The Chat Thread

[old man moomba]

The guilds have a lot of money. It would be no trouble at all to throw up some cell towers.

Or satelites.

[Steel Inquisitive]

3 hours ago, Dr. Dapper said:

The guilds have a lot of money. It would be no trouble at all to throw up some cell towers.

Or satelites.

But why bother if you already have spanreeds?

[+Sorana]

Personally, I like the idea of using investiture more, than if we implement modern cell phones. We have spanreeds, and you can use e.g. spheres, or aons to light a room, or to keep something cool. Something like a medieval city, with enough Investiture to offer some modern day advantages.

In the end it's this border where magic ends and technology begins.

But maybe we could work with quarters? We already mentioned a few times, that a part of the city still isn't completely rebuilt after the war, so maybe we could have some low technology quarters (those that have been rebuilt without much money) that go more in a medieval direction, and then we could have some quarters, at our level of technology (were rebuilt with money = guilds had their hands in the process). I know, that this will lead to some other problems, but it would offer a greater variety of settings we could use.

[old man moomba]

Like I said before, you can mix magic and modern technology in some intresting ways. Especially Brandon's magic systems. There just very rich and well defined.

[Voidus]

Hello all,

I've been discussing something with the other AV mods and I think we're at the point that we should probably float the idea with the wider community. Recently the Alleyverse has become a lot more complicated of a place, there are a lot of characters in this era. Enough that it's going to get really awkward to remember them all and where they are at a given time especially given characters ability to jump from thread to thread rapidly.

So, I've been proposing the creation of the Alley-multiverse, where we expand out from the existing setting into other dimensions, universes, etc. Basically anywhere that actually poses a difficulty in travelling to and fro rather than just stepping into a perpendicularity and instantly appearing where you need to be.

This lets us physically separate settings so that each one can be a little smaller and more self contained than the current setup, and also establish multiple settings, allow for different power balances, etc.

So, thoughts?

[Sherlock Holmes]

I dunno... if I could bring the world my story is set in to the Alleyverse, that would be fun.

[old man moomba]

IMO, we could create a few other planets with large cities on them and not cram everything on to one planet.

Or, you know, toss a couple other universes in there as well. But that seems like it would be more complicated, not less. Especially if you add other magic systems.

Expanding on the "other cities" idea, We really should put more Alleyverse locations on the other planets. In the Westlands alone, there are 5 or 6 large cities with tons of intresting RP opportunities.

[Voidus]

1 hour ago, Dr. Dapper said:

IMO, we could create a few other planets with large cities on them and not cram everything on to one planet.

Or, you know, toss a couple other universes in there as well. But that seems like it would be more complicated, not less. Especially if you add other magic systems.

Expanding on the "other cities" idea, We really should put more Alleyverse locations on the other planets. In the Westlands alone, there are 5 or 6 large cities with tons of intresting RP opportunities.

The problem as I see it would be that characters can worldhop with impunity, so setting things on different planets has a minimal impact on the flow of characters and quests between locations.

Adding more universes would add an additional overarching level of complexity, but each universe in itself would be less complex as things spread out across multiple locations. So a new character entering into one location can just learn about that location and delay the further complexities until later.

[xinoehp512]

I don't understand... How does having multiple universes help with the problem of remembering where all the characters are?

[MacThorstenson]

5 hours ago, xinoehp512 said:

I don't understand... How does having multiple universes help with the problem of remembering where all the characters are?

The idea would be that each universe has a lower number of total characters, less concurrent plots, and that would be simpler for more people to join and get invested in a plot. 

There is a large issue in trying to hold a coherent RP with a ton of characters. It’s not easily accessible for new characters. 

If you look at the tent thread, the amount of stuff/background that people need to understand is a lot. To understand what’s going on in that plot, a person needs to understand hellbent, who’s character ark and history is humongous, and tens, who is also an old complicated character. 

Something like the exploring the other side of the world thread, on the other hand, is a whole lot more accessible. There is no background beyond reading the thread, no extensive character arks needed to understand stuff. 

The idea would be that having a series of unique settings would allow people to jump in, and keep things from being too complicated. 

[xinoehp512]

43 minutes ago, MacThorstenson said:

Something like the exploring the other side of the world thread, on the other hand, is a whole lot more accessible. There is no background beyond reading the thread, no extensive character arks needed to understand stuff. 

 

Why don't we just keep doing that, then? There's plenty of space on the other side of the world.

[old man moomba]

Just now, xinoehp512 said:

Why don't we just keep doing that, then? There's plenty of space on the other side of the world.

Or on other planets. 

[MacThorstenson]

15 minutes ago, xinoehp512 said:

Why don't we just keep doing that, then? There's plenty of space on the other side of the world.

The issue is that people aren’t stuck over there. It’s the same issue with having things on different the planets. You can easily or quickly move between planets, or other parts of the world, via workshopping. 

If people can easily move from setting to setting, it all becomes part of one mega super complex plot, which defeats the purpose of having split things up in the first place. 

[xinoehp512]

What if a plot starts up in a location and I don't have a character there?

