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== --- More interesting items/ideas for a Bioshock Rapture MMORPG ---

'''. Part 30 . . --

'''A Big Daddy is a Cyborg (part human, part machine joined (grafted together)) :

'''We assume they did use the genetic and medical tech that their genius created to solve several significant  problems.

For the grafting - tissue/foreign body rejection issues for attached mechanisms - the treatment/whatever  that keeps their tissue from reacting significantly. Not sure to what extent the 'grafting is done. Structural reinforcements, control mechnisms. Plasmid/tonic could manage this - preferably long lasting  and 'stable'. ''' For the Diving Suit problems (we've seen the Big Daddies out in the ocean) - those are not hardsuits that  keep the pressure out, they are the conventional flexible diving suit (real ones are rubber sandwiched  between cotton twill canvas). Other stronger 'clothish' materials might be used, but cant be too stiff and  need to resist salt-water corrosion.

Real Diving Suits the air pumped from the surface was kept slightly higher than the depth's water pressure  (so the air wasnt squeezed out of the helmet and the body pushed into it). The interior of the suit  always is at a slightly higher pressure from the water's depth. SO you pressurize to t'Bold text'Bold text'Bold text'Bold text'Bold text'Bold text'Bold text'Bold text'Bold text''he inside to just  over the outside water pressure (around 19 atmospheres of pressure at only 600 feet -- is well beyond  safe/survivable diving 150-200max for humans -- Nitrogen narcolepsy, nitrogen narcosis were the hazards). You have to keep adjusting it as the depth changes. "The Bends" (google it) could happen when the Daddy  comes back inside and the pressure is quickly lowered to the 1 atmosphere inside Rapture - re-entering  Rapture (via airlock). You also get the pressure change effect simply moving between different depths. I would not put Rapture too deep, or the materials/technical problem increase geometrically, beyond any  practicality.

So the Daddy needs some tonic/plasmid to sweep gases out of its blood rapidly for that frequent transition  (or mitigate the effects some other way) to prevent the bubbles shutting down its vascular system. A Big  Daddy could potentially work at much greater depths.

Then there is the strength to move in that very heavy suit. The BD suits are heavy and the oversized  helmets and devices on the back which real human divers didnt have (air supply/pressure pumps was thru air  tube from surface/elsewhere...) add even more weight from added tools/weapons, plus tanks  and their power  systems and those heavy weights (that keep it from floating by displacement buoyancy). It all would weigh  MANY hundreds of pounds (600-800 total weight from what the displacement looks to be.   That would require  Strength tonics (we've seen exist 'Brute' tonics) to super grow muscles and bones to support/move that  weight.  They would require evn more strength to carry all that outside of the water.

To power that physiology, the digestive system/vascular/etc.. would also have to be enlarged/made more  efficient - bulky/bigger size means squeezing into the suit (closely or the suit gets bigger/heavier and  the body needs to carry that, requiring even more weight then more strength, etc...)

Add whatever mental conditioning (possibly reinforced via plasmid/tomic/other) needed for the Big Daddy to  operate/behave as it does (still capable of recognizing problems and solutions, handling tools to make  repairs that all takes coordinated actions and planning etc ) and to take direction for tasks or act  independantly to a limited extent.

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The technical part of the suit has to hold enough oxygen for a normal work cycle (time to get outside/walk  to work location/do some work/get back to wherever to recharge - preferably more than 30 minutes of work  each cycle). With a larger more energy burning physiology, perhaps some tonic/plasmid (or other) helps  there to make the respiration more efficient.

I havent figured out if there is any 'power assist' for the main body actions. Combustion - Im not sure  can work at that pressure - 20+ atmospheres (and it would require oxidizer to function), so batteries and  electrics might be the only workable solution - possible to limited that it would be only for the tools).

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The Big Daddy's damage resistance might be similar to the Brute's, but with the thicker covering and some  projectiles bouncing off the various metal bits (covering 1/3 the surface?) can absorb more damage. Fortunately patching the suit is easy as it doesnt have to hold more pressure than a few PSI (pounds per  square inch).

