Lore and global story could depends on players' actions

[Okajin]

Hi fellows meta-humans!

 

I did some research with "lore" and "story" keywords and nothing relevant enough went out so I decided to create my own topic to discuss about an idea 🙂

 

I see the whole staff is making a huge work to make the game evolves as if it was a commercial quality one. My suggestion would add a big layer of work especially to the game/lore designers.

 

The Idea

 

I'd like to see the global lore/story of City of Heroes/Villains to progress depending on players' actions. It could take the form of a campaign (I think Games Workshop does the same thing with their tabletop campaigns) where the result would impact the story development.

 

I don't know if you have the tools to measure or the KPI/metrics already in place to track the results of these kind of feature.

 

The Example

To demonstrate my idea, I'm giving you a totally fictional scenario with a big impact on the whole game:

 

The 5th column strikes one more time:

• Players (Heroes, Villains, why not both) are alerted that the 5th column strikes back and want to setup a base in a zone of Paragon City and/or the Rogue isles
• They are assigned special missions/TF related to the event
• If they reach a threshold they're victorious and the 5th column must retire. Another win for Paragon City/The Rogues Isles to add to the in-game timeling (see the wiki)
• If they don't reach the threshold, the 5th column occupies the zone and there are consequences. For instance, NPCs can be captured, heroes/villains can be captured or killed and it will impact the timeline (see the link from the previous point).

 

The conclusion

New content can be generated on this base, the lore and the global story can evolve. The homecoming city of heroes will be more unique. Players will be more included in the future iteration of the story and it can give the team some paths to explore.

I know it's a big workload so it may never be implemented because of that but as a lore/story fan, I'd like to be involved in it and in the evolution of the game world by my actions.

[Vic Raiden]

Sounds interesting, but I'm not sure if it'd work out in this particular game. And to my recollection, GW wasn't above outright ignoring player achievements and forcing an outcome they were more in favor of.