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More global Timeline updates
More lore about what's happening in the rest of the world.

At first I thought this might be better in 'Theme', but I feel it's better suited here. Since this is something only Staff can really work on, if they have time and if they think this is a good idea, I would like the Timeline to have more updates on what is happening in the rest of the world, and not just Withmore City. It feels like everything was written when the game was launched, except the 20-ish years after that. The last 20-ish years therefore look incredibly focused on Withmore City. While the game world is just that one specific city state, I want to know what else is happening in the world, both for roleplaying purposes and roleplay opportunities. And also to better my knowledge of my characters.

If I create a character from one of the more powerful countries, I most likely don't know how anything works there, is there still war? Is the socio-economic structure the same? How are people feeling and living there? Et cetera. Most of the time, I have to make up a lot of vague details as to not ruin anyone else's view on how it could possibly look like over there, since many of these places haven't been 'updated' (so to speak) in quite a long while.

Does anyone know if staff have planned anything new related to the timeline's history in a global sense?

Like for instance, the Prussian Empire are technically allowed to keep warring now, their peace treaty ran out ages ago. Then there's the Chinese Empire, India and Asia in general, also the CNA, et cetera. The Middle East could be well on their way to rebuilding by now. Maybe it won't be habitable in a long while, but Japan managed to rebuild Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Even in the Fallout video games, the world is somewhat habitable after 200 years. It all depends on how much effort the governments and people are putting into making it livable. A good example on not caring to rebuild is Chernobyl. Hiroshima and Nagasaki rebuilt pretty fast, but they didn't even try with rebuilding Chernobyl.

Anyway, to conclude.. making the world feel more alive and the conflicts to continue gives you something more to take into your character if they're from very far away. Even if it's just related to the US states that are still part of the US. It also gives people more things to talk about, global issues, not just local ones.. sometimes it feels as if the whole world is focused on Withmore. What happened to global politics that used to be so popular? What happened to the rest of the world? It can't be peace and quiet everywhere, right?

CLARIFICATION: This is no way to criticize staff on their work, it could be that they're purposely ignoring the Timeline for reasons I don't know, or it could be that they have more important things to work on.

Why post this?

I just wanted to get the ball rolling on this topic, that is on my head a lot, and see what other people feel about this.

Because I feel this is very vital when building your character and their background, the culture and environment they've grown up in - maybe even their opinions or prejudices/paranoia about neighbour states and possible enemy nations, et cetera. Things that would affect their upbringing.

But also to understand the universe and how to roleplay it right. Heck, some players don't seem to know that cows (or many other animals) are extinct in many places of the world. I'm still not a hundred percent sure where that actually came from.

END

I think that's all I can think of on the subject right now. Whew, that's a lot.

Could also be sourced by players and approved by staff similar to an @history.
Yes, it could! And then maybe these entries would be voted for or against.
I think it would be interesting also for the IC news mega-Corp to have it’s reporters source world news around the globe in a similar fashion.

I wanna know how the corporate extractions and skirmishes are going on in the CNA and adjust allow the media to adjust my attitude accordingly.

I think if this ever falls in the hands of players, I wouldn't mind an IC incentive to motivate them to put the work and write stuff down. Not much different than the 'Archivist' position created by Slither but probably freelance and non-salaried.

A boss npc gives you the concept of the story and then you develop it and it gets reviewed.

I know that there are dedicated players, but if you give an incentive to those who usually aren't then you can increase the volume of your production, yara yara...I'll write 4 flash.

+1

That too. Then you can picture how it's reported in a differently biased way if your character heard the news in a different country, before coming to Withmore. Et cetera. It would give NLM reporters more work and interesting things to do, while providing in-game knowledge of the lore.

Sometimes I purposely avoid making characters from far away due to the fact so many things are unclear. Is Hong Kong still semi-independent, or integrated? Does this one specific city in the US still exist? Is Coca Cola still a brand? How is the allegience between Japan and China going, considering their long history of rivalry? Are there countries that still allow old noble families the symbolic title of nobility? (Example is the UK, where people can gain noblehood, be born in a noble family. Another case is Sweden, where noble families exist, but no new ones can be created as the king is not allowed to create them. A third example is Germany, where the recognition of noblemen was removed after WW2.)

Basically, a lot of cultural things you should know about if you're from a certain place in the world. General things. Sometimes peoples' backstories seem to contradict other players' backstories because there's not enough info on some countries or such.

I love this idea. While Withmore is truly a bubble (it's called the dome for a reason), I do think the world around the city continues to go on.

My sense of staff workload is already pretty heavy, though, so I agree with the ideas that this is something that can be written by players, with staff guidelines, and approved by staff.

Good call, Evie!