[MacThorstenson]

2 minutes ago, xinoehp512 said:

What if a plot starts up in a location and I don't have a character there?

What do you mean?

[xinoehp512]

What do you mean when you say that people should not be able to move easily from setting to setting? What sort of limitations would that apply?

[MacThorstenson]

23 minutes ago, xinoehp512 said:

What do you mean when you say that people should not be able to move easily from setting to setting? What sort of limitations would that apply?

Again I will refer to the exploring the other side of the world plot. 

With that setting, characters don’t transition between the other side of the world plot and the rest of the alleyverse often. Whether it’s because they can’t or they don’t want to, this is the kind of self contained ness that we want to introduce. 

It’s still feasible for people to move from universe to universe, but it’s not easy. 

Every new location that starts up will allow people to move in, whether by allowing them to create new characters, or moving existing ones, but people won’t be able to switch a character from location to location over the course of a single meeting. 

This would hopefully limit the complexity of different plots. 

[Voidus]

1 hour ago, xinoehp512 said:

What do you mean when you say that people should not be able to move easily from setting to setting? What sort of limitations would that apply?

So the first idea that occurred to me was to add some time slippage to multiverse travel, so it's still possible and characters who travel from the Alleyverse to the other verse all arrive in chronological order, but if you then try to travel back to the Alleyverse you're not going to arrive there for a few months / years after you initially left.

We have tried a few times to start plots on other planets but basically all that happened was that people just instantly worldhopped there to participate in the plot then worldhopped back when needed to the Alleyplanet.

[I think I am here.]

I like the time slippage idea as a limit. But what’s stopping us from adding large locations in the Alleyverse where time slippage occurs, than making new universes? If we added some more locations in the same universe, but gave it that same limit (that time slippage occurs) as a limit for movement, wouldn’t that have the same effect?

[Voidus]

5 minutes ago, I think I am here. said:

I like the time slippage idea as a limit. But what’s stopping us from adding large locations in the Alleyverse where time slippage occurs, than making new universes? If we added some more locations in the same universe, but gave it that same limit (that time slippage occurs) as a limit for movement, wouldn’t that have the same effect?

It would, doesn't have to be alternate universes, anything which discourages hopping to other settings would work. But one of the other ideas was that this would allow us to establish some pretty varied settings, so if someone wanted to play in a more traditional medieval fantasy world they could, or a more modern-day type setting, etc. and I think that works a little better with multiple universes, but I'm not super attached to that idea if we can get the same benefit from something else.

[xinoehp512]

Not only would time barriers prevent exploration, but distance and physical barriers would as well. The North Sea is a quarter of the way around the world from the Alleylands, and it is surrounded by a barrier of nigh impossible mountains with a few passes.

[FatherTiempo]

Has anyone thought to make a annotated history of the alleyverse?

[Voidus]

8 minutes ago, xinoehp512 said:

Not only would time barriers prevent exploration, but distance and physical barriers would as well. The North Sea is a quarter of the way around the world from the Alleylands, and it is surrounded by a barrier of nigh impossible mountains with a few passes.

But people can always just decide to Aon Tia over there in an instant. Distance is barely an impediment at all in a world where people regularly transport instantly from one world to another.
 

6 minutes ago, FatherTiempo said:

Has anyone thought to make a annotated history of the alleyverse?

We have a wiki for that.

[xinoehp512]

1 hour ago, Voidus said:

But people can always just decide to Aon Tia over there in an instant. Distance is barely an impediment at all in a world where people regularly transport instantly from one world to another.

See, that's not necessarily true. People have been advocating for the reduction in use of Tia cards, and I think I have a idea on what that would entail, along with the in-world explanation for why it exists.

Let's start with the use of Aons on the Alleyplanet. Aons are powered through the Dor, which would normally exist only on Sel, so imagine there's some sort of Dor resevoir that's fed from the main source. It fills up steadily, but slowly. This explains why it was possible for people to drain the Dor enough that the Worldspike barrier failed.

 Now, Aon Tia cards aren't actually cards; they're unsealed metalminds. The power of the card not only gives the user the power to activate Aons, but also provides the raw power needed to do so. This allows it to work anywhere, not just where you have access to the Dor. However, you need a lot of power to transport someone from one place to another. In addition, the formulas required are incredibly complex, and the only people who really know how to do it live on the Alleyplanet. Making a lot of Aon Tia cards could drain the Dor faster than it could be replenished, especially when the demand for them increases. This could lead to another catastrophic barrier failure.

In addition, the fragile nature of Alleyplanet space and time means that every activation of a Tia card further decays the stability of space and time, especially as the distances involved increase.

For these two reasons, the powers that be have implemented restrictions on the production and use of Tia cards on the planet surface.

How this is implemented out-of-character is simple; we tie Aon Tia cards to the monetary system. Nohadon invented Tia cards in the first place, after all. If we make them expensive, it increases incentive to find other means of transport while not removing them entirely.

 

[Steel Inquisitive]

I think multiple universes could work. When I first read that i didn't understand how it would simplify,but I think I caught the vision now. We would need them to be very clearly marked somehow..... Or it will be a nightmare....