Post by Marcus Langley on Oct 31, 2011 12:28:10 GMT -5
This one is a bit of a two-parter or something. Main meeting:
[19:33:29] <Ellington> lo kids
[19:35:26] <Austin_J> It's Ellington!
[19:36:17] <Ellington> lies and hearsay
[19:36:36] <Marcus`Langley> yeah, Ell would never be early for a meeting!
[19:36:36] <Kario> We were debating yesterday whether you were using the wrong month, the wrong year, or just hit your head.
[19:36:40] <Kario> There was no consensus.
[19:38:13] <Ellington> hitting my head is usually out... i mean, hardest part of my body n all
[19:43:16] <Joseph_W> I'm so sorry.
[19:48:39] <Tod> hi
[19:56:07] <Ellington> ello my faviorite artist :D
[19:57:07] <Ellington> also, Kario, I use various calendars, including Druidic, Mayan, and French Revolution
[19:59:11] <Burrito_Loco> A solid, sensible base 10 affair
[20:10:13] <Ellington> which reminds me... gotta sacrifice a virgin next Septidi
[20:53:14] <Ellington> yay lightning
[20:54:32] <Burrito_Loco> Thunder and?
[20:54:53] <Kario> Frightening, very very.
[20:55:29] <Ellington> thunder and tigers and flooding, oh my
[20:56:33] <Tod> \o/
[20:56:34] <Kario> Great. Now I have Bohemian Rhapsody stuck in my head.
[20:57:15] <Burrito_Loco> Poor boy
[20:59:09] <Ellington> well, ello everybody (again)
[20:59:37] <Kario> We getting this ball rolling?
[20:59:45] <Ellington> yep. with whips
[20:59:54] <Ellington> Loco, how goes the coding?
[21:00:41] * Tod rolls.
[21:02:05] <Ellington> oh, and if i get lightning DC'ed again, i apologise. just carry on (wayward souls)
[21:02:36] <Austin_J> Yeah, it
[21:02:36] <Burrito_Loco> Mate is proceeding apace
[21:02:43] <Austin_J> 's pretty stormy down here
[21:03:01] <Burrito_Loco> I just hope his classwork keeps his nose to the procrastination grindstone :p
[21:03:08] * Rejoin_Walther rolls out of bed and into the meeting.
[21:03:21] <Ellington> and your coding? :)
[21:06:04] <Ellington> also, do you need anything?
[21:09:38] <Ellington> Keyo, whats your thoughts on worldbuilding?
[21:10:02] <Burrito_Loco> I think we've got stuff under control on the resources front
[21:10:10] <Kario> Long. I'm waiting until other issues have been tabled.
[21:12:14] <Ellington> Loco, any estimates on testable codee? :D
[21:13:37] <Burrito_Loco> Define testable?
[21:14:00] <Ellington> two or three islands with trade maybe?
[21:14:53] <Ellington> I absolutely love the art so far... I'm thinking min my mind that if we can hammer out a basic basckstory soon (I mean, Skyrates is basically still 'earth went boom') we can refine the story more as we get more art?
[21:15:27] <Burrito_Loco> I'm not really sure, I'll have to talk to Mate. I think the client is lagging considerably behind the server. We might be able to get a sort of back end up in the foreseeable future but I suspect that the front end for that would be HTML with printed text and drop boxes and such.
[21:15:59] <Ellington> client is user interface and stuff?
[21:16:44] <Burrito_Loco> Yeah
[21:16:48] <Burrito_Loco> Browser side
[21:17:57] <Ellington> I'd like to see something by roughly the start of the year. I'm guessing its going to take longer than that, though? I dont wanna be too unrealistic/drive yall too cruelly
[21:22:17] <Burrito_Loco> Depending on what you mean by something, we can probably do it from a technical standpoint
[21:22:41] <Ellington> is that reasonable? would it be better to push for third month of next year or some such?
[21:24:05] <Burrito_Loco> Like I said, what all do you want? I wager that *some* functional if not pretty interface can be hacked together, and the barebones of the backend aren't terribly complicated. I wouldn't, however, use the same pw I use for my banking though, if you catch my drift.
[21:24:06] <Burrito_Loco> Also
[21:24:29] <Burrito_Loco> I'd rather have deadlines tighter rather than looser 'cause projects are like goldfish
[21:24:40] <Burrito_Loco> the grow to consume the resources available, time included
[21:29:24] <Ellington> then yeah, I'd like to see it by january. I understand it will be rough :)
[21:32:29] <Burrito_Loco> See what can be done, cap'n
[21:32:53] <Ellington> good deal
[21:33:44] <Ellington> Keyo?
[21:35:15] <Kario> Hokai.
[21:35:44] <Kario> To start off with broad strokes, one of the things we need to establish is what kind of "faction" system we're going to work with, if any.
[21:37:44] <Ellington> if i recall, consensus was that we wanted a faction system of some sort... what it looks like is.. vauger
[21:38:44] <Ellington> I think more than 5 factions is likely too many... we started with 3 on skyrates
[21:39:01] <Tod> I have an idea for three factions.
[21:39:22] <Rejoin_Walther> The finer history of the world is essentially the history of the factions, so establishing the factions is the next step. Also, three is the correct number of factions.
[21:39:51] <Burrito_Loco> I vote Three and/or as many as players care to create
[21:39:52] <Ellington> thou shalt not goest to five, nor two
[21:40:08] <Tod> ooh, I do like the idea for players to be able to create their own factions, too.
[21:40:10] <Marcus`Langley> Five definitely seems too many. Three or four would be best.
[21:40:39] <Ellington> Create a faction is.. problematic, for some reasons. Mostly, limited number of players and dev support'
[21:40:41] <Austin_J> I like four myself. Three feels just a bit too limiting.
[21:40:45] <Walther_Walrus> Three is ideal. Four allows for a very stable 2v2 situation.
[21:41:11] <Walther_Walrus> And stability is just what we don't want.
[21:41:20] <Kario> Well, what do we want factions to DO/
[21:41:21] <Kario> *?
[21:41:30] <Austin_J> Although that is a good point, Walther. How important is the PvP elements of factions going to be?
[21:41:54] <Walther_Walrus> PvP is one of the most compelling long-term elements of any game, so I'd say it will be pretty important.
[21:42:50] <Ellington> especially early in Fauxrates lifetime, player plane vs player plane is unlikely to happen
[21:42:59] <Burrito_Loco> The answer may be Three papa factions
[21:43:01] <Walther_Walrus> That being said, I think I'd prefer for the factions to be the overarching banners to which player-created organizations--wings, in other words--belong.
[21:43:25] <Burrito_Loco> And then a robust wing system with lots of competition at that level
[21:43:38] <Walther_Walrus> BL and I seem to be on the same page here.
[21:44:31] <Kario> I take it we're generally against factions having ingame benefit, then.
[21:44:52] <Burrito_Loco> I'm against faction specific in game benefit
[21:45:21] <Burrito_Loco> E.G. the blue is faster, red is combatier, green gets tax breaks sort of deal
[21:45:23] <Walther_Walrus> Yeah, that causes way too much newbie angst about which one to join, just for starters.
[21:45:52] <Ellington> I could see factions having very minor benefits.. maybe a small discount on their t11 plane or something
[21:46:00] <Burrito_Loco> If there's some sort of flat bene for joining (all repairs 5% off) or something, sure
[21:46:29] <Burrito_Loco> In fact, incentivizing participation in *a* faction seems advisable
[21:46:34] <Tod> Something that's a small benefit at higher levels might help ease some newbie indecision and whatnot... but something that's just a rp/PvP thing would be fun, too.
[21:46:38] <Kario> Frankly, I'd prefer it if participation in *a* faction was simply mandatory.
[21:46:42] <Marcus`Langley> faction-specific planes at higher tiers?
[21:46:45] <Austin_J> I disagree
[21:46:55] <Burrito_Loco> Faction specific skins maybe?
[21:46:58] <Austin_J> I *like* being able to ignore factional politics.
[21:47:21] <Burrito_Loco> You can ignore them for a price, I'd say. The most obvious might be a slight tax hit.
[21:47:21] <Kario> Skins seem like a useful idea.
[21:47:23] <Ellington> enough people fussed for the indie faction that its probably worthwhile to keep it around
[21:47:58] <Kario> I think the need for an Independent group was largely Skyrates-specific, frankly.
[21:48:21] <Austin_J> Why do we *need* to pressure people into a faction, exactly?
[21:48:23] <Burrito_Loco> The indies are on the outside of factional machinations which includes pretending to be friendly and the lip service paid to it.
[21:48:49] <Burrito_Loco> Because otherwise things get all splintery
[21:49:11] <Walther_Walrus> Because the building faction loyalties and rivalries is part of the interpersonal interaction that keeps people returning to the game.
[21:49:28] <Ellington> i think, if we make it subtly clear faction joining is intended, we dont need blatant forcing
[21:49:58] <Kario> It was intended in Skyrates and people still didn't want to do it.
[21:50:10] <Marcus`Langley> and forcing them could just drive them away instead
[21:50:20] <Burrito_Loco> Not really
[21:50:28] <Burrito_Loco> It's all in the initial conditions
[21:50:33] <Kario> If having to pick a faction when you create a character drives you away from a game...
[21:50:41] <Burrito_Loco> Not many complain about being forced to choose alliance or horde
[21:51:00] <Walther_Walrus> Picking a faction on character creation works ok for WoW. :P
[21:51:05] <Burrito_Loco> As long as it's always been, it can forever be.
[21:51:20] <Walther_Walrus> Dammit BL, stop being in my head
[21:51:28] <Burrito_Loco> I'm in everyone's heads
[21:51:37] <Burrito_Loco> I'm like Professor X, bitch
[21:51:50] <Walther_Walrus> Does that make me the Juggernaut, bitch?
[21:51:59] <Ellington> i can see that
[21:52:28] <Austin_J> Yeah, but this ain't WoW. I've played games that not picking a faction wouldn't make sense, but they were far more PvP focused than this is likely to be.
[21:52:49] <Walther_Walrus> PvP is the only endgame we've got, as far as I know.
[21:52:51] <Kario> There are games with NO PvP that require you to pick a faction.
[21:53:01] <Walther_Walrus> That too
[21:53:09] <Austin_J> And those games are silly :)
[21:53:52] * SaphIsNotHere is now known as Sapheta
[21:53:53] <Joseph_W> Heh, BL as the professor
[21:54:07] <Tod> if there are three factions, and faction membership is manditory, if one faction is largely focused on protecting and serving the interests of cargo pilots and whatnot, a union/guild sort of thing, that could be either politically oriented if players want, or an easy way to ignore faction politics and do one's job.
[21:55:04] <Kario> Well, let me try to summarize what we've got so far.
[21:55:09] <Walther_Walrus> That would tend to inflate that faction's membership numbers, much like blue's defacto indyness once did. It would be a crapshoot whether that translated into PvP power or not.
[21:55:37] <Kario> We want factions, three seems to be a good number, and we want the factions to pretty much only differ in terms of flavor and that sort of background, yes?
[21:55:44] <Walther_Walrus> yes
[21:56:18] <Austin_J> Actually, that is a pretty good argument for having an independent option. You might just have an unofficial independent faction messing up your carefully balanced PvP.
[21:56:30] <Burrito_Loco> Verily
[21:56:42] <Kario> Ahem.
[21:56:57] <Burrito_Loco> Correct, Kario
[21:57:23] <Kario> In order to try to keep the discussion contained, I'm going to propose two cases which both seem to solve that problem.
[21:58:33] <Kario> Case One: Faction are competing political entities within a single governmental body that tries to control the map. This gives us a system more like what we currently have in Skyrates wherein you're competing for political influence rather than outright control.
[21:59:08] <Kario> Case Two: Each faction is its own separate nation with its own separate starting area which you choose at character creation. Actions you complete as an individual reflect on the performance of your nation.
[21:59:17] <Kario> I like Case Two.
[22:00:26] <Tod> I like case one, because I think ideology makes for more interesting conflict than nationalism.
[22:00:26] <Kario> If anyone has a proposal for another case which streamlines player choices and allows us to focus on balancing three distinct parties that will always be in direct competition without other alternatives arising, I'd like to hear it.
[22:00:50] <Walther_Walrus> I'm typing one out
[22:00:55] <Burrito_Loco> Hmm
[22:00:58] <Kario> If anyone has a strong argument for having a nonpartisan group, I'll hear that, too. "I don't want to be one of the mainstream choices" is not a strong argument.
[22:01:15] <Burrito_Loco> I think we should tier cap planes and tech if you're not in a faction
[22:01:33] <Burrito_Loco> Or put a massive premium on it
[22:01:45] <Austin_J> And gimp those of us who would just want to make the top of a given leaderboard?
[22:01:50] <Burrito_Loco> (similar to the EV games if anyone is familiar)
[22:01:52] <Burrito_Loco> Yes
[22:01:55] <Burrito_Loco> Frankly
[22:02:04] <Burrito_Loco> Life's harder if you go alone
[22:02:04] <Ellington> how does the overarching nations/goverment thing work if many of the skylands have been isolated?
[22:03:04] <Burrito_Loco> I like three distinct powers that grew up apart but are now running out of easy, free real estate and starting to eye each other.
[22:03:23] <Kario> That'd depend on the mechanics of whatever system we're going with.
[22:03:24] <Walther_Walrus> Everything's a colony of the islated surviving pockets. The reinvention of flight spurred an expansionist period and--yes, exactly what BL said.
[22:03:34] <Burrito_Loco> Think colonialism
[22:04:10] <Kario> So how is that not just a more specific version of Case Two? :)
[22:04:13] <Ellington> empire, republic, and anarachy?
[22:04:22] <Burrito_Loco> I didn't say it wasn't
[22:04:25] <Walther_Walrus> It is, we were answering Ell's question.
