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[Kybernetes Moros]

I heard that at Zith, the Nation commander ship and the 2 Kundalini Manifest npc ships and the entire rest of the npcs performing an event role, simply winked out of existence. One moment they were there, the next, PAF! gone.

Any witnesses to this? Kybernetes perhaps ?

Excessive as the application of Incursion NPCs was, IMO, I didn't see any of the carriers beyond Tama01's own. Everything did, however, just vanish after a bit -- the battleships first, then the carrier a few seconds after. 

[Ciarente]

First Nation learned to use EFT, now they've mastered the logofski ...

we're so screwed.

[Victoria Stecker]

*Insightful stuffs*
tl;dr
To answer your question Baxter: It will be if they're tied to an expansion deadline (presumably DUST).

I think this was one of the more frustrating things about the live events leading up to Incursion – the almost palpable feeling that we were being railroaded. Not that it was any particular surprise, they had an expansion to release. This led to a lot of the /sip that Bacch has been railing against for months – as people noticed that /sip got a response from the actors, while actually shooting stuff didn’t seem to matter (Civilian losses going up despite the fact that we were getting better and better and wiping Sansha ships off the field).

Having been both player and DM in tabletop games, I can tell you that railroad is almost required with some people – we drove one of our DMs nuts with the ways that we screwed up his storyline. So to make sure things happen the way you want, railroading is inevitable. The question, then, is whether CCP will ever run a story that doesn’t already come with a fixed, predetermined end. This would permit the story to actually be pushed around by the player response.

I’m curious about the freighter that Miz escorted around the other day, and I’m more curious what would have happened if someone had actually taken a shot at that freighter. Would it matter to the story if it had been destroyed? Or would it have suddenly ceased taking damage like that one wyvern did in… whatever the lowsec system was where Ghost had that POS and CVA showed up to kill stuff, sansha and otherwise.

[Bureeiku]

@ Ghost Hunter:

What have you seen from the loyalist side of things?  Is there a set of documented PF coming out of the Sansha/Sleeper genre you could point me to please?

Regarding player driven macro storylines, I doubt this could work well at the corporate level, unless CCP's creative teams pre-scoped a range of outcomes - not a specific destiny mind you - that would fit with the asset development already in-place or invested.  I imagine they would not want to spend x funds on DUST/EVE assets without knowing they would somehow be put to use (ROI).  So, as long as someone who is directing the thing is inventive enough to spin the story according to what the players do within the same set of actors and assets (so as not to 'waste' the investment), it is theoretically possible to have a win-win scenario.

Although, I cannot say that I am optimistic.  Rather, I imagine that CCP is setting up Sansha's Nation to be the black-and-white 'badguys' who's motivation is now just to 'get the capsuleers' rather than an interpretive and dynamic motivation such as 'rule the world', with the potential to involve twisting subplots.

Edit: response to Victoria's near simultaneous post.
In response to your last thought, it may be an indication of where CCP wants to take the storyline that they have set the Nation mechanic to 'blob' for now, so that there are no derailing non-Nation victories to put them off their track.

[Esna Pitoojee]

When considering the event yesterday, one thing that must be considered is that CCP was deliberately going for the "Oh, shit, we're screwed - can't fight that" feeling in the event - hence the blobtastic incursion NPCs. I wouldn't realistically expect them to reappear at every single live event going on, though a reappearance at future Nation events wouldn't surprise me.

The biggest questions for me remain,

1, when will we see some measure of PvP possibility in the events (Sansha events were a bit gimped due to NPCs shooting loyalists, etc...), and

2, how will CCP respond if someone throws an unexpected wrench in their works? As Victoria said, what would have happened if the freighter had been shot at, or destroyed? For that matter, what if someone had destroyed it, held the field, and made off with the contents (possibly including the good doctor)? I somehow doubt "Doctor attempts defection, is kidnapped by random capsuleer pirates, held indefinitely" was the angle they were going for...

[Ghost Hunter]

@ Ghost Hunter:

What have you seen from the loyalist side of things?  Is there a set of documented PF coming out of the Sansha/Sleeper genre you could point me to please?

@Stecker:

That would be Antem.

@Bureeiku:

What do you mean in specific for what I have seen? In regards to any PF, Incursion was the biggest dump of info.


@Esna:

In regards to pvp possibility, I still do not have a good idea if they will. Pure loyalists to the Nation are very small in number, most of the people who interfere with the coalition members are just random pirates or pvpers who show up for pewpew. In this light, enabling loyalists to the Nation to fight in high sec would be more of a waste of resources than anything. It would, however, offer a sign up incentive for pvpers - since free pvp in highsec is a wet dream to some.