The problem with making a mod set in a world with a chronicled history...
Assuming the MEMod was to be as open-ended as Morrowind, what would happen if you just continued your existence in the game? Eventually you would've arrived at the year where things such as The Shire being formed should have been happening, but obviously unless you programmed such things to occur it wouldn't happen. So yeah, if I had chosen not to follow the main storyline of the mod, or if I had completed the main quest, what would have happened? Would your character only have so long before succumbing to old age, or would you just carry on living throughout the ages?
Full Version: Timeline issue
Well, if anyone'd lived through the (approximately) 380,000 days from the start of the setting of the MEMod untill the opening stages of The Lord of the Rings...
I'd have personally travelled to wherever they were in the world, and shook their hand for the determination they would've had to have played that long.
but, in the course of the 30 or so years that MeMod was to cover, events were to happen, and proabably a few would've been scripted to take place afterward.... however, I really don't think any of us took into assumption the chance some people might actually play the game for decades after....
Suzerain
I'd have personally travelled to wherever they were in the world, and shook their hand for the determination they would've had to have played that long.
but, in the course of the 30 or so years that MeMod was to cover, events were to happen, and proabably a few would've been scripted to take place afterward.... however, I really don't think any of us took into assumption the chance some people might actually play the game for decades after....
Suzerain
Hahaha fair enough. But my point is stuff would've happened in those 380,000 days between your mod and the early events of LOTR. Take my example of The Shire. I guess you have explained that you'd just live through and the game would actually become uncanonical (is that a word)?
bloody hell! 
We had half a century of deveolopment and alteration of the entire game world penned and designed.... is'nt that enough for any sane player?
There has to be a limit to the chronological development of any dynamic gameworld simply because, quite simply (a.) 50 years is more than enough for most people to play one character... and (b.) if we kept on the evolution as per the history books, then memod would have never been completed - we would've had to be implementing scripts and storlyins for every single element of Tolkien's history from the founding of Erebor through to the finding of the one Ring. 50 years of dynamic alteration and development alone is an exponential step upward from any gameplay elements present in any persistent computer-based RPG that I'm aware of having ever been produced, or even designed. possibly Blue Box's Project Ego, prior to it's emasculation into Fable comes close in that respect, but otherwise, nothing like the half century timescale of the MeMod has or had ever been attempted before. In my design notes I decided on a cessation date of 2020 TA, this being 50 years after the opening of the game in 1970TA, as the forces of Angmar are overwhelming Arnor. with a central storyline that spanned a full 30 years of this time period, this gave us about a decade for evolution and development either side of the critical phase of the storyline. That in itself is more than most RPGs ever dream of containing.
In conclusion, of course if the player played through those 380,000 days from the end of the MeMod's Scion quest, through to the LOTR's start, then of course such an event would be uncanonical. during that time the player could probably kill off 99% of the population, hoard the entire wealth of the races of middle-earth, and a thousant other things. However, such is the downside of a longterm gameplay system. In future projects, we can design the gameplay elements to include the mortality of the lead protagonist, a design option which through the limitations of the engine we unavailable to us.
did we ever imagine that any player would play memod for more than 50-60 years with a single character? no. given my MW character is approaching his 2nd birthday after a good few hundred hours of gaming, I suspect that the 50th birthday of any player character, even at the most intensive, would be reached after something approaching 100 days of nonstop play... or something like 2 years of playing for an average of 4 hours every day. We did not design memod to be capable of coping with more than that sort of intensity of gameplay, because to do so would have prevented us ever completing it.
suz
We had half a century of deveolopment and alteration of the entire game world penned and designed.... is'nt that enough for any sane player?
There has to be a limit to the chronological development of any dynamic gameworld simply because, quite simply (a.) 50 years is more than enough for most people to play one character... and (b.) if we kept on the evolution as per the history books, then memod would have never been completed - we would've had to be implementing scripts and storlyins for every single element of Tolkien's history from the founding of Erebor through to the finding of the one Ring. 50 years of dynamic alteration and development alone is an exponential step upward from any gameplay elements present in any persistent computer-based RPG that I'm aware of having ever been produced, or even designed. possibly Blue Box's Project Ego, prior to it's emasculation into Fable comes close in that respect, but otherwise, nothing like the half century timescale of the MeMod has or had ever been attempted before. In my design notes I decided on a cessation date of 2020 TA, this being 50 years after the opening of the game in 1970TA, as the forces of Angmar are overwhelming Arnor. with a central storyline that spanned a full 30 years of this time period, this gave us about a decade for evolution and development either side of the critical phase of the storyline. That in itself is more than most RPGs ever dream of containing.
