Community Nexus

[nathan2055]

Yes, but you'll note - Ages where you /registered/ a link - all had nexus terminals, K'veer, and the city. Ages you already had a link - or got one on linking to it, didn't.

in Uru CC, Bevin and Kirel also had terminals to /register/ the link, as in - they weren't there originally. Where as in moul - they already existed in the nexus - and thus there was no terminal. =P

Personal Links acts differently, and has nothing to do with nexus terminals - only one "terminal" type thing touches it, and as far as I'm concerned, that one is awful for other reasons - its the only non-private instance in personal links.

There's a fairly simple ruleset - Ages where you do not have a nexus link by default, and do not get automatically on linking, or Ages with multiple nexus links that you do not get all of the links by default - have nexus terminals, which you can activate by going to that point, and registering the link - this'd be handy for reward Ages, if the Writer wants it that way.

We'll definitely /need/ to design one as part of this process, as it'd be silly not to have one that matches this new nexus - nobody /has/ to use it of course, but it /needs/ to be designed/created as part of the process.

If we want to do this - lets do it right, please.

I have believed for a while now that all Ages should have Nexus terminals. I am going to add several to my Age (see signature). I think we should do all of the above!

[GPNMilano]

K, Colored version of the Nexus Book Machine

[Egon]

Hokay, been thinking about this - if you're going to have a different nexus - we'll also need new nexus terminals for those Ages that want to register in that nexus =P
It'd be rather weird (and possibly immersion-breaking) to have a "normal" nexus terminal register in this new nexus. =P

Well it all depends on the story.

For example: we have my Age Maps Gallery. It's a city location so I find it fitting to have a nexus station with a look of "standard design"TM. So why does it register (or to be precise: will register) to Writer's Nexus? It's already described in journal: original station wasn't working. So I "plug it" to Wirter's Nexus, just because I know how to do such thing.

You see for me genesis behind "Writer's Nexus", from IC point of view, must be one of two kinds:
either current day explorers manage to write this Age from scratch
or
it was written by Writers Guild, but machinery wasn't working and current day explorers manage to restore it.

In both cases we know the inner workings of machinery, while for normal Nexus that still might not be the case.

Of course once we will have working Writer's Nexus, I will change linking book, add actual registering in python, and probably change message send to KI so the player won't be confused (I'm talking about "New link have been added to Your Nexus"). In fact I expect that in the end we will have a python library, which will handle those two last task for writer, so writer would just have to write in python:

Code: Select all

wnAPI.RegisterAge(AgeName, "Label")

or

Code: Select all

wnAPI.RegisterStation(AgeName, StationName, "Label")

We'll definitely /need/ to design one as part of this process, as it'd be silly not to have one that matches this new nexus - nobody /has/ to use it of course, but it /needs/ to be designed/created as part of the process.

Making accessible by all writers blend, and max files, containing nexus station with writers theme puted on, is a good idea.
But I do expect that writers will also make a "retexture" modification on it. And that is ok, as long it fits they story of they age.

Anyway after making of Age Maps Gallery I have something which might work as a base to create such blend file. If fact, during makings of Age Maps Gallery I decided that I will most definitely make tutorial on how to make "registering station" from the beginning to end. The thing is: I was reluctant to release "ready-to-use" blend file containing textured nexus station, and I was thinking more about making "how to import such nexus station from Cyan age" part of above tutorial.
But releasing nexus station with completely new textures fitting writers theme... well it will still be a Cyan mesh, but I can live with that.

I'm not good at 2D art, so if someone would like to help with retexutring existing Nexus station, contact me in PM.

[kaelisebonrai]

Well, me and chloe discussed it a bit on gtalk -

We were thinking D'ni locations would not necessarily be in the writers nexus, but remain in the cyan-nexus.

There's no reason to seperate out d'ni locations from the cyan nexus.

However, other ages, could definitely have writer's nexus terminals - terminals of a /different/ design.

We're fairly sure we know (roughly) how the nexus terminals work, from the info we have on the nexus - and in IC-storylines, we definitely understand the nexus, at least roughly.

A general idea of how nexus terminals work:

We /know/ that the nexus is only an interface for KI Data (known, in one of the notebooks in Gahreesen)

A good theory is that upon the insertion of a ki into a nexus terminal - the terminal writes some data (possibly just co-ordinates of the terminal, possibly more) to the ki. Then, one of two things happen:

A) The terminal uploads "user has this station" to the lattice - which then upon the ki's insertion into the nexus, allows access to the station (personal note - I think this is too complex, and generally uncessary)

OR

B) The KI, upon insertion, gives the user access to the nexus station that it just got (My personal beliefs - matches the "the nexus is just an interface for KI data" thing too)

At which point, the nexus does its stuff.

In additiion:

Merely tetexturing the existing nexus terminal isn't going to suit this project, more needs to be done - So I'm afraid your model won't be of help, here. =P

I am already working on such a station, so don't panic. =P

EDIT: but, eh, do what you want with your own ages - no one is forcing you to do anything in particular >.>

[kaelisebonrai]

Sorry for double post ---

Random crappy doodle, will model, eventually.



