MetaTerminal

I think that eras (especially late-level eras) will always be based around some sort of large-scale conflict, since that’s how we as a species create stories. So the end of an era will usually be the conclusion of that conflict; in some cases it could be the introduction of a conflict, perhaps after a long period of inactivity, or the creation of a new ruleset that requires a new wave of characters. In most cases, however, we will see a conflict-related ending. That means sacrifice, loss, death and general destruction, unless we make a concerted move away from PvP combat. Right now I would expect a similar ending to Era 2 than Era 1; a bittersweet ending that brings peace following a great turmoil. The ending of Era 1 was not necessarily unhappy - the SYP was the opposite, I’d argue, although largely skipped over to focus on the conflict beforehand. So something similar will happen at around Boxing Day.

“If we want time travel, we’re going to need to do some serious planning to make sure that the whole timeline doesn’t just end up obliterating itself. Either we rigourously plan out plotlines (so we get Primer) or ignore continuity entirely (so we get Lost but with time travel), and I don’t think either is preferable. “As for Kaijus - again, I would always lean towards underpowered rather than overpowered. It’s a similar issue to the character one.”

The quality of this thread appears to have deteriorated significantly during my abscence. Ah-doe-lin or ah-duh-lin, with the ‘a’ from ‘cat’. (æ if you know IPA.)

I think summaries will only really be required for ongoing threads (unless someone needs blanket summarization as they’ve been away for a while), but if you’re involved in it you should be fairly able to summarize something anyway.

See, I’m not an MMORPG player, but something like a Corrupted Blood Plague in the Alleyverse would really interest me (and tbh Alum would probably be very involved in that plot line due to his skillset, which is also why I’m pushing that.)

“Actually, there are plenty of examples of two gods who have very similar domains, with only slight differences to set them apart (like the reality v dream thing). So you could overlap a little, although I would defer to Voidus in this case. Correction over.”

“I have no problem with building a Pantheon here, personally. The massive hole in the fourth wall makes for nice decor. “On that note, I will be the god of Study, Learning, History and Wisdom. Also, dibs being the god of cats. We need one.”

Although there have been several attempts to introduce space-based stories into the Alleyverse, I’d think we would have to wait until Mistborn Era 4 before that would become commonplace. As for the army idea - I agree, it’s very disingenuous to have three people lead a massive army of troops. See, you can’t just magic up a fighting force - every soldier needs to be recruited, trained, instructed, fed, clothed, and armed. Something like that should be out of reach unless it was part of, or branching off of a major guild. Between GUESS and the Sentinels I think we’re pretty much set on soldiers, and going forward I would like to see people hiring troops (which would both make much more sense and would introduce much more ability to RP) rather than creating them. Beyond that, I think having the size of an army be proportional to the size of a guild is a good idea. One person could rally about 20 people - a large guild of ten or more could organize large groups of 150 or 200. And 200 people is a lot of people - they would outnumber every named character in the Alleyverse. An army of that size, although maybe small by modern standards, is nothing to sneeze at. Power creep is hard to deal with. Everyone wants their characters to be able to do something - no one wants to be artificially limited. Alum was originally built as quite OP, as my first introduction was the SDW thread and I thought that was the standard. Going into the start of Era 2, I had to remove some of his powers before I introduced him. People will scale their characters to others’, and beginnings of Eras are sort of natural resets where power levels come right down. I think right now it’s not causing problems, but it always has the potential to. The best you can do is change the culture, and have the majority of people have underpowered characters, with focus on dex, charisma or intelligence rather than strength. They can always get more powerful very easily - it’s hard to become less powerful in any meaningful sense TL;DR People should hire soldiers instead of creating them and should underpower their characters.

