Time-Line !

[___________Stercoral]

I'm very pleased to see that time line on the official site.
I like to have that kind of informations. It adds depht to the world (and will probably, as it did for me, make you think and ask yourself new questions about the story of Rubi-Ka).

Take a look at it.

[_________CaptFallout]

I looked at it and all I saw were useless bits of information that really didn't do much but make me laugh at how horrible FC is at making a list of things according to priority.

Damn, now that I know when the first Atrox was born the game will be fun! Hurray!

Seriously... this is wasted resources. We pay to play a game, not read a shallow list of things we can't confirm or deny... BECAUSE IT ISNT IN GAME!

[______________Xombie]

It's a piece of ****. It has absolutely no new or relevant information whatsoever. It doesn't even explain anything. Hell, it doesn't say anything.
"Atroxes are created"
"Omni-Tek has some trivial lawsuit that will never come up again"

The timeline is a joke.

[___________Shadowolf]

Some people just never get the part RP in the word MMORPG. Go play Diablo or something, gee.

yeah, I liked th etimeline, adds more dephs to the Role-Plyaing element of this game.

[Slingback]

Back story, people, back story. Damnit!

Have you ever heard of the word "context"? Among other things it means "the situation in which an action takes place"

Without context all you are doing is running around killing stuff and taking stuff. Hey, wait... that IS all that you are doing anyway...

[_________CaptFallout]

Hey, backstory was a nice thing to have when RP was still popular.

Now all the people who wanted to RP saw the "light". FC ignores them, backstory or not.

So you all can go repeat the RP stuff (trust me... anything worthwhile has been done... and met with a nice cement wall known as "Funcom's Player Event Dept.") and then tell us we are the losers for badmouthing this stuff.


Too little, too late.

I mean seriously, FC coulda emailed me 3 months ago and I woulda had this thing done within a few hours.

Of course... In FC land nothing can take less than 4 weeks to be 110% ready.

That's 110% metric though... over in the states we call that 40%.

[___________Stercoral]

Exactly ! You guys (here Xombie and CaptFallout) represent, for me, in the way you presented your opinion above, the community of AO players that doesn't care about roleplaying or universe or details of story... You can go, as Shadowolf said, play a Diablo or Quake or even a single player game, alone without internet connection. Will you notice the difference ? Do you want other things than stats, weapons, new monsters, graphics, ... ? Is it realy a RP game ? Do you want to play a RP game ? Or only an action-collection of objects-my character has more power than yours game ?

Do you imagine that doing that job (the one dev. that work on the time-line) will take so much time that it will slow down the fixing-patching system ? I will not be surprised if the man working on the time-line (or team working on events and story) has nothing to do with the programmers worying on fixing bugs and adding new thing to the game.

This time line is a little thing, but enjoyable for people looking for background, history.

If you do not like that, ok, but never say, because it's WRONG, that doing a time-line is waste of time.

[___________Stercoral]

Captain, if you are a veteran in playing AO, please understand that new players (as I am) are not subject to your kind of "depression". I started with the begining of the story (end 2001). If you play since beta, I understand your point of view, but it's a little bit extreme.
Do you still play AO ? Why ? What's the light your talking about ?

[___________Chagidiel]

Yes, the timeline is good...though, as fallout said: Too little to late...

I (and other hardcore roleplayers) has been around for quite some time now, and I for one is dissapointed about the lack of intrest shown for us RP:ers...

Sure, EQ had even less, but then again, EQ never promised to be carrieng about us RP:ers, while FC promised to do so, alas, that has not been the case so far...

What should have been done, and still can be done is to provide us with this kinda RP thingys IN game. We have already seen that FC is great at providing us with background material off game, but that wont do it! There has to be things effecting us IN games as well!!!

The story is the only thing that gives AO the possibility to be better then other games (specially since the acctually game it self, kinda grow tideous after a while) so its a damn petty the story isnt to be noticed in the game, only at this website...

This is why fallout, and others with him trys to get through here at the boards...

Nevertheless, admittely, Fallout can be less then constructive from time to time, but thats what frystration will do to you, and AO certainlky offers frustration in abundance.

And Fallout: About the metric system... Do I trace some jealousy towards us "ol' country inhabitors" for our perfectly logical metric system

[______________Xombie]

So, the only way you can defend the shortness and uselessness of the half-assed timeline is by accusing me of not liking to roleplay?
Please enlighten me, Mr. L33tz0r R0l3pl4yz0r....
What the **** in the damn timeline contributes to roleplaying?

I could just tell you that I roleplay too, but I doubt that you'd want to believe that.

THIS is a timeline. What Funcom is trying to toss at us, is not. The AO timeline on the site doesn't even include events from the book, events from the OLD SITE. In fact, it includes nothing that we could possibly roleplay, since it only goes up to before the clans were even fathomed.

And I'll repeat also: Too little, too late.

[___________Stercoral]

The time line you show is more refined. I'm sure Funcom will add more stuff. It's like the beginning, don't you think ?

You're maybe too in a hury. They have 4 years (and more). I agree that this time-line should have been showed us earlier, but I think we do not have to forget that we are in the beginning of the life of AO.

(If you already have played a lot, you have "finished" the game, and maybe you were here far too early, or maybe Funcom is far too late. I don't care, I have fun, that's what is important. And I have hope that things will improve. I do not seek a realy good quality role playing game on a computer. But, I want just a minimum of RP, to have fun (it's the way I am). The rest is technic, and I think AO is quite good for that.)

