Quote:Hope this helps and isn't overwhelming or telling you way more than you want to know.
No, that looks like a useful entry point, thanks a lot! Didn't expect the TV tropes link, but I agree... TV tropes is usually a great place to go for coarse summaries, can't believe I didn't think of that myself!
Quote:Rather, OA is a worldbuilding project that is intended to be a sort of huge canvas (in terms of both physical space and scope of history) for stories that can be told all over it all at the same time (in principle).
Yeah, I gathered as much. An RPG-setting like traveler would have been a better comparison than a setting derived from a series of novels. Those kinds of settings, of course, divide their complexity into source books. You have a core book that gives a rough outline of the setting, enough to communicate its breath, scope, coarse history as well as some notable actors and locations. Then there's books going into larger detail of more fine-grained aspects of the setting, or very fine details of specific locations or events. I know that OA has a bit more problems here, because you can't even presuppose a fixed point in time, which RPG settings usually can.
Still, since you're asking for my opinion, I think a similar approach might be useful. The wiki probably wouldn't even need any reworking. You could make "source books" focusing on certain aspects that consists mostly of glue text and structuring with copious links to wiki articles for all the details. I mean, the history primer is effectively already something like that, just that it doesn't emphasise any kind of focus. Which again, I get why, but it also left me hanging somewhat...
In general I think the "documentation" is great from what I saw, all newcomers like me need is some structure, some way to progress smoothly from one point to another that brings them ever closer to an understanding of the setting, and it might not be a bad idea to focus on one particular period, possibly even a certain region that you consider especially interesting or newcomer friendly. Once a newbie groks a certain part of the setting, they will be a lot more confident to go on excursions to other places or other points in time. Rather than trying to give a grand overview over the whole thing, give new readers the chance to establish a "beachhead" in the setting. Right now it feels a bit like getting Planescape dropped on you when you just wanted to "check out that D&D thing" :lol: