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[EinsteinSatDown]

Is it feasible that, with the world now progressing as one plays, to change the designation of entities and civilizations that still exist from the past tense to the present?

I think reading 'is' instead of 'was' within the descriptions of existing gods, civilizations, dwarves etc. makes the world seem more alive, distinguishing that which has been from that which is occurring now.


Not sure if this has been suggested before.

 

[Dirst]

Is it feasible that, with the world now progressing as one plays, to change the designation of entities and civilizations that still exist from the past tense to the present?

I think reading 'is' instead of 'was' within the descriptions of existing gods, civilizations, dwarves etc. makes the world seem more alive, distinguishing that which has been from that which is occurring now.


Not sure if this has been suggested before.

Using the past tense is standard practice in business cases, legal briefs and other situations where one needs to be clear "this is how things stood at time T."

This is not how encyclopedic articles are written, and players probably expect something closer to a fictional Wikipedia.

I like the idea of switching to a present-tense, but as part of a slightly bigger overhaul to ensure that things are a bit more time-consistent.  If someone becomes a vampire in year 103, their exploits before that time should not refer to them as a vampire.  It can appear as a history of "The Vampire Urist McThirsty the Spoon of Silvermouths" but shouldn't use that full title as if it applied to him from birth.

[neblime]

This is not how encyclopedic articles are written, and players probably expect something closer to a fictional Wikipedia.

having something as in depth as wikipedia for your world would be awesome 

I think something maybe more important than these tenses is putting the ultimate fate of the entity/histfig at the start of the description e.g.
"urist was a dwarf of the halls of labouring, in the year 50 he was killed by a dingo in the forest of whatever"
rather than having to scroll down to the bottom.  Esepcially for entities, because it can be very unclear in legends whether anyone is left alive or not

[Dirst]

This is not how encyclopedic articles are written, and players probably expect something closer to a fictional Wikipedia.

having something as in depth as wikipedia for your world would be awesome 

It is certainly possible, but not something Toady is going to whip together in his spare time.

If an open source version emerges, it'd be an awesome companion to Legends Viewer.

And it would know not to bury the lede, so you'd know within the first paragraph if the entity is still around.