How to fit the Archive Missions into one's RP storyline?

#36300013571 08/01/2006 17:56:10 How to fit the Archive Missions into one's RP storyline?

Okay... OOC, I'm beside myself with glee at the Archival missions: I think they're the best thing the devs have given us so far and they're a real help to me, since it's done a lot to really help me get up to speed with the storyline. It's one thing to read a fan-created timeline, it's another thing to run the missions that helped advance that storyline. But IC, how do I weave the Archivals into my storyline? I've been saying I've only been unplugged since November of last year, so it's a little wierd to be fitting the missions prior to my character's unplugging into her storyline. So far, my IC explanation is that I've been running "highly confidental" missions for my organization, but that seems a little lame.

Any thoughts?

#36300014498 08/02/2006 18:28:05 Re:How to fit the Archive Missions into one's RP storyline?

Let's say that whatever organisation you've been working for has recorded what happened during these missions for the sake of posterity. Their operatives, in order to gain an understanding of past events, are able to perform these missions in a simulation taking place in a privately run construct. It would be like doing the 'Jump Program' only more complex and based on real past events. Since the Archive missions are held in the Matrix rather than an actual construct I guess you'd have to close your eyes whenever you ran into someone else. But hey, at least you have something to tell people.

#36300015114 08/03/2006 12:25:37 Re:How to fit the Archive Missions into one's RP storyline?

Hee, I like that idea! And I suppose if I ever decide to run the Archivals for the other orgs (when the devs finally solve the problem with the rep point loss if you run missions for the other orgs: I don't wanna lose points with my boss...), I can say I hacked into their construct. I love that idea! Very Matrix-like!

#36300015619 08/04/2006 01:29:25 Re:How to fit the Archive Missions into one's RP storyline?

Glad to have helped.

#36300023555 08/13/2006 15:54:36 Re:How to fit the Archive Missions into one's RP storyline?

That's pretty much what popped into my head, too! (Great minds think alike?) SMILEY

#36300024090 08/14/2006 09:32:23 Re:How to fit the Archive Missions into one's RP storyline?

If someone activated an archive in a cinematic I imagine they would use the device like a stopwatch and when they press the button they are transported to the exact spot they were but in a construct where it is in black and white to show its old. So when they complete the mission they are transported to the spot where they finished it but they are back in the matrix then the digital display on the device changes from 1.1.1 to 1.1.2 and so on.

#36300028262 08/18/2006 03:35:14 Re:How to fit the Archive Missions into one's RP storyline?

Well, since the Matrix itself is nothing but a giant construct, it would stand to reason that "playback" would be a plausible thing to achieve.

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/..._id=36300000110

#36300030022 08/20/2006 17:12:06 Re:How to fit the Archive Missions into one's RP storyline?

very true as the machines are very methodical in their preservation of knowledge and information, which has worked against them too, and this could just be that the simulation, every hour,minute and secons is scanned,logged and then sent to an out of matrix construct for archiving purposes (the archives like yuki and 01 are an excelent example SMILEY

)

so all we are seeing is a version which all the orgs have access to possibly because the machines have become less zealous at keeping these things out of everones reach which caused the problems with the archivists (the machines apparently lost the keycodes to their own simulation)

#36300035848 08/29/2006 11:34:47 Re:How to fit the Archive Missions into one's RP storyline?

Constructs can be made by any coder, not just the Machines. For example, the training programs on hover crafts, etc...were programmed by humans as far as I know.

I consider the Archived missions like surveillance databases.

#36300039143 09/02/2006 05:31:43 Re:How to fit the Archive Missions into one's RP storyline?

I never have anything against artificial RP explanations for anything outside the game reality... but I think if you wanna be "serious" as RPer and really play your character's part instead of just expressing yourself via RP, you just need to drop the archive missions.

No matter what the details say about "educational purposes", this is just an archive of the past MxO storyline. It has nothing to do with the Machines or whoever having dropped their secrecy and actually giving out all information to all redpills. It has nothing to do with constructs.

There are some things you simply don't have to read to much into. It's just a mission archive.

#36300052053 09/18/2006 09:28:26 Re:How to fit the Archive Missions into one's RP storyline?