It is possible that the Big Daddies suits are liquid filled (and they breath a oxygenated liquid - ?? that  yellow stuff in the big daddy factory in BS1 ???). That kind of mechanism lowers  compression/decompression effects somewhat, but having fatal bubbles form in your blood/tissues is still  there with the kinds of depths involved).   SO the plasmid to take care of that would still be the  solution - possibly to very great depths (sea depths OFF Raptures's underwater volcano go to 10,000 feet  deep, and more - - - 300+ atmospheres of pressure ).

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What routine repairs/replenishment do Big Daddies get (and from where). All will probably be explained in  the MMORPG.

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Delta's potential for Surviving :

Not sure if the Daddy-Lil Sister link being broken would have been the cause of Delta's death (like what  happens if it is reestablished - seemed to be a combination of mental conditioning and physiological). That explosion may have severly damaged Delta (the hamburger making effect of powerful blast compression  wave - it might have been more realistic to have his suit appearing well mangled afterward) - and beyond  the capacity of Med-Kits to repair.

At the end of BS2, our little group was out in the Ocean and they went up quite fast, so were not close to  any Vita-Chamber, and it would take a long time to get back near one (we're not given any data on how long  you have for that 'resurrection' system to do its work....)

It is actually possible that as Delta 'died' and floated back down to Rapture to have had a Vita-Chamber  intercept him. It is all largely unexplained how that Vita-Chamber mechanism really worked -- Flying  Monkeys/Lock Box Gnomes carrying/dragging your still warm corpse into it,  to be repaired. Thats a bit  easier to explain than real 'Teleporting' ( or worse, Delta's being reconstructing entirely from nothing  but DNA and INCLUDING the diving suit/equipment which is definitely NOT part of your DNA). Unfortunately  that crutch (handling player 'death') for the game mechanism made it part of the plot/Canon/Lore.

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Sander Cohen was planned at one point to return as a "20-foot-tall Freudian monster bunny"  :

Sounds like a plan.

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During the early stages of BioShock 2, there was a giant squid boss that Delta was supposed to fight  outside of Rapture. "

Sounds good for a Quest (the bad guy gets away in the end though). Decent tentacle animations for once  ??

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Children in New Rapture :

Non-Splicers would not have acted the way Splicers did, and if they found enclaves of others who could  get/produce supplies to live on and defend themselves, then survival of children was more likely. Degredations of living conditions would effect survival for all ages, but children are often more  vulnurable.

In Splicer controlled areas, most young children likely would not have survived simply from neglect, if  not other more disturbing ways.

Teenagers would be much more capable of survival, if they were old enough when the troubles started (and  teen Splicers probably would/will act even more annoying when you run into them).

Most game companies prefer not to have children in the line of fire, so this would be a touchy issue (note  how the Little Sisters were invulnurable to damage -- except for the green-splashy obscured evisceration  and removal of Mr Sluggy and 'termination'.)

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Vita-Chambers were a way for a Ryan product to compete with the ADAM technology products. His machines  could possibly do what many of the health related ADAM-tech tonics did. With ADAM becoming more  expensive/limited in supply with expanding demand (and possibly with no side effects of  insanity/disfigurement) the Vita-Chamber system could be more than competitive - something that was  important to Ryan's (and Rapture's) philosophy. http://bioshock.wikia.com/wiki/Offer_a_Better_Product

It would explain why they were everywhere (deployed and operating for the basic functions) "Introducing  the future of health and wellness! - The Vita-Chamber - Restore vigor and spirit with the touch of a  button!". The Vita-Chamber's technology is likely of high interest to New Rapture's Council and there  should be a high Bounty for the machines or parts of broken ones (and they may take part as some  'reconstitution' mechanism used in the game to keep players from perma-death).

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Lore : The body of knowledge, especially of a traditional, anecdotal, or popular nature, on a particular subject Accumulated facts, traditions, or beliefs about a particular subject.

