Article: 4.4: Underground - Part I - Cleanup

You can view the page at http://arkadiaforum.com/content.php?621-4-4-Underground-Part-I-Cleanup

 

Poor Scrappy!

 

Oooohhhh the Underground is coming!

Great installment as always A Team

 

looks like next weeks PP VU will be damn interesting

 

Nice follow up and nice set-up for the underground

I like these stories they keep the planet alive!(And I've been whining about them for a while now LOL)

Cheers!

 

now give us flashlights and coords and we go in and clean that out -.-

 

It's been far too long since the last installment, but I'm glad to see the team is back on the job. It's definitely a nice prelude to the underground, and I'm hoping the storyline will continue.

One of the things that I think would make part of the storyline more interesting is incorporating real playing Arkadians based on activities during events, and use their avatar names. Get the community more involved. Arkadia has dedicated players, and I'm sure they would love to find themselves recognized as part of Arkadia's history.

 

That's a really cool idea!

 

very nice lol

 

Love it Bjorn ... I really like seeing player storyline that ties into environment activities, and especially to events that can be connected to the actual (original) storyline of the planet. Based on the Arkadia pre-launch storyline, the Oratan are the persistent menace on the planet, and these types of player stories add to community efforts in conjunction with the IFN. I really think that involving players in this way creates more of a reality of what's going on, and recognizes those who make contributions toward a common goal.

Great job Bjorn.

 

Great chapter!
About having avatar names in the story: hasn't the A-team already included player activity in the back story?
I thought the first colonist who made a Golden Key was mentioned by name.
There also was the Arkadian Star Fleet in an episode; that was also a player initiative, right?

It is a nice idea to expand on that, but besides the potential friction it could cause (why is he/she mentioned, and not him/her/me?) it would likely not be very time-proof.
Isn't this supposed to be the backstory of Arkadia: the Canon, from which we players build?

For newly started colonists, the name Svena Faraday is already unknown, and unfortunately probably means as much as if it would be a NPC name.
The players that were active at the start of Arkadia, and who are active now, are not all the same. Though it would be gratifying for the community right now, it would add little to the story for future users. Except maybe to highlight the fact that some of the players mentioned in the backstory are not playing EU anymore.

Nevertheless, it would be nice to have some player-made fiction that follows the backstory (the example above shows that very nicely), though it might not be the best idea to put that in the official Arkadia Story.

The way it's been done now, with one of the characters being 'Bossman', is a great move, I think.
It's more interactive than just the NPC's, because you have the chance to talk to him in person, and fight with him against the Oratan in the events.
That makes it closer to home, without risking a popularity contest in the shadows.

Don't mean to be a party pooper, just looking at it practically. And ofc, it's just my opinion.

More to the point: yay, this time the underground is really coming?
It made me read though all the installments again: it's well written, a great read.

I couldn't find a 'next chapter' button, so to avoid continually returning to the index, I tried to collect them in a PDF, but the result looked mighty weird.
So for now I have them in a simple text file, until I manage to raise my PDF skills.
But it would be nice to have them assembled together in the end: The Arkadia Chronicles.

 

I really liked that!


-Obie-

 

I can understand a developer wanting to keep the official storyline clean and devoid of extraneous activities or other events that may not necessarily blend well with proposed history of the planet, so perhaps players would be relegated to writing their own stories and publishing them in the "Other Fiction" section of the forum.

However, one thing I discovered during the many years of writing for EU is that players really enjoy and appreciate being involved with ongoing storyline, and are actually more inspired to participate when they feel they are a part of the process and recognized as dedicated contributors to the overall community goal.

There are players who have made major contributions (I'm excluding myself in this comment to make a point) toward development of the Arkadian community, and I see nothing wrong with recognizing those individuals either through storyline or other means if they in fact have earned the recognition.

I think this community is mature enough to discern who deserves the recognition for their contributions without the element of jealousy. I would also hope that the development team would be able to do the same. Not recognizing someone who has been dedicated and made major contributions toward supporting and promoting Arkadia because someone else might get jealous is (IMO) a punishment, rather than an avoidance.

Of course, it's the developer's ultimate choice as to how they approach interacting with their player base, which the A-Team does very well, but there are other ways of involving and embracing the community (IMO) that would create more interest and potentially more creativity on their part.

