AO Story: Forums Edition | Communal Post | Writing | TW: Implied Dev Slander

Writing
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Serious ideas, please. A version of the AO story written start to end by forumers’ ideas.

Awakening: Having the basic tutorial be you breaking out of the Aesir facility (with amnesia due to a particularly brutal experiment) with Tucker and Morden. Someone else had this idea and I think it’s excellent. Adds reason to miss Tucker, and give him and Morden some early character development.

Dawn Island: Have Morden hand the player their gear and a Wooden Shovel, which will be used in a fade-to-black cutscene for a bit of reflection. Morden apologizes for leaving you to yourself, but explains that he needs some time to accept his recent losses. Mentions that he’ll leave a note on his whereabouts if he doesn’t go to Redwake.

Redwake: Not many changes, maybe some upgrades to the dialog to let the player communicate how lost they feel. At the end, we stop by the recently named Dawn Island, to read that Morden will be at Palo Town for the next month. We must, however, fulfill our last obligation to Redwake.

Frostmill Island: Iris will have two bracelets the first time we fight her, with the second one breaking at low HP, finishing the fight (a bracelet exploding on your wrist HURTS), and causing runoff pools of water from the melted spires. We convince Iris to climb down the north end of the island to meet us, much to the dismay of her singed and already hurting hands. She sails with us to the brand new story segment at:

Palo Town: After Morden, you, and Iris meet up (could even have the accompaniment feature), you get run into by the Ravennan nobles Lord Elius and Lady Carina. Iris hides just in time. You’re invited to a feast, in which you’re gifted some light bronze armor put over regular leather (LvL 30-70). It’s labelled Frostmill Hero, and acts as an intermediary. The twins leave to “Ravenna”. As you travel around Palo Town together, Morden and Iris work with the tailor to get some goofy-looking outfits, and you get Edward Kenton through a quest chain. Having fleets locked behind an optional, obscure, and tedious quest doesn’t feel right. After the quests, Morden spots Elius looking suspicious as he departs to a place that is very much NOT Ravenna, according to everyone on your ship. You end up tailing Elius’ ship to the stepstones, Iris backseat driving the whole way, telling you to be more discreet or not lose him. Morden just sighs. (Thx for some parts @Stupid_Fish)

Stepstones: You witness Elius fly into the sky at lightning speeds with his magic. You get off the ship in order to climb before you’re stopped by a man named “Ren” who warns about the dangers of climbing the mountain due to it’s instability and falling rocks if you planned on scaling it. You only say you’re trying to find someone on top of the mountain. Ren asks if you come down, tell him if he’s found anybody that looks different from citizens of the town up known as Cirrus island as he’s been searching for someone of importance across the Bronze Sea for a long while. As you, Morden, and Iris were about to make the climb, Ren gives you trio climbing gear which will help you scale the mountains. After what felt like hours of climbing, you and the group end up making it to the top with bruises and scratches but are able to take a breather the moment you settle on the grass at the top of the mountain. A stone bridge can be seen leading to Cirrus Island. (by @Flare) Fun snippet of dialog:
Morden: “Alright, I can see Cirrus Island. Just a few.. more…” he collapses
Iris: turns to you “When was the last time he slept?”
You:
*I don’t know.
*I haven’t seen him do so.
After saying your choice, you collapse.
Iris: “… I’ll just go set up camp.”

Cirrus Island/Myriad/Djin Ruins: You splot up across the small town searching for clues about Ren’s plight and also your own. You come across Neviro as normal. As you wait in the town square, after some menial tasks to pass the time, you hear thunder boom from the southern islands, accompqnied by Elius’ signature purple lightning. After relaying this information, Morden and Iris go to Skycliff, and you head back down to relay all that you have learned to Ren. You set up a rope along the side of the mountain for your convenience, which you climb back up. Iris and Morden pass you the cloak to go meet Ren. Ren tells you to meet him at The Myriad, where he will learn about both the Order of Aesir and the Cirrus Archipeleago’s islands, to help with your friends’ journey. You leave in a rush to the Djin Ruins. After the sequence (nothing changes except Elius noting that you shouldn’t have followed him), you return to Cirrus, where Morden and Iris are frantically searching for you. You can barely calm Iris down. After explaining your bruises, you are punched by Iris in the arm, introducing a joke Injury with “Sore Arm” that takes 1 permanent HP. You set out to Sailor’s Lodge, unsure what to do next.