[22:04:36] <Walther_Walrus> Before it turned into a tangent.
[22:04:49] <Burrito_Loco> Anarchy is not a government
[22:05:18] <Walther_Walrus> Broadly, I am for case two, I just want to fiddle with the details.
[22:05:45] <Burrito_Loco> Oh, just a sec, mine you start without one
[22:05:49] <Ellington> one concern i have is... do we want players in charge of factions, or not?
[22:05:56] <Walther_Walrus> nope
[22:05:59] <Kario> Define 'in charge of.'
[22:06:01] <Burrito_Loco> Define in charge
[22:06:07] <Ellington> king thorne
[22:06:09] <Tod> I think the one of the interesting thematic things is people moving into globalized and industrialized societies, and how there are different ideas about the relationship between individuals, industry and government, and how these played out in different countries. I think there is potential there.
[22:06:35] <Kario> I'm going to get back to that and ask you to elaborate, Tod.
[22:06:44] <Tod> cool. I will wait.
[22:06:48] <Kario> And I'm going to say no to Ell.
[22:06:59] <Kario> That's a large part of what caused the Skyrates factional drama to erupt.
[22:07:13] <Walther_Walrus> To be entirely frank, my wing system is grown out of thoughts on how to fix Skyrates so it doesn't make faction kings.
[22:07:33] <Ellington> so, given that we dont (I agree) how do we limit that? wings w/ leaders?
[22:07:57] <Kario> I'm going to get back to wings later as well. Possibly next week. Since that's more of a mechanics discussion and less about worldbuilding groundwork.
[22:08:06] <Kario> And I want something concrete we can give the art team.
[22:08:10] <Burrito_Loco> Factions are there to rally to, ideologies
[22:08:26] <Burrito_Loco> We don't want to icky them up with reality
[22:08:57] <Burrito_Loco> Or, possibly
[22:09:07] <Burrito_Loco> Assuming we have an active corps to run these things
[22:10:08] <Burrito_Loco> We can allow a measure of player input into how things are run on a flavor text level
[22:10:58] <Burrito_Loco> (mowed down a square full of protesters vs. held open hearings on corruption in the captial)
[22:11:03] <Burrito_Loco> they don't *do* anything
[22:11:21] <Burrito_Loco> But they give the appearance of involvement and personalize the factions
[22:11:50] <Burrito_Loco> Buy-in is good
[22:12:12] * Walther_Walrus saves the bit he was typing about wing mechanics to a doc for next week.
[22:12:37] <Kario> Mm. That's a possibility. But again, I think addressing it now is a bit premature.
[22:13:51] <Burrito_Loco> How and what the factions are is pretty central to them, is it not?
[22:14:06] <Kario> Again in the interests of helping lay groundwork for the art and writing teams, do we want the factions to have different cultural influences and/or differing systems of government?
[22:14:14] <Kario> Tod, this is where I'm going to have you elaborate more on your idea.
[22:14:21] <Tod> Okay!
[22:15:18] <Ellington> as a whole, i'm opposed to a 'world goverment' sorta thing
[22:15:30] <Burrito_Loco> Yes, they should be artistically distinct
[22:16:43] <Tod> am trying to organize my thoughts, so bear with me a moment.
[22:21:21] <Tod> It seems like focusing on one of the three things as highest priority might yield a similar ideological conflict to earth in the time period we're looking at. Focus on authoritarianism, focus on trade/free industry, and focus on workers.
[22:21:55] <Ellington> feudal, industrial rev, and communisim? :D
[22:22:17] <Tod> authoritarian/capitalist/socialist
[22:22:28] <Austin_J> I'm hearing more pseudo-Nazis, American industrialists, and commies. Yep.
[22:22:41] <TommyChong> yo guys
[22:23:28] <Austin_J> Chong!
[22:23:29] <TommyChong> I thought the meeting was 30min later, sorry
[22:24:02] <Ellington> Eagleland!
[22:24:24] <Tod> but those things could manifest in many different ways in different places, not necessarily governmental bodies, but governments formed of a mix of these ideas as enacted by the local culture and economic situation.
[22:24:25] <TommyChong> Stuff I did is at smg.photobucket.com/albums/v327/Paradogs/Fauxrates/
[22:24:29] <TommyChong> as usual
[22:25:04] <Ellington> lo tommy. its ok (especially since i got the date wrong)
[22:25:27] <Walther_Walrus> That might be too much buy in, a little /too/ relevent to current issues. I'd be afraid of everything turning into a proxy battle on real-world politics with all the accompanying screaming and shit-slinging.
[22:25:33] <Tod> so if you're in Faction X, and faction X has the most influence on Island A, there's political shift, but the factions aren't the nations themselves.
[22:25:35] <Tod> true :/
[22:26:07] <Ellington> heh, TOmmy is my other favorite artist
[22:27:07] <Kario> Yeahhhhhh, I don't want this to be about real-world politics in the slightest.
[22:27:41] <Walther_Walrus> ...in other news, /plane-eating kelp/.
[22:27:57] <TommyChong> wat
[22:28:10] <Walther_Walrus> smg.photobucket.com/albums/v327/Paradogs/Fauxrates/?action=view¤t=Plane_eating_kelps.png
[22:28:13] <TommyChong> it sounds good at the time
[22:28:18] <TommyChong> <.<
[22:28:30] <Ellington> I say we use ALL of Tommys islands as official skylands
[22:28:49] <Tod> and also, as trade-oriented folks, it might be better to focus on varients of merchantile interests and come up with something a little more masked but still relevant to theme.
[22:28:58] <Tod> yeah, those are really gorgeous, Tommy.
[22:29:13] <Ellington> been watching Cowboy Beebop TC?
[22:29:16] <Walther_Walrus> It's awesome. I have no idea how to use it, but I want to keep it in the toolbox, I'm sure some amazingly appropriate spot will come up for plane-eating kelp.
[22:29:30] <TommyChong> thanks
[22:29:39] <TommyChong> and no, Ell. :)
[22:30:15] <Tod> I'll wait until we're at the right point in the meeting to babble about the little bit of new art I have from last week/this week.
[22:30:15] <Burrito_Loco> Well, a plutocracy would most likely look like a very weak, possibly completely corrupt representative government of some sort.
[22:30:33] <Ellington> the gefjon looks similar ish :D
[22:30:50] <TommyChong> hehe
[22:30:55] <Walther_Walrus> Oh God, BL, stop making it even /more/ real-world relevent. :P
[22:30:56] <Burrito_Loco> As opposed to the Inger
[22:31:06] <Burrito_Loco> A completely original design
[22:31:07] <Kario> Well, we want our factions to be politically and artistically distinct, but in a way that doesn't mirror modern real-world politics. Perhaps the simplest solution is to use outdated models?
[22:31:21] <Kario> E.g. British Imperialistic focus.
[22:31:24] <Ellington> oh, i bitched about the inger being a rcopyright violation all the time
[22:31:32] <Burrito_Loco> Well, take a look at industrial revolution countries
[22:31:51] <Burrito_Loco> they were massively corrupt representative governments where elections were openly bought and sold
[22:32:33] <Burrito_Loco> Do a survey of US politics circa 1865-1904 or so
[22:32:54] <Ellington> mechanical/mysticism/ hrm... piratey?
[22:33:05] <Tod> oh boy, Tammany Hall.
[22:33:32] <Burrito_Loco> Indeed
[22:33:39] <Burrito_Loco> To take the canonical example
[22:33:50] <Walther_Walrus> Hey Susie, what do me and Hobbes look like?!
[22:34:17] <Burrito_Loco> We could toss in a Papal Theocracy maybe?
[22:34:28] <Kario> Mmm...
[22:34:32] <Burrito_Loco> As a top-down heirarchical system
[22:34:40] <Burrito_Loco> At least theoretically merit based
[22:34:47] <Kario> I'm not flat-out against the idea, but it'd need to be structured *very* carefully.
[22:34:55] <Kario> And I'd rather have almost anything else.
[22:35:19] <Burrito_Loco> Look, if we're gonna do a rigid nationalist state it's gonna be the Pope or Nazis
[22:35:23] <Kario> Just because religion is an awfully hot-button topic to have in what's basically a start-up dev group.
[22:36:35] <Burrito_Loco> Just sayi'.
[22:36:40] <Burrito_Loco> sayin'*
[22:37:03] <Tod> you could have a mutli-state sponsored privateer/merc sort of group, a group that's more freelance mostly working for independent trade companies, and a group that's forming it's own trade organization.
[22:37:07] <Tod> its
[22:37:37] <Kario> Sort of like the East India Trade/
[22:37:38] <Kario> *?
[22:37:41] <Tod> yeah
[22:38:14] <Burrito_Loco> East India was a kept pet of the Brits (for the record)
[22:38:33] <Tod> it seems like a similar mix of priorities that I babbled about, while avoiding the dicey RL stuff.
[22:39:30] <Kario> Yeah, but it seems like it'd be an easy way to interpret old British Imperialism as well as set up a fairly distinct governmental interest. This faction is mainly trying to exert economic control and resource monopolization.
[22:39:46] <Burrito_Loco> Sure
[22:40:23] <Burrito_Loco> Colonial Brits are interesting and the Victorian aesthetic is distinct and accepted
[22:40:32] <Burrito_Loco> Make that our "green?"
[22:40:52] <Walther_Walrus> We're really not talking at a sufficiently abstract level here, I don't think.
[22:41:04] <Kario> Elaborate.
[22:41:38] <Burrito_Loco> Kario's looking for an aesthetic right now, yes?
[22:42:11] <Burrito_Loco> Or are we talking the actual structure of how we are constructing and running the buggers?
[22:42:49] <Kario> General aesthetic is what I'm trying to pin down, but I'm open to alternative suggestions.
[22:43:13] <Burrito_Loco> One at a time.
[22:43:16] <Walther_Walrus> In skyrates, we had 'security', 'money', 'freedom'. Security and freedom fight with money trying to play both sides. That got buggered up by becoming 'security', 'money', 'science', 'religion', 'WTF'.
[22:43:59] <Burrito_Loco> Freedom is a terrible concept. Everyone claims it.
[22:44:21] <Burrito_Loco> I think something more like Egality is more...defined
[22:44:43] <Walther_Walrus> Whatever, semantics. We all know what I'm talking about in this case. :P
[22:45:32] <Burrito_Loco> I point this out because "freedom" as a principle is why Blue was larger than red and green combined for three rounds running
[22:45:46] <Walther_Walrus> fair enough
[22:45:57] <Kario> Yeah. I think we can all agree we don't want "Freedom" as a principle based on experience.
[22:46:55] <Walther_Walrus> What I'm getting at is that skyrates started (though given the botching of the two additional factions, I'm not sure it was deliberate) with an extremely classic and enduring fight over three one-word principles. All the flavor of those factions was built up out of those three one-word principles.
[22:48:22] <Burrito_Loco> It'd be cool if we could come up with three core principles and everyone gets two
[22:48:47] <Kario> I tend to prefer that, personally.
[22:48:58] <Tod> Chaotic Cargo
[22:49:05] <Walther_Walrus> That would posit the existence of six factions. Or possibly two competing world views within each faction.
[22:49:06] <Tod> Neutral... Shoot things
[22:49:18] <Burrito_Loco> No, they embody both
[22:49:30] <Burrito_Loco> So, for instance you've got egality and nationalism
[22:49:39] <Burrito_Loco> and money and nationalism
[22:49:47] <Burrito_Loco> One gets you commies
[22:49:56] <Burrito_Loco> The other gets you colonial Brits
[22:50:14] <Burrito_Loco> The problem being the third leg is money and egality which is a bit...off
[22:50:22] <Austin_J> Americans, of course.
[22:50:52] <Walther_Walrus> Oh, yes, you do get only three if they're equal in the nation. I was defaulting to thinking primary/secondary. The ordered combinations gives you six.
[22:51:08] <Burrito_Loco> equal
[22:51:17] <Burrito_Loco> It gives you instant depth(tm)
[22:51:44] <Walther_Walrus> Competing worldviews inside the factions gives you instant depth(tm) too.
[22:52:16] <Kario> Money and Egality is sort of early capitalist. I don't know that egality is something we want to espouse, though.
[22:52:34] <Kario> Again in an attempt to avoid Blue Dominance.
[22:52:41] * matejcik sync'd
[22:53:03] <Burrito_Loco> Egality is the sense that everyone is equal, not necessarily that everyone is free to do as they please.
[22:53:13] <Walther_Walrus> My brain keeps shouting 'Liberté! Egalité! Fraternité!"
[22:53:44] <Burrito_Loco> Yeah
[22:53:49] <Austin_J> I'm glad I'm not the only one, Walther.
[22:53:50] <matejcik> how about the classic triangle "fast cheap quality, pick two"?
[22:54:09] <Tod> XD
[22:55:04] <Burrito_Loco> the only issue is that gameplay and canon won't match up for balance reasons (all planes being the same price for the same quality)
[22:55:18] <Tod> and the mysterious fourth point on the triangle, 'no, read my mind and figure out what I wanted you to make. You have psychic powers, right?'
[22:55:37] <Kario> Yeah, fast cheap quality is just not relevant to the discussion, though I agree that as a system it balances itself.
[22:56:07] <matejcik> nah, i'm thinking of mapping that up onto some kind of ideologies. not sure how yet
[22:56:46] <Ellington> communism is also egality (in theory)
[22:57:00] <Burrito_Loco> communism is egalitarian
[22:57:14] <Burrito_Loco> that is
[22:57:21] <Burrito_Loco> Communism implies egality
[22:57:29] <Burrito_Loco> Egality does not imply communism
[22:58:27] <Ellington> so... keyo, whats your thoughts? what do we need to focus on? do we need more proposals?
