Devokan: story discussions (IC/OOC)

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Dot
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Re: Devokan: story discussions (IC/OOC)

Post by Dot »

OOC: State of play and what comes next.

Mat Mahogany has been building a cruise ship in the seas next to (New) Devokan island. He is developing aspects of his character's history in the journal in his house on new Devokan. Ultimately the ship will go sailing round the OSgrid (actual movement of the region containing the ship to empty spaces on the grid -- something possible on the OSgrid, not in SL).

We're in the process of losing one of the dual islands of Devokan on the OSgrid. Mat introduced this on the MOUL forum here.

Through some IC dialogue between Quin, Nalates and Dot on the GoMa forum, it's been contrasted with Nal's controlled use of the spheres to transfer the ancient island and structure with whatever it is causing a great deal of ugly turbulence in the transferred Devokan Touchstone (all this is being modelled in world, with changes on a near daily basis).

My current thinking is to treat it as a malevolent event, and to build collaboration between the different technologies (Nal's, Quin's and Mat's) to try to contain the spread of the destruction, and possibly to move builds using the spheres to an alternative place -- there are infrastructure reasons for this second idea.

Mat (OOC) is testing out various methods of hosting the regions from a home set-up. He is working closely with the OSgrid admins, who are most supportive and encouraging, I gather. The aim is ultimately to transfer Dev. Waysmeet and Dev. Deepwater to the home-hosted server rather than the SimHost-hosted (paid for) server. At the same time, we would lose Dev. Touchstone and Dev. Skysong.

Now, Dev. Touchstone is the one currently affected by the turbulence. Perhaps we need to let it spread on to Skysong. We will need to transfer the Chapel on Skysong (currently its only major building) to New Devokan -- the best place is probably where the Keep was in SL Devokan.

Could we build some sort of shield to isolate the affected islands from the others (megaprims might be useful here)?

Then, at the appropriate time, I can sink all the land on these two regions beneath the sea.

In the meantime, I've suggested to Mat and Paislee that we move Curiosity (Paislee's island) south of Journey (Mat's shipyard), then add new regions for the builds currently in Dev. Waysmeet and Dev. Deepwater to the east. All three could then be on the same virtual home-based server (part of Mat's experiment).

Once this transfer is complete, the Simhost regions could be removed. The timing of this is likely to be end of May.

====
Edit: I forgot to say that I finally got round to applying for the FCAL I mentioned before.
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Re: Devokan: story discussions (IC/OOC)

Post by Nalates »

\o/ Yay! Dot! Let us know when you hear. I would love to replicate an Ae’gura link station for my build.

I’ve been working RL and there is more coming… or so I’m told. That’s good. I’ve been doing more research for my social activism project… both are taking away play time.

I have installed more teleports. They are generally a little hidden but not that hard to find. In North Restoration (N-Rest) there is a tp on the ground in the middle over to the NW of the region in the little hills. It takes one up 500m to the main build. Another TP in my skybox in Nalands takes one over the build. In the ground level building there is a link up to the skybox.

I’ve had some false starts in this build. The planned dimensions were not producing the look I wanted. I’ve had to redo parts to make things look right. Also large prims just don’t work for curved surfaces. At 50m diameter there are large flat segments on the rim. For my purposes that looks bad. I’m deciding what needs to be curved and replaced and what can be replaced with straight segments. So, this is taking time.

For story I would like to make more computer controls and mounts for the radio dish thingy. I want to put them down on the surface. Also when I get a ¼ of the building done, I’ve got less than an 1/8 now, I plan to move a copy down and bury parts of it to make a ruin. This things is soooo big… sheese it going to be hard to fill up the inside.

This puts me behind on story and story planning. Sorry. The building happens to be more fun right now. :)

I have 3 regions up right now. I thought about adding the 4th. We can move them if it helps your plans.

I put up more pictures. West of Devokan
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GoW, GoMa and GoA apprentice - Guildmaster GoC - SL = Nalates Urriah
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Dot
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Re: Devokan: story discussions (IC/OOC)

Post by Dot »

Just been wandering around the Nalands regions. The lift (elevator) works splendidly -- easier than walking down the stairs.

I love how the spheres are being implemented. Are they really being controlled by a synthesizer? Harmony of the spheres, and all that? I didn't twiddle any of the knobs, honest!

I shouldn't worry about storyline. Is it OK if we just borrow one or two of your 'receiving' spheres? Quin should then be able to mash up (or should that be 'mess up'?) a serviceable arrangement.
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Re: Devokan: story discussions (IC/OOC)

Post by Nalates »

You are certainly welcome to the spheres. I'm not sure if I made them Take Copy. The scripts are probably no mod. But those are just Jopsey's free scripts. I will make the one in the Nalands building Copy OK and try to remember to make the scripts mod OK. Be late tonight my time or Saturday morning.

I am thinking of making computer controls that will control them. Jopsey makes control scripts. So, its a small project. For now they are hard coded.

I am having some problems with the sims... after about 10 hours running they begin to fail. Linking in gets iffy. Building and editing gets flaky. A relog helps some. I usually have to restart the SIM. I don't know if it is me or OSGrid.

I did work on the stairs. They are better. There are some problems on angled ramps. When I use LOCAL grid to position them I get funny results walking on them. But positioning using WORLD grid is way too hard... I'll eventually sort that out.

I am also very impressed with the lifts in SL's Welcome Island. I have to find out how they work.

Did you see the tank I stuck in the underground tunnel? :lol: It's just something silly to play with. Nifty model someone built. I have no idea what to do with it. It has no place in our area but it was too neat not to set out some place.
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Re: Devokan: story discussions (IC/OOC)

Post by Dot »

Bit more news re timing of the move of the islands.