Canon : The authentic works of a writer A sanctioned or accepted group or body of related works An accepted principle or rule A criterion or standard of judgment A body of principles, rules, standards, or norms

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Cloud computing comes to Rapture :

Some Braniac figured out that all the dozens of McClendon 'Home Computers' sold in Rapture could be used  while otherwise idle to run programs for the expanding computer accounting/computational industry (which  put many of accountants/adding machine operators out of work). The computers were connected via a  telephone line Intercomputer-Web to signal data and instructions back and forth. 'Rent' was paid the Home  Computer owners for the processing time used.

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ADAM is just needed so to not lose ground (ADAM addiction).

When ADAM wears off/metabolized (your body increasingly rejects the contamination)  genetic degredation  occurs and the targetted ability is nullified,  More ADAM is needed to repair/stabalize the plasmids, else  they cease no  function. As time goes on, the body builds up resistance/immunity requiring more ADAM for  the same effect/duration of effect. With larger quantities of ADAM, more accumulative randomization of  genetic effects occur.

Later developments produced more stable DNA codings and buffers to slow rejection/metabolization (this was  after Fontaine, as he actually wanted his ADAM products to deteriorate to be able to sell more).

Unfortunately their was no way to remove the ADAM modified tissues (until the Cure was developed) to  eliminate the source of the genetic disruption.

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Robotic Little Sisters :

You may see these marching around the perimeters of the New Rapture City Center. They were originally  designed as Little Sister (ADAM collecting) replacements except that they were ignored by Big Daddies. A  short sighted McClendon canceled the project (even after having prematurely manufactured a large batch of  them). The sophistication built into them (sea-slug bio-electronic logic) would have made them useable  for other things - such as security patrols or for their original purpose - arming them so that they did  not need Big Daddies to protect them (they could have gone around in gangs if a single one was too  vulnurable). The gathering functionality was obviously solved and engineered (unfortunately the cost of  the needed SeaSlugs resulted in a severe cost-overrun).

The City (controlling Minerva's Den) has access to the original stockpile and the factory dies/plans to  make additional units and parts. They are still expensive and would be assigned to stable areas for  general security patrols and would alert 'enforcer' forces instead of normally becoming involved in any  combat.

The player's ingenuity will probably be called on as a Mission to rebuild one of the prototypes into a  functioning unit. The City would farm that work out to the Citizenry and pay a reasonable price for  success (as well as brownie points towards your Public Achievement projects ladder).

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The Economy MUST go on ... :

Players in the Real World stop playing for periods of time, but this game has several magnitudes more  interactions between players and between player infrastructures. Yes, there are NPCs that keep operating  in similar fashion to make things run, but players will have more imagination involved and enable a more  'alive' city environment.

Players Avatars and 'Team' NPCs are to be able to operate on automatic, and this should be extended to  longer time periods (not just short-term tasks). If a player has a business organized, part of it would  be 'supply chain', which if not overridden would obtain needed materials for the business production and  go on manufacturing and selling the product. With the player directly involved, there would be bonus  efficiency and potential opportunities for bigger payouts, but the business should be able to lumber on  automatically and continue interactions within the City community  (your product passes on to other  businesses as their materials or on to consumer players/NPCs).

As mentioned before, much of this AI operation is behaviors that NPCs will already do as a base economy  system and only need be extended to player's Avatar and Teams NPCs with a little more 'policy' direction   for the automatic modes. Profits are generally more than enough to 'pay the rent' to prevent player's  assets from eroding. The mechanism is sufficiently limited so that you wont come back to find that your  AI-run minions have sold all your 'stuff'.

You dont think this is possible?? How long has the 'SIMs' been around? Much of the behaviors are not  that complex obtain items/materials XYZ, work on them with skills ABC, take the resulting goods to a  buyer or your 'shop'/'stand' to sell to Players/NPCs. The Production Formula mechanism would already  exist to guide various manufactures. The automatic 'shop' salesman and selling mechanism would be there  for that operation. A generic 'clearinghouse' for mundane items and materials is part of the game (to  simplify loot disposal). The control scripts would be one of the Asset types which Player Creators  could expand upon (more sophisticated/specialized operations beyond the initial Company developed ones).