[22:58:38] <Kario> I'm liking the direction this discussion is going.
[22:58:55] <Ellington> ok. continue :D
[22:59:47] <Walther_Walrus> Okay, security/money, money/equality, equality/security. That's the East India Company, some socialists, and some militant socialists.
[23:00:05] <Walther_Walrus> Someone please replace those last two with better ideas.
[23:00:24] <Kario> I would change "equality" into "social interests."
[23:00:24] <Burrito_Loco> the last one is commies
[23:00:42] <Kario> Money is obviously economic interests.
[23:00:45] <Burrito_Loco> Or nazis
[23:00:48] <Ellington> creativity/money, creativity/politics
[23:00:54] <Kario> And then we have security interests, aka DHS which I will not discuss.
[23:01:02] <Kario> Moving right along!
[23:01:05] <Burrito_Loco> creativity is something all would posses in some measure
[23:01:23] <Kario> That gives us three ideologies which are all "in the best interests of the people."
[23:01:27] <Kario> And each nation focuses on two.
[23:01:29] <Tod> how about 'industry' as a triangle-point
[23:01:37] <Kario> That's mostly economic.
[23:01:38] <Walther_Walrus> That's money
[23:01:41] <Burrito_Loco> ^
[23:01:46] <Tod> that could encompas innovation and trade
[23:01:56] <Burrito_Loco> Mercantilism, really
[23:02:02] <Walther_Walrus> Security first, money first, people first.
[23:02:04] <Tod> only spelled right... x_x
[23:03:02] <Ellington> industry isnt really just ceconomics... how much do you exploit the environment? workers? merchant fleets vs homefront shops?
[23:03:23] <Tod> yeah
[23:03:27] <Burrito_Loco> Mercantilism
[23:03:54] <Ellington> machines vs craftsmanship and artistry
[23:04:14] <Burrito_Loco> these aren't "versus" relationships
[23:04:27] <Kario> I think a lot of that is for us to determine as we fill in the blanks.
[23:05:53] <Walther_Walrus> I still like the idea of three factions which each take one of those values and have a split in whether future policy will be value1/value2 or value1/value3. As a writer, I want those ready-made hooks for internal conflict (though god-forbid we do a whole green-style civil war).
[23:08:36] <Kario> Anyone else have thoughts on that?
[23:08:41] <Kario> I could go either way.
[23:08:55] <Burrito_Loco> I'm still working on three good points
[23:09:41] <Marcus`Langley> hmm. could be good for factional development down the line, yeah.
[23:11:32] <Burrito_Loco> Mercantilism, order, egality
[23:12:52] <Kario> I think people are getting too bogged down in finding real-world analogues.
[23:12:52] <Burrito_Loco> M&O gets you Marxism, ME gets you capitalism, OE gets you Soviet Communism
[23:13:17] <Walther_Walrus> egality-executed-and-expressed-so-as-to-avoid-the-blue-crush
[23:13:22] <Kario> It needs to be plausible, but it doesn't need to mirror reality, nor should it.
[23:13:42] <Kario> (And I think I was equally guilty of this earlier.)
[23:13:53] <Burrito_Loco> I'm just gunning for principles that don't force acrobatics to get them to lie together
[23:14:03] <Burrito_Loco> (eg egality and mercantilism)
[23:14:45] <Tod> yeah, we don't need real-world analoges, and we can put a visual style that looks cool on any of these, doesn't have to match up
[23:17:54] <Tod> but the priorities are going to reflect in the sorts of structures they've got on their islands, of course.
[23:18:46] <Ellington> and, of course, they dont have to match up 100%. some can be much more recent additions
[23:19:21] <Kario> The thing to discuss at this point is whether we want the two priorities equal, or whether we want split decisions based on player vote.
[23:19:40] <Burrito_Loco> I say tell them
[23:20:05] <Ellington> though one thought- skytopins kept going 'x is traditionally red island' blah blah blah. could, possibly have implications if we do map scrambling resets
[23:20:30] <Walther_Walrus> The main problem I have with your method, BL, is that we're getting away from having something you can put on a bumper sticker, basically. I tend to feel that the main effect is to dilute the differences between factions right from the start.
[23:21:02] <Walther_Walrus> It might be more 'realistic' in some ways, but that doesn't mean it works better in a game design sense.
[23:21:05] <Marcus`Langley> replace 'is' with 'was'. times be changin', Ell.
[23:23:11] <Burrito_Loco> I want some nuance
[23:23:36] <Walther_Walrus> I also feel like it produces three very static and stable-feeling factions, and I'd prefer to have factions that feel like they're being changed by everything going on, even if that's only an impression and not something we ever actually /do/ to them.
[23:24:23] <Ellington> historically, change is a very slow process followed by rapid revolutions
[23:24:37] <Walther_Walrus> I want some nuance too. I also want to have something simple on the surface so that those players not... equipped for nuance are not put off.
[23:28:21] <Kario> BL? Any other thoughts?
[23:28:49] <Walther_Walrus> My idea is deliberately two-tiered. Bumper-sticker ideal on the surface, but underneath... A society that progressed for a couple hundred years marching on its ideal to keep itself alive and growing, now faced with a population too large to be so homogenous and too in contact with other factions to be kept in perfect ideological line. The exchange of ideas and goods has broadened the
[23:28:50] <Walther_Walrus> minds of everyone involved, and now no faction can proceed entirely as it was. The question is, how will it change, and who will drive that change?
[23:29:36] <Ellington> constant change is tough on games based more or less on staus quo/rp devs
[23:29:55] <Walther_Walrus> The impression of impending change can be generated without much of anything actually changing.
[23:30:26] <Burrito_Loco> Ellington's point is extra valid on the Internet
[23:30:39] <Burrito_Loco> Where two weeks is eternity and a day
[23:31:24] <Walther_Walrus> Nothing has to ever actually change. Simply work the fact of conflict into the flavor and any flavor that gets generated later.
[23:32:10] <Ellington> why we no have jets?!?!?! by my charts, we should have had jets 1.342 social cycles ago
[23:32:27] <Walther_Walrus> Just like an eternal war between factions in skyrates that never is never actually resolved or moved forward.
[23:33:26] <Kario> Anyone else on the team have thoughts on this?
[23:33:49] <Ellington> thats another something to iron out.. what does faction influence (or our equivelent) actually do?
[23:34:35] <Walther_Walrus> If the faction war was ever resolved, it would end the game of skyrates as we know it. Likewise, if the internal conflicts in a faction were ever decided on and ironed out, it would end the faction as we know it. Fortunatel, in both cases the conflict can go on for as long as there is someone to witness it.
[23:34:50] <Walther_Walrus> Fortunately, even
[23:35:34] <Kario> I would like some benefit to having factional control over an island. But that's a discussion for a future week.
[23:36:01] <Walther_Walrus> Yes, it is.
[23:37:44] <Austin_J> Actually, I like that as a "reason to join a faction." You get access to factional benefits on islands they control.
[23:39:08] <Ellington> one hard and fast rule: We cannont change plane speed unless everybody gets acess to it
[23:39:49] <Kario> Again, factional benefits are a discussion for a future week.
[23:39:57] <Kario> Back on topic, please.
[23:41:17] <TommyChong> pirate/npc faction y/n?
[23:41:50] <Marcus`Langley> y
[23:41:54] <Kario> That's actually a good question but I'm going to say no.
[23:42:01] <Ellington> why nos?
[23:42:06] <Walther_Walrus> I'd like to see pirates, personally.
[23:42:27] <Marcus`Langley> there's always gonna be someone who doesn't fly under any flag and picks off the weaker targets without preference.
[23:42:30] <TommyChong> not necessarily as a faction a la the other three?
[23:45:01] <Kario> I'm more for pirates as an entity and "anarchy" or "rioting" as a consequence of a neglected locale.
[23:45:35] <Burrito_Loco> Don't let pirates be PC
[23:45:56] <Burrito_Loco> We'll be up to our eyeballs in "honorable rogues" in less than no time
[23:46:03] <TommyChong> ^
[23:46:16] <Walther_Walrus> They will no doubt have katanas
[23:46:18] <Walther_Walrus> would, rather
[23:46:19] <Marcus`Langley> yeah, I can agree with not making them player-joinable.
[23:48:24] <TommyChong> so pirate faction/group exists, only as flavor/plot device then
[23:48:34] <Kario> I have a story about the Worst Ninja Ever that I'll save for when the meeting's over.
[23:48:44] <Kario> I think we're all agreed on that re: pirates.
[23:48:53] <Ellington> i agree no PC pirates (oficially, anyway)
[23:49:50] <TommyChong> I'm done asking question then. wake me up again when there's cupcakes.
[23:49:58] <Ellington> pirates might be interesting if we have a black market
[23:50:56] <Kario> Okay, we still need to make a decision on what factions are going to look like.
[23:51:14] <Ellington> voluntary? y/n?
[23:51:18] <Ellington> y
[23:51:23] <Kario> At this point I'm just going to have Walther and BL--as they've been the most vocal proponents for each of the two proposals on the table--each make closing arguments.
[23:51:40] <Kario> And we're going to vote on whether we want equal hybrids or on split decisions.
[23:51:56] <Burrito_Loco> Oh dear
[23:57:07] <Walther_Walrus> I just want to be clear--there is nothing particular to implement, and nothing in particular to maintain. It's not a game mechanic, it's just a part of what the factions are, just as much as a second primary pole in BL's proposal is a part of what the faction is. It's just the way you write the flavor, something you keep in mind when/if you write new flavor for events or updates.
[23:57:09] <Walther_Walrus> All over the rest of the game world, we're talking about things changing, about how the world is entering a new stage and the factions are interacting in new ways thanks to new technology and new geography. I feel it's important for the factions to feel like they're undergoing change as well, to make them a part of the impression of a dynamic, dangerous, uncertain, exciting world.
[23:57:54] <Walther_Walrus> And that's all I've got to say about that.
[00:02:23] <Kario> BL?
[00:03:04] <Ellington> what are the proposals again?
[00:05:29] <Burrito_Loco> The world is uncertain, yes, but the factions are ideals, therefore immutable at least so far appearances are concerned. I like the twin points to form a platform since one plank is hard to balance on.
[00:06:19] <Walther_Walrus> security-money-equlity/liberty/fraternity/whateverthehell, pick one to base a faction around and make that faction in tension between the other two values as secondaries, or pick two to be equal in importance to each faction.
[00:06:44] <Burrito_Loco> More or less
[00:07:23] <Burrito_Loco> I like two equal priorities to give some balance to them. How they pursue this is up to whomever, of course
[00:07:44] <Walther_Walrus> The difficulty of balancing on one platform plank is part of the point, to me.
[00:08:33] <Kario> Right. Votes from the team? Anyone with an opinion on this issue is encouraged to speak up.
[00:09:21] <Ellington> so.... factions have two points of equal value or one main/one sub?
[00:09:45] <Walther_Walrus> No, one main, tension between subs.
[00:10:23] <Kario> Either two points of equal value or one main and the other to as possibilities, yes?
[00:10:25] <Burrito_Loco> Versus two main.
[00:10:26] <Kario> *other two
[00:10:33] <Burrito_Loco> Sounds about right
[00:13:54] <Kario> I'm going to warn people now if I don't hear opinions, I'm going to posit we do Whatever I Want.
[00:13:59] <Walther_Walrus> Like, the security faction has people who think they should be putting effort into securing some more money and that peoples' rights are in fine shape, and people who think they should be putting more effort into securing people's rights and that there's plenty of money already.
[00:14:01] <Kario> So let's hear opinions.
[00:15:15] <Tod> I like having two main things for each faction.
[00:15:18] <Marcus`Langley> I move we do the exact opposite of what Keyo wants! Actually no. I think... balancing the two sub-values off against the other factions could be more interesting in the long run, but that'd mean more work on us, right?
[00:15:24] <Austin_J> It all sounds about the same to me, to be honest.
[00:16:18] <Ellington> do we need firmer faction outlines before we can decide?
[00:16:55] <Kario> I don't think we do. We have the three ideals we'll be working with.
[00:17:13] <Tod> also need to mention that I am being dragged away from the computer in forty minutes.
[00:17:16] <Ellington> which 3?
[00:18:18] <Walther_Walrus> I really don't think it would be appreciably more work. In some ways, I think BL's proposal would take more mental effort to invent and integrate good new internal conflict hooks if we wanted them. We don't have to play up the conflict any more than we want to. If we want to ignore it, it's a footnote or an aside, but then it's /there/, at least, for the future if we do want to play with
[00:18:18] <Walther_Walrus> it.
[00:18:36] <Burrito_Loco> Do we need internal conflict?
[00:18:39] <Burrito_Loco> We've got external
[00:19:07] <Burrito_Loco> And partisans will always vie for power within the factions
[00:19:28] <Walther_Walrus> I think opportunities for internal conflict are vital to a richly built world, and this gives us hooks for internal conflict with built-in buy-in.
[00:20:07] <Kario> Gentlemen? An alternate proposal, in the spirit of the comboclysm.
[00:20:37] <Kario> Start out equally positioned between two mains, playerbase gets periodic decisions on how to shape the flavor elements.
[00:21:27] <Walther_Walrus> That's fine, except it means there's one value left out of each faction.
[00:21:59] <Kario> Not if that third value is included in each decision.
[00:22:18] <Ellington> everybody votes equally for them all, nothing is done?
[00:22:21] <Walther_Walrus> Once they've come off of perfectly balanced, you've generated six possibilities again instead of three.
[00:23:04] <Walther_Walrus> I'm not sure what you mean by that, Kario.
[00:23:30] <Burrito_Loco> I like ignoring one
[00:24:42] <Ellington> what were the 3 atributes again?
