Latest revision as of 19:56, 20 July 2024

A Story as Old as Time ....

They come from places both strange and familiar. From other lands of magic and war. Drawn here to play a role in a never ending struggle for supremacy. The natives know of them, soldiers will follow them, and kings and queens vie for their loyalty. Travelers the Grey Rider calls them, but truly what they are are heroes. Heroes culled from many dimensions and alternate planes. Heroes who can change the very flow and fabric of war.

The war for the five thrones has been going on for millennia and was once very nearly won…

Nearly two thousand years ago the Andals came into a land far stranger than their home land and set about to conquer the entirety of Cuiveinen in the name of their god, the Thorn King. They nearly quelled the non-humans, nearly controlled the great magics, and nearly broke all of the alters to pagan gods.

Eighty years ago, the great dragons Ancalagon and Jormungander invoked their enormous will and destroyed a powerful cabal of magicians who had found a way to harness magic so vast it would have ravaged the world.

This was the chance the rebellion needed.

It began in the deep southern desert of Andus, it would flow into Raeyithia and into the hearts of the fey, it would find power and determination among the men of the North, and finally the Thorn King would fall to the great bows of Emlyn. The non-humans would reclaim their ancestral homes and demand their rights.

It’s been seventy years since the rebellion, but the five kingdoms struggle with internal conflict as ancient ways compete with new traditions . The Thorn King has left a legacy of distrust and discordance. And his followers ever whisper in shadows …

As of July 2024, RPCSS and Estates will not be active. Any information found in the wiki regarding holding estates and playing within the RPCSS system is archived and should not be used towards the current era of Sanctuary.

Table Top War Gaming not PvP

Aquire land, recruit spies, muster armies, establish alliances and navigate a world of conflict and politics.

The complexities of feudal estates and their virtual armies and are best managed by an online webbased tabletop war gaming system, that we call RPCSS, where each Estate Owner has private control over his or her armies, spies, and treasury.

PvP is not a realistic solution for such a storyline.

In fact, there is little PvP on our shard, and we do not feel that it is an accurate nor fair method for the settlement of battles between armies. A medieval army is not few a brutes duking it out in the street, but rather hundreds if not thousands of soldiers following the commands of a general who is skilled in both politics and tactics.

Our custom written RPCSS system manages all of those details both fairly and efficently. Every week, like clock work, the outcome of battles, army movements, soldier recruitment, taxes, up keep, saleries, and much more, is handled by the system -- freeing seers to support the kingdoms and players rather then waste their time playing accountant.

From the Players: RPCSS requires players to cooperate on a Kingdom level to be of any use. Of course, a player could still decide to ignore everything and focus on growing their own land but then he could get shit from the other Lords & King/Queen which drives more RP integration/interaction. Nothing prevents betrayal, playing a double agent, ignoring orders, attack allies or whatever. It is encouraged by the kingdom rulers to act unified but nothing prevent divergeant RPs to my knowledge as long as the player is OK with consequences.

I don't care how good you are in PVP, you are not an army unto yourself, you can not affect realm wide politics. That's so simple minded. But, it's a common theme amongst kids and online gamers. No thought to strategy or the greater world around them. Just what they want personally. As if the planet revolves around them.

RPCSS and the conflict are your oportunity to, as a player, generate a significant world-wide impact. This is the shard's greatest differential and has unlimited potential for providing an exciting, unpredictable and interactive environment.

Coming from another shard where the storyline was deceided by staff, this is better because we can feel the results of our decisions affect the world. This can make us to think more than just follow the crowd. The political alliences and land ownership truely change and thus change the perpective on the game.