SimHost have been very helpful indeed, and have sent me 'oar' files for all four regions. These include information about both terrain AND builds on the region (including textures, models and positions). This means we should be able to transfer both Waysmeet and Deepwater as they are to their new home. Of course, this is alpha software so perhaps I shouldn't be too optimistic ;-)

Anyway, Mat is currently getting up to speed with the process, and over the coming week we'll have a go at transferring the Waysmeet build. Paislee misses seeing it from her island!

During the week, the blight will start spreading to Dev. Skysong and (once the build has been safely transferred) to Dev. Waysmeet.
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Re: Devokan: story discussions (IC/OOC)

Post by Nalates »

OAR files work well. I used them to move from SQLite to MySQL. It was easier than converting the databases. I've had to use one backup OAR file to recover from a crash. I would bet Mat is already using them.

The commands are easy.
change region (region name)
save oar (region name).oar

or

change region (region name)
load oar ([path](region name).oar
Nalates
GoW, GoMa and GoA apprentice - Guildmaster GoC - SL = Nalates Urriah
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Re: Devokan: story discussions (IC/OOC)

Post by Pavitra »

Oh wow, that's good to know. I'd been doing:

Code: Select all

change region (region name)
save oar
(change to another terminal window)
mv region.oar (region name).oar
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Re: Devokan: story discussions (IC/OOC)

Post by Dot »

Waysmeet and Deepwater are now safely installed in their new homes on Mat's home-hosted server connected to OSgrid. We've adjusted the arrangement so that Waysmeet is east of Curiosity (as before, so it links with Paislee's pod houses), and Deepwater is south of Waysmeet.

The move went well, apart from one swan in Deepwater who now has a deformed head (perhaps we should have used Nal's technology for moving animal life more assiduously ;) ).

At the moment the regions still have their temporary names of wmtest and dwtest, but if you aim for Curiosity you'll be able to reach them. Set your draw distance and graphics to maximum, turn on the region audio (if you like new-agish music), and enjoy! Our favourite Windlight setting for the area is currently '[TOR] Eno would be proud' -- that's the one I used to take the recent screenshots.
Image
Deepwater is in the foreground, Waysmeet in the middle distance, and Curiosity is the island with snowy peaks.

Mat has been having great fun with the particle controller/generator he found (use the tp station in the sea north of Curiosity to reach its skybox). That's why the blight is so spectacular over Devokan Touchstone. Things will come to a head there over the next week, after which these four SimHost-hosted regions will move and be given new names (yet to be finalised).

The cruise liner Mat has been building on Journey with Paislee's help in fitting out the interior has embarked on its maiden voyage. One of the other Myst/Uru fans on the OSgrid, Prim Chemistry, invited Mat to dock his ship next to their story-telling region in Vale City -- a super opportunity to test out the concept of sailing around the grid, and to develop links with like-minded people.

In the meantime, over in Winterfell Reverie in SL, Quin and I have been setting up a base and running a parallel story in Devokan Vespers. Winterfell being a community that encourages RP and story telling, we've been using their new Spruz-based facility to develop the story.

With the expansion of areas associated with the Devokan storyline, we're going to divide up development responsibilities as follows:
Paislee: Curiosity, Waysmeet and Deepwater (OSgrid)
Mat: Journey (the cruise liner), Devokan (community village) (OSgrid)
Dot and Quin: Waysmeet and Deepwater (shared responsibility with Paislee), Skysong, Lost Pages (OSgrid); Devokan Vespers (SL)

Then there are the lands to the west, developed by Nalates (you can still get there by flying from Devokan -- Mat has replaced the region occupied by the cruise liner with a new sea region called 'journey 2').

And to the east, a few grid squares away but easily reachable by double-click teleport on the map, another Myst/Uru fan has independently moved his regions (one of which is 'Relto') into the area. I wonder what stories will unfold here ... :)
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Re: Devokan: story discussions (IC/OOC)

Post by Nalates »

I have the Help System out now. The landing pad will give a note card. The nearby note tacked to the tree has help. The old paper in the office building has a note with help.

Doing the help cards has me thinking of a text based adventure game... which for the vision impaired would probably make sense.

I'll package up the scripts and example notes and put them in a freebie package on the Dock.
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Re: Devokan: story discussions (IC/OOC)

Post by Dot »

Quick update: When talking with Mat over the weekend, he asked if he could use the name 'Skysong' for the region currently named 'space'. This is for storyline purposes -- the floating islands breaking free from the blighted Devokans Touchstone and Skysong will end up here. D. Touchstone has already sunk beneath the waves. D. Skysong is scheduled to disappear on Tuesday. Then towards the end of the week I'll be organising the renaming and removal of the four Devokan+XX sims.

So the line-up now is:
Paislee: Curiosity, Waysmeet and Deepwater (OSgrid)
Mat: Journey (the cruise liner), Devokan (community village), Skysong (floating islands) (OSgrid)
Dot and Quin: Waysmeet and Deepwater (shared responsibility with Paislee), TBA, Lost Pages (OSgrid); Devokan Vespers (SL)
Nalates: Nalands and associated restorations (OSgrid)

The MOUL forum thread 'Developments in Devokan' is just coming up to a year old. With the expansion to several parallel storylines in different worlds, it makes sense to bring that thread to a close and to start afresh -- this will allow individuals to develop their own style and stories as they see fit. There will still be connections made between the stories, of course. But it will be interesting to see how this next stage changes and develops.
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