[00:24:47] <Kario> I'm taking your proposal, Walther, with BL's starting point.
[00:25:09] <Marcus`Langley> security, economy, social? I think
[00:25:11] <Kario> Security/order, mercantilism/economy, social welfare/egalitarianism.
[00:25:30] <Ellington> red/green/brown? :D
[00:25:37] <Walther_Walrus> red/green/blue
[00:25:54] <Ellington> yeah, i'm oldschool. blue = science!
[00:26:20] <Walther_Walrus> Skyrates stumbled on a terribly archetypical bit of conflict, and I am fine with using the same archetype.
[00:26:26] <Walther_Walrus> ANYWAY
[00:27:25] <Tod> if the colors were red, yellow (gold for money) and blue, the different combinations would be the primary and secondary colors! And, uh.... also brown-gray.
[00:27:50] <Burrito_Loco> RGB are primary
[00:28:08] <Burrito_Loco> (green, the color of money)
[00:28:20] <Kario> Depends on whether you're talking about the absorption spectrum or the reflection spectrum.
[00:28:35] <Kario> But yes. Combination proposal go or no-go?
[00:28:56] <Burrito_Loco> Take some command, man!
[00:28:58] <Burrito_Loco> Tell us!
[00:29:03] <Walther_Walrus> What we have here is essentially a question of combinatorics. BL proposes unordered pair combinations, I propose ordered pair combinations. My particular wrinkle is to put the ordered pairs that start with A into the same faction in order to cover all the bases while still having three factions. As soon as you unbalance BL's proposal, you have gone from unordered to ordered pairs.
[00:29:39] <Burrito_Loco> Mine fixes it to three, ideologically balanced factions
[00:29:52] <Burrito_Loco> Wal's can create up to six distinct ideologies
[00:29:55] * Talon yawns, was asleep.
[00:30:16] <Ellington> the topic has been factions \
[00:30:17] <matejcik> i think that BL's variant easily degenerates into Walther's
[00:30:21] <Burrito_Loco> Good. Job.
[00:30:24] <Kario> Technically, Walt's can creat up to nine.
[00:30:27] <Kario> *create
[00:30:32] <Walther_Walrus> No it can't
[00:30:41] <Burrito_Loco> It can if you let mine
[00:30:55] <Walther_Walrus> ABC, ACB, BAC, BCA, CAB, CBA.
[00:31:37] <Kario> Or you have A, B/C.
[00:31:53] <Kario> Which is where you start, yes?
[00:32:38] <Walther_Walrus> Well, yes, I suppose in that sense. That's the head of a pin before it goes to one or the other, though.
[00:33:13] <Kario> I'm derailing the topic, too.
[00:33:20] <Walther_Walrus> I suppose you could put it like this. The faction as a whole is A, B/C because it is made up of equal parts ABC and ACB.
[00:33:37] <Kario> Talon, please catch up and weigh in.
[00:33:53] <Ellington> quick tal, read 3+ hours of chat :D
[00:34:26] <TommyChong> tee hee hee
[00:35:41] <Tod> do you think we'll have a chance to discuss art stuff before I have to go?
[00:36:43] <Walther_Walrus> BL is proposing essentially AB/BA, BC/CB, and AC/CA as factions. Translating mine to look the same way, I'm proposing AB/AC, BA/BC, and CA/CB.
[00:36:59] <Talon> walt, i agree with everything you've said in the last three hours
[00:37:30] <Ellington> i'ma have to go in a minute too.
[00:37:59] <Kario> I think we can move on to art stuff, since Talon pushes the tie in one direction, and it's the direction I was leaning anyway.
[00:38:16] <Kario> (Assuming he's serious.)
[00:38:26] <Ellington> (always a dangerous asumption)
[00:38:53] <TommyChong> oh do it while I'm still sober
[00:38:55] <Walther_Walrus> BL's look like alliances based on what each faction finds least important, mine look like alliances based on what each faction finds most important.
[00:42:00] <Talon> i read
[00:42:06] <Talon> it's actually been an incredibly productive meeting
[00:42:13] <Talon> i vote we always have these people here talking about this stuff
[00:42:21] <Ellington> seconded
[00:42:48] <Kario> Okay.
[00:43:00] <Ellington> anyway, i do have to go. tal, dont let them burn anything down
[00:43:00] <Kario> Factions look like AB or AC, etc.
[00:43:10] <Kario> Art things. Tommy, Tad, what do you have to show us?
[00:43:14] <Kario> *Tod
[00:43:15] <Talon> i like the way you're taking the ideologies and i think the factions being taken around them is a pretty good one
[00:43:23] <Talon> and sure, ell
[00:43:28] <TommyChong> ...
[00:43:32] <Tod> this week, I made this sketch - www.thestorydragon.com/adventure/bar.jpg
[00:43:39] * Walther_Walrus puts down the gasoline and the matches and looks disappointed
[00:43:41] <Talon> mannnnnnnn tod
[00:43:47] <Talon> that is /awesome/
[00:43:57] <Tod> to go with this island I did last week - www.thestorydragon.com/adventure/island01.jpg
[00:43:58] <Talon> fuck, sign me up for rick's furry cafe
[00:44:05] <Tod> thank you :)
[00:44:14] <Talon> seriously feels like casablanca
[00:44:15] <Talon> :p
[00:44:25] <Talon> we need a piano, and someone playing 'as time goes by'
[00:44:40] <Tod> the other islands I doodled up weren't as fleshed out, but I was happy with this one, too - www.thestorydragon.com/adventure/island02.jpg
[00:44:50] * Kario can do a competent Durante.
[00:44:52] <Tod> kinda more of an industrial place.
[00:44:56] <Talon> And BL, I think Walt has a point, having AB/BA as the same faction may not be as well as AB/AC
[00:45:14] <Talon> yeah, smog and stuffles
[00:45:53] <Walther_Walrus> I really, really like those islands
[00:45:55] <Tod> putting more effort into building new factories than new modern-looking buildings
[00:45:58] <Talon> i think one of the things to think about is just general city layout -- we have sprawling cities like LA and then very condensed cities like Manhattan, and how cities generally morph around their geographies
[00:45:59] <Kario> First of all, Walt, is this more or less in keeping with your visua--okay, that answers that.
[00:46:10] <Walther_Walrus> Those look almost exactly like what was in my head when I was writing.
[00:46:17] <Talon> and we should, in our exploration, have both
[00:46:23] <Tod> and the first is all pretty-shiny-buildings
[00:46:43] <Tod> if you guys like both, I can draw more scenes from both as my homework, this week.
[00:46:47] <Tod> ?
[00:47:01] <Walther_Walrus> I'd like to see you do one with a city that crawls down the cliffside a little bit.
[00:47:09] <Talon> yeah, some vertical
[00:47:15] <Talon> but I think a couple different angles would be swell
[00:47:29] <Walther_Walrus> But you're totally going in the right direction, and I think you've definitely got a handle on what was in my head.
[00:47:31] <Marcus`Langley> man with these guys I think you'd have to try really hard to make something they wouldn't like.
[00:47:49] <Talon> lol.
[00:47:56] <Tod> sure, I can do different external areas of both islands.
[00:48:06] <Talon> img.photobucket.com/albums/v327/Paradogs/Fauxrates/cliff_concept1.jpg is also awesome, TommyChong
[00:48:09] <Tod> since I'm assuming they're city-sized and whatnot, can vary things up a lot.
[00:48:12] <Kario> I'm looking over Tommy's island over the waterfall thingy.
[00:48:28] <TommyChong> huh
[00:48:30] <Kario> And I'm thinking a city built vertically like that would be an interesting conceit we might need to use given the geography we have to work with.
[00:48:44] <Tod> depends on the size of the island, I guess
[00:48:49] <Talon> yeah
[00:48:57] <Tod> so we could probably do both?
[00:49:12] <Talon> something akin to dinotopia's cliff cities and the like
[00:49:14] <Kario> Basically one of the things I'd like to see, personally, is a multilayered metropolis built along those lines.
[00:49:20] <Talon> or maybe i'm thinking hte morlocks of time machien
[00:49:29] <Kario> It's visually striking and unique.
[00:50:05] <Talon> i think urban areas are more likely to come out of a more sheer-cliff based island, because more arable land in islands is probably used to produce luxury stuff off said land
[00:50:15] <Kario> I agree with this.
[00:50:16] <Walther_Walrus> Waterfalls are cool and important. I had a particular visual thought earlier today of an island that looks like everything broke off around Yosemite; with a river falling out of a canyon that hangs a couple thousand feet above the ocean but is itself a couple thousand feet deep, and a city built into the walls of the canyon.
[00:50:19] <Talon> cow milk, for example, whereas goat milk is probably more common
[00:50:43] <Marcus`Langley> land usable for farming would be at a serious premium, yeah
[00:50:51] <Walther_Walrus> Yeah
[00:50:53] <TommyChong> animal vs funny animal
[00:50:54] <Talon> water coming out of a cliff/canyon city is interesting; i think you get a different culture feel out of it as well as a different type of city
[00:50:57] <TommyChong> that
[00:51:00] <Talon> moo?
[00:51:04] <Kario> Depending on the size of the island, waterfalls might not be especially large, though.
[00:51:10] <Talon> right
[00:51:12] <Walther_Walrus> Yes
[00:51:15] <Walther_Walrus> Also
[00:51:16] <Kario> Because you have to consider what kinds of rainfall we're getting here.
[00:51:28] <Walther_Walrus> I charge our artists to insert at least one walrus into their character art. :P
[00:51:31] <Talon> ...lol
[00:51:38] * Walther_Walrus looks innocent
[00:51:39] <Talon> more ferrets, plz
[00:51:45] <Talon> irrelevant
[00:51:45] <Talon> anyway
[00:51:49] <Kario> For that matter, I'd like to address that freshwater question I brought up in the e-mail.
[00:51:51] <Talon> i think the art style is going nicely
[00:51:54] <Burrito_Loco> Equine equality!
[00:51:57] <Tod> I'll push these two islands I've doodled to try to come up with a more unique... stacking.... style and see what I can do!
[00:52:06] <Talon> keep them separate, tod
[00:52:25] * Tod nodnods. Two different places, just want to see if I can push the designs a little more and make 'em pop.
[00:52:29] <Talon> the first one looks like cidade, the second one is like...gonkish, and vertical metropolis should be courscant
[00:52:57] <Talon> more broadly, though
[00:53:03] <Talon> taking a bit out of the culture/faction system talk
[00:53:16] <Talon> we should also be looking at some architectural styles arising
[00:53:28] <Walther_Walrus> Fresh water is a Thing. I'd rather the islands be big enough and the planet be rainy enough that we don't have to have every island-side waterfall penned up into a reservoir.
[00:53:34] <Tod> yeah, went with deco and older victorian stuff
[00:54:04] <Tod> and I like having enough rain. I put the first island I drew in a tropical sort of climate.
[00:54:15] <Kario> I think, with Victorian being a particular strength here, we can tie that into the Economic faction.
[00:54:23] <Kario> It seems to go hand-in-hand.
[00:54:36] <Talon> yeah, i think asian styles on the (green) money-grubbing merchants might be someyhing to explore, and the difference between the (red) security and the (blue) egalitarian societies can be reflected in choices of layouts of cities, buildings, etc
[00:54:50] <Talon> i don't know if victorian screams economy to me
[00:55:03] <Kario> And this is why I wanted this discussion. =)
[01:43:16] <matejcik> hmmm, an acropolis...
[01:43:57] <Mahm> A few grand buildings, with smaller ones crawling between the squares.
[01:44:25] <Kario> The agora was what I was expecting to include.
[01:44:53] <Kario> And maybe an artificial waterway through the city.
[01:45:09] <matejcik> venice? :e)
[01:46:15] <Burrito_Loco> Dinotopia!
[01:46:23] <Mahm> Yesss...
[01:46:30] <Burrito_Loco> (I say only somewhat facetiously)
[01:46:35] <Burrito_Loco> The architecture might work
[01:47:09] <TommyChong> farm4.static.flickr.com/3129/2547811294_d8bbd847e4.jpg
[01:47:59] <Burrito_Loco> goo.gl/Q3psk
[01:48:29] <Burrito_Loco> Obviously with fewer dinosaurs
[01:49:33] <Kario> Yeah, Waterfall City is actually a really good model for what I was envisioning.
[01:50:04] <TommyChong> ~
[01:50:43] <TommyChong> be back in a moment
[01:57:01] <Talon> dinotopia!
[01:57:01] <Talon> :D
[01:58:51] <Burrito_Loco> Indeed
[01:59:02] <Burrito_Loco> Let's all take five to be nostalgic :p
[02:00:49] <Walther_Walrus> I always liked seeing those, but I never had any. My parents figured they wouldn't keep me reading long enough to be worth the price.
[02:01:55] <Kario> Well, the thing is, I think once we get the capital cities established, almost anything else is fair game.
[02:03:22] <TommyChong> back
[02:03:24] <TommyChong> so
[02:03:44] <TommyChong> capital cities this week, eh
[02:05:51] <matejcik> good night everyone
[02:10:58] <Walther_Walrus> Sounds like that's the idea
[02:10:59] <Kario> That's the idea, yeah.
[02:11:21] <TommyChong> alright
[02:11:44] <Kario> Beyond that, almost anything can be made to fit with only minor tweaks.
[02:12:00] <Kario> Colonies don't necessarily have to 100% reflect the views of their sponsor nations.
[02:12:54] <TommyChong> I haven't heard any comment on the technology side of things, though I think that's for another time, huh.
[02:13:23] <TommyChong> or did I miss something?
[02:13:54] <Kario> Technology isn't meant to be a focus of any of the factions, AFAIK.
[02:15:46] <TommyChong> I figured, though I'd imagine there's some extraordinary things, tech-wise
[02:16:39] <Kario> We'll talk about weird details to add later, I guess.
