Quote:- Storyline: Rheinland has launched an offensive against Kusari in Sigma-21 and Honshu.
- Storyline: Ageira had initiated construction of a jump gate to Sigma-21 in the Honshu system prior to Rheinland's offensive.
- Storyline: Bretonia's Battleship Gwent has been destroyed by the Hessian Battleship Kassel in Omega-3. However, the Kassel has been heavily damaged by the unexpected presence of the Norfolk's battlegroup, which had entered the system a few days prior.
- Storyline: Battleship Fes has arrived in Omega-47 while en route to Omega-49.
Changed: The first part of EFL's new trade lane in Frankfurt is now operational.
- Changed: EFL Trade lane foundations have been laid down in Sigma-15
The above are massive changes in the story and even amount to considerable political shifts. Yet none of them have been represented by events, roleplay or any kind of activity to signify that they actually took place. I may be wrong about one or two of them, but the point remains the same for the rest.
It's actually kind of funny to see some of the comms post-patch where characters and factions are frantically scrambling to catch up to these major changes, as if they happened over night. The tea-spitting reaction of the BAF admiralty must have been priceless. The lines between oorp and inrp get blurred, and the characters are just as surprised as we are.
Jokes aside, why push things so artificially? The Rheinland-Kusari war is dead, and yet again another major plot development has been written in whilst their military playerbases are largely uninterested and activity is stagnant; and that's a consequence of forcing plot advancements without involving the players in any level of the roleplay at all.
The Omega stuff recently, whilst it did stem from artificial RP initially, has/was taken over by the players and lead to lots of organic roleplay and activity. The best and most active points of Disco history have directly come from organic roleplay.
So it really sucks to see a ton of new plot points forced into an emerging player story with pre-determined outcomes. This is how you kill activity and interest. What if there was an official storyline event between BAF and the Hessians in Omega-3, with a player-determined outcome, that decided the fates of the Kessel and the Gwent? What if there was a lengthy chain of supply RP, to help arm the Norfolk battlegroup before it moved into Omega-3? What if the Coalition or Core had the chance to intercept the Fes and ground it in Omega-47? Imagine if we had activity creating events for all those updates in the story notes.
The list of potential examples goes on and on, and I just don't get why time and time again these opportunities to get the playerbase invested in the mod and story are seemingly deliberately missed in favour of forced storylines people aren't interested in. This won't raise the player count, only kill it.