WIP

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Tucker they’re closing in TUCKER YOU NEED TO CRAFT 20 JEWELS FASTER TUCKER PLEASE

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Uhhh, do the frostmill citizens and the mayor just let iris off the hook? I mean she did try to sink the entire damn island. Let me reread his dialogue… Yeah he just dismisses the fact that she just tried to end the entire island’s future… bruhhh, idk maybe we could make Iris apologize to the Mayor and the people of the island, especially after she just tried to harm a little over a hundred innocent people not involved with Ravenna’s politics whatsoever other than swearing their banner.

Also I’ve always hated why we followed Iris for no reason after she said she was going to kill us, proceeded to attempt to kill us, then just leave. We as the player, are an amnesiac blank slate so there’s no real character motivation behind helping her, following her, or even letting her live after what she tried to pull on us, however the same can be said for Shura too tbh. Maybe it could be pity? Idk.
Honestly the one thing we can pull from our character is the sympathy card which is how lost we are in this world, maybe we could relate to Iris in a way with how she’s searching for answers about her father like how we are searching for clues on our origins.

Personally I think that Edward Kenton should be kept as a open world quartermaster, not one you meet in the storyline or in Palo Town, a vast majority of players find him while either going to Frostmill from Redwake or doing Enizor’s questline anyways. He does come into play in the current story but the way he is obtained now is good imo.

Nuclear Nitpick: Call it Frostmil Savior Armor, idk Hero sounds tacky.

Continuing on from Palo Town:

With us meeting with Lord Ulricus’ offspring maybe we could tail Elius to the Stepstones. As for a reason? Maybe Morden would find Elius and Carina suspicious in some sort of way, the same way Morden finds General Hassan suspicious, as a note for his character. Or we could use the fact that they’re Ravennan nobles and Iris suggests to the party that they should either try probing the nobles about the random kidnappings or try following them. Maybe a combination of the two?
Oh and add somewhere that Iris recognizes them or something, they seem well known enough.

Lady Carina probably goes back to Ravenna or she goes with her brother and is part of the group that went down with Beringer.

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This is a bit ahead but I never knew why we didn’t just go to Silverhold from the lodge and grab Iris to go to fort talos with the entire gang instead of just, leaving her there? Plus if I remember correctly, Morden didn’t even know who Iris was until he coincidentally met her and Neviro searching for us as well. So apparently we didn’t even tell Morden about her? :sob:

This is wayyy ahead but I’d like Enizor to join in on the main story at some point like Edward Kenton did in the mines but idk where we could implement that, probably in nimbus sea particularly after Enizor gets an upgrade which is also a requirement for Edward to help you from the eternal mines. So after the forest of masts probably, maybe around when the player is level 150-ish because you get the quest to find black shards at level 125.
On top of that I hope Edward helps in the story again at some point but idk when or where. Probably during the Fenrir raid actually, with different quartermasters tagging along depending on the ones you have equipped and whether they’re upgraded or not (except Esmerelda obviously).

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Made this a wiki post now for all your edits. Frostmill hero is supposed to sound tacky, it’s a cringey, unfit armor set thrust upon you for a role that you probably don’t accept. Otherwise all valid points. Iris climbs down the north end (or wherever you fight her) to avoid arrest.

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yeah this post is a great idea actually I do wanna see what the community can cook up I’m ngl.

The Awakening and Dawn Island portions are perfecto btw, did you write them? They’re both massive improvements on the original.

Wish Redwake could be fleshed out a bit but idk how, I’ll wait on someone else I guess.

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Thank you! Don’t know who, but escaping the Aesir facility was someone else’s idea. Thought up Dawn Island on my own though.

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Thx @Flare for Stepstones

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Did Chapter 2.