[RandaZ]

I believe that the timeline is a definite step in the right direction, despite what some people may try to make you think.

Sure, Funcom's content creation is somewhat uneven at times... and while the timeline doesn't give me any direct control over the world of Rubi-Ka (it doesn't give me the ability to blow up apartment buildings on a whim, start and end wars when I say so, or let me have my wonderful shiney bald head displayed everyday on the front page of the Rubika Times), the timeline is something everyone should be happy about. Of course, it would be even better if Funcom doesn't rest on its laurels, and actually come out with the future installments on a prompt basis.

But you might be asking yourself what a timeline adds to my roleplaying. Well, there are two basic types of roleplayers. Some people prefer to concentrate on their character, adding dimensionality to them. Then we have those that prefer to forgo the minuete of deep character interaction and look at the broad strokes of action, much like the classical epics.

In the first group, the history obviously helps flesh out the characters, by providing them a sense of being.

For the later group, it's not so apparent. But ask yourself why you chose Anarchy Online over other MMORPGs? Why didn't you join WWII Online where your daily actions supposedly affects the outcome of the war? I can only assume that it was because of... the story. The story, which cannot exist in a vacuum. A story, based on tension... a conflict... a history.

To some, the history is relatively apparent. The timeline adds nothing much new. We know the ICC. We know Omni-1. We know Omni-2. We know the Players (the other hypercorps - those more astute will realize why this one is important to the story). But that's because some of us have been here for a very long time. Time, that not everyone has had the luxary of sharing.


Now, going back to the two different types of roleplaying: Which is THE way to roleplay? I cannot tell you that. Nor can anyone else for that matter. The best way depends on the person.

To those who insist that *only* the "hear and now" is important, and that confirmed historical knowledge serves no useful purpose, I leave you with one quote:

"Eurasia is at war with Oceana. Eurasia has always been at war with Oceana" - "1984" Orwell.


Tappert Solminski

[Jhoanna]

Originally posted by Shadowolf
Some people just never get the part RP in the word MMORPG. Go play Diablo or something, gee.

yeah, I liked th etimeline, adds more dephs to the Role-Plyaing element of this game.

/OOC

Oh my god!!!

He is right!!!

Ack!!!

All you who not roleplay, Git the hell outta here!

[______________Xombie]

I don't think you're getting what I said, Tappert. I'm talking ABOUT the type of roleplaying that has a history. But the timeline they wrote is completely trivial. It doesn't flow, nothing has to do with each other, it doesn't help character roleplaying. I don't see anything that anyone could use in a serious character.

And I'll admit that I did choose AO for the story. And I'm quitting because the story isn't there.

But i'd like to thank you on being the first person to disagree with the points presented, without resorting to wannabe elitism or childish accusations. I commend you.

[___________Shadowolf]

Originally posted by Darksnake


/OOC

Oh my god!!!

He is right!!!

Ack!!!

All you who not roleplay, Git the hell outta here!

Now, Oshovah, I did not mean that those who do not RP should get out, even though that would be nice. Instead what I said was that if they don't RP to stop complaining about those who do. True, that timeline has no relevense to the game, but it adds more dephs to the story. For example, did you notice that part where ICC was not able to collect any data so it used the one provided by Omni-Tek and didn't find anything, but right after OT got this planet suddenly notum was discovered? If notum was trully discovered only than, why would OT want to lease a planet that was far away, pure desert, no resources, etc.? See, it all adds to the dephs of the story and environment. I bet there are papers somewhere right now stating that OT disscovered notum before lease was signed and that data given to ICC was falsefied. I wander how much would Sol Industries pay for that proof .

[___________Stercoral]

There is an addition to the time-line.
And I still like it (in the whole).

[CompanyMan]

Funcom, please make it so we can access the timeline without starting at the beginning every time. This is especially important if you are going to release it in several installments. Reading a timeline should be proportional to the length of the timeline [O(n)], not proportional to the square of the length of the timeline [O(n^2)].

Thanks

[___________Shadowolf]

Originally posted by CompanyMan
Funcom, please make it so we can access the timeline without starting at the beginning every time. This is especially important if you are going to release it in several installments. Reading a timeline should be proportional to the length of the timeline [O(n)], not proportional to the square of the length of the timeline [O(n^2)].

Thanks

Haha! Hellow, fellow programmer .

[CompanyMan]

Hello fellow programmer. Do you suppose they know what Big-O Notation is at Funcom?

[Brad, STL/MO]

OK, was there anything in any of the documentation that suggested to you, until now, that the Opifexes and the Nanomages were invented after the Atrox?

It makes no sense to me, no sense at all. The impression I'd gotten was that the Opifexes had been around forever, thousands of years, possibly even going back farther than artificial gravity. Because honestly, the Opifex "form factor" seems to me to only make sense in low-to-no gravity orbital habitats, asteroid mines, or long-distance starships. For the life of me, I can't imagine why Omni-Tek would have created them here. In fact, I can't make any sense out of why Omni-Tek would have created them at all.

Also, somehow I'd gotten the impression that the Atrox were created sterile because they'd learned from the Opifex and the Nanomages that they didn't want to create yet another self-perpetuating species to compete with Homo Solitus.

Not that I expect to get an answer to this question, but ... Ragnar? What the heck is the thinking behind this?