Rules Overhaul [FORUM WIDE DISCUSSION]

[Geizt]

Dare I ask what Operation Sneaky Rainbow is?

[The Mysterious Mr. Jameson Q.]

It is a an underhanded plot, a deceitful scheme, and a cunning ploy.

[Rocket!]

Ninelives has one week to step back in before we move on without the good fellow.

Also, if anyone wants to fill me in on Operation Sneaky Whatintheworld, I'm but an pm away~

[Rocket!]

Alrighty then, we're moving on without Niner for the forseeable future. I'll be wearing the great big admin pants until the four of us Niner hailed down to bring DS back have a chance to sit down and figure out what's what.

A quick head's up: I've disabled posting for full profiles in character creation while we're in a state of disrepair. Lite profiles will still be postable, but we don't want an internet passerby to make a profile ten seconds before we update any rules, neh?

That said!

Are we picking up this thread, or does the operation I have no idea what it does is take precedence, mates?

[White]

I think I'm just along for the ride as usual. Don't think I have a say, but I don't have one so it's not like I'm feeling silenced.

I guess I'm here to make everyone think we're not all dead.

Because I'm pretty sure I'm not dead.

And I talked to a couple of people recently...

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

[The Mysterious Mr. Jameson Q.]

Operation Sneaky Rainbow is invincible to all of your shenanigans.

No one should even be joining the site in its current state, should they? Because we have no maintenance workers and only last empire's infrastructure.

As for whether or not this revival thing is even happening anymore, the only people who were really dedicated to the idea haven't posted in a grand long while, so maybe we should see about rousing our Allies first. =P Also, now that our admin has the admin account, he is crippling the site again. That was one of the big preventative issues in the first place.

[prythian]

For the record, if we absolutely cannot find Dei, it is entirely possible to recover the main admin account. In fact, it's highly likely that'll happen within this week. We just, um, need Grav to help, which shouldn't be a problem.

Also for the record, the admin position on this site has almost all the powers it possibly can have; there are very few actions that require use of the main admin account. The main one I can think of right now is deleting the board, and none of us want that. (Some of us may not care one way or another, but I'm fairly certain no one WANTS that.)

[mrcrazycakes]

I'm still here for what it's worth.

[Rocket!]

Alrighty then, let's get back on track with the locked worlds issue.

Niner already gave a thumbs up to DSA's proposal, so let's just hammer down the fine details and make sure we're all on the same page...

What DSA proposed:

• Complete forum restart. Characters gone (though obviously free to be recreated!), story reboot, everything.
  
• Regarding Worlds: the whole forum starts on one world, with others becoming available/unlocked/known(?) as per the plot. A community vote would determine that world.
  
• The community would largely operate in two different ways: Storm Chasers, who follow and participate in the plot regularly with related threads and proportionate rewards, and, uh, those who don't! More on that in just a second!

Finer details wise, we'll need to figure out the following:

• People not strictly speaking part of the plot - would they be able to pretty much ignore the plot? Join DS, make a charrie, just have straight-forward fun on one of the available worlds? Would they be given free roam of unavailable worlds?
  
• A Moogle network of Gummi Ships was also proposed as a way to travel the worlds - would this network replace personal Gummi Ships? Would (and how would?) Keyblades need to be changed to maintain an appropriate level of awesome? xD
  
• With DSA's world progression model, there's two different ways Worlds could be handled - Discovered or Unlocked. We'll either have all the worlds divided into Locked and Unlocked, which would be based strongly in what DS has been doing up to now, or divvied into Discovered and Undiscovered, where you have worlds entirely discovered as the plot progresses and brings them about.

We can try to combine Discovered and Unlocked notions, but I'll be honest-- that'll be a sort of complicated bordering on genuinely off-putting, that. I'm willing to bring Keyblades back to the drawing board if it means simplifying world travel, ten thousand times over.

EDIT: Yeah, you're right, Brezz. xD I'll see that the Lite Profiles board is locked too. I'll stop short of stopping sign ups for now though.

[Spring [Complex]]

To be honest with everyone, I can't even remember the flow of this discussion and why I suggested certain things, so for Rocket to be picking out aspects now is kind of like ".-.". Okay so if something seems off in my logic, well you know why.

I don't think DS can handle people ignoring the forum wide plot even though that seems to work for KHRPF. The reason for that is because this site was built on the basis of a community roleplaying a forumwide plot. What fun could someone have ignoring the story of other characters?

The Keyblade simply required that worlds remain locked and thus having the Keyblades to unlock them was suitable. The network of Moogles and gummi ships was supposed to be a way to travel to worlds despite this (just you can only be on one world at a time I think, Brezzy post something so I can remember what in the world we were doing here).

[prythian]

My response:

RE: Erasing characters: Does the munny and stuff poured into them just... vanish? This doesn't seem quite fair. A continuity reset seems like it should rather just reset a character's history rather than outright delete the character...