Advice to New Players

The fiction of this world should feel familiar. It is taken from many popular medieval fantasy sources including Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, Conan, Narnia and similiar. However, most new players begin with a character called a Traveler ... as in a traveler from another dimension or plane of existance. While we will accept any reasonable medieval fantasy race it is our intention that you will participate in the storyline -- leading armies and playing politics. Even if this isn't your cup of tea, we strongly encourage you to have at least one character who can and will participate. The shard plot line, and all of the seers, are focused on this player run story.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-=Shard Design Topics for Discussion=
+=A Story as Old as Time ....=
-There is always a lot going into the design of a shard, and almost all of it comes down to the lore.  The lore both begins and ends the process as you attempt to incorporate a mixed bag of staff, player and scriptor goals.  Usually, I just do this with one or two other people, but since this is likely the last shard we’ll ever do … I thought I might put it out there for discussion.
+<i><font size="4">They come from places both strange and familiar.  From other lands of magic and war. Drawn here to play a role in a never ending struggle for supremacy.  The natives know of them, soldiers will follow them, and kings and queens vie for their loyalty.  Travelers the Grey Rider calls them, but truly what they are are heroes.  Heroes culled from many dimensions and alternate planes. Heroes who can change the very flow and fabric of war.
-Please keep in mind that this process is not just about what we all would LIKE but what will and won’t WORK.  For example, even if I have the desire to implement a system of magic like Ars Magica … it’s likely to require a scriptor to build it.  On the other hand, there are a number of other already written magical systems available -- it rather behooves us to write fiction to take advantage of the scripts we can more quickly implement.  This holds true for paperdoll art as there is a lot more fantasy clothing then their is historical.
+The war for the five thrones has been going on for millennia and was once very nearly won…
-So when making suggestions, please consider resources and limitations, because we will certainly have to.
+Nearly two thousand years ago the Andals came into a land far stranger than their home land and set about to conquer the entirety of Cuiveinen in the name of their god, the Thorn King.   They nearly quelled the non-humans, nearly controlled the great magics, and nearly broke all of the alters to pagan gods.
-=Shard Plot Line=
+Eighty years ago, the great dragons Ancalagon and Jormungander invoked their enormous will and destroyed a powerful cabal of magicians who  had found a way to harness magic so vast it would have ravaged the world.
-Finding, training and managing a seer team is probably the one thing that I have the hardest time with.  So difficult in fact that I actually want to come at this singular problem from a completely different position.
-For the last incarnation of Comraich on Second Life, Mith/Bane wrote a web-based game system known as RPCSS; Role Play Conquest Simulation System. While the game was still in beta, and there is more to be worked on -- it was an excellent tool for managing player driven land based conflict.  Let’s break that down:
+This was the chance the rebellion needed.
-;Tool:RPCSS is web based, its not in UO and will never be in UO because it requires functionality UO can’t reproduce no matter how creative David is.
+It began in the deep southern desert of Andus, it would flow into Raeyithia and into the hearts of the fey, it would find power and determination among the men of the North, and finally the Thorn King would fall to the great bows of Emlyn.  The non-humans would reclaim their ancestral homes and demand their rights.
-Player Driven -  The teams in RPCSS are written so as each leader of the team/house, doesn’t know what the other teams are doing.  In this way, not only can player leaders (think guild leaders) actual manage the large scale combat, NPC armies can be given to players to control instead of putting them in the more limited hands of trained seers.
-Land Base Conflict - One of the biggest challenges in playing out an online game is implementing any large scale conflict.  Its hard to grasp, its hard to manage all the elements and hard to represent in UO.  RPCSS at least handles the second part -- managing the elements of army conflict.
-There are a number of ways in which we might implement the results of RPCSS into UO this is a quick brain dump of the ideas:
+It’s been seventy years since the rebellion, but the five kingdoms struggle with internal conflict as ancient ways compete with new traditions .  The Thorn King has left a legacy of distrust and discordance.  And his followers ever whisper in shadows … </font></i>
-Armies spawn on the map in UO after the end of the weekly turn in RPCSS
+[[image:war.jpg|900px]]
-Armies are only hostile to members of other non-allied houses.
-Armies are triggered as champ spawns, and can not only be defeated by turns in RPCSS but by the players.
-The type of warriors available in RPCSS could be increased from just infantry and knights to include archers, magics, warriors, knights, and boss mobs.
-Guest Passes and/or disguises.
-Disabling the aggression “in town” or better yet using the “guards” call to enable it, for events and what not -- needs more thinking.
-To conclude, in addition to RPCSS being basically a player driven RISK game it was design for and functions as a tool for political RP in the spirit of Game of Thrones.
+'''''As of July 2024, RPCSS and Estates will not be active. Any information found in the wiki regarding holding estates and playing within the RPCSS system is archived and should not be used towards the current era of Sanctuary.'''''
-=Land Based Teams=
+=Table Top War Gaming not PvP=
-Okay, I had this all written out … all the ways NOT to do it … and the most obvious way to do it presented itself.
+'''Aquire land, recruit spies, muster armies, establish alliances and navigate a world of conflict and politics.