Thank you! Though honestly the thing with letting players take the workload off was Grizzly's ingenious idea. :)
I also had this thought just some minutes ago that it would be much easier to roleplay your characters if there were lore documents on the varying countries. Of course starting with the great powers of the world, basically the countries most people would choose to hail from. The ones with the most story from the Timeline. Summarizing their government state, their general law and society, etc.
I think it would be interesting also for the IC news mega-Corp to have it’s reporters source world news around the globe in a similar fashion.

I've been thinking about something like this actually so totally agree. Ie, news shows where the world news is created by players, ok'd by staff and then becomes cannon when broadcast.

It could be a good tool to heighten tension between corps and other factions, and trickle into the dome.

“Did you hear what happened in the Tokyo branch tower? A black ops team tried to kidnap the head researcher there. CorpSEC is still investigating “

“Probably those bastards at ‘Krupp!”

Love it.
I also really want these things to either sort of drip into lore documents or help files, something where you can read general info about the state of current-day countries. It makes it easier to roleplay your character, or build them to begin with and not contradict other peoples' views on what is what.
I love the idea of crowdsourcing outside dome history events.
+1
I know staff have said before that events that happen outside the dome are purposefully vague as to not have to contradict @histories -- the in-game history is reaching 20+ years old soon, which means characters created who are born after 2085 may have additional hurdles to contend with.

Also, events that happen inside the dome are better than ones outside it. Events outside the dome should be plot hooks that lead to the dome so players can get involved in it, not just flavor that younger characters are going to have to be responsible for learning and integrating into their own @history.

Beyond that, I love the idea. 😁

The feeling that the rest of the world is dead and quiet sometimes ruins these things for me, like background planning and such. It is the main reason I wish for more content. Honestly, I'm all for Grizzly's input on my idea. If players can add info that is then approved and/or voted on, I think that would be very effective. We already got a @vote system now that really puts these sort of ideas into play, I think it can help even with these sort of things.
The main takeaway I had from interacting often with new players/characters was 'don't ask about their backgrounds'. The amount of contradiction, ignorance and anachronism is, I suspect, far too high for anything like this to be viable. What happens when one player or players starts invalidating another persons history by dictating events?

That's just it. If staff allows one kind of history event, they won't allow one that contradicts it.
Then you just sort of need a database or something to store it all, or to read up on it for those who wish to really go in depth with their character concepts. Like me. :O
Hm. That's a really good point, 0x1mm, but I think, for the sake of thinking this through, there can be a work-around.

Currently, there exists a timeline that I am assuming players utilize when developing their backgrounds. If players submit new "outside of the dome" content, could this be incorporated in the current timeline, to reflect events over the past twenty years? If so, that would be relied upon just like the current timeline is.

Note: I recognize there's a lot of logistics in what I just said, but I'm talking about this broadly, not into the small details that would be required to pull it off just yet.

I do agree, too, that the most interesting content needs to happen within the dome, but I agree with Evie in that the world outside seems silent at times. I think, especially from a corporate perspective, that major corpie players (C-Suite, specifically) would have interest in areas outside of the dome, even if all the action truly happens within it. To Grizzly's example, the "Tokyo" office is slacking and Withmore executives are not having it.

Perhaps staff could create 'events' with basic facts prescribed as cannon, and then only people with the right connections/stats/other hardcode gateways could access those event updates and then report on them to the IC world. Then once the event has passed by a while the staff select one of the reports they particularly like and add it to the timeline of cannoninity.
I can say from experience there are player histories that are wildly contradictory, with each other, with modern society and culture, and with plausible near-future depictions of the same. The bar right now is basically, 'does not outright re-write the official timeline' but there is huge latitude given to players to make whatever they like as long as it doesn't break the history rules.

I mean, if people want to flesh out the timeline by all means, but I don't think you're going to get anything like consensus about anything where more than one person is involved.

If something that in-depth is difficult to do, then all I want is more information about large scale events like the wars. Why didn't Prussia start warring again now that they're allowed to without interception from the UN? What's China been doing recently? Et cetera. Things should be happening, especially with the larger countries and corporations.
From my understanding, I don't think this suggestion is about consistency between player histories as it is further development of the lore of the game, which directly reflects the timeline. This is more for RP development than it is for character generation, though that plays a role in this.

Player histories will never, and probably should never, be that consistent. It's impossible. The idea is if staff approves some outside lore written by a player, no consensus is actually needed. It's allowing players to become archivists on staff behalf, in essence.

@DoveCage +1

Exactly! What I originally meant was to fill out the lore and make the world come alive, and in turn as a bonus, would help people build their characters who aren't locally from Withmore or close-by areas, like uneventful places like the Badlands (by uneventful I mean, not very political/warring news-wise).

I think sometimes people make their characters be from places like the Badlands to simplify their backgrounds. I understand this, and can relate. It is really difficult to build a character when you hardly know anything that's been happening in their homecountry for the past 20-50 years (depending on when they last posted something about that country in the Timeline).