Need More Backstory!

There have been complaints that characters use too many historical analogies from the 20th century on Earth.

Well, of course. And yes, that is unrealistic. But look at it from our point of view: On Rubi-Ka in the 293rd (did I get that right), there are about 300,000 years of human history. A player who is a hard-core history fan knows the first roughly seven thousand years of that, and nothing more recent than that.

So yeah, if we could have a rough outline of history from 2000 CE to 293000 CE, that'd make it easier for us to tell stories and argue events in character. If you haven't thought that far ahead, fine -- give us the following two things:

• The biggest event in recent history that everybody alive cares about, because they were a big deal for everyone and have ongoing effects. (In our time, that'd be, oh, World War II. In theres, maybe the Omega? I've seen that time referred to, but never explained.)
  
• An outline of the major, affects everybody events of the current characters' lifetimes, including whatever this generation uses for its "defining moment." (Like VE day for the WWII generation, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Kennedy assassination for the silent generation, Woodstock for the boomers, the Challenger explosion for Gen X, and so on.)

If nothing else, if you don't want us comparing our political opponents in-game to the Nazis -- and yes, by 293000 CE, that should sound silly -- then tell us what villains people in your game world DO accuse each other of being like, and what they did that was so awful.

I mean, we don't need to have an encyclopedic, battle-by-battle, election-by-election, invention-after-invention history of the whole 290k+ years. But it would help to have a common referent for how people in this future talk about historical events.

If you can spare 30 bucks, I think your best bet is to get the book they just released ("Prophet Without Honour" - you can order it from the official site somewhere). That is some good stuff in there and you will get back-story up the wazoo. The book covers all major (and I mean *MAJOR*) points in history of the "last" 29,000 years... Yes, it also explains the Omega - that's actually an integral part of the book.

Also, it's only 29,000 years in the future, not 290,000 :)

I may be missing some point here, but why do we have to pay to know the backstory? I realize that it is possible to play the game without, but I'm a roleplayer and this is a roleplaying game. How can I play without a backstory?

I've already paid more than $30 for the CD, and $13 a month isn't exactly cheap. I would think a monthly fee would cover such things as a backstory.

To compare, I've never played a game where you'd have to pay extra for the game-manual. (Which we btw never got in this game). :mad:

I've bought my share of great sci-fi books. They cost around $10-$15. For $30 this book better be d*** good.

As a roleplayer, I buy books for tabletop games to get the backstory. As a MUDer, I read text files for backstory.

I am not about to go spend 30 bucks on a book when it should be "published" in game.

Unless it is free, the majority of players will never bother reading it. If the majority of players never bother reading it, then there will never be an interest in roleplaying to the tune of it. And thus, the majority will never roleplay, and the minority that do mine as well be playing the smaller text based RP Muds, as they are more enriching.

Don't pay, you would be wasting your money.

well i tottaly agrea with that but im also really interested to know about schoolsystem and other mundane stuffs how the hell are you going to write a background if you dont know stuffs like that .

The "backstory" or book - is a telling of how we come to have the characters we do and how the situation in Rubi-Ka came to be.

For everything else, there is something that comes free - it's called imagination...

Well, my first point is regarding all those events listed above and such about the background of 29k years of history. I personally believe that they over-shot it with 29k years into the future. Not only would it make un-realistic any refferences to our modern world, but also the society would change completely. True, some stuff they've got is far into the future, but it's not enough. Look at the past 20 years of our history. Didn't our society and the way we live xhanged drastically? No sci-fi writer 20 years ago would predict such a drastic huge change with all the new inventions and all. But here we are talking about 27'000 years! So this I believe was a slight misstake, but oh well.

As to the book, I personally would love to read it and wouldn't even mind paying for it, but the problem is I simply don't have time. With table-yop Rping all you really have to do is read the players guide. Of course supplementary books provide more depth to the system, but they are not required. Also they are all categorized. If I want to read more about a specific area of the game world I simply buy that book. With D&D, for example (just because it is probablly most known and best-developped) I can buy a book on a particular land of the world, or some phenomena like psyonics. This wa I only read what I want to. D&D novels provide simply more more depth to the world and our understanding of it, as well as RPing ideas. Hopefully same we will here, cause if they decide to make this novel a major card in tha game, that would majorly suck, especially for people like me who simply have no time to read an entire nowel at this moment.

