2023-06-08 13:24
#0
For the most part everything is, or at least seems to be, unfolding forward, in real time.
By contrast, I've read that in Lord of the Rings Online, Elder Scrolls Online, and even (didn't notice this when I played it for awhile...) World of Warcraft, it's understood that certain places and events only happen once, and that when you do that content in the game you just happen to be there when it happens. Even if it was, say, chronologically before the previous thing you did.
To me that's really weird and I was shocked to hear from folks on Reddit that this is kind of standard in MMOs.
Has that been your experience in other games too? Or am I being misled?
Assuming I'm not being misled, I'd like to praise UO for following a different model -- everything is unfolding forward, in real time, and it just happens that certain big bosses regenerate and are difficult to perma-kill. There's rarely if ever a pretense that these battles occur only once unless you want to pretend so, for RP purposes. Let alone that when you fight a boss that you're joining a battle that already happened in the past.
PS Before someone says this, I do not accept the logic that this kind of weird timeline twisting is the price we must pay for story-driven content. I can conceive of story conceits that allow us to repeat content without pretending we're not.