World-building protocols: Help?

[Kage2020]

One of the things that we had before with regards to world-building was a rather simple approach.  The "UWP" for worlds were pre-determined from the Anargo database, and you would just enter them into the Heaven & Earth software and--bingo!--you were done.

To make the project more accessible to a wider number of people, however, one of the things that we've decided to do is have another look at the Astrosynthesis program so that not only do we have to not worry about some poor sap being asked for artwork all the time, but also so that the file is downloadable from the Explore CMS.  

There's some other reasons for that selection, one of which is the integration with Fractal Mapper, so that we can export "surface maps" from the Astronsynthesis software, import them into Fractal Mapper and we will once again have another downloadable resource, i.e. the map of the world.  (And for those with the software they will be able to use both to generate some custom maps.)

See, the project does drag itself along into the modern world.  At the very least someone is going to be able to look at the sector (free trial of Astrosynthesis), the maps (free trial of Fractal Mapper) and be able to make some temporary changes for the purpose of their campaign.  If they're gung-ho for the software after that then all is the better for the company that produces it.

We're also wanting to move away from the Traveller world-building, going to something that is a tad more free.  So this means some of the tweaking to the worlds that are going to be a part of the revised project.

Sound good?  Well, it is good.  It's very exciting with reference to the look and usability of the project for people "out there," regardless of what they might be using it for.

So, why the request for help?  Well, I was just wondering what your thoughts on how we might revise the world-building process to encompass this software and these concepts.  Since we no longer have the restraints of the UWP, just a paragraph describing the thumbnail image of the world (if that, since we're also up for interesting and evocative open submissions), the world-building process is in need of a new protocol.

Simply put, what would you suggest for making it work?  Would you suggest using Heaven & Earth to start off the process, or should the physical parameters of the world be defined by Astrosynthesis and fed back to the world creator?  

Or something else?

We've got some ideas, but we thought that we would open it up to community members since (hopefully) you guys will, like us, be producing the worlds.

Kage

[Totenkopf]

I would help... except I didn't understand much of that :S

[Kage2020]

Well, admittedly it does require that you understand some of the lingo of the project, which might be a bit of an uphill struggle for someone new to the project.  My bad about that.

If I were to boil it down to the bare essentials (which might be misleading, so bear with me) then what it comes down to is this:

• We used to use Traveller Heaven & Earth to produce the "Standard Representation" of a system (e.g. here) and world (e.g. here).
  
• But we're not happy with this approach because it means we have to sit on our laurels waiting to get this.  
  
• In order to try and make this a bit easier on everyone (we hope), we want to use this (Astrosynthesis) because it helps us with producing maps like this.  
  
• That has the added advantage of working hand-in-hand with this (Fractal Mapper), which means that not only can we produce pretty maps of the sector, but also of the worlds in question.
  
• The above also has the advantage that we can produce update-able files for download from the Explore CMS (which still doesn't have a link).
  
• Problem is, Astrosynthesis plays nice with Fractal Mapper, but we're left with how to get the information into the program while still putting the contributor in charge of building a world.
• Since this is a community project that is just trying to get back on its feet, I thought that it would be great to post to see what other people thought.

Erm, that's about it.

Kage

[Totenkopf]

Ummm, I have a program that allows me to produce 2D floorplans if you need buildings mapping :S

[Kage2020]

Erm, I'm sure that will be helpful at some point, but not quite the intent of this thread.  No worries, though.  I'll guess we'll figure out a way of sorting everything out so that people can being to (re)build worlds in a coherent manner.



Kage

[Malika]

So wait, you are dropping the detailed description of a world and want to reduce it to a paragraph and a picture? I thought the reason why these worlds were described in such detail was because they could then be used for RPG stuff.

I'd say keep the detailed description as an extra to the thumbnail but quit using the UWP and H&E program (which never worked on my computer anyways).

Something I've always wanted to see was that worlds would become collaborative projects between various members rather than each one being a member's solo project. Dont really know how to do that though...

[Kage2020]

So wait, you are dropping the detailed description of a world and want to reduce it to a paragraph and a picture? I thought the reason why these worlds were described in such detail was because they could then be used for RPG stuff.

You are mistaken, which is possibly forgiven since I'm throwing out things left, right, and center.  The more "structural" threads on the project have never really seen a lot of attention, so I might have skipped some points.

