The Multiverse: A Renewal

Remæus · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Remæus** on Tue Jan 19, 2016 5:19 pm

RolePlayGateway's 10th Anniversary has come, and it's time to get ready for what comes next: even more awesomeness, especially for The Multiverse. We've already built a robust universe teeming with content. The next step is to amp up the approachability, attracting both casual readers and creative writers alike. The Multiverse has a bright future as a standalone, exploratory universe, bigger than any MMO in history, with a collaboratively-written backstory to support it.

Today, we build a bridge towards that future. This is where you come in: we're going to need all hands on deck.

With the sum of our skills, the grease of our elbows, and the combined effort of all, we're going to refine and organize The Multiverse into coherence, presenting it as the epic it truly is. We'll need your support as a volunteer to join and contribute to one of the following initiatives:

- All Hands On Deck
- Become a Historian
- Become a Cartographer
- Become a Weaver
- Become a Way Finder
- The Great Gambit's Gambit
- The Winners Write the History Books

If you're interested in playing a part, read the instructions in each of these threads and respond appropriately. There is a lot to do! However, our actions will make the Multiverse more approachable to new players, and ultimately result in the success of our mission to create a new universe in which we can exist.

Thank you so much for everything you've contributed, as a writer, a reader, and a creator! We look forward to your participation.

MayContainPlagiarism · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **MayContainPlagiarism** on Thu Jan 21, 2016 8:22 pm

This is very exciting. The Multiverse is what kept bringing me back to RPG over the last seven (eight? Holy...) years I've known about it. Does the future of this website include improved instant-chat RPing? (Less lag, getting kicked into OOC, posts bleeding into other chats, and all those other fun things that made it so difficult before?)

Will the new MV include newer, and even more complex and subjective romance rules?

Why do you want the old MV bookmarked and organized for readers? Is it a management decision, or a request by the community? With a 1 million post+ length, and so many characters that existed for less than a day... is so much of it actually worth reading? I adore the MV, and I have many fond memories of Gambit's Bar, but it's hard to believe there's anyone that wants everything that's ever happened in it summarized. That's... got to be days of reading, far beyond the scope of even the most hardcore fantasy enthusiasts, who, in the words of one of my favorite entertainers, "will read anything, good or bad, as long as there's a lot of it."

And by "days" I mean, like, days straight.

It also seems like, with so many characters that could literally change reality as an afterthought and the MV somehow existing almost unchanged for 10 years regardless, so much of its history is... pointless. On the grand scale. To the individuals and groups involved in the writing, it understandably means a great deal, but I find it hard to argue that anything that's happened in the MV has had any tangible impact except that which writers chose to respond to, which, again, ultimately, is very little. I'll never forget Cecilia Frazier, and I have many, very funny anecdotes about him that I love to share, but it's not like the acceptance of fatherhood, the struggles of anti-anthro racism, and the chronicles of his grand adventuring are worth being recorded the way that the high-and-mighty nation/galaxy-level roleplaying some users decided they liked are.

Remæus · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Remæus** on Fri Jan 22, 2016 12:48 am

MayContainPlagiarism wrote:Does the future of this website include improved instant-chat RPing? (Less lag, getting kicked into OOC, posts bleeding into other chats, and all those other fun things that made it so difficult before?)

Yes! While the Multiverse renewal is only part of our overall efforts, it will benefit from the Maki framework, which we've designed from scratch ourselves to support the kind of performance expectations that RolePlayGateway requires. You should expect a new chat that performs better than anything we've had before.

MayContainPlagiarism wrote:Will the new MV include newer, and even more complex and subjective romance rules?

New rules of all sorts are under consideration. If anything, we're hoping to make them much simpler.

MayContainPlagiarism wrote:Why do you want the old MV bookmarked and organized for readers?

We're hoping to bundle and package individual storyline arcs; thin slices of the overall Multiverse, but good entertainment for the casual reader. This means highlighting content ranging from short-stories (single scenes, or even single posts!) to novel-length epics, all with the same backing context and potential for shared elements across multiple bundles.

RolePlayGateway's future has always been in empowering writers to collaborate on amazing, compelling fiction. We're now hoping to give a deeper meaning to the thousands of hours people have spent here, creating, by drawing an audience to appreciate the fruits of our labor.

MayContainPlagiarism · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **MayContainPlagiarism** on Fri Jan 22, 2016 4:13 pm

Remæus wrote:We're hoping to bundle and package individual storyline arcs; thin slices of the overall Multiverse, but good entertainment for the casual reader. This means highlighting content ranging from short-stories (single scenes, or even single posts!) to novel-length epics, all with the same backing context and potential for shared elements across multiple bundles.