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1 in 10 workers in Rapture may have had to be a farmer :

There are virtually no farms like the majority of those on the surface (dirt farming), instead their would  be hydroponic farming that has 3-5X the yeild per area. Large cross-section caverns/tunnels are expensive  to build/seal. so most in Rapture would probably have to be something like a 10 foot wide bored tunnel  (using the solid bedrock to act against the massive sea pressure). 1 acre (43560 sq ft) of 'farmland'  would fit in such a tunnel about 2420 ft long (with 3 growing levels stacked, 3 ft wide on either side of  an access way in the middle - 18 sq ft per linear length). Tunnels could be grouped side by side  seperated by twice their width and at different levels approx every 30 feet (all to give the rocks  sufficient supporting volume). Vegatables and grains could be grown multipler crops per year and the  extraneous plant material useable for silage to feed milk cows/meat animals/fish. There is a huge amount of cheap power/heat  available from Hssphaestus to keep the plants growing  (grow-lights)  all day long, all year round. Conversion of Carbon Dioxide to Oxygen would be a paying  byproduct. By th 1960s 2% of the population in the US were farmers and thru land farming automations  were able to each feed 50 other people. Hydroponic farming even though largely automated, still takes  more labor for the same 'farm area' (the guy who fixes the machines is still classified as a 'farmer')...

So a more realistic ratio (including things like fisheries) would be loser to 1 farming employee's work  feeding himself and 9 other people. With a population of 20000 - 40000 initially, that would mean that  Rapture and its supporting communities would need 2000-4000 farmers to feed the population.

Those farmers would have to keep producing (even during the civil war and the following chaos) or very  shortly there would be nothing to eat.

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Mythic related Theme names to use (and ones like them) :

Achilles    sports ?? weapons? Acteon (hunting park - twist is you are the one being hunted...) Agamemnon Towers  (has large art replica of that mask Schliemann found at Mycenae) Andromeda Ares   ?? guns or sports contest Argonaut Arturus   ... (arthur)  as a name  sword in the stone  ref ?? Asgard Aten Aurora

Baldir Bast/Bastet  (cats) Beowulf

Caesar's    (spaghetti ) Calliope  muse of epic poetry Calypso    (sea windo decorations) Camelot Capicorn    (and other names from zodiac...) Carnak  (egyptian theme) Cassandra Cassiopeia Ceres   (plants agriculture) Charon   (submarine rides) Charybdis Chronus Watch Company Cleopatra's Clio    muse Proclaimer history Concordia Cupids   whatever

Darien   (vacations) Delphi   delphic Diana      hunting range  (mechanised prey) Discordia   (kinda bad name??)

Elysian Fields Erebus/Erebos Eris Eros      (skin magazine) Euterpe   muse of poetry & music

Fafnir Fenrir Fortuna   (gambling, racetrack) Freya

Ganymede Gemini Gilgamesh Grendal

Hades Harmonia Hecates    ointments and salves Helios Helen    beauty shop Herecules   ?? sports center Hermes Homers (illiad)

Isis Illiad ?? travel co Isengard

Janus security Jason Jupiter

Karnak Kraaken Kronus

Leviathan Loki   - games and gags

Maat  - scales and measuring devices Mars Melpomene  muse of tragedy Midas  (bank or custom jewelry - turning stuff into gold...) Minos (Bank) Mithras Moby Dick Morpheus Mycenae

Nemesis Neptune Nereid (water nymph)

Odin Odysseus Oedipus Olympia Olympus Orion   hunter supplies ?? Osirus

Pele Perseus Pleiades  seven something Pluto  (riches jewlery??) Polyhymnia  muse of Sacred Hymn, and of Eloquence Pompeii Pontos a primordial  sea god Priam

Ra Ragnarok Ratatosk   (delivery service)

Saturn Sekmet (more cats) Sett Sibyl Skylla Styx

Tartarus is described as a dank, gloomy pit ( a place to imprison monsters) Terpsichore   muse of dance and choral singing Thalia  muse of comedy and pastoral poetry THAUMAS was an old marine god who personified the wonders of the sea Themis was the Titan goddess of divine law and order Theseus (bar and grill) Thor Titan Titus Tuts

Ulysses Urania  muse of astronomy and astrology Uranus  (proctologist ??)

