From this perspective, a great many quests in Alangara are designed to function as challenges/obtacles to be overcome, and in so doing, to be rewarded with character progress, that will allow your character to take on the next "tier" of challenges. Additionally, the world design also encourages "team play", especially in order to overcome the later challenges/obstacles.
From an RP perspective, the same theme is one of the driving force behind the enormous freedom that you have to shape your characters, the stories they are involved in, and even, through custom player housing, custom factions, and DM plots, to shape the world itself.
Indeed, most of the plot- and world-development was intended to be player driven, in the sense that the player's actions and motivations (as well as the alliances between characters), combined with the freedom to tell almost any story about one's character, was the driving force behind a significant amount of the "story arcs". In a way, the Alangara world acted as a "backdrop" (or canvas) for roleplaying, and additionally, we also used the "team play" aspects of the game mechanics design, in order to "seed" plots. I.e. a DM would often interact with a "hunting party", to introduce and advance plot elements.
This is also the reason that a lot of Alangara' lore is not currently accessible in-game. Much of the lore was revealed by DMs during plots, and shared between players during roleplaying (i.e. the players who witnessed specific events, would often tell about these to other players, or at least share them with their guild, thereby sharing the discovered lore)
As I see it, the lack of a substantial player base and active "story"-DMs, currently hits the "role playing" and "world development" aspects of Alangara the hardest. You have enormous freedom to craft a character, and plenty of opportunity to face challenges and solve quests. However, while this is providing a satisfying character development in a mechanical sense, it could be said that most of these activities hold little meaning or impact on the world itself. Also, the plot arcs are not moving forward, simply because there is not enough player and DM interaction to drive this.
While it is not a complete substitute for in-game player interaction, I think that some of the above issues could be partly alleviated, by an increased focus on "NPC-driven" plot development.
Specifically, as a first step, I am working on implementing "NPC-driven" guilds/factions, which will offer three new features:
- Firstly, a new range of quests, the purpose of which is to reveal and develop Alangara lore, and/or advance plot arcs. These will be a supplement to the existing "obstacle" quests (which rewards the players with more "tangible" character development/rewards).
- Secondly, persistent tracking of the "plot"-quests completed, which will allow the builders to "react" to the player actions, and change the world accordingly, even when not being constantly present as DMs.
- Thirdly, a reputation/rank system, that will allow characters to achieve "in game" recognition for completing quests, i.e. in effect allowing the characters to become "part of the world" (as well as making it possible for the world to react accordingly). For instance, earning ranks in a guild, and having NPCs react dynamically to this.
My idea is, that we'll be able to use these features to drive DM plots, world development and plot arc progress. Additionally, I hope that they can also "tie together" some of the characters' effort (beyond the self improvement of one's own character), by allowing them to work towards (or contrary) to the same goals, even if players are not online at the same time. Finally, the rank and reputation system will hopefully add some in-game context and flavor to the characters (for instance, by having the world recognize, that you are a trusted member of a specific faction, or that you played a part in resolving a specific subplot).
