maybe a little bit. But this isn't a flame directed at the devs or a whine about nothing. These are serious concerns I've had for a long time about "Storyline and Players". I'd mention more recent events but ... Death of the Destroyer was the last Storyline event we had... which was the first since Double Cross pt1 ... :smileyindifferent: ))

This Rebellion has been brought to you by "Caffeine" ... making humans jittery since one first tossed some coffee beans into boiling water.

#11500004623 06/07/2006 08:45 Re: Affecting the Storyline? Truth or Fabrication?

QforQ wrote:

If this game were making a decent amount of money you'd think we'd have a bigger dev team than we do. We'd even get box instores for the game, wouldn't ya think?

I have to disagree with you on this point QforQ. Corporate drones tend to obsessively focus on the bottom line. And having worked in these environments, I've seen a profitable product ruined by an attempt to raise margins by what amounted to a couple percent of gross. Even if this game were making good profits SOE may not make any additional investment in an attempt to maximize profit.

#11500004637 06/08/2006 03:58 Re: Affecting the Storyline? Truth or Fabrication?

Whatever's going to happen is going to happen. On Vector we were told we were going to delete the General, but we would never have succeeded because it would null the most awesomest cinematic of 5.1 where they show The General in awesome black and white with awesome storyboard detail in an awesome way.

"The End is Near, the Time is Now." | W4rbl4de | Reviled Restoration-CYPHERITES

#11500004648 06/08/2006 12:50 Re: Affecting the Storyline? Truth or Fabrication?

QforQ wrote:

2Fist wrote:

QforQ wrote:

If this game were making a decent amount of money you'd think we'd have a bigger dev team than we do. We'd even get box instores for the game, wouldn't ya think?

I have to disagree with you on this point QforQ. Corporate drones tend to obsessively focus on the bottom line. And having worked in these environments, I've seen a profitable product ruined by an attempt to raise margins by what amounted to a couple percent of gross. Even if this game were making good profits SOE may not make any additional investment in an attempt to maximize profit.

Good point, and it's unfortuanate if that's the truth for this game. I have hope that we can prove that MxO is well worth the expense and I think MxO might have suprised SOE with the success of the free trial.

Anyways, /backontopic. I dont wanna turn this thread into an SOE discussion persay

lol, And you make an excellent point that I should be posting on topic. I'll claim jet lag as a defense. :smileywink:

The initial marketing for this game, which led players to believe that they could have an impact on the storyline, was a large factor in my decision to purchase the game. Did I expect to be the "One". No, of course not. Neither did I expect players decisions to radically effect the storyline. The number of permutations after only a couple of story branches across multiple severs would become unmanageable. What I did expect was something like what was described for the cinematic that was to feature a player. A scripted series of events that would have a single outcome for a player and/or players that were either clever enough or good enough fighters to overcome an obstacle. The reward for completing this task would be as simple as a mention in the Sentinel, their names mentioned in a critical mission, or recognition from a LET character.

If I stop at this point someone will reply that what I'm describing is only an illusion of affecting the storyline. And they would be correct, it would only be an illusion. But with only a little suspension of disbelief you could feel like you were part of the story.

Am I disappointed with the way things worked out? Yes, but obviously not enough to stop playing the game. The main reasons I continue to play are the friends I've made in what has been a surprising mature community, devs that jackin (probably on their own time) to play LET characters and try to maintain the spirit of the game, and I want to see if Chadwick kills off the rest of Zion.

Just kidding about the last one. (Watch your back Ghost :smileywink: )

Message Edited by 2Fist on 06.08.2006 04:52 PM