"Holographic Traning Missions"

Etc.

Really, working any missions into your RP is difficult. After all, Tyndall/Gray/Flood may have just asked -you- to go and kill xxx but a thousand other people also killed xxx. Best to leave it as sketchy as you can. RP with the storyline, but don't take your actions on missions to be significantly about your own character.

Merely;

Machine Operatives today tracked down xxx and eliminated him,

not

Zampano today tracked down xxx and eliminated him.

#36300053675 09/20/2006 07:40:54 Re:How to fit the Archive Missions into one's RP storyline?

Zampano1981 wrote:

Merely;
Machine Operatives today tracked down xxx and eliminated him,
not
Zampano today tracked down xxx and eliminated him.

But NPC redpills also have EJP, right?
So I could very well say that I've killed them, since thats the right way of saying it?
Like 2 RPers pvp/duel. One wins and says he killed the other while he has only made him EJP.

#36300053812 09/20/2006 11:20:31 Re:How to fit the Archive Missions into one's RP storyline?

Well doesn't that make "assassination" missions rather futile? I mean, if you're just EJPing them...you're achieving nothing. In fact, doesn't that make the whole system of combat obsolete...

Though I should have said, Critical missions should be viewed as I stated. (in my opinion) normal missions can be roleplayed in any way you want.

#36300055967 09/22/2006 21:43:17 Re:How to fit the Archive Missions into one's RP storyline?

Zampano1981 wrote:

Well doesn't that make "assassination" missions rather futile? I mean, if you're just EJPing them...you're achieving nothing. In fact, doesn't that make the whole system of combat obsolete...
Though I should have said, Critical missions should be viewed as I stated. (in my opinion) normal missions can be roleplayed in any way you want.

I think Rarebit once offered the explanation that EJP was such a relatively new technology that not all hovercrafts were equipped with it, and that the targets in assassination missions were among those unfortunate enough not to have that technology.

#36300058781 09/26/2006 09:29:32 Re:How to fit the Archive Missions into one's RP storyline?

Now that is convenient! *laughs* Anyone that we are ordered to kill doesn't have an EJP but those we want to kill...all of them do.

I love this game SMILEY

#36300060965 09/29/2006 09:08:58 Re:How to fit the Archive Missions into one's RP storyline?

Reeverb wrote:

Zampano1981 wrote:
Merely;
Machine Operatives today tracked down xxx and eliminated him,
not
Zampano today tracked down xxx and eliminated him.
But NPC redpills also have EJP, right?
So I could very well say that I've killed them, since thats the right way of saying it?
Like 2 RPers pvp/duel. One wins and says he killed the other while he has only made him EJP.

First, there are also Exile assassinations. Secondly, it doesn't only come down to assassinations, but generally to the entire mission scenario. Niobe won't die because you've talked to her, yet you can't claim you've talked to her because it happened in a misssion.

If you take missions for interactive event recordings/scenarios (in the style of the Holo Dec from Star Trek), there's no reason to take this explanation for current criticals aswell.

#36300254456 06/06/2007 14:53:06 Re:How to fit the Archive Missions into one's RP storyline?

I think this is one of the roughest things with MMO's in general--doing missions that should earn you a name and affect the world, but which don't.

I like the more general missions, where the names change every mission so you can say you assassinated the lupine named Antelope in a high rise office building in Westview and it's fine. You did it. Congrats.

It's somewhat different with some of the major missions. Remember the captain of the Prodito, anyone? I'll give you a hint. You knew the captain, and helped free him from the Matrix. Trouble is so did everyone. Weird? Likewise raise your hand if you were the one to rescue Sati. Yeah.

I would love these kinds of story based things to get resolved in live events, where everyone plays a part in the same scene rather than having a thousand different versions of it going on all over the place. For a game that thrives on its roleplay and story aspects it would be very nice to see that cleaned up a lot.

#36300254474 06/06/2007 15:27:04 Re:How to fit the Archive Missions into one's RP storyline?