What is your criteria for selecting what content is worthy of the cataloging? I suppose I should have asked that directly. Like I said before, I don't think everything is, and even if it were, I can't imagine the undertaking of doing everything. Is it some kind of peer-review system? Do you have a synopsis submitted and some kind of qualification sheet to fill out? I didn't see anything criteria-related last night trying to follow what I thought were the relevant links.

And, not that it needs repeating, I'm so excited. I really don't want to see RPG ever go away. I look forward to the day that I can split part of my paycheck to keep it going.

FyreT1ger · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **FyreT1ger** on Mon Jan 25, 2016 4:23 pm

I can't read Remaeus' mind, but I'm assuming that we have to catalog what already is, before even attempting to do any more. The Multiverse is HUGE! The largest role play that exists on the site. Almost everyone who's been here in the last ten years added something. I didn't because I was intimidated by the size, but I can speak for no one else.

The intimidating size is precisely why it needs to be organized and simplified. It's also why one person isn't doing all of it. Just one person won't be doing all the history. It's a team of Historians, a team I would like to join if I could decide where to start. I have never participated in the Multiverse, so I don't even know which segment I'd want to help sort.

One thing I can suggest. When this cleanup job is over, try to keep it going regularly after the fact, so another cleanup of this size isn't necessary. Once a year at minimum, all these established teams work together again to put all the newly recorded information together in an archive, so future generations of role players can keep track.

MayContainPlagiarism · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **MayContainPlagiarism** on Mon Jan 25, 2016 7:22 pm

If MV2 follows a similar story of MV1, but this time with some kind of forewarning/forward from Remaeus letting everyone know that he'd like it all cataloged and whatnot, I'm sure the nation-level RPers would gladly participate, since they were so glad to shove their nonsense down everyone's throat already before.

Yes, I'm still bitter about it.

Whatever happens, I hope MV2 isn't as toxic as MV1 was near/during its end. With the substantial loss of active members and the website's community, I know the demographics have shifted considerably, and as far as I've been made aware, the website is very young now. I don't know if that's good or bad, but I think the mood will be different. I'm gladly celebrating RPG's Renaissance but I have to wonder how many of the members now are aware it's happening, and how much of the old community is interested in returning to the MV.

Either way, circling back to what I was trying to say before: I second T1ger's proposal, not because I'm personally, in any way interested in scrolling through a history of MV1 or 2, but to prevent it from being such a massive undertaking again. People should focus on new roleplaying, not worrying about the past.

serenitykmoon · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **serenitykmoon** on Mon Jan 25, 2016 7:48 pm

While everyone has basically said what has needed to be said, can I just say this is so wonderful to read? I really, truly am ecstatic that finally, RPG may be coming full circle back to its glory days.

I am so excited!!! :D

Skallagrim · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Skallagrim** on Wed Feb 17, 2016 2:27 pm

It has been a while since I have wandered these halls, but I am glad to see an effort to establish a cohesive multiverse again. I humbly offer what ever aid I may provide in this undertaking.

ChaoticMarin · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **ChaoticMarin** on Thu Feb 18, 2016 12:19 pm

I've been away for a while, but if I'm going to be around I might as well make myself useful. I've always held a slight reverence for RPG, and it'd make me proud to contribute to it. Here's hoping for a better tomorrow.

Eloas · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Eloas** on Thu Jun 23, 2016 7:35 am

okay[code][/code]

Cypher7850 · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Cypher7850** on Fri Aug 19, 2016 7:39 am

This might be a late comment, but when will the 2nd Multiverse be launched?

ChaoticMarin · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **ChaoticMarin** on Fri Aug 19, 2016 1:09 pm

So I was cruising around in another thread and found this dandy quote. Thought I'd respond to it here instead.

LawOfTheLand wrote:One of the more controversial suggestions to come out of some recent discussion: Pruning the Multiverse.

It's no secret to anyone that's tried to find a particular place that the roleplay is absolutely BLOATED, with many of the places having zero content (Does a government building really need a specific hall?). In the case of parent locations who have a bunch of children with activity, well, the idea of deleting places is out of the question, but for when it's goose-eggs all the way down? That might be another story.

I also know from experience that MV posts can be removed/hidden if their content violates site rules, but I'm not sure if this precedent can be applied to entire places due to the differing justifications.