[19:33:29] <Ellington> lo kids
[19:35:26] <Austin_J> It's Ellington!
[19:36:17] <Ellington> lies and hearsay
[19:36:36] <Marcus`Langley> yeah, Ell would never be early for a meeting!
[19:36:36] <Kario> We were debating yesterday whether you were using the wrong month, the wrong year, or just hit your head.
[19:36:40] <Kario> There was no consensus.
[19:38:13] <Ellington> hitting my head is usually out... i mean, hardest part of my body n all
[19:43:16] <Joseph_W> I'm so sorry.
[19:48:39] <Tod> hi
[19:56:07] <Ellington> ello my faviorite artist :D
[19:57:07] <Ellington> also, Kario, I use various calendars, including Druidic, Mayan, and French Revolution
[19:59:11] <Burrito_Loco> A solid, sensible base 10 affair
[20:10:13] <Ellington> which reminds me... gotta sacrifice a virgin next Septidi
[20:53:14] <Ellington> yay lightning
[20:54:32] <Burrito_Loco> Thunder and?
[20:54:53] <Kario> Frightening, very very.
[20:55:29] <Ellington> thunder and tigers and flooding, oh my
[20:56:33] <Tod> \o/
[20:56:34] <Kario> Great. Now I have Bohemian Rhapsody stuck in my head.
[20:57:15] <Burrito_Loco> Poor boy
[20:59:09] <Ellington> well, ello everybody (again)
[20:59:37] <Kario> We getting this ball rolling?
[20:59:45] <Ellington> yep. with whips
[20:59:54] <Ellington> Loco, how goes the coding?
[21:00:41] * Tod rolls.
[21:02:05] <Ellington> oh, and if i get lightning DC'ed again, i apologise. just carry on (wayward souls)
[21:02:36] <Austin_J> Yeah, it
[21:02:36] <Burrito_Loco> Mate is proceeding apace
[21:02:43] <Austin_J> 's pretty stormy down here
[21:03:01] <Burrito_Loco> I just hope his classwork keeps his nose to the procrastination grindstone :p
[21:03:08] * Rejoin_Walther rolls out of bed and into the meeting.
[21:03:21] <Ellington> and your coding? :)
[21:06:04] <Ellington> also, do you need anything?
[21:09:38] <Ellington> Keyo, whats your thoughts on worldbuilding?
[21:10:02] <Burrito_Loco> I think we've got stuff under control on the resources front
[21:10:10] <Kario> Long. I'm waiting until other issues have been tabled.
[21:12:14] <Ellington> Loco, any estimates on testable codee? :D
[21:13:37] <Burrito_Loco> Define testable?
[21:14:00] <Ellington> two or three islands with trade maybe?
[21:14:53] <Ellington> I absolutely love the art so far... I'm thinking min my mind that if we can hammer out a basic basckstory soon (I mean, Skyrates is basically still 'earth went boom') we can refine the story more as we get more art?
[21:15:27] <Burrito_Loco> I'm not really sure, I'll have to talk to Mate. I think the client is lagging considerably behind the server. We might be able to get a sort of back end up in the foreseeable future but I suspect that the front end for that would be HTML with printed text and drop boxes and such.
[21:15:59] <Ellington> client is user interface and stuff?
[21:16:44] <Burrito_Loco> Yeah
[21:16:48] <Burrito_Loco> Browser side
[21:17:57] <Ellington> I'd like to see something by roughly the start of the year. I'm guessing its going to take longer than that, though? I dont wanna be too unrealistic/drive yall too cruelly
[21:22:17] <Burrito_Loco> Depending on what you mean by something, we can probably do it from a technical standpoint
[21:22:41] <Ellington> is that reasonable? would it be better to push for third month of next year or some such?
[21:24:05] <Burrito_Loco> Like I said, what all do you want? I wager that *some* functional if not pretty interface can be hacked together, and the barebones of the backend aren't terribly complicated. I wouldn't, however, use the same pw I use for my banking though, if you catch my drift.
[21:24:06] <Burrito_Loco> Also
[21:24:29] <Burrito_Loco> I'd rather have deadlines tighter rather than looser 'cause projects are like goldfish
[21:24:40] <Burrito_Loco> the grow to consume the resources available, time included
[21:29:24] <Ellington> then yeah, I'd like to see it by january. I understand it will be rough :)
[21:32:29] <Burrito_Loco> See what can be done, cap'n
[21:32:53] <Ellington> good deal
[21:33:44] <Ellington> Keyo?
[21:35:15] <Kario> Hokai.
[21:35:44] <Kario> To start off with broad strokes, one of the things we need to establish is what kind of "faction" system we're going to work with, if any.
[21:37:44] <Ellington> if i recall, consensus was that we wanted a faction system of some sort... what it looks like is.. vauger
[21:38:44] <Ellington> I think more than 5 factions is likely too many... we started with 3 on skyrates
[21:39:01] <Tod> I have an idea for three factions.
[21:39:22] <Rejoin_Walther> The finer history of the world is essentially the history of the factions, so establishing the factions is the next step. Also, three is the correct number of factions.
[21:39:51] <Burrito_Loco> I vote Three and/or as many as players care to create
[21:39:52] <Ellington> thou shalt not goest to five, nor two
[21:40:08] <Tod> ooh, I do like the idea for players to be able to create their own factions, too.
[21:40:10] <Marcus`Langley> Five definitely seems too many. Three or four would be best.
[21:40:39] <Ellington> Create a faction is.. problematic, for some reasons. Mostly, limited number of players and dev support'
[21:40:41] <Austin_J> I like four myself. Three feels just a bit too limiting.
[21:40:45] <Walther_Walrus> Three is ideal. Four allows for a very stable 2v2 situation.
[21:41:11] <Walther_Walrus> And stability is just what we don't want.
[21:41:20] <Kario> Well, what do we want factions to DO/
[21:41:21] <Kario> *?
[21:41:30] <Austin_J> Although that is a good point, Walther. How important is the PvP elements of factions going to be?
[21:41:54] <Walther_Walrus> PvP is one of the most compelling long-term elements of any game, so I'd say it will be pretty important.
[21:42:50] <Ellington> especially early in Fauxrates lifetime, player plane vs player plane is unlikely to happen
[21:42:59] <Burrito_Loco> The answer may be Three papa factions
[21:43:01] <Walther_Walrus> That being said, I think I'd prefer for the factions to be the overarching banners to which player-created organizations--wings, in other words--belong.
[21:43:25] <Burrito_Loco> And then a robust wing system with lots of competition at that level
[21:43:38] <Walther_Walrus> BL and I seem to be on the same page here.
[21:44:31] <Kario> I take it we're generally against factions having ingame benefit, then.
[21:44:52] <Burrito_Loco> I'm against faction specific in game benefit
[21:45:21] <Burrito_Loco> E.G. the blue is faster, red is combatier, green gets tax breaks sort of deal
[21:45:23] <Walther_Walrus> Yeah, that causes way too much newbie angst about which one to join, just for starters.
[21:45:52] <Ellington> I could see factions having very minor benefits.. maybe a small discount on their t11 plane or something
[21:46:00] <Burrito_Loco> If there's some sort of flat bene for joining (all repairs 5% off) or something, sure
[21:46:29] <Burrito_Loco> In fact, incentivizing participation in *a* faction seems advisable
[21:46:34] <Tod> Something that's a small benefit at higher levels might help ease some newbie indecision and whatnot... but something that's just a rp/PvP thing would be fun, too.
[21:46:38] <Kario> Frankly, I'd prefer it if participation in *a* faction was simply mandatory.
[21:46:42] <Marcus`Langley> faction-specific planes at higher tiers?
[21:46:45] <Austin_J> I disagree
[21:46:55] <Burrito_Loco> Faction specific skins maybe?
[21:46:58] <Austin_J> I *like* being able to ignore factional politics.
[21:47:21] <Burrito_Loco> You can ignore them for a price, I'd say. The most obvious might be a slight tax hit.
[21:47:21] <Kario> Skins seem like a useful idea.
[21:47:23] <Ellington> enough people fussed for the indie faction that its probably worthwhile to keep it around
[21:47:58] <Kario> I think the need for an Independent group was largely Skyrates-specific, frankly.
[21:48:21] <Austin_J> Why do we *need* to pressure people into a faction, exactly?
[21:48:23] <Burrito_Loco> The indies are on the outside of factional machinations which includes pretending to be friendly and the lip service paid to it.
[21:48:49] <Burrito_Loco> Because otherwise things get all splintery
[21:49:11] <Walther_Walrus> Because the building faction loyalties and rivalries is part of the interpersonal interaction that keeps people returning to the game.
[21:49:28] <Ellington> i think, if we make it subtly clear faction joining is intended, we dont need blatant forcing
[21:49:58] <Kario> It was intended in Skyrates and people still didn't want to do it.
[21:50:10] <Marcus`Langley> and forcing them could just drive them away instead
[21:50:20] <Burrito_Loco> Not really
[21:50:28] <Burrito_Loco> It's all in the initial conditions
[21:50:33] <Kario> If having to pick a faction when you create a character drives you away from a game...
[21:50:41] <Burrito_Loco> Not many complain about being forced to choose alliance or horde
[21:51:00] <Walther_Walrus> Picking a faction on character creation works ok for WoW. :P
[21:51:05] <Burrito_Loco> As long as it's always been, it can forever be.
[21:51:20] <Walther_Walrus> Dammit BL, stop being in my head
[21:51:28] <Burrito_Loco> I'm in everyone's heads
[21:51:37] <Burrito_Loco> I'm like Professor X, bitch
[21:51:50] <Walther_Walrus> Does that make me the Juggernaut, bitch?
[21:51:59] <Ellington> i can see that
[21:52:28] <Austin_J> Yeah, but this ain't WoW. I've played games that not picking a faction wouldn't make sense, but they were far more PvP focused than this is likely to be.
[21:52:49] <Walther_Walrus> PvP is the only endgame we've got, as far as I know.
[21:52:51] <Kario> There are games with NO PvP that require you to pick a faction.
[21:53:01] <Walther_Walrus> That too
[21:53:09] <Austin_J> And those games are silly :)
[21:53:52] * SaphIsNotHere is now known as Sapheta
[21:53:53] <Joseph_W> Heh, BL as the professor
[21:54:07] <Tod> if there are three factions, and faction membership is manditory, if one faction is largely focused on protecting and serving the interests of cargo pilots and whatnot, a union/guild sort of thing, that could be either politically oriented if players want, or an easy way to ignore faction politics and do one's job.
[21:55:04] <Kario> Well, let me try to summarize what we've got so far.
[21:55:09] <Walther_Walrus> That would tend to inflate that faction's membership numbers, much like blue's defacto indyness once did. It would be a crapshoot whether that translated into PvP power or not.
[21:55:37] <Kario> We want factions, three seems to be a good number, and we want the factions to pretty much only differ in terms of flavor and that sort of background, yes?
[21:55:44] <Walther_Walrus> yes
[21:56:18] <Austin_J> Actually, that is a pretty good argument for having an independent option. You might just have an unofficial independent faction messing up your carefully balanced PvP.
[21:56:30] <Burrito_Loco> Verily
[21:56:42] <Kario> Ahem.
[21:56:57] <Burrito_Loco> Correct, Kario
[21:57:23] <Kario> In order to try to keep the discussion contained, I'm going to propose two cases which both seem to solve that problem.
[21:58:33] <Kario> Case One: Faction are competing political entities within a single governmental body that tries to control the map. This gives us a system more like what we currently have in Skyrates wherein you're competing for political influence rather than outright control.
[21:59:08] <Kario> Case Two: Each faction is its own separate nation with its own separate starting area which you choose at character creation. Actions you complete as an individual reflect on the performance of your nation.
[21:59:17] <Kario> I like Case Two.
[22:00:26] <Tod> I like case one, because I think ideology makes for more interesting conflict than nationalism.
[22:00:26] <Kario> If anyone has a proposal for another case which streamlines player choices and allows us to focus on balancing three distinct parties that will always be in direct competition without other alternatives arising, I'd like to hear it.
[22:00:50] <Walther_Walrus> I'm typing one out
[22:00:55] <Burrito_Loco> Hmm
[22:00:58] <Kario> If anyone has a strong argument for having a nonpartisan group, I'll hear that, too. "I don't want to be one of the mainstream choices" is not a strong argument.
[22:01:15] <Burrito_Loco> I think we should tier cap planes and tech if you're not in a faction
[22:01:33] <Burrito_Loco> Or put a massive premium on it
[22:01:45] <Austin_J> And gimp those of us who would just want to make the top of a given leaderboard?
[22:01:50] <Burrito_Loco> (similar to the EV games if anyone is familiar)
[22:01:52] <Burrito_Loco> Yes
[22:01:55] <Burrito_Loco> Frankly
[22:02:04] <Burrito_Loco> Life's harder if you go alone
[22:02:04] <Ellington> how does the overarching nations/goverment thing work if many of the skylands have been isolated?
[22:03:04] <Burrito_Loco> I like three distinct powers that grew up apart but are now running out of easy, free real estate and starting to eye each other.
[22:03:23] <Kario> That'd depend on the mechanics of whatever system we're going with.
[22:03:24] <Walther_Walrus> Everything's a colony of the islated surviving pockets. The reinvention of flight spurred an expansionist period and--yes, exactly what BL said.
[22:03:34] <Burrito_Loco> Think colonialism
[22:04:10] <Kario> So how is that not just a more specific version of Case Two? :)
[22:04:13] <Ellington> empire, republic, and anarachy?
[22:04:22] <Burrito_Loco> I didn't say it wasn't
[22:04:25] <Walther_Walrus> It is, we were answering Ell's question.