In conclusion, of course if the player played through those 380,000 days from the end of the MeMod's Scion quest, through to the LOTR's start, then of course such an event would be uncanonical. during that time the player could probably kill off 99% of the population, hoard the entire wealth of the races of middle-earth, and a thousant other things. However, such is the downside of a longterm gameplay system. In future projects, we can design the gameplay elements to include the mortality of the lead protagonist, a design option which through the limitations of the engine we unavailable to us.
did we ever imagine that any player would play memod for more than 50-60 years with a single character? no. given my MW character is approaching his 2nd birthday after a good few hundred hours of gaming, I suspect that the 50th birthday of any player character, even at the most intensive, would be reached after something approaching 100 days of nonstop play... or something like 2 years of playing for an average of 4 hours every day. We did not design memod to be capable of coping with more than that sort of intensity of gameplay, because to do so would have prevented us ever completing it.
suz
So wait, you're saying that the whole of MEMod would've taken 50 in-game years, right? So, what was the time scale? [Sort of hours/year.]
QUOTE(suzerain @ Nov 29 2004, 12:44 AM)
bloody hell!
We had half a century of deveolopment and alteration of the entire game world penned and designed.... is'nt that enough for any sane player?
There has to be a limit to the chronological development of any dynamic gameworld simply because, quite simply (a.) 50 years is more than enough for most people to play one character... and (b.) if we kept on the evolution as per the history books, then memod would have never been completed - we would've had to be implementing scripts and storlyins for every single element of Tolkien's history from the founding of Erebor through to the finding of the one Ring. 50 years of dynamic alteration and development alone is an exponential step upward from any gameplay elements present in any persistent computer-based RPG that I'm aware of having ever been produced, or even designed. possibly Blue Box's Project Ego, prior to it's emasculation into Fable comes close in that respect, but otherwise, nothing like the half century timescale of the MeMod has or had ever been attempted before. In my design notes I decided on a cessation date of 2020 TA, this being 50 years after the opening of the game in 1970TA, as the forces of Angmar are overwhelming Arnor. with a central storyline that spanned a full 30 years of this time period, this gave us about a decade for evolution and development either side of the critical phase of the storyline. That in itself is more than most RPGs ever dream of containing.
In conclusion, of course if the player played through those 380,000 days from the end of the MeMod's Scion quest, through to the LOTR's start, then of course such an event would be uncanonical. during that time the player could probably kill off 99% of the population, hoard the entire wealth of the races of middle-earth, and a thousant other things. However, such is the downside of a longterm gameplay system. In future projects, we can design the gameplay elements to include the mortality of the lead protagonist, a design option which through the limitations of the engine we unavailable to us.
did we ever imagine that any player would play memod for more than 50-60 years with a single character? no. given my MW character is approaching his 2nd birthday after a good few hundred hours of gaming, I suspect that the 50th birthday of any player character, even at the most intensive, would be reached after something approaching 100 days of nonstop play... or something like 2 years of playing for an average of 4 hours every day. We did not design memod to be capable of coping with more than that sort of intensity of gameplay, because to do so would have prevented us ever completing it.
suz
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We had half a century of deveolopment and alteration of the entire game world penned and designed.... is'nt that enough for any sane player?
There has to be a limit to the chronological development of any dynamic gameworld simply because, quite simply (a.) 50 years is more than enough for most people to play one character... and (b.) if we kept on the evolution as per the history books, then memod would have never been completed - we would've had to be implementing scripts and storlyins for every single element of Tolkien's history from the founding of Erebor through to the finding of the one Ring. 50 years of dynamic alteration and development alone is an exponential step upward from any gameplay elements present in any persistent computer-based RPG that I'm aware of having ever been produced, or even designed. possibly Blue Box's Project Ego, prior to it's emasculation into Fable comes close in that respect, but otherwise, nothing like the half century timescale of the MeMod has or had ever been attempted before. In my design notes I decided on a cessation date of 2020 TA, this being 50 years after the opening of the game in 1970TA, as the forces of Angmar are overwhelming Arnor. with a central storyline that spanned a full 30 years of this time period, this gave us about a decade for evolution and development either side of the critical phase of the storyline. That in itself is more than most RPGs ever dream of containing.
In conclusion, of course if the player played through those 380,000 days from the end of the MeMod's Scion quest, through to the LOTR's start, then of course such an event would be uncanonical. during that time the player could probably kill off 99% of the population, hoard the entire wealth of the races of middle-earth, and a thousant other things. However, such is the downside of a longterm gameplay system. In future projects, we can design the gameplay elements to include the mortality of the lead protagonist, a design option which through the limitations of the engine we unavailable to us.
did we ever imagine that any player would play memod for more than 50-60 years with a single character? no. given my MW character is approaching his 2nd birthday after a good few hundred hours of gaming, I suspect that the 50th birthday of any player character, even at the most intensive, would be reached after something approaching 100 days of nonstop play... or something like 2 years of playing for an average of 4 hours every day. We did not design memod to be capable of coping with more than that sort of intensity of gameplay, because to do so would have prevented us ever completing it.
suz
[right][snapback]102633[/snapback][/right]
Now THATS an answer. Thankyou.
I know I wouldn't have done it, by the way. Just wondering.This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.