-Teams will be based on the castles on the map. A team of players will be the leader and his council. I will write the lore for each castle and surrounding land to have a mix of races and alignments. Players can join any team without regard for race or alignment. Conflict will be based on the traditional manner of conflict; protection of home and resources, from which politics will arise.
+The complexities of feudal estates and their virtual armies and are best managed by an [[RPCSSPageRedirect |online webbased tabletop war gaming system]], that we call RPCSS, where each [[Estate|Estate Owner]] has private control over his or her armies, spies, and treasury.
-Consequently, culture will be based on land region, and not specific to race as Sanctuary and Comraich were, but more like how Grimmwold was.
+'''PvP is not a realistic solution for such a storyline.'''
-=New Player Center and Applications=
+In fact, there is little PvP on our shard, and we do not feel that it is an accurate nor fair method for the settlement of battles between '''armies'''. A medieval army is not few a brutes duking it out in the street, but rather hundreds if not thousands of soldiers following the commands of a general who is skilled in both politics and tactics.
-We will do another new player center that lets anyone without an application join and is accessible to old players as well.  New players won’t be able to leave until they are ready to declare a name, race and kingdom.  There will be a few simple “race gates” for new players to play around with before they declare, and then staff will help set them up like we always have -- scripting that will come later.
-If we choose to let people come in with existing skills like the poll suggests, we’ll have a few basic class gates that they can play with to set their skills prior to application.
+Our custom written [[RPCSSPageRedirect |RPCSS system]] manages all of those details both fairly and efficently.  Every week, like clock work, the outcome of battles, army movements, soldier recruitment, taxes, up keep, saleries, and much more, is handled by the system -- freeing seers to support the kingdoms and players rather then waste their time playing accountant.
+;From the Players
+:''RPCSS requires players to cooperate on a Kingdom level to be of any use. Of course, a player could still decide to ignore everything and focus on growing their own land but then he could get shit from the other Lords & King/Queen which drives more RP integration/interaction. Nothing prevents betrayal, playing a double agent, ignoring orders, attack allies or whatever. It is encouraged by the kingdom rulers to act unified but nothing prevent divergeant RPs to my knowledge as long as the player is OK with consequences.
-=Culture and Race Design=
+:''I don't care how good you are in PVP, you are not an army unto yourself, you can not affect realm wide politics. That's so simple minded. But, it's a common theme amongst kids and online gamers. No thought to strategy or the greater world around them. Just what they want personally. As if the planet revolves around them.
-As usual I am going to try and create a blend of new fantasy lore and recognizable earth history.  However this time I intend to build the lore based on the existing towns.  Once I can see the map, and we can see the towns available that will drive the lore options.
-We are going to allow a relatively wide selection of fantasy races, and again, I’m going to try and keep them familiar but not cookie cutter.
+:''RPCSS and the conflict are your oportunity to, as a player, generate a significant world-wide impact. This is the shard's greatest differential and has unlimited potential for providing an exciting, unpredictable and interactive environment.
-=Towns=
+:''Coming from another shard where the storyline was deceided by staff, this is better because we can feel the results of our decisions affect the world. This can make us to think more than just follow the crowd. The political alliences and land ownership truely change and thus change the perpective on the game.
-I think that we need to be prepared for the fact that Sanctuary isn’t going to work for RPCSS its too broken up. That means we are going to want to find a large map that is mostly blank and looks decent and basic, and then bring in:
-Ulster
+=Advice to New Players=
-Hamelin
+<i>The fiction of this world should feel familiar. It is taken from many popular medieval fantasy sources including Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, Conan, Narnia and similiar.  However, most new players begin with a character called a <b>[[Traveling Heroes|Traveler]]</b> ... as in a traveler from another dimension or plane of existance.  While we will accept any reasonable medieval fantasy race it is our intention that you will participate in the storyline -- leading armies and playing politics.  Even if this isn't your cup of tea, we strongly encourage you to have at least one character who can and will participate.  The shard plot line, and all of the seers, are focused on <b>this</b> player run story.
-Briar Hollow
-Ironhall
-Patchwork castle
-Maps in reverse to check -- Once we hit an art break, then we are done.
-Comraich III only had Ironhall new, maybe some bit of the Jiazani town market center and one of the house compounds from the original Comaich 2 map??
-Small Grimmwold … the little map with itty towns for BH, Ulster, Hamelin was very cute … maybe we should grab the entire island for the starting town? The whole map would make a sweet starter town that isn’t part of the war.
-Grimmwold - Ulster, Hamelin, Briar Hollow, Patchwork Castle, Zanzibar
-Comaich - there are a variety of random towns that worked -- fallbridge, some of the valgard towns, and one or two of the dyrling towns.  Fendahl and its castle?
-Sanctuary - I am seriously concerned that nothing in this will work for the artfiles.
-=Lore=
-A thousand worlds of might, magic and lore feed _____. From the greatest of their hearos and the smalles tof their common folk the guardians of ____ call forth the heros, sung and unsung to their distant planet in a stream of …
-Half a decade past the world of _____ lay on the verge of finality, they lost the ability to call forth the heros, and the battle was near to eanding, and it its ending the fate of a thousand years was held.

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A Story as Old as Time ....

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