If I create a character from one of the more powerful countries, I most likely don't know how anything works there, is there still war? Is the socio-economic structure the same? How are people feeling and living there? Et cetera. Most of the time, I have to make up a lot of vague details as to not ruin anyone else's view on how it could possibly look like over there, since many of these places haven't been 'updated' (so to speak) in quite a long while.
Does anyone know if staff have planned anything new related to the timeline's history in a global sense?
Like for instance, the Prussian Empire are technically allowed to keep warring now, their peace treaty ran out ages ago. Then there's the Chinese Empire, India and Asia in general, also the CNA, et cetera. The Middle East could be well on their way to rebuilding by now. Maybe it won't be habitable in a long while, but Japan managed to rebuild Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Even in the Fallout video games, the world is somewhat habitable after 200 years. It all depends on how much effort the governments and people are putting into making it livable. A good example on not caring to rebuild is Chernobyl. Hiroshima and Nagasaki rebuilt pretty fast, but they didn't even try with rebuilding Chernobyl.
Anyway, to conclude.. making the world feel more alive and the conflicts to continue gives you something more to take into your character if they're from very far away. Even if it's just related to the US states that are still part of the US. It also gives people more things to talk about, global issues, not just local ones.. sometimes it feels as if the whole world is focused on Withmore. What happened to global politics that used to be so popular? What happened to the rest of the world? It can't be peace and quiet everywhere, right?
CLARIFICATION: This is no way to criticize staff on their work, it could be that they're purposely ignoring the Timeline for reasons I don't know, or it could be that they have more important things to work on.
Why post this?
I just wanted to get the ball rolling on this topic, that is on my head a lot, and see what other people feel about this.
Because I feel this is very vital when building your character and their background, the culture and environment they've grown up in - maybe even their opinions or prejudices/paranoia about neighbour states and possible enemy nations, et cetera. Things that would affect their upbringing.
But also to understand the universe and how to roleplay it right. Heck, some players don't seem to know that cows (or many other animals) are extinct in many places of the world. I'm still not a hundred percent sure where that actually came from.
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I think that's all I can think of on the subject right now. Whew, that's a lot.