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The above is a solid start. Another point where I consider there to be a problem is scope.

In the beginning, the impression I got was that it wanted to appeal to sci-fi, fantasy, basically everything. For a persistent world, that only makes things more chaotic. A PW for each general setting, sure. A PW that tries to appeal to everything is simply asking for trouble.

Give too many options, expect chaos. Provide some common ground - ex, fantasy world where everyone can pick a general region to develop for themselves, with very basic rules so everyone is at least partially connected - and you'll probably get a better shot than trying to put all settings in one and making ill-fated rules where completely different contexts meet in a supposedly persistent setting.

To be fair that thread wouldn't have been the most active- it was more coincidental considering beforebthe last 3 ic posts 11 irl days had past.

Regardless, this is a needed thread.

Should there be a fantasy attempt, I'm down.

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@catchamber chances are, I would create a different story for it. I'd leave Allaria a standalone while I build it up to PW level.

Is this going to be a reboot of EH, or is there a prospect of something entirely new?

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If your thread was Closed, nobody would be able to crash land a spaceship into your plot without your consent, and you'd effectively be the Game Master for that specific iteration. However, if somebody made their own thread that basically duplicated your plot up to a certain point, and it diverged from yours with the hypothetical spaceship crash landing, other players would be able to take part in that story without interfering with your plot.

Doesn't this essentially undermine the point of it being a Persistent World?

In some ways, yes, but in others, it helps keep order. I prefer it that way. If you create a thread, you get full control, in the other way, someone could - in theory - land a spaceship of aliens in a fantasy world and run roughshod over them.

Personally, I prefer them to have a singular focus. Fantasy all the way through. Modern All the way through. Sci Fi all the way through. It helps the ease of play because you aren't haven't to create different checks and balances.

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<Snipped quote by ArenaSnow>
The common ground would be "Given an infinite amount of space, everything that can reasonably exist will exist, and it'll be duplicated even further out, with some of the duplicates progressing at different rates of time." Beyond this, each thread would functionally be its own spacetime. They don't need to focus on specific locations, and could even be centered around certain objects, people, or other things. Whether a thread is Open or Closed is up to its creator, but each thread in the subforum would be part of the whole that is the Expanding Horizons. Nobody would be forced to roleplay with anyone else, and everyone can split off into their respective threads if they can't find a common ground. That way, everybody collectively decides which stories they want to participate in, with all contexts being agreed upon as they're presented.

I don't really see the point of this over just finding a gig in the casual or advanced forums.

If you're just going to close a thread while going in an infinite space-time where there's no real common ground besides infinite mumbo jumbo, then what would even be the point of being in a special PW in the first place? You could always just assume that other roleplaying forums, in their own way, are all part of a vast, creatively unlimited roleplaying universe.

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<Snipped quote by ArenaSnow>
You could assume that, but the Persistent World would serve as an easily accessible repository for all of that information. The Closed threads would just be your way of publicly roleplaying events that take place in a specific portion of the infinite universe. If they wanted to, other people could make a divergent version of what transpired in your Closed thread, or they could request to be allowed to participate in its development.

All of which can be done with existing forums, with connections that can be made, if people really wanted to, between GMs.

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Greetings,

As one who originally had worked extensively on this project and had initially developed a tremendous amount of material for it, one of the largest points I can make is that everyone needs to be on the same page. The largest issue I encountered is that a large number wanted to deviate from what had been produced behind the scenes, so much so we were continually doing edits and rewrites of the material. Such a problem this became because everyone had different ideals and we listened to them all, that most of the hard rules, the straight and narrow as it were, broke down and were made much more flexible to the point they verged on the edge of nonsense. An added problem that further evolved from it was a system of accepting whatever was submitted for the most part as the desire became numbers rather than uniformity, which in part led to increasingly more outlandish and powerful submissions. Over such disagreements, I resigned and retired from the project as I was no longer interested in writing material or plot for it, let alone governing it, when all of my contribution become largely irrelevant.

Accounting for this, it is my opinion this project does indeed need a full, from the ground up, reintroduction - something that focuses upon having a larger narrative and a consistent set of internalized rules because of its vastness. No less, players should be held exclusively accountable to the highest degree to prevent canonical errors and or the abundant creep of power that manifest within hours as members tried to gauge would-be opponents. Uniformity is one of the largest aspects that needs to be kept in mind, that every official post, every rule, every question and answer, has the same format and design so it is clear what is an opinion and what is a ruling. Furthermore, those involved in the project need be readily available and the work distributed accordingly; tasks and duties need be placed where they are likely to be done with great oversight by a superior.

Regardless of what you choose to do, I wish you the best of luck in your endeavor with this proposal.

<Snipped quote by ArenaSnow>
I believe not copying other people's roleplays and characters is conventional roleplaying etiquette. However, if those roleplays and characters existed in Expanding Horizons, this wouldn't be a problem, because the setting is designed to accommodate potential duplicates.

I believe that a good conversation with the GM you want to connect with would solve the problem that you're trying to present. Communication is key in any roleplay, and I don't see why using one's words to good effect wouldn't work in small scale organizations outside of EP - just like other roleplays have done for quite some time.

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<Snipped quote by ArenaSnow>
Rather than risk irreconcilable conflicts between a GM or roleplayer, and someone that would like to duplicate their roleplays or characters, I think having a framework with the initial assumption of such permissions being granted would be ideal.

I suppose that is where we diverge. Such a framework I support if it makes for an organized core premise in the first place. If the idea comes to "do basically whatever you want" in terms of organizing settings, I think it's no different from simply making arrangements in other sections.

If someone wants to share their canon, they will be approachable. If they don't, the worst they can reasonably do is say no. I don't think a broad, fundamentally as open as a regular RP section framework built into the forum is worth enough conceptually to replace a simple question and the process of collaboration.

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Hello.

*assures everyone that I have years of experience on RP sites and am subsequently qualified to interject*

As a previous GM who ran a simple open-world RPG, with theoretically infinite options based on player choices, and as a gave dev who tried making a game based on that RPG, I have found that, invariable, players need some kind of plot or story to fall back on. Stick a bunch of kids in a magic sandbox with some toys and buckets, and they'll have fun for a while, but eventually run out of things to do. Even Minecraft, the undisputed king of free-for-all sandbox gameplay, has objectives, achievements, and an "End," so when you get tired of building a space tower out of cobblestone you have something worth doing.

If you're going to have an Expanded Universe, I stress that it have a start point, end point, and a line that leads between the two, so when the Dragonborn gets tired of setting people on fire and stealing cheese wheels, he has something to do that makes progress, even if it just means a new city to steal wheels of cheese from. The line can be a thick, thin, wavy, or convoluted as you want, as long as the RPers have something to, well...you get the point.