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Future RPI Project: Lautolae Springs
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crayon
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Post Posted: Sun May 11, 2014 5:13 pm      Reply with quote

Howdy, folks.

Since before my tenure as admin, and for about half of my tenure as a builder, I've been working with various others on developing an original project that would hopefully provide a spiritual successor or continuation to Parallel RPI and Atonement. For a variety of reasons, most of the staff came to believe that the game as it was would be unsustainable, especially with the limited numbers and experience we've had. At the same time, we always thought it was important to do what we could for PRPI as-is to maintain the game for the players.

For a variety of coded reasons, there are a number of extremely helpful changes that could be made, but can't on PRPI without pwipes, and effectively creating a completely new game. As attempts at successor projects stagnated, I eventually teamed with Chazz in hopes of creating a new game, with an original story.

In the meantime, we had hoped to breathe some life into PRPI with changes, and hopefully renew interest in its playerbase, but despite initial successes, activity has dried out for a multitude of reasons, some entirely outside of control.

I spoke to Holmes recently, and received permission to go ahead and post here to let you all know that people are still working diligently at keeping the Atonement engine alive with development, and hopefully providing a worthy future for science fiction / post apocalyptic RPI games.

While details like a hopeful/expected release time frame, spoilers, excessive mechanical information, and things we just haven't explored yet are primarily off the table, I'm happy to field any questions, even if the answer is: "I'm not sure yet," or, "Lolno."

So, I'd like to start by kind of introducing Lautolae Springs. We have some basic plot teasers, short stories, and such written or in-progress, which can hopefully give something of a feel for the game and the lore.

Quote:
In 2021, the eruption of a supervolcano led to a cataclysm affectionately referred to as the 'supervolcanocalypse'. The expulsion of magmic rock was so forceful that molten matter was launched into an orbital trajectory that would pelt the earth with meteor showers for centuries. Floods and temperature change followed. Tsunamis. Landslides. Earthquakes and aftershocks. The world fell apart.

People turned to cannibalism. Disease, genetic mutation. Relics of old technology led to inexplicable phenomena. The years taught those rare few that survived that safety was in numbers, but more importantly, that those outside your group aren't to be trusted.

The characters in our game are, but weren't necessarily, native to a mountainous city now simply called 'Springs'. They found their way into a heavily-protected bunker, only to find that it wasn't empty, after a decade of searching for safety. The bunker housed an artificial intelligence, called JANUS, and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people in cryogenic stasis. Though trust for the machine was rightfully limited, a bargain was reached, and the survivors made the bunker their homes, and kept it a secret, for as long as they could. Until one by one, they joined the others in sleep, convinced by JANUS that they would wake up to a real future.

Our Alpha is their introduction to that future. Additional pre-opening activities may take place prior to the timeline of the game. Our initial PCs will consist both of survivors from 2031, and of those who were already in stasis prior to the apocalypse. Cryostasis can induce partial or complete memory loss, damages to short term memory and cognition, etc., termed 'freezer burn'. Each individual PC is expected to have his or her own opinion regarding things such as: the cause of the cataclysm (many blame it on technology), the trustworthiness of JANUS, whether humanity should pattern things off of the past, or embrace a truly fresh start, and other salient points where one WOULD reasonably expect for characters to have differing and interesting opinions.


The entire population of the bunker will have been in cryostasis (or dead) for an indeterminate stretch of time, likely hundreds of years, at the start of the game. The world outside (post-Alpha) will be difficult to reach, and its state a complete mystery through the majority of our Alpha. We plan to focus on mystery elements in our plot, and try to capture the sort of feeling in TV series like Lost and Revolution, while also preserving the grittiness of ARPI and PRPI, and series like The Walking Dead, for some samples of inspiration.

