In a thread just a bit ago, I wrote the following:
4. More on this in another thread very shortly, but we also figured out what we are going to do with the whole story-integration aspects and lore. There's a lot of interesting backstory/lore that I know people want answers to, and we promised that the game would include a way to pursue those mysteries. We tried a number of complex models for this to very limited success, so once again we've boiled this one down to its essence: solving the mysteries. More on this in another thread in just a bit.
The lore for AVWW is quite large, but we've not really integrated a whole lot of that into the game just yet. Rather than just including reams and reams of lore that might not be very interesting to players, we want to actually focus on what people are interested in. It's a good rule of thumb in fiction to only answer questions that the reader has already asked -- if you explain backstory that they don't care about, that's just boring clutter. If you mention something like "Darth Vader killed your dad," that's relevant and raises a bunch of questions. Then later when you learn more about Vader, you aren't thinking "whyyy are you telling me about midichlorians!? This is goofy and irrelevant and trying to answer a question I never asked you!" Lawrence Kasdan was a really good scriptwriter, I think.
Star Wars tangents aside, this has got me to thinking about what questions the game has raised that players are legitimately curious about. Obvious examples are:
1. There was some sort of reality-fragmenting cataclysm, which is obviously the biggest mystery of all at the moment.
2. The Ilari. We have all this backstory on them, but I'm not sure to what extent players are curious about them. To some extent I don't want to get into midichlorians territory by explaining all about their history if they are better left just a mysterious force with origins that are hinted at.
3. What's going on with The Deep is a question that some players may have once they encounter the deep, and the answer to that actually reveals some stuff about the Ilari in a more indirect way. Providing that as a mystery that you can unlock clues for once you've actually
been to the deep might be something worth doing.
4. Various other things about the various time periods might be interesting or it might not. The exposition of the NPCs gives some hints to all that sort of thing (when they aren't griping about overlords), and maybe that's all we should leave this as, rather than making them formal mysteries with clues for you to pick up and piece together.
5. What is the nature of the overlords? There is some backstory with overlords in general and what they are doing -- and why they are trying to sink the continents into the sea might be good to answer, too. But then again, that's a fine line with getting into explain what the Clone Wars was. Mentioning "your father fought in the clone wars" is cool. Showing the clone wars turned out to be a lot less so, and not just because that movie was written poorly -- some mysteries are better left as mysteries, in any fiction.
And.... I'm drawing a blank beyond a lot of this. There's a lot of lore that we have that is important for us to know, but that doesn't really belong actually in a tight work of fiction. Even Tolkien left a lot of stuff out of his actual books, despite all his backstory overkill. The problem is, Keith and I are way too close to the material, and it's hard for us to judge which mysteries are going to really be intriguing for you to want to piece together clues to find the answer to. The reality shattering event is a really obvious one that needs to be in there, but beyond that... what do you folks want to be able to find out through the game?
EDIT: I'm going to make a list of mysteries we definitely want to address in the game, based on player feedback below:1. There was some sort of reality-fragmenting cataclysm, which is obviously the biggest mystery of all at the moment.
2. What's the deal with the glyph you're carrying around? Where did it come from? What effects does it have? Why did you get it? Why does it pass between characters when one dies?
3. The environment: Where does the wind come from? Why does it buff monsters? How do wind shelters interact with the wind to actually make it stop blowing (which, in essence, is the opposite of what windmills normally do)? Why is the water acidic? Why are learned spells limited by continent?
4. The monsters: clues about what they are and where they came from. And tying into this some, probably, the consciousness shards. And some more hints about the Ilari here, too. And what the heck the overlords are trying to do; why they are sinking continents into the sea, etc. What keeps the monsters out of the settlements?
5. Hints about the history of magic: some revealing snips from various time periods, and how magic affected the life in each time period. No midichlorians, but getting at the root of at least how magic shaped the entire history of this planet, and somewhat about how the earliest magic users might have found some of their power. Why there are no cars or other similar vehicles, and why there are no weapons that are used (guns, bows, swords, etc).
6. Hints about various historical events: the cataclysm between the modern and ancient eras, what the deal is with The Deep, what happened with the ice age, why the time of magic was tragic.
7. Where are all the children?
