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Hello! I'm putting this post together to let the community know what the current plans are for the story and infocard teams, and what this will look like in the coming weeks.
I've regrettably been asked to fill in as story lead for the time being. My first directive has been to stop work on story development. I am kidding, but it is true that we are going to be deprioritising work on big, new plot arcs for the time being.
Instead, I have asked the story devs and infocard contributors to focus on what we are calling the Regional Review Project. This will aim to systemically review every infocard in the game, with a view to making sure everything reflects the current status quo for 5.0.
This means updating retconned or inconsistent material, refreshing infocards that have been long neglected, and rewriting low quality infocards that no longer meet our style guide and submission standards.
This may also involve segregating out information from existing cards, and instead introducing 'historic' news articles about relevant events instead. This should hopefully provide players with a better way to access details about the mod's history and plot simply by playing the game, rather than relying on word of mouth or Wiki articles of dubious accuracy.
The main objective here is to ensure that the mod is polished and presentable - currently the tangled web of outdated or missing information can make it very difficult for new or returning players to immerse themselves in Discovery's setting and lore. This also means we'll be building a rock-solid foundation for future developers to work off.
This is going to be a big job. The current plan is to focus on a particular region, complete it, and then push those changes out in the next hotfix. This means the project should start to bear fruit fairly quickly.
We're going to be starting with Rheinland, as one of the longest neglected and most inconsistently updated Houses. From there, we will cover the other Houses, then moving through different regions as defined in the server rules. You will be able to track our progress through the published tracking documents that will be listed in this thread.
Now, we will still be hosting official server events to keep the server feeling fresh, and minor plot updates will be implemented via ongoing hotpatches, alongside forum CNS posts. This means we won't be pushing forward with big narrative arcs as quickly as we would like, but I hope you can all understand why this work is necessary.
If you have any questions, by all means feel free to ask them here.
Many bases for Bundschuh and in Thuringia have shared bars and broken to no rumors. Is it possible to have those open towards expanding lore via new rumors and local news?
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I believe @Wildkins has been working on undoing a lot of the accrued damage that's been inflicted on mBases.ini over the years. I imagine issues around duplicate bars may be resolved through that, although I would encourage you to file a bug report to make sure nothing is missed.
Updating or adding rumours is a little beyond the scope of what we're intending to do here though. That'd be an entire project in its own right. That said, I'm open to submissions once the Review itself is complete.
Will there be any posts summarizing canon main events for each House starting from vanilla? For better awareness of beginners and to avoid unintentional use of deleted assets by veterans.
(01-01-2024, 12:15 PM)Ravenna Nagash Wrote: In a live role playing environment, you are not owed or mandated to be given a duel. Fights develop differently every time and people have varying degree of time to log on their hands or have their own plans.
(10-24-2023, 01:05 AM)JadeTornado Wrote: Will there be any posts summarizing canon main events for each House starting from vanilla? For better awareness of beginners and to avoid unintentional use of deleted assets by veterans.
I fully agree with this as a player that returned three months ago most of my current lore knowledge comes from talking with players that have been active in the community who's help I am thankful for. I am sure that a summary of the lore would allow new players or returning vets to know what happened and where the houses stand.
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That is another really big job, but it's certainly something I can take a swing at while we're updating everything. I can't promise comprehensive results initially, but it's definitely something I'll work on.
This sounds like a herculean task and therefore raises the question if player contribution matching the criteria will be accepted, or if staff intend to shoulder it single-handely?
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(10-24-2023, 01:29 AM)Yazov Wrote: This sounds like a herculean task and therefore raises the question if player contribution matching the criteria will be accepted, or if staff intend to shoulder it single-handely?
Infocard contributors are more than welcome, and I'll be coordinating efforts through the community Discord server. Regional experts who have a solid understanding of their area's history and relevant official events will be incredibly useful.
That said, previous Discovery Writing Groups were derailed by unproductive arguments, so I'm not going to hesitate to remove folks that aren't actually actively contributing or are otherwise being disruptive.
We want to wrap this process up as quickly as possible so full attention can be turned back to moving the broader plot forward. I'll primarily be acting as an editor for all submissions, and providing guidance and instruction where current infocards don't work or need heavy revision.
Great, thank you for the insight. I think I might have sufficient knowledge of recent Rheinland history and would definitely be interested to at least look into the inconsistent Thuringia infocards at the very least. Will likely require further guidelines as there seems to be a trend of culling Federalist mentions starting with some IDs (refer to Hotfix 5), which might raise an eyebrow or two (even though I personally wish civil war never happened as it did nothing good for the House).
Makes me wonder if it's going to persist further or it's just removing clearly rudimentary text long outdated.