There is a conflict between having a sandbox game where the player is free to explore story threads in any order, and having an interconnected story where characters from one thread can appear in others, with three basic solutions:
- having crossover characters be static, so it doesn't matter where in their native story thread they are when they appear in another thread
- having more-or-less arbitrary progression blocks in individual story threads so that a crossover character is at the right stage in their development when they appear
- throwing time and money at the problem by including multiple variations of crossover scenes to support every possible stage the crossover character could be at
Of course, it's also possible to use combined or hybrid approaches - for example having three versions of a scene but progression gating it if the crossover character is too far behind (and progression gating the character's native thread to keep them from getting too far ahead) - and someday there might be a fourth option: setting up the rules to let the computer create appropriate versions of scenes that reflect character progress.
Each of the solutions has its own problems:
- static characters mean you're limited in what sort of stories crossover characters can have since they're not allowed to experience relevant character growth
- progression blocks both force the player to play blocking threads up to a certain point whether they want to or not, and are hard to make seem natural within the game
- throwing resources at it balloons the amount of work required for the same amount of play-time, and possibilities tend to grow exponentially, making it impossible to keep up as the number of independently ordered events grows.
- having crossover characters be static, so it doesn't matter where in their native story thread they are when they appear in another thread
- having more-or-less arbitrary progression blocks in individual story threads so that a crossover character is at the right stage in their development when they appear
- throwing time and money at the problem by including multiple variations of crossover scenes to support every possible stage the crossover character could be at
Of course, it's also possible to use combined or hybrid approaches - for example having three versions of a scene but progression gating it if the crossover character is too far behind (and progression gating the character's native thread to keep them from getting too far ahead) - and someday there might be a fourth option: setting up the rules to let the computer create appropriate versions of scenes that reflect character progress.
Each of the solutions has its own problems:
- static characters mean you're limited in what sort of stories crossover characters can have since they're not allowed to experience relevant character growth
- progression blocks both force the player to play blocking threads up to a certain point whether they want to or not, and are hard to make seem natural within the game
- throwing resources at it balloons the amount of work required for the same amount of play-time, and possibilities tend to grow exponentially, making it impossible to keep up as the number of independently ordered events grows.