Just my 2 credits.

Isn't the Asimov universe some 25k into the future? Or at least the Foundation and Earth book is. And even that universe had it's share of rather backwardness in terms of technology on certain planets.

Sure, you had neruowhips and stuff, but hey, we have nanos in AO :). Just note, that the further we go into the far future, the more likely it is that whatever daily life we see doesn't have to follow the linear/exponential extrapolation of the past 20 years here on Earth. A lot of things can happen in those 25k years, some of which set back the pace of progress. Heck, remember the dark ages? Oh of course not, you weren't born then ;)


Tappert

The reason Technology is not more advanced 29k years from now is the loss of technology during the Long Winter. Then the Omega had no real competition to help the advance of technology. Until the Omega were gone, and competing corporations were formed technology stagnated.

Since 12300 AD technology has exploded, mater transmission, FTL starships, Terraforming, the full potential of Nano Technology and even resurrection have all become a reality. We have colonized the Galaxy.

I stand corrected. It makes a bit more sense now. And Azik (however you spell his name in English) was a great writter despite all his crazyness lol.

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Originally posted by bobthespoon
I may be missing some point here, but why do we have to pay to know the backstory? I realize that it is possible to play the game without, but I'm a roleplayer and this is a roleplaying game. How can I play without a backstory?

I've already paid more than $30 for the CD, and $13 a month isn't exactly cheap. I would think a monthly fee would cover such things as a backstory.

To compare, I've never played a game where you'd have to pay extra for the game-manual. (Which we btw never got in this game). :mad:

I've bought my share of great sci-fi books. They cost around $10-$15. For $30 this book better be d*** good.

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Well, the book is hardcover. That kinda explains it's price. Plus, throw in shipping, and that makes it 30 bucks. Hopefully, they'll make a paperback version soon..

Anyway, I kinda started this whole discussion and I just wanna point out that I DO agree with you guys even though I bought the book. I didn't really buy it to 'enhance' my AO experience (though, that was the end result). I basically bought it because I just wanted a book to read and I thought it would be a good read. I mean, hell, it spans 29,000 years. It's pretty hard to screw that up. And, yes, it WAS a good book. If you're an avid book reader and you like the game, you should pick it up.

The book doesn't contain much information at all that will help you out in-game, though, so it's not necessary to buy it at all. All it does is give you back-story info. The book is pretty character-driven and there's no way anyone living "today" on Rubi-Ka would know of most of the stuff that goes on. Sure, there are some large-scale events that you would know about, but those will probably referenced during the next four years. I hope. Hell, if you want to know the major events that are relevent, then just send me a PM and I can tell you :)

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I may be missing some point here, but why do we have to pay to know the backstory?

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Because last time I checked, novels cost money to buy. Call me crazy.

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To compare, I've never played a game where you'd have to pay extra for the game-manual. (Which we btw never got in this game).

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Actually, there was a manual. it was a crappy manual, but it was a manual. And you can download it too off the website, if yours was missing.

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I've bought my share of great sci-fi books. They cost around $10-$15. For $30 this book better be d*** good.

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No one is forcing you to buy it. If you don't want to, just wait for someone to tell you about it.

Was there explaination as to the backstory of Doom? Nooooo. Was the game still enjoyable? Yessss. Would I have bought a book about the backstory had there been one? Yessss.

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Unless it is free, the majority of players will never bother reading it.

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I've never liked being a conformist anyway :)

There is actually a kind of back story to doom now, some author put out a series of books....but anyways.

Anyone know if any major chains are carring it? Or is the funcom website the only way to get it?

I paid $45 for a hardback edition of Neuromancer, without ever knowing anything about it. It stands as one of my favorite books. I have enough faith in tornquest to buy a book.

As far as I've heard it's only available thru Funcom. It does ship fast though, guy in my guild ordered one day and got it FedEx the next day.