Grimcleaver wrote:

I think this is one of the roughest things with MMO's in general--doing missions that should earn you a name and affect the world, but which don't.
I like the more general missions, where the names change every mission so you can say you assassinated the lupine named Antelope in a high rise office building in Westview and it's fine. You did it. Congrats.
It's somewhat different with some of the major missions. Remember the captain of the Prodito, anyone? I'll give you a hint. You knew the captain, and helped free him from the Matrix. Trouble is so did everyone. Weird? Likewise raise your hand if you were the one to rescue Sati. Yeah.
I would love these kinds of story based things to get resolved in live events, where everyone plays a part in the same scene rather than having a thousand different versions of it going on all over the place. For a game that thrives on its roleplay and story aspects it would be very nice to see that cleaned up a lot.

As much as I want this to happen, it's just impossible to carry out. Rarebit is spread out between helping develop the new content, writing all of the critical missions, not to mention that he only has enough time to do one event on one server on a daily basis. If we simply had more funding, all three servers would have had access to to the same Live Events instead of "event happens on X server", not to mention weekenders would have an actual opportunity to participate. Sadly, as it is right now, the Live Events are only flexible to the unemployed people in the U.S./Canada, and the night-owls in the Eastern Hemisphere.

#36300321796 09/13/2007 01:54:42 Re:How to fit the Archive Missions into one's RP storyline?

Grimcleaver wrote:

I think this is one of the roughest things with MMO's in general--doing missions that should earn you a name and affect the world, but which don't.
I like the more general missions, where the names change every mission so you can say you assassinated the lupine named Antelope in a high rise office building in Westview and it's fine. You did it. Congrats.
It's somewhat different with some of the major missions. Remember the captain of the Prodito, anyone? I'll give you a hint. You knew the captain, and helped free him from the Matrix. Trouble is so did everyone. Weird? Likewise raise your hand if you were the one to rescue Sati. Yeah.
I would love these kinds of story based things to get resolved in live events, where everyone plays a part in the same scene rather than having a thousand different versions of it going on all over the place. For a game that thrives on its roleplay and story aspects it would be very nice to see that cleaned up a lot.

I totally Agree. That came to my mind when I rescue Sati [I got Screenshots! I can prove it!] and the next day, I did it again in a party. The next day, I saw someone rescueing her. I didn't know what to think.

I'd like to suggest a record database of "who did the critical mission first". There would be no problem in "who truly did it?" and we all could do it as a critical mission as well, but without the credit.

And about the archive missions, I like to think that they are like history books [that's why you take them from a library SMILEY

]. But instead of read them, you live them, like play novels. So you can tell some history, like Morpheus death or the Anome issue. I wasn't there, but I read about it. That's why I didn't lose/earn rep points, because I just read the story.

#36300324319 09/17/2007 11:25:28 Re:How to fit the Archive Missions into one's RP storyline?

Canbus wrote:

Grimcleaver wrote:
I think this is one of the roughest things with MMO's in general--doing missions that should earn you a name and affect the world, but which don't.
I like the more general missions, where the names change every mission so you can say you assassinated the lupine named Antelope in a high rise office building in Westview and it's fine. You did it. Congrats.
It's somewhat different with some of the major missions. Remember the captain of the Prodito, anyone? I'll give you a hint. You knew the captain, and helped free him from the Matrix. Trouble is so did everyone. Weird? Likewise raise your hand if you were the one to rescue Sati. Yeah.
I would love these kinds of story based things to get resolved in live events, where everyone plays a part in the same scene rather than having a thousand different versions of it going on all over the place. For a game that thrives on its roleplay and story aspects it would be very nice to see that cleaned up a lot.

As much as I want this to happen, it's just impossible to carry out. Rarebit is spread out between helping develop the new content, writing all of the critical missions, not to mention that he only has enough time to do one event on one server on a daily basis. If we simply had more funding, all three servers would have had access to to the same Live Events instead of "event happens on X server", not to mention weekenders would have an actual opportunity to participate. Sadly, as it is right now, the Live Events are only flexible to the unemployed people in the U.S./Canada, and the night-owls in the Eastern Hemisphere.

Not true. Events tend to very much be luck of the draw. I'm far from unemployed but I live in Canada and find myself bumping into Events all the time. For example, last week I jacked in late in the evening with the expectation that I'd be the only one online and that I'd just be able to run the new critical mission without many interruptions- I was just too tired to be properly IC if anyone noticed me. But it turned out an Event was going down with Agent Gray and some Machine players chasing EPN across Chelsea, and me getting system messages from Flood demanding that I go check it out.