The following is a brief, atmospheric snapshot story set shortly prior to the entirety of the bunker either evacuating into cryostasis or dying.

crayon wrote:
Rap. Rap. Thwack. The sound of a worn nail-spiked baseball bat smacking against the doors of a row of cryochambers reverberates through the deathly chill, silent room as a tired-looking brown-haired man passes each in turn. Until it’s interrupted with a warm, helpful voice, that yet feels as chill as the room itself:

“A microscopic fissure or crack could compromise the integrity of a pod, mister Levisson. In the event of a contamination I shall have to seal the chamber from oxygen until you desist,” the voice speaks in a low crackle from speakers in the corners of the room.

The man stops, pausing for a second, scowling, before ultimately complying, letting the bat hang as he inspects the room. He’s silent for a time, making a near full circuit, before returning to the doorway where he turns, leaning back against the wall and ticking his head back to stare at the ceiling, eyes blank.

“Y’ think they even want t’ come back? Huh? Janus?”

There’s a moment of silence following, before the speakers begin to crackle again. “I don’t understand your query,” it replies, simply.

"I mean. Would they even want to live? In this? People out there... they ain't even just killing each other anymore. Eating each other. Worse. Skies are black as night with smog. Acid rainin' from the sky. Disease, runnin' rampant. Genetic mutation. Old tech, runnin' rampant. Meteor showers. Floods. Who'd even want that?" the man starts, now tapping the head of the bat against the metal grated floor.

"Somebody has to." The statement is made with a mechanical surety that resonates with the brown-haired man as he leans forward and runs his hand through his hair.

Janus was right, single-minded son of a bitch that he was. If somebody didn't, nothing any of 'em had done or sacrificed up this this point would have mattered.

"What do you take for the odds of mankind surviving another fifty years?" he asks, stubbornly.

"Forty-seven point four six percent."

"Hundred years."

"Twenty-two point six one percent."

"Two hundred years."

"Six point eight nine percent."

The exchange shoots back and forth, delayed only by the brief pauses as the machine calculates. And finally, the man seems to be satisfied, shrugging smugly as he props his hands into the nail-spiked bat to support his bad knee. Luke Levisson was a highschool dropout, and a self-proclaimed redneck, but he wasn't dumb either.

"So why d' you think we should lockdown and ice it as long as we can?"

"Can you be more specific?" the artificial intelligence retorts crisply, eager to answer more helpfully.

"Why would we throw away what we have, go into ice. Probably die in ice and never even wake up? Doesn't make any goddamn sense. Not for them odds. Should let everybody live out their lives. 'til the generator dies. We can all die in peace." Luke wasn't in the friendliest of moods. His knee was aching, and he'd lost his hooch still when the second subfloor had been sealed off from the facility. He tried not to think about his friends. Each floor of the facility doubled for a trap, each level another lock protecting the ones below; and they'd lost dozens each time a 'trap' had been sprung from outside.

"You know Davis was one of 'em. What died on floor two," the man half-accuses sullenly, while the machine processed the query.

"You've not asked me the right question yet, Mr. Levisson," the machine offers with an almost comedic hint of exasperation. "Fifty years. One hundred. Two hundred. These are not meaningful statistics. One thousand years... one point seven four percent. Two thousand years... one point five six percent. Five thousand years. One point four three percent."

The machine continues to rattle off numbers, until Luke quickly loses patience, and track, letting out an exasperated sigh as he turns to stalk out of the room. But he knew the machine was right. At the end of the day, there's not a price too costly to pay for tomorrow.


If any members of the RPI community working on their own projects have interest in trading notes, we're happy to talk. We'd also be happy to take applications from experienced builders into consideration, though we may close off access at various stages to preserve the integrity of some game elements. We may also do brief RPTs, sometimes by-invitation and sometimes open, prior to the official start of the game, with the goal of testing some of our features.