All the upvotes for this. Seriously. I though about this a while back, and your conclusions about this are basically mine, but better. I agree, this is a major problem, specifically because people don’t do it. If you ask in a thread for a summary, you will very rarely get the complete story - it’s even worse if you leave the RP for large chunks of time and need summaries for all new threads. I would be happy to do this, but at the moment I’m very behind on Era 2 in general. Once I’ve caught up in about a week or so, maybe. I am very free over the holidays so I can do it then. There’s a level of inherent joy in watching a thread grow to monstrous levels. RP is also a conversation, and a new thread can potentially interrupt that conversation. I’d have to see it in action before forming an opinion, but some sort of consensus needs to be met about how many pages should be reached before splitting. If it’s post density you’re worried about, that can’t really be helped. If people want to RP, let them. Something like a post restriction or even just asking people not to participate would probably do much more harm than good. But if you’re simply worried about plot speed - again, the most we can really do is ask people to slow down, as we can’t really enforce it without causing issues. This actually is underlined by a much more inherent problem, which is that activity isn’t constant. There will be phases of low and high activity - right now I think we’re in high activity. An opposite problem will begin to set at some point. All of this. I think people need to be more open about developments in general. Again, cycles: active threads fall out of use, everyone makes new threads until enough stuff sticks that new ones don’t need to be made, and then we have new active threads. Planning means we can streamline that process. Yeeeeesss. All of this. Again. I think right now the Ghostbloods are taking up the spotlight - the other guilds are either too inactive or don’t have enough members to gain traction. I could be wrong, though, and there’s secretly a Sentinel plot going right now - but the fact remains that guilds need to step up. In that vein, here are my ideas surrounding guilds: 1) Have it so every active guild has a goal in mind (probably for Era 3). Something like the Liebrarians wanting to rescue Voidus. If everyone has a goal, then there isn’t a shortage of ideas, and there’s more framework for guilds to make alliances and for backstabbing. I’d probably put a soft limit on how many active-ish people need to be in a guild (3+) before making guild plans, otherwise you just get everyone making individual plans again. 2) Make it clear what guilds are active (ie have leaders that are willing to make plans and work towards them.) Maybe posted in a guide, or as a separate entity. 3) Have it somewhat mandatory to join an active guild. Again, this wouldn’t be a hard rule, but I think that barring specific circumstances everyone would benefit from being in and having active and numerous guilds in the Alleyverse. These three things should get guilds up and running if everyone adopts them. We could possibly trial it at the beginning of Era 3, which should start on Boxing Day if 2 lasts as long as 1. But they’ll probably need to be tweaked.

Something moved at the centre of things. A change. And then, existence. “Hello everyone. I am me now.” I look around. “So this is weird. And interesting. Not to rehash on what others have said, but I’m worried this (both giving power this easily and the existence of us) will break stuff. Easily. Like, for example, everyone is now wearing swimming goggles, because I say so.” And they were. “But now they’re not.” And they weren’t. “Normal godmodding rules apply, of course. Won’t do it again. But limitations are more interesting than powers, so short of any actual rules, I think that this will become - and has already become - a chat thread with quotes around it. Do we want that?” “The other thing I have problem with is the RP element. Like, I know we’re supposed to be our counterparts. But there is always a wall, and the thicker the wall the easier it is for him. Me. Whatever. It’s people all the way down - if I am being written, and that writer is being aware of being written - that doesn’t work for me. For other people, maybe. But I’m iffy with fourth wall transversing like this. For that reason we’ll need to be as non-interventional as possible. Side-tangent: Maybe we could form a Pantheon, like a Greek pantheon, and we each take an area of specialty and usually not interfere with lesser beings. Like, how the Greek Gods didn’t interfere. Maybe sometimes, but only on important occasions, with the agreement of everyone and limited interference. I like that idea. Tangent over.” “In short: it’s a cool concept. We have to just not break it too much.”