I love Arkadia, it's been my home for a very long time, and will be my favorite planet for many reasons. I also feel that Arkadia is far and above any other planet with what and how they deliver their content, as well as their attention to detail. The communication is greater than any other development team, and they address issues quicker than any other team. They definitely have the community in mind while sitting at the drawing board, and for that I give great respect and admiration.

As far as I'm concerned, no one does it better than Arkadia, and I loved writing about Arkadia the most since I did the majority of my writing about this planet, and really appreciated the A-Team working closely with me on that level. Cyrene is a close second, and I love that planet as well, so I'm hoping their flying under the radar for so long will ultimately end up with a surprising hard launch. I love their storyline immensely, which is massive, and can't wait to see how Ed follows through with it based on projects I know he had in mind. I mention all of this because I think storyline is one of those dots that should be connected to everything else to make it all more cohesive, and to inspire more activity and involvement by players.

At any rate ... I love the Arkadia storyline, I hope they discover that Professor Lee isn't dead after all (he's my favorite character), and I just thought it would be a good idea for the players to be a part of the storyline in some form. I hope that people like Bjorn will consider writing their own continuing storyline that relates to the Oratan saga, because it's really fun to read, and we have some talented writers in our community for sure.

I also hope the Ark storyline continues more frequently, and perhaps expands beyond just the Oratans, like more with Sundari from an archaeological perspective. Looking forward though to whatever we get.

Again, great entry Bjorn, really enjoyed it.

 

This sounds verry intresting
Good job as allways A-Team!

 

I don't see any problems with the writers including real avatar names if fits. Does it really matter if a new player doesn't recognise every name? And wouldn't it be nice to build avatar activity into the documented history of this planet?

 

Because it could make it feel dated.
Official canon or backstory should be applicable to future colonists too. If a new player is signing up in about 5 or 10 years time, and wants to meet the named avatars or (eg.) the Arkadia Star Fleet, only to find out that those colonists or activities no longer exist, it would feel outdated.
Even though it would be gratifying for individuals now: for the planet as a whole, the future colonists should be taken into account too.

That's why I think that using 'John DoubleJ Jones', 'Jim Longshot Regan' and 'Derek Bossman Knowles' in the story is a good idea.
Because they are dev's avatars who, even if personal changes, still can be sustained within the game. Achieving continuity, even in the future. (At least, they are the ones I've met at the Oratan Events. I'm sure there are others: my apologies to those omitted.)
For who'd like a visual, here's John DoubleJ Jones in action during the Arkadian Colony Defence:
View attachment 9146

And how ever much we would like to think that no friction could ensue from singling people out: reality and history shows contrary.
Even in the mature community that EU is known for.
Why risk stirring up a hornet's nest? There are other ways to show appreciation.

@Snape: thanks for looking at it, but I didn't mean to cause you extra work. Just thought it would be handy.

 

History is supposed to feel dated

When the mothership services began operating, there wasn't a pressing need for ASF; it's in reserve status until such time as Mindark fixes space to make it interesting again... or breaks it enough to make it interesting again.

Time really does progress on the planet… the beginning of the storyline will never be directly applicable to players anymore, but the latest installments should reflect the current state of the planet.

I do like the idea of occasionally mentioning major events and players/groups in the planet's history into the official storyline, when done sparingly.

 

With respect, bollocks. This is an ongoing storyline. It's not like a run of the mill MMORG where everyone goes through the same set of game actions (or mission chains) to act out the one storyline. It's a sandbox universe that grows and changes over time. It has an origin that is now history. We've seen that on the original planet where massive events have happened that will not be repeated, where items are named after notable avatars who may longer be active. I think that adds flavour to the universe.

If someone starts in the future and reads about things that are no longer in effect, well that's history, and history helps to make a place interesting. It shows that we are not playing in a static environment where nothing we do matters in the long term. We can have an impact on the course of events and be remembered for that, not just within the playing community but within the documented history of Arkadia as viewed through the Dev publications. I think that's potentially quite inspiring.

And on a side note, personally I would like to see some missions that have a finite duration that is story related and then are no longer available once the story moves on. But that's a whole other conversation.

Yep it's quite possible that some people react badly when others get some attention. But really there's no game advantage to be had from something like this. So I don't think we need to be too fussed. Some people will always find something to get upset about. If you avoid actions that might possible upset people simply cos it might upset them, then you end up doing nothing.

Regards,
KikkiJikki