[22:04:36] <Walther_Walrus> Before it turned into a tangent.
[22:04:49] <Burrito_Loco> Anarchy is not a government
[22:05:18] <Walther_Walrus> Broadly, I am for case two, I just want to fiddle with the details.
[22:05:45] <Burrito_Loco> Oh, just a sec, mine you start without one
[22:05:49] <Ellington> one concern i have is... do we want players in charge of factions, or not?
[22:05:56] <Walther_Walrus> nope
[22:05:59] <Kario> Define 'in charge of.'
[22:06:01] <Burrito_Loco> Define in charge
[22:06:07] <Ellington> king thorne
[22:06:09] <Tod> I think the one of the interesting thematic things is people moving into globalized and industrialized societies, and how there are different ideas about the relationship between individuals, industry and government, and how these played out in different countries. I think there is potential there.
[22:06:35] <Kario> I'm going to get back to that and ask you to elaborate, Tod.
[22:06:44] <Tod> cool. I will wait.
[22:06:48] <Kario> And I'm going to say no to Ell.
[22:06:59] <Kario> That's a large part of what caused the Skyrates factional drama to erupt.
[22:07:13] <Walther_Walrus> To be entirely frank, my wing system is grown out of thoughts on how to fix Skyrates so it doesn't make faction kings.
[22:07:33] <Ellington> so, given that we dont (I agree) how do we limit that? wings w/ leaders?
[22:07:57] <Kario> I'm going to get back to wings later as well. Possibly next week. Since that's more of a mechanics discussion and less about worldbuilding groundwork.
[22:08:06] <Kario> And I want something concrete we can give the art team.
[22:08:10] <Burrito_Loco> Factions are there to rally to, ideologies
[22:08:26] <Burrito_Loco> We don't want to icky them up with reality
[22:08:57] <Burrito_Loco> Or, possibly
[22:09:07] <Burrito_Loco> Assuming we have an active corps to run these things
[22:10:08] <Burrito_Loco> We can allow a measure of player input into how things are run on a flavor text level
[22:10:58] <Burrito_Loco> (mowed down a square full of protesters vs. held open hearings on corruption in the captial)
[22:11:03] <Burrito_Loco> they don't *do* anything
[22:11:21] <Burrito_Loco> But they give the appearance of involvement and personalize the factions
[22:11:50] <Burrito_Loco> Buy-in is good
[22:12:12] * Walther_Walrus saves the bit he was typing about wing mechanics to a doc for next week.
[22:12:37] <Kario> Mm. That's a possibility. But again, I think addressing it now is a bit premature.
[22:13:51] <Burrito_Loco> How and what the factions are is pretty central to them, is it not?
[22:14:06] <Kario> Again in the interests of helping lay groundwork for the art and writing teams, do we want the factions to have different cultural influences and/or differing systems of government?
[22:14:14] <Kario> Tod, this is where I'm going to have you elaborate more on your idea.
[22:14:21] <Tod> Okay!
[22:15:18] <Ellington> as a whole, i'm opposed to a 'world goverment' sorta thing
[22:15:30] <Burrito_Loco> Yes, they should be artistically distinct
[22:16:43] <Tod> am trying to organize my thoughts, so bear with me a moment.
[22:21:21] <Tod> It seems like focusing on one of the three things as highest priority might yield a similar ideological conflict to earth in the time period we're looking at. Focus on authoritarianism, focus on trade/free industry, and focus on workers.
[22:21:55] <Ellington> feudal, industrial rev, and communisim? :D
[22:22:17] <Tod> authoritarian/capitalist/socialist
[22:22:28] <Austin_J> I'm hearing more pseudo-Nazis, American industrialists, and commies. Yep.
[22:22:41] <TommyChong> yo guys
[22:23:28] <Austin_J> Chong!
[22:23:29] <TommyChong> I thought the meeting was 30min later, sorry
[22:24:02] <Ellington> Eagleland!
[22:24:24] <Tod> but those things could manifest in many different ways in different places, not necessarily governmental bodies, but governments formed of a mix of these ideas as enacted by the local culture and economic situation.
[22:24:25] <TommyChong> Stuff I did is at smg.photobucket.com/albums/v327/Paradogs/Fauxrates/
[22:24:29] <TommyChong> as usual
[22:25:04] <Ellington> lo tommy. its ok (especially since i got the date wrong)
[22:25:27] <Walther_Walrus> That might be too much buy in, a little /too/ relevent to current issues. I'd be afraid of everything turning into a proxy battle on real-world politics with all the accompanying screaming and shit-slinging.
[22:25:33] <Tod> so if you're in Faction X, and faction X has the most influence on Island A, there's political shift, but the factions aren't the nations themselves.
[22:25:35] <Tod> true :/
[22:26:07] <Ellington> heh, TOmmy is my other favorite artist
[22:27:07] <Kario> Yeahhhhhh, I don't want this to be about real-world politics in the slightest.
[22:27:41] <Walther_Walrus> ...in other news, /plane-eating kelp/.
[22:27:57] <TommyChong> wat
[22:28:10] <Walther_Walrus> smg.photobucket.com/albums/v327/Paradogs/Fauxrates/?action=view¤t=Plane_eating_kelps.png
[22:28:13] <TommyChong> it sounds good at the time
[22:28:18] <TommyChong> <.<
[22:28:30] <Ellington> I say we use ALL of Tommys islands as official skylands
[22:28:49] <Tod> and also, as trade-oriented folks, it might be better to focus on varients of merchantile interests and come up with something a little more masked but still relevant to theme.
[22:28:58] <Tod> yeah, those are really gorgeous, Tommy.
[22:29:13] <Ellington> been watching Cowboy Beebop TC?
[22:29:16] <Walther_Walrus> It's awesome. I have no idea how to use it, but I want to keep it in the toolbox, I'm sure some amazingly appropriate spot will come up for plane-eating kelp.
[22:29:30] <TommyChong> thanks
[22:29:39] <TommyChong> and no, Ell. :)
[22:30:15] <Tod> I'll wait until we're at the right point in the meeting to babble about the little bit of new art I have from last week/this week.
[22:30:15] <Burrito_Loco> Well, a plutocracy would most likely look like a very weak, possibly completely corrupt representative government of some sort.
[22:30:33] <Ellington> the gefjon looks similar ish :D
[22:30:50] <TommyChong> hehe
[22:30:55] <Walther_Walrus> Oh God, BL, stop making it even /more/ real-world relevent. :P
[22:30:56] <Burrito_Loco> As opposed to the Inger
[22:31:06] <Burrito_Loco> A completely original design
[22:31:07] <Kario> Well, we want our factions to be politically and artistically distinct, but in a way that doesn't mirror modern real-world politics. Perhaps the simplest solution is to use outdated models?
[22:31:21] <Kario> E.g. British Imperialistic focus.
[22:31:24] <Ellington> oh, i bitched about the inger being a rcopyright violation all the time
[22:31:32] <Burrito_Loco> Well, take a look at industrial revolution countries
[22:31:51] <Burrito_Loco> they were massively corrupt representative governments where elections were openly bought and sold
[22:32:33] <Burrito_Loco> Do a survey of US politics circa 1865-1904 or so
[22:32:54] <Ellington> mechanical/mysticism/ hrm... piratey?
[22:33:05] <Tod> oh boy, Tammany Hall.
[22:33:32] <Burrito_Loco> Indeed
[22:33:39] <Burrito_Loco> To take the canonical example
[22:33:50] <Walther_Walrus> Hey Susie, what do me and Hobbes look like?!
[22:34:17] <Burrito_Loco> We could toss in a Papal Theocracy maybe?
[22:34:28] <Kario> Mmm...
[22:34:32] <Burrito_Loco> As a top-down heirarchical system
[22:34:40] <Burrito_Loco> At least theoretically merit based
[22:34:47] <Kario> I'm not flat-out against the idea, but it'd need to be structured *very* carefully.
[22:34:55] <Kario> And I'd rather have almost anything else.
[22:35:19] <Burrito_Loco> Look, if we're gonna do a rigid nationalist state it's gonna be the Pope or Nazis
[22:35:23] <Kario> Just because religion is an awfully hot-button topic to have in what's basically a start-up dev group.
[22:36:35] <Burrito_Loco> Just sayi'.
[22:36:40] <Burrito_Loco> sayin'*
[22:37:03] <Tod> you could have a mutli-state sponsored privateer/merc sort of group, a group that's more freelance mostly working for independent trade companies, and a group that's forming it's own trade organization.
[22:37:07] <Tod> its
[22:37:37] <Kario> Sort of like the East India Trade/
[22:37:38] <Kario> *?
[22:37:41] <Tod> yeah
[22:38:14] <Burrito_Loco> East India was a kept pet of the Brits (for the record)
[22:38:33] <Tod> it seems like a similar mix of priorities that I babbled about, while avoiding the dicey RL stuff.
[22:39:30] <Kario> Yeah, but it seems like it'd be an easy way to interpret old British Imperialism as well as set up a fairly distinct governmental interest. This faction is mainly trying to exert economic control and resource monopolization.
[22:39:46] <Burrito_Loco> Sure
[22:40:23] <Burrito_Loco> Colonial Brits are interesting and the Victorian aesthetic is distinct and accepted
[22:40:32] <Burrito_Loco> Make that our "green?"
[22:40:52] <Walther_Walrus> We're really not talking at a sufficiently abstract level here, I don't think.
[22:41:04] <Kario> Elaborate.
[22:41:38] <Burrito_Loco> Kario's looking for an aesthetic right now, yes?
[22:42:11] <Burrito_Loco> Or are we talking the actual structure of how we are constructing and running the buggers?
[22:42:49] <Kario> General aesthetic is what I'm trying to pin down, but I'm open to alternative suggestions.
[22:43:13] <Burrito_Loco> One at a time.
[22:43:16] <Walther_Walrus> In skyrates, we had 'security', 'money', 'freedom'. Security and freedom fight with money trying to play both sides. That got buggered up by becoming 'security', 'money', 'science', 'religion', 'WTF'.
[22:43:59] <Burrito_Loco> Freedom is a terrible concept. Everyone claims it.
[22:44:21] <Burrito_Loco> I think something more like Egality is more...defined
[22:44:43] <Walther_Walrus> Whatever, semantics. We all know what I'm talking about in this case. :P
[22:45:32] <Burrito_Loco> I point this out because "freedom" as a principle is why Blue was larger than red and green combined for three rounds running
[22:45:46] <Walther_Walrus> fair enough
[22:45:57] <Kario> Yeah. I think we can all agree we don't want "Freedom" as a principle based on experience.
[22:46:55] <Walther_Walrus> What I'm getting at is that skyrates started (though given the botching of the two additional factions, I'm not sure it was deliberate) with an extremely classic and enduring fight over three one-word principles. All the flavor of those factions was built up out of those three one-word principles.
[22:48:22] <Burrito_Loco> It'd be cool if we could come up with three core principles and everyone gets two
[22:48:47] <Kario> I tend to prefer that, personally.
[22:48:58] <Tod> Chaotic Cargo
[22:49:05] <Walther_Walrus> That would posit the existence of six factions. Or possibly two competing world views within each faction.
[22:49:06] <Tod> Neutral... Shoot things
[22:49:18] <Burrito_Loco> No, they embody both
[22:49:30] <Burrito_Loco> So, for instance you've got egality and nationalism
[22:49:39] <Burrito_Loco> and money and nationalism
[22:49:47] <Burrito_Loco> One gets you commies
[22:49:56] <Burrito_Loco> The other gets you colonial Brits
[22:50:14] <Burrito_Loco> The problem being the third leg is money and egality which is a bit...off
[22:50:22] <Austin_J> Americans, of course.
[22:50:52] <Walther_Walrus> Oh, yes, you do get only three if they're equal in the nation. I was defaulting to thinking primary/secondary. The ordered combinations gives you six.
[22:51:08] <Burrito_Loco> equal
[22:51:17] <Burrito_Loco> It gives you instant depth(tm)
[22:51:44] <Walther_Walrus> Competing worldviews inside the factions gives you instant depth(tm) too.
[22:52:16] <Kario> Money and Egality is sort of early capitalist. I don't know that egality is something we want to espouse, though.
[22:52:34] <Kario> Again in an attempt to avoid Blue Dominance.
[22:52:41] * matejcik sync'd
[22:53:03] <Burrito_Loco> Egality is the sense that everyone is equal, not necessarily that everyone is free to do as they please.
[22:53:13] <Walther_Walrus> My brain keeps shouting 'Liberté! Egalité! Fraternité!"
[22:53:44] <Burrito_Loco> Yeah
[22:53:49] <Austin_J> I'm glad I'm not the only one, Walther.
[22:53:50] <matejcik> how about the classic triangle "fast cheap quality, pick two"?
[22:54:09] <Tod> XD
[22:55:04] <Burrito_Loco> the only issue is that gameplay and canon won't match up for balance reasons (all planes being the same price for the same quality)
[22:55:18] <Tod> and the mysterious fourth point on the triangle, 'no, read my mind and figure out what I wanted you to make. You have psychic powers, right?'
[22:55:37] <Kario> Yeah, fast cheap quality is just not relevant to the discussion, though I agree that as a system it balances itself.
[22:56:07] <matejcik> nah, i'm thinking of mapping that up onto some kind of ideologies. not sure how yet
[22:56:46] <Ellington> communism is also egality (in theory)
[22:57:00] <Burrito_Loco> communism is egalitarian
[22:57:14] <Burrito_Loco> that is
[22:57:21] <Burrito_Loco> Communism implies egality
[22:57:29] <Burrito_Loco> Egality does not imply communism
[22:58:27] <Ellington> so... keyo, whats your thoughts? what do we need to focus on? do we need more proposals?
[22:58:38] <Kario> I'm liking the direction this discussion is going.