“I’m not sure. I might have missed that, as unfortunately I have become hard of hearing recently. It’s customary for me to switch between planes. My apologies. It’s an old habit. No matter, though. I will remain still as you request.” Alum bowed, hoping that his head would not be removed in the process. He wasn’t a practiced liar, so he could hopefully pull this off. “One could argue that I haven’t moved at all, if you would like to be philosophical. “I am, of course, happy to follow any requests you have of me, so long as they do not hinder me too much. Bodily harm would be one of those. And I’d like to keep my Investiture. But beyond that, I am perfectly fine to leave the premises so long as I agree on the destination. I have a game of breakneck I would like to attend at a later date, if you don’t mind. Do you play such games yourself?” He cupped his ear. “Speak up, please, my ears aren’t what they used to be.”

“Hmm. Administrator access. I wonder how we could get that. Or fake it.” Then the last few words of the message filtered through. Whatever detainment unit was being created, Alum didn’t want to wait around for it. He looked at Rekaerb. “You may want to run. It probably only wants me.” He held out a hand and summoned Pyrus. The blade took longer to form, and tugged at him, somehow. As if it didn’t want to follow. Not waiting for a response, Alum tried to Transport into the Cognitive Realm. At the very least, he needed to get the copperminds out of here.

Surprised at his continued existence, Alum stared at the barrier wall, memorising the symbols. “Funny,” he said. “That last one seemed like an invitation to trespass further. Or maybe I’m reading it wrong. In any case, we’ve been shown the preliminary defences. No doubt there are greater difficulties lying in wait.” One final experiment. He had changed his spikes before approaching the barrier - now, he extended a finger to draw an Aon on the surface. A simple Aon Tae, fueled by Craftsmen Hemalurgy. Open. Records reported that people had drawn Aons on the surface to gain access. Alum didn’t expect this to work, but learning how it failed would provide information.

That made me laugh. Not as bad as a pin, though. Checkmate. Call with a royal flush. Mornington Crescent. King capture with queen and rook.

Check. Raise you 3. King’s Cross. Pawn to d4. Bingo.

Storm it, Voidus, winning the Mind Chess game. On your very first related post, too. Shame on you. Interestingly, the longform name of titin takes just over an hour to pronounce. Longer if you stop for breaks. Short of another round of Mind Chess, or Mornington Crescent, I don’t know any other forum games, unless someone wants to pick up that actual chess game again.

Check. It’s probably a description of all its components. What is the shortform name?

*insert related comment so the post isn’t one word long* Check.

Mind Chess is harder on a forum, since you can’t read your opponent. Check.

Cogitas, ergo es? I think that rule applies. Check.

Pawn to d4. Messed up the Gambit already, but eh. Yeah, the trophy is sanctioned by the 17th Shard Mind Chess Association that I definitely did not just make up. Enjoy your Mind Trophy.

Well done Gancho. You get the official 17th Shard Mind Chess Trophy. Pawn to e4.

That’s the other thing - you can be winning, but you’ve never technically won, as long as the thread exists. Even if you’ve ‘won’, someone can still necro the thread, so you haven’t won. In this case, now you’re losing. (But not lost.) This reminds me of the game Mind Chess. Two people say Check, alternating turns, until one of them says Checkmate. The person who says Checkmate wins, but the aim is to wait before winning for as long as possible. Some versions you get increasing numbers of points based on how many times you say Check before Checkmate. Ideally, in Mind Chess you would say Checkmate just before your opponent was going to. It would be a little like this thread if the moderators were playing - they can just win whenever they want by locking the topic, but the idea is to leave it as long as possible before winning. So, in order to pass the proverbial time... Check.

So, er, I noticed this exists. And now I’m winning. Winning is fun! It’s like a reverse Game; you win as long as you participate. (Although now I’m losing the Game again. You’re welcome.)

Alum stared at the Aons, storing them in a coppermind. He didn’t recognise them - unfortunately, Selish magic was a branch he was rather weak in. He took particular note of the Aon that appeared on the stick, an effect which he had not observed before. “I wonder what happens if organic matter touches the barrier,” he mused. “I suspect the result will be rather different. Would you mind, Rekaerb?” He began backing away, not wanting to die, and stepped into the remains of the mouldy pineapple. @xinoehp512