This becomes a problem with future events when people who are viewing/playing a new project in said series are conflicting with those who are creating it, over the meaning of certain things, missed facts, etc, etc. In many ways it can be likend to different types of religion and how some can beileve the same basic principles, but with certain things altered.
Interesting. Can you give me an example of what you mean? I think I understand you, but . . .
As an example, I'll have to use Star Wars since admitingly I am not all the way through SG1 yet, about to season 6 and I have to say so far I can agree with the timeline given to the game. In the movies for Star Wars the Force is pretty much black and white, light side and dark side and that seems to be how George Lucas intended things to be. In the expanded universe of games, novels, comics etc, there is a much more grey area involved. So some fans would see the hints of that in the movies as well even if George Lucas did not intend for it to be there. Once a work spawns a life of its own it gets very heated in debate about what things mean and when people start taking a solid direction on that work, the fans of course are going to be split based on their own beilefs of how things should be dealt with.
For the religon comment I'd say an example is that a preacher can tell you in his words what the bible says, but it is up to the person to determine what they feel it means to them.
I'd say within the Stargate thing again the open economy would seem to be the best debate. Just because we don't see markets offworld, or Daniel going to the local antique shop doesn't mean that it wouldn't be out of the realm of the universe.
I do see how it would be difficult to incorporate a trade network while keeping in line with the series as far as "does this make sense" when it comes down to certain other aspects. Such as universal currency, certain races having shops and such. It doesn't seem likely that an Asgard would have need to have a clothing and armor shop for example, or maybe trade in general. So I can see your point on the player-driven economy, in that respect. I'd prefer it to be in, but it may be biased based on the fact is the kind of system I prefer to play with.
Anyway my point is just because I personally feel that a player-driven economy could make a lot of sense in Stargate Worlds, doesn't mean that it would. Though I do feel it would add to immersion.
I agree, but it's a matter of development priorities. In my discussions with various members of SOL, Lucas and the SWG dev team, one constant refrain I heard was that SWG had possibly emphasized too much of a sandbox and not enough crafted content. There was a society there, certainly, and it was interesting to partake in and to watch, but the audience numbers never reached what that IP deserved. That fact is above speculation. Some of those people expressed to me that if they were to build that IP all over again, they would strongly consider structuring gameplay more solidly through missions or a story.
Now, this is my strong suit, certainly, and I took these opinions into consideration when I began the design for this product. I looked at Stargate, came to conclusions about why it worked, and tried to play on those strengths.
I don't think that having an open-sandbox and story-driven content has to be seperate necessarily. SWG now has more structured and story driven content but far fewer numbers, perhaps if it'd been relaunched as a new game alltogether that may not be true and it is defitnaly one of the most intersting MMOs in the industry for those reasons and more.
I like choice, I think having the choice between following a quest line or going sandbox mode would be amazing, but doing both well enough to please both sides of the fence is much harder than doing one side really well. It'd almost need 2 seperate teams working on one game and that doesn't seem very effecient or likely. As long as a system is picked, worked on to be high quality and most importantly kept, it can work, changing it a year or two in would prove to be disadventagous to say the least. I guess when I step into an MMO I want to feel that I am really part of that world, and the problem I have with quest lines is that it kind of feels like once you've done it once, you have no reason to do it again. Then it just feels like a chore if you want to make a new character. That and a quest line doesn't make me feel like I am part of the world when every other person has saved the world the exact same way millions of times it makes it feel less important.
However I can see how sandbox gameplay would be difficult in the stargate universe as far as, hey you're in game, do whatever you want. Doesn't make sense if you were a human considering that you'd be military and well being a member of the military I know that just wouldn't happen.