To answer the question, no, the "Standard Representation" will remain.  We are looking at how to change that to be more interesting since certain sections were always glossed over (Psychology, Physiology) in favour of others.  The structure might ultimately not change, but I think that we're beholden to look at all aspects of the project and see where the chaff can be discarded in search of the grain, do you not?

As to the "paragraph and the picture," I feel that you might be jumping to conclusions here (noting that I did not use the word 'picture' in my post).  To clarify, however:

• We want the project to be narratively more integral than it was before.
• To aid this, subsectors have concepts and narrative "threads" attached to them rather than being a single concept (e.g. "hiveworld subsector")
  
• Worlds that are integrated into those narrative threads will be described by a "thumbnail image," or a short paragraph of descriptive text alone.  This means that the world-builder will have an idea of the focus, but is otherwise free to make up a world as they see fit.  Thus some worlds will come with descriptions, otherwise it's open season.
• The protocol for building the physical characteristics of the world are the issue.  
• Previously we used the UWP from the Anargo database to generate the characteristics of the system.  Are we still going to do that, and then feed the results to the "Sector Keeper" so that they can make the best approximation in Heaven & Earth (they would have to manually enter all the details for the entire system).
  
• Are we going to assign a system a location, then generate it in Astrosynthesis, and then feed these results back to the world-builder (including a map)?
  
  

I'd say keep the detailed description as an extra to the thumbnail but quit using the UWP and H&E program (which never worked on my computer anyways).

One thing that we're keen to keep is the physical "restrictions" that would otherwise prevent the typical GW approach of pulling mono-environments out of their derriere.  And since the average person doesn't know that much about planetography...?  No, something has to be there to keep people from going la la.

Something I've always wanted to see was that worlds would become collaborative projects between various members rather than each one being a member's solo project. Dont really know how to do that though...

You would note that this is being discussed/alluded to on the Explore CMS thread.


Edit: So, two possibilities arise at this juncture:

[

• Use Heaven & Earth to maintain the physical plausibility of the worlds in question.  This information is then fed to the "Sector Keeper" who appends the information to the Astrosynthesis file.  This would put the "power" in the hands of the world builder to shape the world and write their SR around it.
  
• The "Sector Keeper" generates the system and provides this information to the prospective world-builder, who then has to fit their concepts onto the world in question.

I don't know which is the most appropriate, to be honest.  Either presents certain "restrictions" in that the worlds have to be fairly plausible.  You have more control over the world with Heaven & Earth in terms of the physical characteristics of the main world, but the chances are that most people are going to choose suspiciously warm worlds (i.e. all F, G and K star systems)...

Just polling for ideas, really.  All ways are probably going to involve a degree of challenge.

Alternately, should astrophysical verisimilitude even be concerning us?  Or should ever habited star system contain either a "warm" star and optimal conditions, or be terraformed (!?) or what?

Kage

[Destecado]

Something I've always wanted to see was that worlds would become collaborative projects between various members rather than each one being a member's solo project. Dont really know how to do that though...

Agreed.  After leaving the earlier itteration of the ASP, I concentrated on Cyberpunk.  This included collaborative projects for generating city, country and regional level data, (land, culture, geo-politics, etc.) for areas of the world that the game creators had glossed over or omitted.   I for one am hoping that a similar level of collaboration can be brought to the rebooted ASP.    Previous iterations of the project have seemed to focus on the macro or meta, while ignoring the mundane aspects of life and the human condition.

[Kage2020]

To be fair, it never really got to the stages where people could begin to collaborate upon the "little details."  That and the 40k hobbyist forums seems to work in cycles.  At the moment it's on a down cycle, which means that people tend to be more insular, less inclined to respond to questions, etc.  Hopefully soon it will buck up, though.

Getting back to the Explore CMS--and not to derail this thread from what it should be about, which is "new" protocol for building worlds when taking into account the current software selection--but one of the reasons behind trying to work with the idea of organic groups for a given world, with the author as the administrator of that group, is to encourage just this type of activity.  For example, as the administrator they can add information to their world/system concept to their hearts content.  No-one else can edit this information, so it is secure--it's their baby.  On the other hand, if someone has some additional information they want to add, then depending on the situation they can be added to the "world builder" group for that world and can be given privileges to edit and add information.

Of course, the world builder/administrator could also just take the ideas and put it up themselves.  It really depends on the situation at hand.

Regardless of the minutiae, what this means is that the protocol is established by which individuals interested in a given world, or concept, can collaborate to flesh out information on that topic.  So, just what is being talked about here.

But back to that world-building protocol question.

Kage