Valhalla Valkyries Vesta Victoria

Wodin Wotan

Zeus

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Simulated activities to present a 'busy' cityscape and operate a normal 'economy' :

Players (as their on-line Avatars) are not present much of the time, but world activities go on (NPC AI  keeps things happening). The Player sets up a business/fabrication task/supply chain (causing  interacting with other NPCs to get needed materials). The Player's organization remains active, the NPCs  operate visible to other players.

Independant NPCs have their own 'lives' with roles/goals that require no intervention (built into their  design/programming). Besides work, they eat, sleep, do recreational activities, consume commodities,  reside in the City, etc... NPCs buy goods, NPC businesses continue selling or producing goods -  simulating a real economy which the player interacts with  (and doing jobs the player might not care to).

A Player's Team NPCs do boring/repetative tasks for the Player's game projects (so instead of the endless  click-fest 'crafting' many MMORPGs have, the Players organize/manage their minions to do the tedious  stuff). Offline management (handheld interfaces to 'play' the more mundane activities) allow monitoring  and 'tweaking' activities even when sets of off-line tasks can be queued up. Players can thus spend  most of their 3D gaming doing the more exciting/interesting exploring and exploiting in the wilder parts  of the world.

The AI for alot of this control is not that sophisticated program-wise (just a whole hell of alot better  than the simplistic scripting we are afflicted with in most current games) and easily  replicated/modified/varied for many different tasks/activities. Instead of a Player constantly ordering  'units' to do specific tasks, the NPCs have their own goals and a scheduling and prioritization system  that has them choose their activities appropriately. Patterns of producing/transporting/consuming items  or providing services are well known from normal life, and can be replicated in enough detail as a  backdrop for a reasonably detailed game World. The normalcy of the New Rapture cityscape is in contrast  to the violence and chaos of the rest of Rapture.

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The Player Asset Creation mechanism allows incremental expansion/varying of the NPCs activites over time. Players can add new 'normal' behaviors to present a 'typical' city full of NPCs (when your typical MMORPG  'City' is a virtual Ghost Town full of mostly inert mannequins). An example would be City maintenance in  the form of cleaning the streets (the City Center is meant to be a showcase of Civilization - what the  city once was). NPCs (and possibly the player) are hired to pickup garbage in the streets.

A new variation of this NPC activity would be designed using the game's creation tools (figure animation,  sound effects, scripted NPC movements, tool props used, interactions with the environment, spawning  patterns of 'garbage' in the terrain, garbage disposal, scheduled patterns employing this variation). Much of this is modifying a basic 'clean up' activity, but the variation will allow the NPCs to appear  less repetative and keep them moving/acting in a logical way (fitting the location). Instead of pieces of  garbage, it might be a puddle of chemicals that requires cleanup, or a boodstains, or graffiti. Added  'game quality' would be coordinating between 2 NPCs to do the activity (which is much more challenging  programming-wise and also more interesting looking).

Of course, ALL of this uses the same development effort/methods used to create the adversarial NPC  behaviors, to have THEM do many different things/tactics, requiring the players to handle them in many  different ways).   Same for adding additional reactions to unusual circumstances (in the City or out in  the wilds/ruins) - the more there are, the more real the game becomes (versus those limited MMORPGs where  NPCs hardly react to anything and then only in a few boring ways).

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Needed - A Forklift (fond memories of Far Cry and GTA) :

SO much potential (even better on a game engine that supports vehicles). Come to think of it, a turning  Merry-Go-Round of death in Dionysus might have been good. A Trolley that ran (with a less rediculously  short track length ) to have a moving gun battle would have been nice (Hey, now with the Infinite engine  they can do stuff like that for Bioshock 3.)

Forklifts are fun for a while stacking cargo (yet another 'mission'), but using them in combat is even  more fun. Splicers chasing after you with one unexpectedly even better.