Pen nib leading to gears at bottom - ki symbol in very centre instead of nib-hole, beneath is the ki-slot, and to the right is the nexus book, with similar design fancy stuff to the nexus screen itself. =)

[GPNMilano]

Also, I didn't mention this to Kaelis but i thought i'd throw the idea out there: The alcugs shards don't really have public ages, but the others do. And once the MOUL server code is worked on to go with plasmaclient, we'll have MOUL shards too. WHat i was thinking is that, we try and move the majority of cyan age private links and invite system over to the Writers Nexus, and make the Cyan-Nexus strictly public age only, so this way all d'ni locations would be public ages. Of course by doing so, we'd be eliminating private instances of D'ni locations entirely, unless we add D'ni locations to the city book on relto.

EDIT: Mind you this is just an idea that I had, and I'd see what others thought of doing it that way. This way there's no seperating of Cyan and Fan ages, they're both located in either Nexus, and this is just more of Cyan-Nexus is now strictly for D'ni areas, and the Writers Nexus would be for ages themselves.

[Egon]

I think that we have already establish that no one is forcing anything on anyone, so we can stop repeat it

Well, me and chloe discussed it a bit on gtalk -
We were thinking D'ni locations would not necessarily be in the writers nexus, but remain in the cyan-nexus.
There's no reason to seperate out d'ni locations from the cyan nexus.

As soon I read it, I remembered Tweek's example of Fehnir's house one more time.

Whilst Fehnir's House is a D'ni location it wouldn't likely appear in the Nexus as it's one guys house, who is he to be so important to have a Nexus Link to his own house?

And like I sad: for me appearing link to Fehnir House is more likely in Writer's Nexus just because "well some exporters putted that link there".
But in the end:
Does Age Maps Gallery show up after registering in "ctiy location" in Nexus, or does it show in "city locations" in Writer's Nexus- that's not really bothers me that much, because I like both options (I prefer second, but first isn't that bad either).

That I do care about, that we end up in simple to use python library for registering

I am already working on such a station, so don't panic. =P

Lol Glad to see that after "I won't help You with this project"

This

However, other ages, could definitely have writer's nexus terminals - terminals of a /different/ design.

combined with

Merely tetexturing the existing nexus terminal isn't going to suit this project, more needs to be done - So I'm afraid your model won't be of help, here. =P

means that there is nothing wrong with having more than one "ready-to-use-by-writers-custom-station"TM. Although like I sad: I there is being made a terminal with new design, I'm all for it

[Egon]

After reading Chloe post:

Come think of it, invites to others people ages, and links to all of your private links - for convenience of gameplay - they should be accessible in both Nexuses.

What is bothering about current DI shard, is that there is no private instances.
Maybe I want to do some age alone, without bothering by anyone. Or I maybe would like to do it with a friend, also not bothered by anyone. There is no private instances of fan ages (this assumes that alcugs shards are able to handle both: private and public instances of fan ages. I don't know if this is true right now).

My idea about enabling links to private/public/neighborhood instances would be like this:
instead of whole categories like "Private links", "Public links" which are awful at use (because number of links), we might get a "toggle" button in the top right corner of Writer's Nexus interface which would toggle between "private/public/neighborhood". We have something similar in current Nexus but it's controlling visibility of neighborhood.
In Writer's Nexus this toggle button would allow to choose "To which instance of link I would like to be taken".


I also didn't write this anywhere but I assume that we will ad link to Writer's Nexus, inside Nexus, and a link to Nexus inside Writer's Nexus for "backwards compatibility" resons.

[kaelisebonrai]

I'm appearantly a bloody loony, but, eh.

here's an early early thing of the model - not happy with it, really, though.

[Carl Palmner]

Actually I like it. It does need a little work, but I actually think you're being too hard on yourself, kaelis--this is a great base idea. What I really love is how you incorporated the Writer symbol into the actual 3d model, rather than just making it a symbol posted on their somewhere. I look at this and the first thing I think is "Writer's Guild", and for me that's a huge plus. (One slight problem and maybe it's just the psychology student in me, but the SECOND thing I think is "phallic symbol". I don't suppose there's any way to eliminate that aspect without obliterating the Writer's symbolism though, so I guess I'll just have to get over it).

I have 2 suggestions (I'm assuming here you want feedback):

First, it does look a bit odd having the book just "embedded" into the terminal. This could be easily remedied, however--I'd suggest modelling a kind of stone clamp around the edge of the book that connects with the terminal. That, I think, would feel a bit better. Second, the textures at the bottom--I like them both but for me at least, they don't really go together. I would use textures that look similar to each other, and at the very least have the same colors and make the object look like it's all made out of the same kind of material. Of course, the effect will be altered by whatever textures you use for the rest of the object, but right now those two kind of clash, at least for me. Other than those two little things, though, I think it's perfect.

Regarding the need for registering Ages--I was under the impression that all the fan Ages currently accessible from the original Nexus would start out accessible from the Writer's Nexus. I still think most of them should be, but I can definitely get behind the "reward Age" idea and I agree that a terminal of some kind will be necessary for Writers who want their Age to be unavailable at first but made available once the player finds it. EDIT: And of course, there's the "convenience" aspect even for Ages that are available at the beginning. It's nice to have a direct Link back to the Nexus--rather than having to Relto out and THEN Link there.