[22:58:55] <Ellington> ok. continue :D
[22:59:47] <Walther_Walrus> Okay, security/money, money/equality, equality/security. That's the East India Company, some socialists, and some militant socialists.
[23:00:05] <Walther_Walrus> Someone please replace those last two with better ideas.
[23:00:24] <Kario> I would change "equality" into "social interests."
[23:00:24] <Burrito_Loco> the last one is commies
[23:00:42] <Kario> Money is obviously economic interests.
[23:00:45] <Burrito_Loco> Or nazis
[23:00:48] <Ellington> creativity/money, creativity/politics
[23:00:54] <Kario> And then we have security interests, aka DHS which I will not discuss.
[23:01:02] <Kario> Moving right along!
[23:01:05] <Burrito_Loco> creativity is something all would posses in some measure
[23:01:23] <Kario> That gives us three ideologies which are all "in the best interests of the people."
[23:01:27] <Kario> And each nation focuses on two.
[23:01:29] <Tod> how about 'industry' as a triangle-point
[23:01:37] <Kario> That's mostly economic.
[23:01:38] <Walther_Walrus> That's money
[23:01:41] <Burrito_Loco> ^
[23:01:46] <Tod> that could encompas innovation and trade
[23:01:56] <Burrito_Loco> Mercantilism, really
[23:02:02] <Walther_Walrus> Security first, money first, people first.
[23:02:04] <Tod> only spelled right... x_x
[23:03:02] <Ellington> industry isnt really just ceconomics... how much do you exploit the environment? workers? merchant fleets vs homefront shops?
[23:03:23] <Tod> yeah
[23:03:27] <Burrito_Loco> Mercantilism
[23:03:54] <Ellington> machines vs craftsmanship and artistry
[23:04:14] <Burrito_Loco> these aren't "versus" relationships
[23:04:27] <Kario> I think a lot of that is for us to determine as we fill in the blanks.
[23:05:53] <Walther_Walrus> I still like the idea of three factions which each take one of those values and have a split in whether future policy will be value1/value2 or value1/value3. As a writer, I want those ready-made hooks for internal conflict (though god-forbid we do a whole green-style civil war).
[23:08:36] <Kario> Anyone else have thoughts on that?
[23:08:41] <Kario> I could go either way.
[23:08:55] <Burrito_Loco> I'm still working on three good points
[23:09:41] <Marcus`Langley> hmm. could be good for factional development down the line, yeah.
[23:11:32] <Burrito_Loco> Mercantilism, order, egality
[23:12:52] <Kario> I think people are getting too bogged down in finding real-world analogues.
[23:12:52] <Burrito_Loco> M&O gets you Marxism, ME gets you capitalism, OE gets you Soviet Communism
[23:13:17] <Walther_Walrus> egality-executed-and-expressed-so-as-to-avoid-the-blue-crush
[23:13:22] <Kario> It needs to be plausible, but it doesn't need to mirror reality, nor should it.
[23:13:42] <Kario> (And I think I was equally guilty of this earlier.)
[23:13:53] <Burrito_Loco> I'm just gunning for principles that don't force acrobatics to get them to lie together
[23:14:03] <Burrito_Loco> (eg egality and mercantilism)
[23:14:45] <Tod> yeah, we don't need real-world analoges, and we can put a visual style that looks cool on any of these, doesn't have to match up
[23:17:54] <Tod> but the priorities are going to reflect in the sorts of structures they've got on their islands, of course.
[23:18:46] <Ellington> and, of course, they dont have to match up 100%. some can be much more recent additions
[23:19:21] <Kario> The thing to discuss at this point is whether we want the two priorities equal, or whether we want split decisions based on player vote.
[23:19:40] <Burrito_Loco> I say tell them
[23:20:05] <Ellington> though one thought- skytopins kept going 'x is traditionally red island' blah blah blah. could, possibly have implications if we do map scrambling resets
[23:20:30] <Walther_Walrus> The main problem I have with your method, BL, is that we're getting away from having something you can put on a bumper sticker, basically. I tend to feel that the main effect is to dilute the differences between factions right from the start.
[23:21:02] <Walther_Walrus> It might be more 'realistic' in some ways, but that doesn't mean it works better in a game design sense.
[23:21:05] <Marcus`Langley> replace 'is' with 'was'. times be changin', Ell.
[23:23:11] <Burrito_Loco> I want some nuance
[23:23:36] <Walther_Walrus> I also feel like it produces three very static and stable-feeling factions, and I'd prefer to have factions that feel like they're being changed by everything going on, even if that's only an impression and not something we ever actually /do/ to them.
[23:24:23] <Ellington> historically, change is a very slow process followed by rapid revolutions
[23:24:37] <Walther_Walrus> I want some nuance too. I also want to have something simple on the surface so that those players not... equipped for nuance are not put off.
[23:28:21] <Kario> BL? Any other thoughts?
[23:28:49] <Walther_Walrus> My idea is deliberately two-tiered. Bumper-sticker ideal on the surface, but underneath... A society that progressed for a couple hundred years marching on its ideal to keep itself alive and growing, now faced with a population too large to be so homogenous and too in contact with other factions to be kept in perfect ideological line. The exchange of ideas and goods has broadened the
[23:28:50] <Walther_Walrus> minds of everyone involved, and now no faction can proceed entirely as it was. The question is, how will it change, and who will drive that change?
[23:29:36] <Ellington> constant change is tough on games based more or less on staus quo/rp devs
[23:29:55] <Walther_Walrus> The impression of impending change can be generated without much of anything actually changing.
[23:30:26] <Burrito_Loco> Ellington's point is extra valid on the Internet
[23:30:39] <Burrito_Loco> Where two weeks is eternity and a day
[23:31:24] <Walther_Walrus> Nothing has to ever actually change. Simply work the fact of conflict into the flavor and any flavor that gets generated later.
[23:32:10] <Ellington> why we no have jets?!?!?! by my charts, we should have had jets 1.342 social cycles ago
[23:32:27] <Walther_Walrus> Just like an eternal war between factions in skyrates that never is never actually resolved or moved forward.
[23:33:26] <Kario> Anyone else on the team have thoughts on this?
[23:33:49] <Ellington> thats another something to iron out.. what does faction influence (or our equivelent) actually do?
[23:34:35] <Walther_Walrus> If the faction war was ever resolved, it would end the game of skyrates as we know it. Likewise, if the internal conflicts in a faction were ever decided on and ironed out, it would end the faction as we know it. Fortunatel, in both cases the conflict can go on for as long as there is someone to witness it.
[23:34:50] <Walther_Walrus> Fortunately, even
[23:35:34] <Kario> I would like some benefit to having factional control over an island. But that's a discussion for a future week.
[23:36:01] <Walther_Walrus> Yes, it is.
[23:37:44] <Austin_J> Actually, I like that as a "reason to join a faction." You get access to factional benefits on islands they control.
[23:39:08] <Ellington> one hard and fast rule: We cannont change plane speed unless everybody gets acess to it
[23:39:49] <Kario> Again, factional benefits are a discussion for a future week.
[23:39:57] <Kario> Back on topic, please.
[23:41:17] <TommyChong> pirate/npc faction y/n?
[23:41:50] <Marcus`Langley> y
[23:41:54] <Kario> That's actually a good question but I'm going to say no.
[23:42:01] <Ellington> why nos?
[23:42:06] <Walther_Walrus> I'd like to see pirates, personally.
[23:42:27] <Marcus`Langley> there's always gonna be someone who doesn't fly under any flag and picks off the weaker targets without preference.
[23:42:30] <TommyChong> not necessarily as a faction a la the other three?
[23:45:01] <Kario> I'm more for pirates as an entity and "anarchy" or "rioting" as a consequence of a neglected locale.
[23:45:35] <Burrito_Loco> Don't let pirates be PC
[23:45:56] <Burrito_Loco> We'll be up to our eyeballs in "honorable rogues" in less than no time
[23:46:03] <TommyChong> ^
[23:46:16] <Walther_Walrus> They will no doubt have katanas
[23:46:18] <Walther_Walrus> would, rather
[23:46:19] <Marcus`Langley> yeah, I can agree with not making them player-joinable.
[23:48:24] <TommyChong> so pirate faction/group exists, only as flavor/plot device then
[23:48:34] <Kario> I have a story about the Worst Ninja Ever that I'll save for when the meeting's over.
[23:48:44] <Kario> I think we're all agreed on that re: pirates.
[23:48:53] <Ellington> i agree no PC pirates (oficially, anyway)
[23:49:50] <TommyChong> I'm done asking question then. wake me up again when there's cupcakes.
[23:49:58] <Ellington> pirates might be interesting if we have a black market
[23:50:56] <Kario> Okay, we still need to make a decision on what factions are going to look like.
[23:51:14] <Ellington> voluntary? y/n?
[23:51:18] <Ellington> y
[23:51:23] <Kario> At this point I'm just going to have Walther and BL--as they've been the most vocal proponents for each of the two proposals on the table--each make closing arguments.
[23:51:40] <Kario> And we're going to vote on whether we want equal hybrids or on split decisions.
[23:51:56] <Burrito_Loco> Oh dear
[23:57:07] <Walther_Walrus> I just want to be clear--there is nothing particular to implement, and nothing in particular to maintain. It's not a game mechanic, it's just a part of what the factions are, just as much as a second primary pole in BL's proposal is a part of what the faction is. It's just the way you write the flavor, something you keep in mind when/if you write new flavor for events or updates.
[23:57:09] <Walther_Walrus> All over the rest of the game world, we're talking about things changing, about how the world is entering a new stage and the factions are interacting in new ways thanks to new technology and new geography. I feel it's important for the factions to feel like they're undergoing change as well, to make them a part of the impression of a dynamic, dangerous, uncertain, exciting world.
[23:57:54] <Walther_Walrus> And that's all I've got to say about that.
[00:02:23] <Kario> BL?
[00:03:04] <Ellington> what are the proposals again?
[00:05:29] <Burrito_Loco> The world is uncertain, yes, but the factions are ideals, therefore immutable at least so far appearances are concerned. I like the twin points to form a platform since one plank is hard to balance on.
[00:06:19] <Walther_Walrus> security-money-equlity/liberty/fraternity/whateverthehell, pick one to base a faction around and make that faction in tension between the other two values as secondaries, or pick two to be equal in importance to each faction.
[00:06:44] <Burrito_Loco> More or less
[00:07:23] <Burrito_Loco> I like two equal priorities to give some balance to them. How they pursue this is up to whomever, of course
[00:07:44] <Walther_Walrus> The difficulty of balancing on one platform plank is part of the point, to me.
[00:08:33] <Kario> Right. Votes from the team? Anyone with an opinion on this issue is encouraged to speak up.
[00:09:21] <Ellington> so.... factions have two points of equal value or one main/one sub?
[00:09:45] <Walther_Walrus> No, one main, tension between subs.
[00:10:23] <Kario> Either two points of equal value or one main and the other to as possibilities, yes?
[00:10:25] <Burrito_Loco> Versus two main.
[00:10:26] <Kario> *other two
[00:10:33] <Burrito_Loco> Sounds about right
[00:13:54] <Kario> I'm going to warn people now if I don't hear opinions, I'm going to posit we do Whatever I Want.
[00:13:59] <Walther_Walrus> Like, the security faction has people who think they should be putting effort into securing some more money and that peoples' rights are in fine shape, and people who think they should be putting more effort into securing people's rights and that there's plenty of money already.
[00:14:01] <Kario> So let's hear opinions.
[00:15:15] <Tod> I like having two main things for each faction.
[00:15:18] <Marcus`Langley> I move we do the exact opposite of what Keyo wants! Actually no. I think... balancing the two sub-values off against the other factions could be more interesting in the long run, but that'd mean more work on us, right?
[00:15:24] <Austin_J> It all sounds about the same to me, to be honest.
[00:16:18] <Ellington> do we need firmer faction outlines before we can decide?
[00:16:55] <Kario> I don't think we do. We have the three ideals we'll be working with.
[00:17:13] <Tod> also need to mention that I am being dragged away from the computer in forty minutes.
[00:17:16] <Ellington> which 3?
[00:18:18] <Walther_Walrus> I really don't think it would be appreciably more work. In some ways, I think BL's proposal would take more mental effort to invent and integrate good new internal conflict hooks if we wanted them. We don't have to play up the conflict any more than we want to. If we want to ignore it, it's a footnote or an aside, but then it's /there/, at least, for the future if we do want to play with
[00:18:18] <Walther_Walrus> it.
[00:18:36] <Burrito_Loco> Do we need internal conflict?
[00:18:39] <Burrito_Loco> We've got external
[00:19:07] <Burrito_Loco> And partisans will always vie for power within the factions
[00:19:28] <Walther_Walrus> I think opportunities for internal conflict are vital to a richly built world, and this gives us hooks for internal conflict with built-in buy-in.
[00:20:07] <Kario> Gentlemen? An alternate proposal, in the spirit of the comboclysm.
[00:20:37] <Kario> Start out equally positioned between two mains, playerbase gets periodic decisions on how to shape the flavor elements.
[00:21:27] <Walther_Walrus> That's fine, except it means there's one value left out of each faction.
[00:21:59] <Kario> Not if that third value is included in each decision.
[00:22:18] <Ellington> everybody votes equally for them all, nothing is done?
[00:22:21] <Walther_Walrus> Once they've come off of perfectly balanced, you've generated six possibilities again instead of three.
[00:23:04] <Walther_Walrus> I'm not sure what you mean by that, Kario.
[00:23:30] <Burrito_Loco> I like ignoring one
[00:24:42] <Ellington> what were the 3 atributes again?
[00:24:47] <Kario> I'm taking your proposal, Walther, with BL's starting point.
