As a point of potential interest, one of the original core concepts we wanted to preserve was a feeling of continuity throughout the story. By this I mean, the system of open and closed worlds and that a character could only ever be in one thread at a time. The idea for this was to initially offer progression for the players, characters and concepts, but also so identities and events were preserved. Granted this method disappeared too, but it was one of the core ways we avoided a multiverse issue, let alone time disparity.

Another matter that was mostly agreed upon was that there would be a handful of lore friendly, critical worlds, of which the staff would predominantly leverage as a means of getting players on track. We intended initially to make it possible for even one player to further the plot and continue onward, that way others could join in as they go; with time all progressing at the same rate, roughly, it allowed the plot that had been written to visit each world. Characters outside this were free to do what they wished, but they were more or less only side quests. The official staff Game Masters were the ones who ensured posts in their threads and their part of the story kept going.

This is also why originally, some of you might recall we separated the world's; we did not want players to scatter to the wind and do whatever it was they wanted until the plot allowed it. This is why travel was all but barred, although we ultimately caved to pressure by the community. While I disagreed on the choice of breaking to the masses, it points out clearly a problem that arose - the system's internal integrity must be maintained. Each genre of world had its own purposes and existence and anyone could start anywhere, they were just confined there until the war itself broke out and the regular rules and governing force in the Federation splintered.

I note from when I was writing on it, it is without question a critical factor to ensure lore and story is consistent. Some issues with that were people had begun to amplify the scope much too large; playing entire races or nations when the system really only meant a single person or at most a group of diverse persons in talent. This is part of why power rankings became increasingly nonsensical and how, at first, they were designed with hard and true limits. Tier Zero meant no better or worse than an everyman, but Tier One meant some form of basic magic - cantrips - or expertise in firearms, military equipment, or light power armor. This became less coherent as we decided to focus more on approving players and less getting them to adhere to the [i]intent[/i] of the rules.

Relating to the plot, suddenly we had a surge of ever increasingly powerful characters or factions, all of whom were meant to be limited for balance [i]and[/i] lore reasons. Part of the objective of why groups had so many rules was [i]because[/i] we foresaw this happening as people cannot help themselves to some extent; they wanted their character or group to be "The best." which led to another issue.

The world wasn't meant to focus on player versus player combat. In fact, it was only meant to be [i]an option[/i] as we wanted users to have the freedom. That was part of the original design of the tier system, a sort of arbitrary way to see how outclassed a showdown was so we could judge without relying [i]only[/i] on their writing. I believe part of the reason this evolved was because players saw characters they expected to be rivals with and worried they needed to be better, hence why profile locking was [i]critical[/i] since we had cheaters who would edit [i]from the very start of the game, the moment we approved them.[/i]

A way around this I think is to emphasize the overarching plot, such as the varied enemy forces which were meant to be employed. Their design was to be a perfect counter action to all the workings of the players and the Game Masters. Why? Because they [i]needed[/i] to always be a threat and to [i]everyone[/i]. They had to have powers and skills, let alone the means, to be just as dangerous in a fantasy world as they were in the far future. I did this by giving them a theme and design that sort of bridged all those gaps, primarily focusing on technopathy and psychic power. The original drafts made it clear they were basically unstoppable, not something you could ever get rid of, meaning they were anywhere and everywhere we needed them to move the story along if they needed to be; that and killing creatures of pure thought is more or less impossible, making it no real issue when they suffered defeat.

Hopefully this recounting adds some needed confirmation and insight for your proposals.