I have an alternative suggestion. What you're describing is an organizational problem, and while that is a problem there is actually a much bigger problem being missed here. Making your own locations in The Multiverse is a pain in the butt! Everyone's concerned with using locations that, frankly, nobody cares for and actual content creators are basically being told no when they ask about making their own.

So here's my suggestion for solving the organizational problem in a way that doesn't shut out content creators, creating another arguably bigger issue:

Simply re-do the location system to have two types of locations: Root Locations and Sub Locations. Sub Locations can only exist inside of root locations and when they're posted in, the root location gets updated on the activity/places pages instead. When you click on the root location, the order of the locations within are organized by most recent post by default.

So, basically the way places within places already work--only organized by most recent post instead of alphabetically. (Maybe add an option to switch to alphabetical?)

Consider the impact this simple change would have on the example you gave. "Does a government building really need a specific hall?" Suddenly that specific hall is a sub-location instead, and so its impact on the site-wide organization is a lot smaller. Maybe the government building does have 4 different halls for some reason, but each one of them is hidden inside the root location until it's opened.

As a side effect of this change, I would also recommend that people be able to make more sub locations. The current sovereign system prevents people, especially people building larger things like planets, from properly fleshing out all the locations within those planets. When you're first starting off, the number of locations you can make is quite small--and even if you get a good handful of people RPing on your planet that number isn't going to rise high enough for people with loftier worldbuilding goals.

Right now the answer to that problem is "Make your own RP", but there isn't a particularly good reason for that in my honest opinion. With this new change to sub locations in place, it would be reasonable to have a significantly lesser limit on them, with root locations having the similar limits to the current sov system.

Edit: Also, purging locations that have never been posted in and have a description shorter than say, 30-35 characters. (Just enough to root out any variation of "Description Coming Soon") would be an okay house cleaning solution in the meantime.

Remæus · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Remæus** on Fri Dec 02, 2016 8:01 am

ChaoticMarin wrote:Simply re-do the location system to have two types of locations: Root Locations and Sub Locations. Sub Locations can only exist inside of root locations and when they're posted in, the root location gets updated on the activity/places pages instead. When you click on the root location, the order of the locations within are organized by most recent post by default.

Apologies for the delay in responding to this, but in essence yes, this is precisely as things exist today in the back-end, but we haven't turned on the visibility for nested content as of yet. If you'll allow me to explain, it might help someone document how everything works, which will help us enable it more quickly (there are some complications that I won't yet detail).

We've oriented the cardinal directions as expected, and placed the "up" and "down" directions off to the right hand side, if you'll glance at this well-organized location. More interestingly, the left-hand side contains the navigation you're referring to — the "root" location, as designated by "...is a part of..." which means in effect that the location is inside of the other.

As you might imagine, "zooming" out to a wider view of the universe would enable you to see more of the content, but you'll have to filter out some portion if you want to get any idea of detail (or coherence). The long-term plan is to render a truly interactive map, navigable by mouse and keyboard alike. We have a cool way of rendering this in three dimensions, and hope to have a public prototype soon.

ChaoticMarin wrote:I would also recommend that people be able to make more sub locations.

The current number is roughly ~10 per sovereignty level, if I recall correctly. What do you feel would be an appropriate number for the Multiverse? I feel like this is a tune-able number over time, to control the growth of the ecosystem. I wonder if we shouldn't keep it fixed, rather than changing it.

Or at least consider it carefully before doing so.

ChaoticMarin · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **ChaoticMarin** on Fri Dec 02, 2016 3:25 pm

I couldn't think of any more wonderful response to receive when discussing potential new features than "The infrastructure is already in place". That's amazing! I hadn't even considered how this could already work on the current back-end.

Remæus wrote:The current number is roughly ~10 per sovereignty level, if I recall correctly. What do you feel would be an appropriate number for the Multiverse? I feel like this is a tune-able number over time, to control the growth of the ecosystem. I wonder if we shouldn't keep it fixed, rather than changing it.

Well, the idea I was playing with was the concept of different allocations for different type of locations. Right now, under the current system, a government building with four different distinct locations inside of it costs as much sovereignty level as five entire planets and I feel like that's very limiting when it comes to the creative use of the tools we've been given. So what if say, everyone could only have five root locations per sovereignty level, but they could have 15 sub locations that can only be placed within those five root locations. If only the root locations are shown on the activity page / place page, I feel like this could drastically cut down on the perceived location bloat and encourage people to flesh out the individual locations while further slowing down continued bloat. (Less root locations overall)

The Multiverse: A Renewal

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