Thoughts on if and how one could link the Pirate thread into another.

Well, As we all know, EVN has a number of "main" plot lines. The Federation, the Vellos, the Rebellion, the Polaris, the Pirates, and the Aurorans. As a general rule, it is possible to complete only one of these with any given character, since, by the end of the plot line, the player has changed enough of the universe to make any others dis congruent, to say the least. However, there is an exception to this: The pirate plot line. By the end of the plot line... Nothing much in the universe has changed, with the exception of McGowan having been killed and the Bureau's connections to trade and piracy curtailed.

The thought that occurred to me is that, plot wise, it is perfectly possible to lead from the pirate plot line into many of the others. (I think it would be kind of hard to lead into the Federation one, but possible with some plot manipulation)

My thought, and reason for posting, is the following questions:

1. Is it worth doing? Would anyone like such a plug in?

2. Plot wise, how would one accomplish it?

3. Mechanically, how would one accomplish it?

4. What considerations would one have to keep in mind when making such a plug-in?

for point 4. If someone is intrested in such a plug in, they want the plot for their character to go on, they probably aren't intrested in just plowing through another story arc with their ubership. (already many plugins that allow you to restart into new plots with your old ship/character). The question is: How to divest the player of their ship and send them into the new plotline in a way that makes sense thematically while still maintaining much of the game balance.

On that note, I had speculated something along the following lines:

Sometime after the completion of the entire pirate thread (with subplots), have Olaf summon you to tell you of a new threat in the the Bureau has teamed up with a new Guild-Master upstart and it is crucial that the Guild as a whole moves to destroy this alliance before it gets going. He emphasized the great risk and instals an escape pod (and auto-eject) on your ship. This leads to a massive battle somewhere along the lines of the typical kill upstart missions, except with two differences: the first being that it is calibrated to destroy the player. More pirate ships, a reinforcing fleet of Bureau ships (jumping in behind the player), etc. The second being someway of hijacking the escape pod mechanics so it does NOT simply reset you to a shuttle somewhere in fed space.

Instead, it puts you an appropriate basic ship in one of the associated territories for one of the other missions sets. For example:
You regain consciousness with a strange figure in grey standing over you on some world you do not recognize. "You have impressed us with your willingness to die to serve. Some of us would like invite you to work with us. To help you in this, we have given you a new ship, which shall be yours for the rest of your life, as it is bonded to your DNA. As it happens, we have need of an expert in the outside universe to carry a delegation to the federation. In interests of maintaining avoiding undue attention, we recommend you do not purchase any ships in federation space."

And thus we have a leadin to the polaris mission set. The player is shifted into a new ship (a manta or a stryker, likely), with a new group to help them out, and there's a reason for it. Thus the player gets the best of both worlds: a reason to be "downgraded" and start a new plot line, while still getting the benefit of what they have accomplished (they still have their combat rank, exploration map, bank account, any honors they have gained, etc). They are also given a logical reason as to why they shouldn't just use that bank account to buy a new top end ship out of the pirate campaign.

That being said, I am not sure how to accomplish the mechanics of such a shift.

From a wider view point, I don't think the plotlines would be affected much. The only thing that comes to mind is changing a few of the mission descriptions, such as when the Polaris "find" the rebels. It would become a "realization" that maybe the polaris do not know about how well established the rebels are and would appreciate knowing about it, since it's still a surprise for the Polaris, although it isn't for the player.

Anyway, I hope this made sense, and I hope it is helpfull to someone. That being said, if anyone feels inspired to make a plugin using this, feel free. I'm not sure I have the capability to do it, although I'll try.

Try this idea. An ominous force of evil, be it a clandestine organization or whatever, has been threatening the very foundation the Association has fought hard to defend as it has filled the vacuum of power McGowen's organization once occupied. If not dealt with, they will cause a total economic collapse. However, this evil plot has yet to be unleash until they can deal with the Association that has become a thorn on their side. The player, despite best effort, has not been able to pull them out of the shadow and expose them for who they are. In order to do this, the player has to fake a death along with the Unrelenting. This will help not only to reveal the enemy, but their plans as well. The player, meanwhile has to secretly make contact with the Association who may have to go into hiding and plot a secret plan of their own. Until they can defeat this new evil, the player has to build up a reputation and power and be in a position to retake back what the player was forced to give up.

So what you have here is the first half of a major string is the Association confronting the new enemy but eventually the player has to fake a death at the end. The second half would be mostly involved with the other major factions of the galaxy. Depending where the player was when choosing a set of mission strings to stage a fake death, that would determine which faction the player has to build up in.

This post has been edited by Coraxus : 17 December 2008 - 07:00 PM

@coraxus, on Dec 17 2008, 03:27 PM, said in Plugin providing Pirate thread to Polaris/Auroran/Rebel:

Try this idea. An ominous force of evil, be it a clandestine organization or whatever, has been threatening the very foundation the Association has fought hard to defend as it has filled the vacuum of power McGowen's organization once occupied. If not dealt with, they will cause a total economic collapse. However, this evil plot has yet to be unleash until they can deal with the Association that has become a thorn on their side. The player, despite best effort, has not been able to pull them out of the shadow and expose them for who they are. In order to do this, the player has to fake a death along with the Unrelenting. This will help not only to reveal the enemy, but their plans as well. The player, meanwhile has to secretly make contact with the Association who may have to go into hiding and plot a secret plan of their own. Until they can defeat this new evil, the player has to build up a reputation and power and be in a position to retake back what the player was forced to give up.

So what you have here is the first half of a major string is the Association confronting the new enemy but eventually the player has to fake a death at the end. The second half would be mostly involved with the other major factions of the galaxy. Depending where the player was when choosing a set of mission strings to stage a fake death, that would determine which faction the player has to build up in.

I support this idea, heartily.

As to which side the Association allies, why not something like what I've got going on in the Bar currently:

After the Unrelenting's destruction, you eventually catch up with Olaf. When he asks you to accompany him to a meeting, you discover that he's meeting with people from the other sides; in fact, he's part of a larger group called "The Illuminati," which is comprised of the most powerful individuals from the Aurorans, Feddies (I must stress, NOT the Bureau), Rebels (excluding Frandall; if you've played the Rebel line 100% or Arpia 2, you know why), Polarans, and Wild Geese. It could be that the Illuminati have been formed to take down both the Bureau and this new foreign threat.

My 3 and a half cents.

Both those ideas would work, and provide a nice transition mission set from the Pirate thread to one of the other plot lines.

How would you go about implementing the mechanics of it? As a general rule, having ones' ship blow up tends to terminate missions, which would make the transition somewhat awkward. The exception being if the Unrelenting was not destroyed in actual combat, and instead was written out, thus the transition happens on world as part of a mission, rather like how we get into the Unrelenting in the first place.

Unless we go with that option, it would also be tricky to get the player to "wake up" in something other than a shutlecraft around a random fed stellar. And change the escape pod text for this one ocasion.

Having one's ship blown up that causes a mission to fail doesn't have to be an awkward transition. Remember, the player's intention was to deliberately fail a mission with his or her death along with the Relenting. As for having a player "waking up" in a ship different than a shuttle, that can possibly be done. It's a matter of inputting one of these bits that relate to the player's "death" mission-wise: Cxxx, Exxx, and Hxxx.

Well, I suppose it would be thematic, but the goal PC wise is to survive and defeat the entire armada that ambushed him, but ours/players goal is essentially to be gloriously defeated.

Thanks for the pointer on those bits. I'll try them out.