Chazz and I have been hard at work, and some of the features we are prioritizing follow:

Mostly Chazz wrote:
- Overhaul of weapon / armor tables
- Introduction of new weapon types, armor types
- Changes to combat, and stats
- Alteration of innate skillsets to include Brawling rather than Small-Blade, possibly Scavenging or Education as well
- All original rooms, objects, mobiles, scavlists, crafts, variables
- Several alterations to skills, all skills will have new craft sets, some new skills, and changed caps


We also want to ensure that documentation and rules are more available, more plentiful, and more stringently adhered to than they have been recently on PRPI, likely rewritten and adjusted slightly to fit the new game better.

We ideally want to create a positive and proactive player culture that doesn't afraid of anything, and a game that steeps them in atmosphere, immersion, and story, accompanied by balanced, interactive, and interesting coded support.


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Holmes
Dictator in Absentia



Post Posted: Mon May 12, 2014 12:27 am      Reply with quote

Whoo! Exciting.

Less exciting:

I'll be publicly opening the RPI engine for people to contribute to, or just take and make a MUD with as-is. I plan on making the process of doing the latter as painless as possible. If you're interested, feel free to toss me an e-mail. Holmes@parallelrpi.com


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Zerero
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Post Posted: Wed May 14, 2014 11:51 pm      Reply with quote

Sounds neat, crayon. What kind of time are we looking at for development and building to take place? Kinda sounds like you're still in the planning phase.

And Holmes, I'm guessing that's the same code offered by kith at the end of Atonement? What I'd really like to get my hands on is the code over at SoI, haha.


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crayon
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Post Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 12:18 am      Reply with quote

Building for Alpha is already in-progress. The plan is to head off most of the code changes, craft sets, new skills, etc. in Alpha, as we build a smaller, more enclosed space, then springboard from that into work on the world outside, once the core pieces are in place. This will kind of optimize our ability to test new features before building the game we intend to have for the long haul, while also melding well with the intended narrative structure we want to run.

Because of somewhat hectic schedules this Summer it's somewhat more challenging than it ought to be able to give a reasonable estimation of any sort of time table at the moment, but I can kind of fill you in on where we're at.

We've done some major numerical overhauls on weapons and armors, which we hope will bring a much more enjoyable balance and risk/reward to the game. No longer will having the best armor be accountable for 85% of one's efficiency in combat. This also frees up more diverse mobs, that don't have bloated armor values themselves, either. Small-blades should be closer to par with other weapons, and we intend to bring brawling up to roughly around where small-blades once were, and include it as an innate skill instead (as the codebase was originally?).

We've built an entire set of weapons and corresponding variables, from the ground up. Weapons in Lautolae Springs are generally found, rather than made. They usually consist of things that could reasonably be found in places, and used as an impromptu weapon. As such, weaponcrafting is significantly different. Weaponcrafting is still important in the repair process (durability of armor and weapons took a massive hit as well), but it now plays an important role in modifying weapons as well. The branching craft system will allow for weaponcrafters to branch various modifications for different weapon types as they work on those weapon types.

Armorcrafting will still be fairly similar to its current iteration, but armors themselves will not likely last as long.

All of the component objects for an early draft of the weapon modification system have been finished.

The first floor of the bunker for Alpha is nearing completion, and is equipped with a revamped and updated version of my mob spawner.

A craft system for erecting barricades to provide localized protection from non-human incursion for a varying length is finished.

The roomsector definitions have been codedly updated, and corresponding scavlists are in the progress of being given object lists as our object population grows.

Armor objects themselves are finished but will probably be polished.

On the building end, we still have a fair bit of room writing and object writing to go. Several craft suites are still unplanned, and will need work as we go, which will probably be a considerable portion of the building workload.

On the coded end, Chazz is doing some cool stuff with combat, and assorted other things to make the builderlife less miserable.

We've also combined Hide and Sneak into a single Stealth skill. While either/both skills give a fair bit of power even at 10, they aren't nearly rewarding enough at higher levels. By combining the two and halving the skill cap consumption, it should hopefully make Stealth more accessible to new characters without severely gimping their skill diversification, and feel more rewarding for the investment it represents, without being any MORE powerful in terms of raw utility.

