If the story were interesting of course, that's what keeps people glued to the screen. It's all about how you present it to people, something about how you write it and what the content is that makes people interested in it. A complex multiverse can be something super broken or stunning from first to last post.

(Which is something that I fail to do, and I have no idea what I'm doing wrong.)

I don't know. Roleplays and players are fickle beasts. Sometimes the broken roleplays get fixed by creative writers and the good ones die of apathy.

It's something that I'm certain I'll ne'er fully understand, doesn't stop me from trying, but still.

LeeRoy said
Well here some of the most simple concepts to exploit:1: Comes from a dimension composed entirely of Anti-Matter, which mind you is nearly impossible to fathom because of our surprisingly limited knowledge on how anti-matter functions, so now you can't touch them because the two of you will explode and annihilate each other in the process.2: A shadow dimension (/Edgy dimension) where everything is shadows and you can't touch them because shadows aren't material. But somehow they can still touch you for some inexplicable reason. (Encountered more than once, is also common in media. Mostly animu.)3: A dimension that follows laws inherently different from our own, where up is down and left is right. Things don't have to make sense because we can't comprehend them, so they're capable of doing fuckall because they invented the laws of their own dimension.

1. Demigod Evvie shoots out a fire beam that destroys all the antimatter in front of her, allowing her to continue flying through
2. Demigod Evvie shoots out fire so epic it can hurt shadows anyways. Don't tell dragon fire what it can't do.
3. Demigod Evvie's now superhuman brain can calculate all these minute changes and allows her to instantly adjust

1: The fire is made of matter, the air is made of antimatter, Evvie is made of matter. Everything blows up.
2: I suppose light would hurt shadows, but would shadow-air be able to produce lift as she flies?
3: That seems mary-sue-ish.

Sadly the anti-matter/matter exchange would be disastrous. Any encounter between particles and antiparticles, in this case the highly charged energy particles that constitute the fire breath and an equal amount of anti- fire breath particles leads to the annihilation of both, giving rise to varying proportions of high-energy photons (gamma rays), neutrinos, and lower-mass particle–antiparticle pairs.The resultant explosion could very well lead to Evvie's own demise in a flash of energy rivaling the big bang. Something I doubt Evvie could handle even as a demi-god.

Again as I said if someone were inclined to make such an area and want to have others participate in it, there would by virtue of the concepts of role-playing, have to be a way to meaningfully interact in such an environment otherwise it would be a moot in terms of multiversal exchange.

LeeRoy said
1: The fire is made of matter, the air is made of antimatter, Evvie is made of matter. Everything blows up.2: I suppose light would hurt shadows, but would shadow-air be able to produce lift as she flies?3: That seems mary-sue-ish.

1. There wouldn't be much antimatter floating in space so it wouldn't cause any explosions powerful enough to kill someone like her nearby. However, if the resulting explosion when it does hit a planet or star far away, if as powerful as the Big Bang, would of course kill her even though she can regenerate from a single cell as a demigod.
2. I don't know about shadow air but her wing are augmented with magical strength to help her fly so it might not matter.
3. One must become a Mary Sue in power to deal with certain scenarios. She's not omnipotent or whatever the term is for all knowing, but you have to assume her mind would get a boost by being a demigod. She also regains memories from all of her lives, although that wouldn't help her in that specific case unless she had experience in such a world before.

One need not be Mary Sue-ish at all, the term "Mary Sue" is generally slapped on a character who is important in the story, possesses unusual physical traits, and has an irrelevantly over-skilled or over-idealized nature.

I don't see a demi-god with a highly advanced intellect being Mary Sue at all. If that were so Einstein would be consider Mary Sue because of his intellect compared to normal humans. Fenyman would also be considered a Mary Sue for his ability to conceptualize problems via direct characterization, and his IQ was a "mere" 125...

Her intelligence boost will mainly be just from all her past experiences coming together, so perhaps it's more accurate to say she ends up more wise from experience but not more intelligent on things she never knew about. Her mind is, however, much quicker, thus accounting for her calculations of how the world is different and can adjust and react super quickly. Putting all of this together it may seem like she's all regal and intelligent like a wise old hermit at first glance, but deep down she will be the same old Evvie but with proper grammar and an understanding of the use of clothing.

I suspected as much, I merely pointed out that a quick and agile mind does not necessitate a Mary Sue character.

Unless you're so quick minded you see everything they do before they do it and instantly negate their every move.

Ahh again we come to the asshat player and really would you want to continue with someone like that? Of course not, you would excuse yourself and no longer exchange posts with them.

If you end up making a multiverse roleplay I'll probably have some time to join. There doesn't seem to be too many people around though.

Multiversal roleplays require a certain mindset. Some of the best multiversal roleplays I have been in included no more than 8 people maximum but with characters and intrigue that spanned a myriad of times and places.

If I set up the framework, I expect all participants to take initiative and help propagate the concept forward through their character and story arc.

What caused the lack of interest in the prior attempts?

The lack of overall focus. You have it down in the third question so I'm fetching a guess you already knew. The main trouble I see is often people go off and do their own thing. Write some fantastic stories, but end up excluding several interested parties.

Did a lack of a true multiverse setting, which is unrestrained by the contradictory limiting factors of crapton and importantnobody's kill interest?

I wasn't around for this period. I could only speak for Rilla's attempt cause I was accepting characters at that time. And took over briefly before giving up as well. In which case it wasn't truly a multiverse setting either, but then again people seemed to flinch when characters started getting powerful enough to manipulate the energies of suns and entire worlds. The community here seems more comfortable with T5 and T6 on the AnimeLeague scale so I don't think a true multiverse setting would be adapted particularly well here.

Did the lack of overall focus kill interest?

Yes. That and previous attempts were too GM oriented. When the GMs get burned out or lose interests things grind to a halt until someone takes over.

If you have an idea or want to comment please feel free. I am trying to gauge interest.

New attempts should be made more robust by including some community feature that allows everyone to participate in all ideas in the multiverse without being overly restrictive in a wall of text. Rules are needed, but keep them simple so an elementary kid can understand them. As for enforcing these rules, talking it out with the person usually works. Reporting harassment if they persist on breaking the rules works also.

Imo multiverse rps became more of my interest when I realized it was very similar to Earth 616 in marvel. People who are fans of comics can see that its possible to maintain your private story lines and even extend them to levels you couldnt imagine through collaboration. Like for example Spiderman was a pretty average powered character but when he began facing outerworldly characters like Carnage and dormammu it added a flare that wasnt there. I'd really like to see a multiverse setting like how Al was rise up again but it will take alot of work. Alot of what made it good was that it wasnt forced and people did the unpredictable out of the sheer will to do so.

The intent is to create a more user focused MV and less a GM focused one. The concepts of jointly creating an environment is one that the players have to get used to, I agree about the people fretting over powerful characters, but I attribute that to the fact that most don't understand how things work in terms of the fighting and the community is limited in scope of experience.

God damn it, my Liaison character has become sentient and created an account!

That would mean at some point you were sentient...and btw you have a cute Gf. Nicely done my young friend.

Thank you kindly. She was here for a week, and went home Thursday. Sad times.

I was in a multiverse. There were no set rules, no ultimate evil that we built to fighting - you just joined, with however strong of a character you wanted, and played. They left when you left, unless you agreed to a long standing RP, popped up in whatever thread you did(Usually, not more than one at a time; unless you had more characters). We posted shorter lengths then though, and it was a rapid pace. The fights that take weeks here? Would probably take a day there, because we were on the ball about it.