Story time

Treyden

I know I'm not the only person out there that has thought about this. One thing I feel Imperian lacks right now is a story. Something to move us along our path and give us something to do aside from grinding out dailies, PKing at shardfalls and caravans, and the occasional fishing trip... and if you are lucky a chance to RP and develop your character with someone.

So my question to you all is thus, if you were the story teller of Imperian right now, what would you want to do to open up more chances for an actual story and RP events to take place?

I get that currently the community is really small, but that doesn't mean that we can't have some fun stories to enjoy while we play.

Lartus

I want to know how the world of Imperian began. I wonder if it were possible to allow for quests that gave characters the opportunity to see these heroes and villains of the past and even participate in the battles that led to the state the world is in.

Bronach

BACKSTORY FEEDBACK: I find the Imperian world history on the website well-written and compelling, top marks. When I read it, it makes me want to log on and play, screaming "come on Los Angeles, give me your SAGA". Scroll forward to IG, and information becomes confusing, inconsistent, and outdated (keyword 'surges'). Why should any nature-loving Druid be motivated to become Sect Champion, summon plagues, then defend them against other Champions of the same Circle? Do I really want the Rashimir weakened, or should I strengthen it? Oh yeah, orgcredits, achievements and free PK opportunities. But, someone shouting "neener-neener" will DEFINITELY not be tolerated.
IF I WAS A STORYTELLER: I'd like to revisit circle philosophies, differentiation in org concepts, and why anyone would care to side with one (beyond Facebook). This was my take-home from players during the open discussions with entities: that we "just are not doing that any more". We now have Magick A, Magic B, and Magick C (strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla 'sides'), and we all go after the same carrots. While circles may improve the efficiency of harvesting my daily carrots, they clearly generate less "value" than me staring at the minute-to-minute performance of my hedge funds. Sometimes I want to see unicorns and take a break from bean-counting. There is a strong historical bias that tells me that my profession SHOULD drive my RP. All right, fair enough I get it - I read about knights in a book somewhere and I like them. Grand, now I want to multiclass with my heap of credits. Where do evil Engineers fit in? Can I trust a Shaman to be good? Why do Hunter basilisks have to be "skinned" to their circle? I don't expect the Imperian coding team to provide me with this, mind you, but we could use better player involvement and Guild and Sect guidance on this front.
STORY IDEA: We do NOT have to tip the baby out with the bathwater, or reboot Imperian. Last year, some creepy tendrils got dropped into the forest where the Rashimir has been weakened, and that makes me go insane if I stand in the room. Let's finish that one off, please? It would be lovely if THIS time, those tendrils started spitting out rampaging Seraphs or Elemental Mudmen. Or maybe a Boss Plague, so I could self-righteously point fingers at purple-lettered Champions on QW for an IG reason this time. Or suffer the embarrassment and guilt of my own ill-considered decision under the influence of too much Elder wine. The cackling Demons are overworked, have put in WAY more than a 40-hour work week, and I assume they will soon be filing for workman's compensation any day now, so let's PLEASE give them a bye on the next event.

Eoghan

Circle relevance: This was intended as our next major story focus, but unfortunately the story lead that stepped up didn't finish the plans before stepping down again. Clearing up the circle ideologies and differentiating them is still top of mind for events.

Villains: We have a number of villains, but unfortunately not a lot of ways to tie them cleanly into the narrative. Better ways to involve the antagonists that we already have is also on the list of things to resolve; we don't want to introduce new ones but we do need to get more in on the action

Story in general: I hear you. I really do. The story / lore of Imperian is something near and dear to me, and I have in the past acted as the primary person advancing the story. At this point it's difficult to tell if @Jeremy Saunders has more lore in his head, or if I do. Unfortunately, we haven't had the resources to do much more than maintain the status quo for a while, but this seems to be changing some.

Tying up loose ends: There are a lot of these out there. The tendrils are the obvious one, but there are a number of things hiding around that were intended as story threads that we could pull, but have fallen by the wayside. I hope to pull on these and close things up as the stories progress

Size of story: One of the issues we've had in the past is the scale of the storytelling we do. Creating an event that involves the entire game takes a lot of work. Creating smaller scale events that run on shorter timeframes for sections of the population is usually easier, but doesn't get as much involvement from the overall playerbase. I'm not sure how we'll balance this going forward, but I want to try to land on both sides of the equation.

Treyden

@Eoghan here is a question for you, when are Entities actually going to matter instead of just existing and being all 'Hi, I'm important because I am.' because currently the whole idea behind them is kind of weak.

Glijije

Entities can't be given too much importance because the people playing them are volunteers who ultimately leave the game.

Svorai was a wonderful entity . She inspired a ton of story, assisted the player base repeatedly, and created new areas. 

She transitioned into a larger role (beyond that of just entity) and, eventually, quit.  I don't know the reasons she quit, but I do know the impact: it was bad, discouraging and it left a major hole in the game world. The story surrounding the entity's sacrifice was poorly written and I hated the event that came from it. The idea was that our characters were supposed to run around picking flowers to gather essence or something in the aftermath of Svorai's martyrdom.  Now, my character was and is in a nature council, so some might think 'why wouldn't she pick flowers?', but I assure any doubters that Glijije was not in a flower-picking mood. She didn't pick a single flower.

Anyways, the more powerful entities become the harder the hit when they leave. And that's what they do: they leave.

Treyden

My only -real- issue with entities is that... yeah they create a story for us players, which is fantastic... but it's only for small groups... I have never seen one (aside from Nimtel? whose name I can't spell right now) try. Admittedly, I'm not always active and able to witness such things. I would love to see something grand, something that -really- gets us involved with what is going on. I love RP, I love stories, I love combat, but honestly what it comes down to for me is quite simple. In a game like Imperian, Achaea, Aetolia, and Lusternia... you can't exactly just solely focus on just one aspect of the game. Without being able to enjoy all of it, it kind of turns me away from the game. I keep coming back to Imperian because the people here are great (aside from a select few who just annoy me by how they act in game and on forums).