*The current situation of the plot
Rare has been neglecting narrative progression in recent seasons, in my opinion this has always been a problem, there has never been a consistent way to tell the story in this ever-changing world. I mean, the Dark Bretheen were first shown in June 2021 with the Pirates Life update, it took a year for them to appear again. Even when there was more narrative content it took a while to become something, there was a big improvement with the introduction of adventures, we had the regular release of missions that were often innovative and that also advanced the game's story. For me, this was the best method of telling the narrative since launch.
That said, I understand why leaving the story aside or at least investing less resources in it, in fact it is not something that interests the vast majority of players and Rare needs to opt for what will give them the most return, however there are very easy ways to at least try to attract players through the plot...
* The biggest problem in the SOT storyline.
It's hard to get players interested in the characters and story when the biggest and most interesting part of it is outside the game, and so restricted to the majority of the audience. It doesn't make sense to me that a game like SOT that has its world shaped by the advancement of the story practically hides all of this content outside of the game.
And besides being out of the game and being paid, there is also no translation for all languages, some only exist in English.
* How to improve this...
To at least try to make people consume and desire this content, it is necessary to bring it into the game...
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Provide a written record of the story that has already been told in the game::
I think it's not feasible to bring events and missions like The Hungering Deep, Cursed Sails... to be replayed even with safer seas. So bring to the game a Library telling these stories, records of everything that has already happened. Maybe with some videos or art to make it more interesting. I just thought of a wizard's cauldron or magic that makes the player have these "visions" of the past. -
Bring some comics into the game for free:
There are already free comics that can be read through Amazon, but the general public doesn't know about it and won't go after it, so bring paid content closer to them within the game. Comics about character origins are ideal for this, they are the ones that really matter to understand the plot and create interest in the rest.
It is reasonable to say that if this attracts people to the story, the profit would probably be greater with the sale of books and other comics. -
Bring summaries of the characters' history into the game:
Either through the proposal of a Library or some menu... Videos dedicated to these characters like other games do would be very interesting, it would also generate content for Youtubers to edit in SOT videos.
There is already a summary of these characters on this site, just transfer it to the game with some adjustments to give it more depth.
Who's who
*About the progression of the story...
Once you have created an increase in the audience's interest in this content and made the continuation of the plot more viable, Rare will need to decide how to do this...
As I said, in my opinion the Adventures were by far the most efficient way to advance the narrative, with the exception of the time limitation and perhaps exclusivity of the skins there were only advantages in these missions.
In the past Rare seems to have tried to establish a single way to advance the story, switching methods whenever one didn't seem to work... I think the ideal is to mix the ways of telling this story, the final battle with an important character can only occur through a tall tale, so that it can be repeated in the future, while small adventures for plot development can be done with limited events and told in another way later. Things that don't interfere with the main line are meant for Lore.
* End
One note I'd like to make here, even for players who don't enjoy tall tales and the SOT storyline, several innovative mechanics for the game were brought through these missions, puzzles, fire, compasses that guide to objectives, portals... I'd say the additions that most positively impacted the game came from these updates and I find it worrying that Rare stopped working on this.
