Time to brush the dust off!
It's not a very well kept secret in some circles that about 5 months ago I began working on JipangMUCK, NuJipang, Jipang 3.0, whatever people want to call it. MotM had died down significantly and hadn't shown signs of picking up since and I'd been mulling the idea of making one last game from scratch for a while now. ProtoMUCK tech has come a long
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
You raise a point that I want to emphasize and that's about the theme itself being receptive to what players will do - That is a very important thing for me. The goal is to balance between having a cohesive/coherent theme that works for everyone, while also having it be flexible enough that the immersion of the setting can't be damaged by creative ideas that players come up with.
Now and then as we've discussed the lore and history in staff, sometimes a cool idea for the world history is proposed, but with the condition 'Well, if we go with this, then that means no one can app [X] that is older than [Y] because that couldn't have happened', and then we'll stop and come to a consensus of 'Then we're going to have to change the idea so that someone COULD app that concept if they wanted to'.
It's an interesting thing to balance, because Jipang isn't just a sandbox game where everyone just makes up whatever they want to do, but at the same time, the theme doesn't exist to limit/constrain/block ideas players would like to bring into their RP either. I feel the best way to accomplish this balance is to make a cool enough theme/setting that players will buy into it and understand what narrative ideas will or will not enhance the theme for themselves and everyone else. I think if we pull that off right, it will work out great.
I understand your concerns about an FC/OC divide and it's something that I'm going to prioritize in making sure is kept in mind while we continue to develop the game. Part of the reason that I feel this is the right direction is that a lot of the sources that we're drawing from to form the theme are really kind of old. Samura Shodown, Last Blade, etc., are over a decade old by now and I imagine if people wanted to RP FCs from those casts, they've probably done that long before now.
I want to provide a game where someone COULD RP those FCs if they want to, but more importantly for me, I want to bring the interesting theme ideas and concepts from those various settings together because I think they will make an intriguing, interesting setting for a MU* for players to enjoy regardless if they want to play characters from those casts.
If you're interested in things that aren't black and white in terms of morality or what's right or wrong, then I think you'll like a lot of what is being put together for the political history for the game. I can't really think of a particular faction or organization that is totally 'The Good Guys'... While there are some groups that will likely be undeniably dark (particularly in the demon community), I think most of the groups and affiliations are a grey blend. Many of them are trying to do something that they feel is justified but their ability to get what they feel is right without treading into darkness is limited. Of course, some characters are just assholes like Setsuna. r_r
It's so great to hear from you again!
-Akari
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