Bringing the Back-story to the forefront

[Len]

It's high-time we started bringing the Back-story of TMW into play (not only in questing but in art). I believe one of the most powerful images would be to show the final resting place of Nu'rem the god whom sacrificed himself.


I've also been mulling around with quest ideas that could relate back to the story. I envision sleeping titians whom once threaded the four gods at the time of creation. Eventually the gods succeeded in felling most of these creatures, however the gods in their mercy could not bring themselves to remove the titians from creation. Instead, the titians were made to sleep for all eternity in the darkest reassesses of the world. With the gods now lessened, the titains have started to stir in the darkness.

I'm not much of a writer, but I cannot stress how important it is to start developing some history and culture that can been seen reflected in the game.

[Crush]

I agree with you.

But not just because a consistent backstory which is reflected by creative ingame scenarios and NPC texts would greatly enrich the gameplay experience, but also from a development-strategical aspect.

The backstory, as currently written on the wiki, was created, toppled down and recreated by several writers over and over again. Basically whenever someone new worked on that in the past, they tended to tear down everything and start from scratch. Then they lost interest, someone else came, and the circle was repeated.

Finally implementing parts of the backstory in the game would nail these aspects down and prevent people from starting over from scratch, because it is quite hard to retcon things which are already reflected by the game content.


But you still have to be aware that we are talking about a quite large project here, which will, as my experience tells me, have a very bad stand, because it will be bombarded from all sides due to creative differences. There are also a lot of other projects around at the moment which compete for developers attention. This project can only be successful with a strong, respected and socially skilled project leader.

[Wombat]

I like the backstory elements you are presenting. We have a current list of projects where this can become an element.

Our projects listed based on current priority:
Barbarian Hunting Grounds (Barbarian Themes)
Barbarian Village (Barbarian Themes)
Easter 2012
Thermin and Thermin Poisonous Mine (Steampunk Themes)
Crypt (Undead, Realm of death themes)

On Easter 2012, we've used some past holiday events so this could be an event foreshadowing a permanent release.

Any of these can be adapted with backstory quests, npcs that bring up the backstory and so on.

Currently we have a working backstory:

Tulimshar is an economic-imperial city-state whose merchants have traveled far and wide while also becoming a hub for trade and commerce. Ruled by a wizard council, in recent years it has imposed several trade regulations and is still gathering gold only to pull it out of circulation to fight off inflation.

In addition to this, Tulimshar regularly sends its agents throughout the world to help against the monster threat. From training adventuring monster slayers to offering assistance and information to those monster slayers to keep the monster threat at bay while ensuring the safety of trade throughout the world.

Meanwhile in Kaizei, much of our current development is focused there. The Barbarians and Thermin are both Kaizei projects, which is based on the snowlands. Throughout Kaizei several wizard orders exist as well as the great monster threats throughout the realm. The demonic and alien creatures in the Thermin mine combine with the threats of the Yeti and the mysterious sorcerer thought to be driving the Yeti into civilized lands.

There is much more, such as the impact of the demi-god Golbenez on the world (Kidnapping Santa Claus in Christmas 2010 after characters failed to pay his fee for a place of leisure) as well as his continued impact within Reid's Inn, the pocket dimension that houses the inn. The story of the Graveyard, the coming story of the Crypt and so on.

[o11c]

The Time Travel quest will, of necessity, be highly linked to the backstory ... it's a pity enchilado left, the Logging Camp needs to be done first.

[salmondine]

The gods and titans battle is a worldwide folklore/history...
usually like the Greeks, they claim the blood of the titans was mixed with humans in the creation of man.
the oldest cuneiform writings say this is over and over....
the 12 god pantheon is the most common, but the Mayans said 13+9.
always the gods bred with human females to produce demi-gods or heros of great renown.
ie the epic of Gilgamesh, the bible, the Indian vedic texts and on and on... every culture has these written traditions.
so why not use this as an element of the back story as well.

An epic love story of ancient hero's and demi gods of which the population of the mana world are descendent's?
where the god's and demi gods taught us the ways of magic and civilization and created culture.

[shomi]

Hi

i have an idea about the background story to some monsters eg: slimes and fallen but I'm not sure if you are interested but if you are can you get back to me?

Shomi

(the fallen story has also got blended in to it some other history about the npc and candor)

[hermes]

I heard shomi´s histories about the monsters, I can say they are awsome. Her histories can be complementary to TMW, congrat! shomi

[Jenalya]

i have an idea about the background story to some monsters eg: slimes and fallen but I'm not sure if you are interested but if you are can you get back to me?

Are we devs really that terrifying that you hesitate to tell us your ideas?
Please, just tell.

[shomi]

okay...it goes like this...

(this is the slime one:P)

to start off with there were only yellow slimes which inhabited the northern mine in hurns. People would visit the mines everyday to kill the slimes which often dropped a topaz. as the days passed the people got more and more greedy for the topazes and killed the slimes..the slimes had to choice but to defend themselves and when they attacked they were very strong and the people died. After all the people the slimes had killed they began to turn red,they would attack anyone would crossed them.it was then that their cravings for human blood had began .they were red tainted with the blood of innocent humans and they have never forgotten

this was the first i thought of but isn't great:(

i have one more bout the Fallen

shomi

[hermes]

Good work, shomi!! Nice story!! Congrat!!

[Jenalya]

to start off with there were only yellow slimes which inhabited the northern mine in hurns. People would visit the mines everyday to kill the slimes which often dropped a topaz. as the days passed the people got more and more greedy for the topazes and killed the slimes..the slimes had to choice but to defend themselves and when they attacked they were very strong and the people died. After all the people the slimes had killed they began to turn red,they would attack anyone would crossed them.it was then that their cravings for human blood had began .they were red tainted with the blood of innocent humans and they have never forgotten

It's an interesting idea to have the red slimes evolved from the yellow ones, that'd also explain why the red slimes drop so much equipment - they ate the miners!
But your story is missing the other slimes, at the moment we also have green ones and the sea slimes. There are also plans to add more slimes in other colors.

[shomi]

Yeah im working on that but its hard seeing as the red slime one just came to me...

but ive got a fallen story and an idea for the mogguns

[imronEros]

Hey Shoni, where is the story again? i need that to arrange a good story too

Forum, need ur permit to make Mana WOrld as background for my little story. I plan to promote Mana WOrld by book with local publisher in my town.

best regard
iE

[shomi]

Which story? If your talkin bout the slime one thats the one i made up:)

[shomi]

the idea for the sea slimes was for them to help stealing stuff for the pirates and every now and then the pirate take their stuff...