[00:25:09] <Marcus`Langley> security, economy, social? I think
[00:25:11] <Kario> Security/order, mercantilism/economy, social welfare/egalitarianism.
[00:25:30] <Ellington> red/green/brown? :D
[00:25:37] <Walther_Walrus> red/green/blue
[00:25:54] <Ellington> yeah, i'm oldschool. blue = science!
[00:26:20] <Walther_Walrus> Skyrates stumbled on a terribly archetypical bit of conflict, and I am fine with using the same archetype.
[00:26:26] <Walther_Walrus> ANYWAY
[00:27:25] <Tod> if the colors were red, yellow (gold for money) and blue, the different combinations would be the primary and secondary colors! And, uh.... also brown-gray.
[00:27:50] <Burrito_Loco> RGB are primary
[00:28:08] <Burrito_Loco> (green, the color of money)
[00:28:20] <Kario> Depends on whether you're talking about the absorption spectrum or the reflection spectrum.
[00:28:35] <Kario> But yes. Combination proposal go or no-go?
[00:28:56] <Burrito_Loco> Take some command, man!
[00:28:58] <Burrito_Loco> Tell us!
[00:29:03] <Walther_Walrus> What we have here is essentially a question of combinatorics. BL proposes unordered pair combinations, I propose ordered pair combinations. My particular wrinkle is to put the ordered pairs that start with A into the same faction in order to cover all the bases while still having three factions. As soon as you unbalance BL's proposal, you have gone from unordered to ordered pairs.
[00:29:39] <Burrito_Loco> Mine fixes it to three, ideologically balanced factions
[00:29:52] <Burrito_Loco> Wal's can create up to six distinct ideologies
[00:29:55] * Talon yawns, was asleep.
[00:30:16] <Ellington> the topic has been factions \
[00:30:17] <matejcik> i think that BL's variant easily degenerates into Walther's
[00:30:21] <Burrito_Loco> Good. Job.
[00:30:24] <Kario> Technically, Walt's can creat up to nine.
[00:30:27] <Kario> *create
[00:30:32] <Walther_Walrus> No it can't
[00:30:41] <Burrito_Loco> It can if you let mine
[00:30:55] <Walther_Walrus> ABC, ACB, BAC, BCA, CAB, CBA.
[00:31:37] <Kario> Or you have A, B/C.
[00:31:53] <Kario> Which is where you start, yes?
[00:32:38] <Walther_Walrus> Well, yes, I suppose in that sense. That's the head of a pin before it goes to one or the other, though.
[00:33:13] <Kario> I'm derailing the topic, too.
[00:33:20] <Walther_Walrus> I suppose you could put it like this. The faction as a whole is A, B/C because it is made up of equal parts ABC and ACB.
[00:33:37] <Kario> Talon, please catch up and weigh in.
[00:33:53] <Ellington> quick tal, read 3+ hours of chat :D
[00:34:26] <TommyChong> tee hee hee
[00:35:41] <Tod> do you think we'll have a chance to discuss art stuff before I have to go?
[00:36:43] <Walther_Walrus> BL is proposing essentially AB/BA, BC/CB, and AC/CA as factions. Translating mine to look the same way, I'm proposing AB/AC, BA/BC, and CA/CB.
[00:36:59] <Talon> walt, i agree with everything you've said in the last three hours
[00:37:30] <Ellington> i'ma have to go in a minute too.
[00:37:59] <Kario> I think we can move on to art stuff, since Talon pushes the tie in one direction, and it's the direction I was leaning anyway.
[00:38:16] <Kario> (Assuming he's serious.)
[00:38:26] <Ellington> (always a dangerous asumption)
[00:38:53] <TommyChong> oh do it while I'm still sober
[00:38:55] <Walther_Walrus> BL's look like alliances based on what each faction finds least important, mine look like alliances based on what each faction finds most important.
[00:42:00] <Talon> i read
[00:42:06] <Talon> it's actually been an incredibly productive meeting
[00:42:13] <Talon> i vote we always have these people here talking about this stuff
[00:42:21] <Ellington> seconded
[00:42:48] <Kario> Okay.
[00:43:00] <Ellington> anyway, i do have to go. tal, dont let them burn anything down
[00:43:00] <Kario> Factions look like AB or AC, etc.
[00:43:10] <Kario> Art things. Tommy, Tad, what do you have to show us?
[00:43:14] <Kario> *Tod
[00:43:15] <Talon> i like the way you're taking the ideologies and i think the factions being taken around them is a pretty good one
[00:43:23] <Talon> and sure, ell
[00:43:28] <TommyChong> ...
[00:43:32] <Tod> this week, I made this sketch - www.thestorydragon.com/adventure/bar.jpg
[00:43:39] * Walther_Walrus puts down the gasoline and the matches and looks disappointed
[00:43:41] <Talon> mannnnnnnn tod
[00:43:47] <Talon> that is /awesome/
[00:43:57] <Tod> to go with this island I did last week - www.thestorydragon.com/adventure/island01.jpg
[00:43:58] <Talon> fuck, sign me up for rick's furry cafe
[00:44:05] <Tod> thank you :)
[00:44:14] <Talon> seriously feels like casablanca
[00:44:15] <Talon> :p
[00:44:25] <Talon> we need a piano, and someone playing 'as time goes by'
[00:44:40] <Tod> the other islands I doodled up weren't as fleshed out, but I was happy with this one, too - www.thestorydragon.com/adventure/island02.jpg
[00:44:50] * Kario can do a competent Durante.
[00:44:52] <Tod> kinda more of an industrial place.
[00:44:56] <Talon> And BL, I think Walt has a point, having AB/BA as the same faction may not be as well as AB/AC
[00:45:14] <Talon> yeah, smog and stuffles
[00:45:53] <Walther_Walrus> I really, really like those islands
[00:45:55] <Tod> putting more effort into building new factories than new modern-looking buildings
[00:45:58] <Talon> i think one of the things to think about is just general city layout -- we have sprawling cities like LA and then very condensed cities like Manhattan, and how cities generally morph around their geographies
[00:45:59] <Kario> First of all, Walt, is this more or less in keeping with your visua--okay, that answers that.
[00:46:10] <Walther_Walrus> Those look almost exactly like what was in my head when I was writing.
[00:46:17] <Talon> and we should, in our exploration, have both
[00:46:23] <Tod> and the first is all pretty-shiny-buildings
[00:46:43] <Tod> if you guys like both, I can draw more scenes from both as my homework, this week.
[00:46:47] <Tod> ?
[00:47:01] <Walther_Walrus> I'd like to see you do one with a city that crawls down the cliffside a little bit.
[00:47:09] <Talon> yeah, some vertical
[00:47:15] <Talon> but I think a couple different angles would be swell
[00:47:29] <Walther_Walrus> But you're totally going in the right direction, and I think you've definitely got a handle on what was in my head.
[00:47:31] <Marcus`Langley> man with these guys I think you'd have to try really hard to make something they wouldn't like.
[00:47:49] <Talon> lol.
[00:47:56] <Tod> sure, I can do different external areas of both islands.
[00:48:06] <Talon> img.photobucket.com/albums/v327/Paradogs/Fauxrates/cliff_concept1.jpg is also awesome, TommyChong
[00:48:09] <Tod> since I'm assuming they're city-sized and whatnot, can vary things up a lot.
[00:48:12] <Kario> I'm looking over Tommy's island over the waterfall thingy.
[00:48:28] <TommyChong> huh
[00:48:30] <Kario> And I'm thinking a city built vertically like that would be an interesting conceit we might need to use given the geography we have to work with.
[00:48:44] <Tod> depends on the size of the island, I guess
[00:48:49] <Talon> yeah
[00:48:57] <Tod> so we could probably do both?
[00:49:12] <Talon> something akin to dinotopia's cliff cities and the like
[00:49:14] <Kario> Basically one of the things I'd like to see, personally, is a multilayered metropolis built along those lines.
[00:49:20] <Talon> or maybe i'm thinking hte morlocks of time machien
[00:49:29] <Kario> It's visually striking and unique.
[00:50:05] <Talon> i think urban areas are more likely to come out of a more sheer-cliff based island, because more arable land in islands is probably used to produce luxury stuff off said land
[00:50:15] <Kario> I agree with this.
[00:50:16] <Walther_Walrus> Waterfalls are cool and important. I had a particular visual thought earlier today of an island that looks like everything broke off around Yosemite; with a river falling out of a canyon that hangs a couple thousand feet above the ocean but is itself a couple thousand feet deep, and a city built into the walls of the canyon.
[00:50:19] <Talon> cow milk, for example, whereas goat milk is probably more common
[00:50:43] <Marcus`Langley> land usable for farming would be at a serious premium, yeah
[00:50:51] <Walther_Walrus> Yeah
[00:50:53] <TommyChong> animal vs funny animal
[00:50:54] <Talon> water coming out of a cliff/canyon city is interesting; i think you get a different culture feel out of it as well as a different type of city
[00:50:57] <TommyChong> that
[00:51:00] <Talon> moo?
[00:51:04] <Kario> Depending on the size of the island, waterfalls might not be especially large, though.
[00:51:10] <Talon> right
[00:51:12] <Walther_Walrus> Yes
[00:51:15] <Walther_Walrus> Also
[00:51:16] <Kario> Because you have to consider what kinds of rainfall we're getting here.
[00:51:28] <Walther_Walrus> I charge our artists to insert at least one walrus into their character art. :P
[00:51:31] <Talon> ...lol
[00:51:38] * Walther_Walrus looks innocent
[00:51:39] <Talon> more ferrets, plz
[00:51:45] <Talon> irrelevant
[00:51:45] <Talon> anyway
[00:51:49] <Kario> For that matter, I'd like to address that freshwater question I brought up in the e-mail.
[00:51:51] <Talon> i think the art style is going nicely
[00:51:54] <Burrito_Loco> Equine equality!
[00:51:57] <Tod> I'll push these two islands I've doodled to try to come up with a more unique... stacking.... style and see what I can do!
[00:52:06] <Talon> keep them separate, tod
[00:52:25] * Tod nodnods. Two different places, just want to see if I can push the designs a little more and make 'em pop.
[00:52:29] <Talon> the first one looks like cidade, the second one is like...gonkish, and vertical metropolis should be courscant
[00:52:57] <Talon> more broadly, though
[00:53:03] <Talon> taking a bit out of the culture/faction system talk
[00:53:16] <Talon> we should also be looking at some architectural styles arising
[00:53:28] <Walther_Walrus> Fresh water is a Thing. I'd rather the islands be big enough and the planet be rainy enough that we don't have to have every island-side waterfall penned up into a reservoir.
[00:53:34] <Tod> yeah, went with deco and older victorian stuff
[00:54:04] <Tod> and I like having enough rain. I put the first island I drew in a tropical sort of climate.
[00:54:15] <Kario> I think, with Victorian being a particular strength here, we can tie that into the Economic faction.
[00:54:23] <Kario> It seems to go hand-in-hand.
[00:54:36] <Talon> yeah, i think asian styles on the (green) money-grubbing merchants might be someyhing to explore, and the difference between the (red) security and the (blue) egalitarian societies can be reflected in choices of layouts of cities, buildings, etc
[00:54:50] <Talon> i don't know if victorian screams economy to me
[00:55:03] <Kario> And this is why I wanted this discussion. =)
[01:43:16] <matejcik> hmmm, an acropolis...
[01:43:57] <Mahm> A few grand buildings, with smaller ones crawling between the squares.
[01:44:25] <Kario> The agora was what I was expecting to include.
[01:44:53] <Kario> And maybe an artificial waterway through the city.
[01:45:09] <matejcik> venice? :e)
[01:46:15] <Burrito_Loco> Dinotopia!
[01:46:23] <Mahm> Yesss...
[01:46:30] <Burrito_Loco> (I say only somewhat facetiously)
[01:46:35] <Burrito_Loco> The architecture might work
[01:47:09] <TommyChong> farm4.static.flickr.com/3129/2547811294_d8bbd847e4.jpg
[01:47:59] <Burrito_Loco> goo.gl/Q3psk
[01:48:29] <Burrito_Loco> Obviously with fewer dinosaurs
[01:49:33] <Kario> Yeah, Waterfall City is actually a really good model for what I was envisioning.
[01:50:04] <TommyChong> ~
[01:50:43] <TommyChong> be back in a moment
[01:57:01] <Talon> dinotopia!
[01:57:01] <Talon> :D
[01:58:51] <Burrito_Loco> Indeed
[01:59:02] <Burrito_Loco> Let's all take five to be nostalgic :p
[02:00:49] <Walther_Walrus> I always liked seeing those, but I never had any. My parents figured they wouldn't keep me reading long enough to be worth the price.
[02:01:55] <Kario> Well, the thing is, I think once we get the capital cities established, almost anything else is fair game.
[02:03:22] <TommyChong> back
[02:03:24] <TommyChong> so
[02:03:44] <TommyChong> capital cities this week, eh
[02:05:51] <matejcik> good night everyone
[02:10:58] <Walther_Walrus> Sounds like that's the idea
[02:10:59] <Kario> That's the idea, yeah.
[02:11:21] <TommyChong> alright
[02:11:44] <Kario> Beyond that, almost anything can be made to fit with only minor tweaks.
[02:12:00] <Kario> Colonies don't necessarily have to 100% reflect the views of their sponsor nations.
[02:12:54] <TommyChong> I haven't heard any comment on the technology side of things, though I think that's for another time, huh.
[02:13:23] <TommyChong> or did I miss something?
[02:13:54] <Kario> Technology isn't meant to be a focus of any of the factions, AFAIK.
[02:15:46] <TommyChong> I figured, though I'd imagine there's some extraordinary things, tech-wise
[02:16:39] <Kario> We'll talk about weird details to add later, I guess.