We have a fair number of mobiles finished, and plan on having a fairly diverse range of flora and fauna compared to what we've been used to, but there are some coded things to work out before we're fully prepared to polish that, armorcrafting, and butchery (which may be renamed to Cooking, I forget).


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Zerero
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Post Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 11:45 am      Reply with quote

Wow, sounds awesome. All of these changes make sense and can traced back to Atonement. OP armor, weapon types that are obviously superior, etc.

Going to keep an eye on this for sure. Good luck in your adventure of building a MUD. You already have the hardest parts done.


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Holmes
Dictator in Absentia



Post Posted: Fri May 16, 2014 11:34 pm      Reply with quote

Zerero wrote:
Sounds neat, crayon. What kind of time are we looking at for development and building to take place? Kinda sounds like you're still in the planning phase.

And Holmes, I'm guessing that's the same code offered by kith at the end of Atonement? What I'd really like to get my hands on is the code over at SoI, haha.


SoI is using ARPI's codebase, which they've modified over the past 6 or so months.


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Shy
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Post Posted: Tue May 20, 2014 6:59 am      Reply with quote

Sounds fun with a better nod to diversity for mobs and settings! Hope that makes sense... It's late

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Songweaver
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Bad Mama Jama

Post Posted: Wed May 21, 2014 3:15 am      Reply with quote

I think that this sounds fantastic. It sounds as though you plan on a story-focused game with a small, controlled atmosphere and mystery-heavy themes. I'm a big supporter of this format, which is largely how I approached Atonement's ALPHA and Mars.

I'm also happy to hear that the ARPI Engine is finally going, truly, open-source. Thank you for doing that.

Please, if you have any questions or need any help on this project, feel free to reach out to me via AIM. Whatever I'm capable of offering, I'm happy to.

AIM: InsertProfoundSN


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I have ruled out the possibility of an Artificial Intelligence, unless it's VERY intelligent... and toying with me.
crayon
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Post Posted: Sun May 25, 2014 3:07 pm      Reply with quote

I'm hoping to get to work on clothes/tailoring over the next week, but to be honest, I'm kind of dubious as to my ability to provide a sufficient wealth of clothing types singlehandedly.

If anybody's interested, I'm leaning towards doing at least SOME crowdsourcing with the variables, as it's relatively simple, and will likely include additional methods for customization to allow for greater latitude than perhaps we're accustomed to.

Variables consist, primarily, of three important pieces. An overall variable 'category', a variable 'short', and a variable 'full'. The category just governs how variables are grouped, and I'll try to provide lists of categories that will be worked on. The short is the phrase of text that appears in place of the variable tag within the short description of an object. The full is the phrase of text that appears in place of the variable tag within the long description of an object.

It's important to note that the format for long description inputs on variables should fit the sentence "It is $whatever" with "It" being the object carrying the variable.

If you're interested in writing up some clothing variables that will very likely see use, feel free to send them to me via forum PM, which is probably the most convenient for now, in the following format:

Variable Category
Short Desc
Long Desc

For example,

$shirtstyle
t-shirt
of a simple cut, with a round collar and short sleeves that extend around three-quarters of the way down the upper arm

Examples of variable categories I'll be looking to fill out include:

$shirtstyle
$pantstyle
$shortstyle
$jacketstyle
$coatstyle
$brastyle
$pantystyle
$underwearstyle
$dressstyle
$skirtstyle
$shoestyle
$hatstyle

...and surely several, several others that I'm missing at the moment.

As coded changes start moving into place, I'll also be starting work on our Cooking system, which is vastly more in my sphere of competence than clothing. Very Happy

Please throw any ideas or feedback my way.

I can also be reached on AIM,

SN: epthomas2701


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malfunction
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Post Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2014 2:35 pm      Reply with quote

Hi. Any news on this project?

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Featured artwork used on Parallel RPI given permission for use by original artists macrebisz and merl1ncz.