Roleplaying and story progression in 5.1

Patch 5.1 introduces a new form of story progression: every three dailies you do or so for the new factions in Krasarang, you are treated to a quest that pushes the story along. Among these will be events that have a huge impact on role-play, the biggest that springs to mind being the Kirin Tor kicking out the Sunreavers and siding with the Alliance.

In role-play, the question when these big events should be treated as occuring or having occured is always a tricky problem, but with this new form of story progression we've just been served an even trickier conondrum. With the death of impotant lore bosses, we could say: "They die if they are killed by raiders (sometimes with the added caveat of the kill having to be of heroic difficulty). With most patches it has been "This event have had happened as soon as the patch comes out". With most quests and normal progression in Pandaria, we treat the all the finished quests as the Status Quo.

But what of this new, personal progression? We will all move trough these story developments at our own, sometimes leisurely pace. What are we to do when, in my World of Warcraft gameworld, the Kirin Tor have kicked out the Sunreavers, but not for Arenfel's? Awkwardness will ensue.

TL;DR: My question is "How should we treat personal, quest-based story progression"?

Should we treat it like we currently treat all normal Pandaria quests i.e as all finished the moment they came out, even if nobody has been mechanically be able to reach that point in-game?

Should we pick the point at which it is mechanically possible for the most dedicated players to reach a certain point as the point at which an event happens? (If so, it would certainly be worhtwhile to chart this out as a rereference point)

Should we pick a random point, for example, two month, as the point at which all these developments will have happened?

Or should we wait untill the next patch?

And what of the story developments in scenarios?

These are tricky questions and I would like to hear your thoughts. I dread the point at which people fly at eachother's throats over the question whether Dalaran is supposed to be neutral at this or that point in time or not and would consider it prudent if we would take some time to reflect on how to best tackle these issues before drama could arise from them.

My usual go-to method is to not think about it, until i'm confronted with the stance of my role-play compatriot and just go with that.

Sure it creates strange paradoxes, but my thought would also be, i don't think about that either.

Sure its an ignorance is bliss type of deal.

And as a paladin, who's emotional investment into the current lore lies on the forsaken front. it is easy for me. As opposed to Arenfel or Vaell...

I understand the problem,

but for that I like to see it through my own character's perspective. She isn't all knowing. She isn't all seeing. And working with her lack of information tends to side-step most of these issues.

It all depends on what event has taken place. For example, I will start role-playing Dalaran being neutral when the scenario becomes available. In the meanwhile, I've been saying that Vaell is undergoing preperations for the operation by helping expand the Hold and stationing guards at various points. I imagine Dalaran (though not said in lore) in a state of arguments and insults, tension high but only rumours of what is to happen being spread around.

It is tricky to get everyone to think the same thing, but perhaps we should consider Dalaran a part of the Alliance again sometime this week - I don't know how long Jaina would hold off for, she seemed like she was pretty pissed!

As for raid bosses, I actually start RPing their death the moment server first raiders kill it (well give or take a day for them to return). I'd even go as far as to say, if you manage to get server first for downing a big boss like the Lich King, and you're an RPer - I'd happily let you say you were there when that boss died.

This thread interests me.

Vaell wrote:. For example, I will start role-playing Dalaran being neutral when the scenario becomes available.

Will there be a scenario at some point? If that's the case then that would seem like an excellent point to have the event take place IC.

I think it's more of a quest. There is a list of upcoming 5.1 war events in that new achievement. Today as an alliance player I got "Jaina's hope". "Purge of Dalaran" is also a part of this long chain and is unlikely to be available for repeating on the same character.

Allandra wrote:I think it's more of a quest. There is a list of upcoming 5.1 war events in that new achievement. Today as an alliance player I got "Jaina's hope". "Purge of Dalaran" is also a part of this long chain and is unlikely to be available for repeating on the same character.

That's what I thought as well; "When the scenario comes out" therefore is no longer a viable option, I take it?

Seems like it.

Why not make it ic when the qs/updates come live?

They are already "live". You just have to earn rep to unlock every bit.

But Deli, I cant be arsed to do that.

I'd say Dalaran is fine now. When most devoted (or no-life) players who do those quests every day get to the point, then it's live. I think I didn't miss a day of it so far. Can give you a shout when I reach it (which probably will be this Sunday).

I would prefer if that would happen somewhat later, behind the most hardcore of quest completers.

Perhaps it would be good to setup an RP timeline, made by someone who doesn't mind spoilers.

*cough*

If we're not going to get a community agreement on this, I'm just going to start acting on Landfall. The story progression for Trolls are too juicy to miss out on, really. I just completed "Horde is Family" an I'm really pumped xD

The Shatterskull Marauders almost always go by these major lore changes in the Patch that follows, in this case 5.2. This leaves an open time during the current patch to have events around the storyline.

Example. When DS opened it was only 1 week till his head hang in the main cities, hence the rp community had no real time to interact with something as huge as the Horde and Alliance forces making war on Deathwing.

Ofcourse this changes according to what our close relation guilds do aswell. Many of our numbers rp with the Red Blades, so if they decided to say that Dalaran was now Sun reaver free, we'd probably follow, but if nothing was mentioned, we'd most likely go around buisness as usuall, meaning we'd ignore the lore changes following Krasarang for now, and just treat it as a big war going on, and then go by the major changes later.

I might add here, that i'm no longer officer of the Shatterskulls and therefore cant talk for what we do right now, but this is the way we've gone around it in the past atleast.

The thing is though that this time it's not just one big change, it's a series of little ones that escalate the story. It would be such a missed opportunity if we didn't act to that!

I would say, that since THIS patch unfolds step-by step and I think it takes about 30 days to unlock all the quests, we treat them as they appear on wowpedia. Ie: as soon as those who dailies daily unlock them.

Of course it also leaves open such questions as Heart of Fear status.

I would rather lag behind the "Daily Daily" guys a little, I don't have time to do the Dailies every day, and I don't want to get the story spoiled too much. Tricky.

erwtenpeller wrote:I would rather lag behind the "Daily Daily" guys a little, I don't have time to do the Dailies every day, and I don't want to get the story spoiled too much. Tricky.

Perhaps a "2 week behind" gap? This gives you a chance to do the dailies once every two days and still keep up.

Hmmhm. I discussed this with the only Darkspear in our officer ranks, and we decided we're going to start hearing rumors of what happened at the echo islands after the jade fist campaign.

Kirin Tor will probably be applying the updates to Dalaran within the week or so after they actually hit. We're too impatient to wait any longer than that.

I don't see any reason to wait much when these updates are hitting in a progressive fashion rather than all at once. The only reason it makes any sense to wait on applying the parts of a patch is when all of it hits at once and lasts for months, leaving you with no idea of just when the stuff actually is supposed to transpire. With it progressing like this, you know that anything that's happened, has happened already, because the story continues to move forward all in the same patch.

Drustai wrote:Kirin Tor will probably be applying the updates to Dalaran within the week or so after they actually hit. We're too impatient to wait any longer than that.

I'm hoping to combine this with the return of Dreadnettle. She's still working on "The Dawn Elixir" down in the sewers.