RE: Worlds: The decision, from what I understand, was that the Moogles would run a Gummi Ship system, either for free or with a very miniscule charge, rather than people buying their own Gummi Ship, and the World Open/Close system staying as it is. Same with staying on only one world at a time. Basically, promoting travel without removing the continuity.

RE: Plot: See DSA's response here. I don't think restarting things would be a bad idea, but also, I sort of believe if we restart the forum continuity and plot, we either need to change the plot significantly or throw it out and get a new one.

RE: Keyblades: Um. We did have one idea that would make it easy to make the Keyblades more important... if not to the main plot, than at least in a side plot... Rocket, DSA, you remember? It should still be in the Plot Team board.

[The Mysterious Mr. Jameson Q.]

Got yer back DSA.

World Network: It would be plot based, starting on one (1) world voted on by the community. This means only one world would even be visible as a board at the forum's start. Having one RP location creates the intimate world-community, and sets the tone that this is a forum based around the plot.

At the end of that world's point in the plot, a new location would be discovered AND unlocked (there was some argument about the keyblade here, but really its a non-issue), members would have roughly three options: Storm Chasers could immediately jump to the next world, characters could hang back on their home world, or members could create a new character for the new world.

This pattern would repeat until the end of the plot.


Using that as the definitive text:
The Moogle Network I originally proposed was designed with old DS in mind, though once we've got an expansive network of worlds here, could work just as well. Under old DS, people would sell their pre-owned/used vehicles back to the car lot for a reasonable rate. The Moogle Network would then ferry people from world to world cheaply. Essentially it would take five (5) munny or one (1) post for a character to move from one board to another.

With the potentially new DS what we would see happening is that as a world becomes discovered, about a week or so afterwards it would be added to the ferrying services offered by Moogle Net. For the same prices, under the same mechanics. You pay 5 Munny, your character gets to move to a different board of their choosing.

The Keyblade (non)Issue:
For some reason it's really important to have Locked Worlds so Keyblades are useful. Fundamentally I think that this is a terribly backwards idea, but if it is so ingrained in the infrastructure that it cannot be voided, this is how it is addressed.

Moogles do not travel to locked worlds until a week after they have been unlocked.

[prythian]

Seeing as, under this system, it is impossible for Keyblades to unlock worlds without the Keyblader being one born on the world, I think it would be safe to discard the Locked world idea... heck, even discard Keyblades altogether, since otherwise they are nothing but a glorified group of abilities.

I want to be on the record for saying I highly dislike the idea of only one world being available from the start. For all the accusations I've gotten during my adminship of limiting free RPing, that idea limits it even more than anything I ever did.

[The Mysterious Mr. Jameson Q.]

Keyword being free RPing, which DS allowed.

The ideas DSA presents are plot-centric to the core mechanics of the forum.

Free RPing and Plot RPing are usually hybridized to make the plot more appealing to the vast majority; this however, would be Plot RPing, until which point that there is enough room for Free RPing.

[Rocket!]

Worlds
I'm a huge fan of starting with just the one world, personally! It keeps things focused, and makes for appropriate and definitive forum-wide positive feedback when a new world's found. There definetly should be free RPing, but we're obviously going to be focusing on plot a lot more from here on out - waiting for the plot to grow to a safe and stable point before being concerned about Free RPing.

Locked Worlds
I'm also voting for completely tossing the Locked/Unlocked system, even if it means potentially tossing Keyblades. And if we do decide to toss the system, I'm also going to propose we go ahead and ignore Keyblades until we move onto the plot. I get the feeling they won't find any use functionally until they find a use story-wise. ^^

Moogle Net
I like it! And a lot of fun plot ideas come to mind, too! What say we simply make Gummi Tolls paid for by any given world ruler? The reasoning behind it's in this example:

It's a way for the plot to effect members harmlessly, adding a small amount of tension in what could be a regular/taken-for-granted option without in any way seriously messing or impeding any members.

There's a million and one ways we could play with something as small as that to show off plot happenings - worlds without definitive leaders wouldn't be able to forgo that fee, worlds with evil rulers (*cough*, Scar, *cough*) who try to make a tax (bringing it up to the insanely high price of 10 munny, for example), and that's awesome.



General sentiment's leaning towards Dream Sequence becoming plot geared, if not focused. Before we move onto the plot, let's officially resolve Niner's first problem and the Moogle Net.

World accessibility should revolve around being Found or Unlocked. - If Found, they'd be easily accessible by anyone through a Moogle network of Gummi Ships for negligible prices one week after they've been Found. - If Unlocked, as in above-- but if Locked, the Moogle Net would not be able to provide transportation to that world until a Quest/the Plot/Keyblader Unlocked the world.[/i]

Votes, rebuttals, an' changes?