Ah, must be client side then. Well, tbh the spoiler isn't even something from the game - it's something we only learnt about way back in the Waking Titan ARG

It's very much a game that's built around finding other people and building a community - that's why the various player made factions are given the official thumbs up and everything. Just a big ol' sandbox.

If you want something with more character and story, I'd go to the expeditions - they're unfortunately time limited (though HG usually reruns all of them at the end of the year), but they all offer a self contained story outside of the main plot that takes place in a smaller space and usually contain more characters and give your character a role that's actually integrated with the larger world (like for example, in one of them we were explorers with the cartography guild out to document a worm cult). Also they're usually full of interesting gameplay restrictions to use and abuse which is fun. Imo it's the most interesting thing the game has to offer.