They're not flexible, no. But they're not supposed to be. It would have been awfully convenient if Morpheus and his crew, in the movies, were just sitting in their jack-in chairs waiting for something to happen. They were on a high state of alert, yes. But it's probably likely that they didn't catch every single Potential waiting to be unplugged or interfered with every nefarious scheme of The Merovingian. You catch some, you miss some. You were "doing maintenance on the Hovercraft" when the stuff was going down and missed the comms broadcasts. Or my personal favourite (because it's not always untrue of my RL self): "Attending to paperwork and requisitions".

As for the general topic: I sometimes substitute my own storyline into the Archive missions and explain what I'm doing in that context. Instead of escorting a Machine Program to safety, I'm picking up a recent Exile and taking him/her/it to a safehouse. I'm not meeting with an Agent to find out where the Commandos are, I'm meeting with the Agent to submit an "application for political asylum" on the behalf of my client- an Exiled Program. Et cetera.

#36300324480 09/17/2007 16:00:05 Re:How to fit the Archive Missions into one's RP storyline?

BienTan wrote:

They're not flexible, no. But they're not supposed to be. It would have been awfully convenient if Morpheus and his crew, in the movies, were just sitting in their jack-in chairs waiting for something to happen. They were on a high state of alert, yes. But it's probably likely that they didn't catch every single Potential waiting to be unplugged or interfered with every nefarious scheme of The Merovingian. You catch some, you miss some. You were "doing maintenance on the Hovercraft" when the stuff was going down and missed the comms broadcasts. Or my personal favourite (because it's not always untrue of my RL self): "Attending to paperwork and requisitions".
Yeah, when I was on the Rust-Bucket -- I *mean* the Draconigena, the "repairing the ship" excuse was easy to use for not being able to jack in for whatever reason. I used to come up with all kinds of fun reasons for why it took me a while on patch days, since I was on dial-up back then. "If someone would just get the lead out of the I/O device on my chair...", etc. One time, I said I'd tried to clean some rust on the deck, only to find that the rust *was* the deck. Someone who will remain nameless found that immensely funny: "Enjoyed your trip through the nether regions, Sieges?"
As for the general topic: I sometimes substitute my own storyline into the Archive missions and explain what I'm doing in that context. Instead of escorting a Machine Program to safety, I'm picking up a recent Exile and taking him/her/it to a safehouse. I'm not meeting with an Agent to find out where the Commandos are, I'm meeting with the Agent to submit an "application for political asylum" on the behalf of my client- an Exiled Program. Et cetera.

That's gotta be about the best idea for fitting the Archive Missions into one's RP that I've heard so far. I *did* come up with another one, this time for the alt I've created for Sieges's infamous alter-ego Morraeon, when we're finally seperated her from her host: Anubis and I used to joke about sending Morrae off to L'Ecole de la Tour to straighten her out, so I had the funny thought that the Merv archive missions could be an interesting "history lesson" for the feisty little Exile, and the Demon Army Coat could be her "diploma".

#36300324729 09/18/2007 00:40:43 Re:How to fit the Archive Missions into one's RP storyline?

The Archivist Guild in my opinion writes up the past from happenings within the Simulation, which I think makes them very powerful indeed, and very good Simulacra coders.

Another explanation could be the contruct one, yes.

#36300325578 09/19/2007 16:22:22 Re:How to fit the Archive Missions into one's RP storyline?

zeroone506 wrote:

I never have anything against artificial RP explanations for anything outside the game reality... but I think if you wanna be "serious" as RPer and really play your character's part instead of just expressing yourself via RP, you just need to drop the archive missions.

No matter what the details say about "educational purposes", this is just an archive of the past MxO storyline. It has nothing to do with the Machines or whoever having dropped their secrecy and actually giving out all information to all redpills. It has nothing to do with constructs.

There are some things you simply don't have to read to much into. It's just a mission archive.

Agreed. I know Exiles are dirty and Zion consists of spelunkers. That's all I need.