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City Evolution in Rapture :

Unlike many real cities Rapture was largely built all at once and was planned with a cohesive design  (evident from the utility and transportation grids that interconnect all the dispersed building clusters). Initially Rapture was a construction camp, housing workers and engineers who build the City infrastrcture. Then there was a massive wave of immigration as the City's population was brought and settled in and the  economy was built and stabalized.

There was more evolution as things learned in the early years brought modifications -- like better leak  proofing or refined buildng techniques, and the Consolidation of the Metro to tie together newer areas not  part of the initial plan (the Atlantic Express is more like a Subway system, when a city needs something  more like a bus system).

Later, after most of the City construction ended (1952), there was a growth of 'suburbs' outside the City  which offered more living space to those who found the Cityscape too closed-in. Cheap construction  techniques made significant Suburb expansion profitable, which changed city dynamics when people left the  less savory parts of the City (tenement-like conditioned in low-end residences). Good transportation to  the outlying areas also made this expansion possible (AE  long distance 'commuter' Trains still ran after  the conversion/abandomnent of most of the intra-city Atlantic Express passenger service).

The 'cutting-off' of most of the links to the Surface World also brought changes that readjusted the  City's economy, as did the early financial crisis (long before the Kashmir Incident).

'''In the time of BS1 (1960) the City had become a warzone with Fontaine/Atlas's Splicers murdering people in  the streets which forced Ryan to take significant security measures and to build his own army to stop the  carnage. Ryan kept the economy alive and many of the outside communities isolated themselves from the  strife. With Ryan's "death" the Chaos eroded the City further and the Faction Wars started which  disrupted most of the remaining economy outside the organized powers, and further localized whatever was  left. Murderous cults like Lamb's were isolated by the remaining powers when they preyed upon weaker  neighbors.

Now New Rapture (in the time of the MMORPG) is starting to grow and is set on restoring  cohesion/civilization, as City territory is recovered and rehabilitated and isolated communities are  linked back into a larger mutually advantageous community. A number of the larger, better organized  factions have already joined New Rapture'''  (most significant being the Neptune Fishermen and Ryan's  loyalists in Hesphaestus).

Future evolution will be the major expansion of order as New Rapture's citizens (the MMORPG players)  expand into the 'ruins' and 'wilds' to rebuild the City.

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Curing Big Daddies :

Bodies fused into their suits, massive tonic upgrades/enhancements, significant mental conditioning, major  psychological baggage,  parts of the brain may have been 'burned out' ...

Many Splicers suffered similar damage to varying degrees, and reconstruction was found possible for them  (or most of them) as part of the 'Cure' process (per the MMORPG plotline).

The Big Daddy conversion was somewhat different as it employed more stable tonic-like ability/physical  enhancement (temperature/pressure resistance, massive strength increase) instead of adding very  significant plasmid-type tissue modification.

The required  reconstitution work may simply be a quantity problem for the physical repairs, but the  mental restoration would be the more difficult part. Ith may require longterm mental reconstruction (when  unlike for the experimental Delta/Johnny, extensive (neural)N-grams of the subject were not  recorded/stored). It is thought that replacing destroyed mental patterns with those from another  individual might be possible, but techniques to eliminate psycho-conflicts still need to be developed.

Ex-Splicers are being trained as divers by the City to allow for increased maintenance and needed  reconstruction. The limited availability of diving hardsuits is the main limitation.

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Storytelling Quests :

Choreographed Flashbacks, check. Lots of interesting/imaginitive Lore related stories to tell, check. Creative players to build them and others interested in seeing them, check. Tools to create the Assets (will be there if this MMORPG is to work).

A 'Story' Example would be : an elaboration of the whole 'Life-boat' story dealing with Sinclair and  how/why it was built. There is a whole interesting story which we only got hints of (interactions between  Ryan and Sinclair and big City doings). Of course, being highly related to existing Canon/Lore, it  would have to jibe with the few existing 'facts' and all the newly created ones would have to fit properly  into the rest of the City's story. The work would be a collaboration with the many details and an  influencial subplot that would become new Canon (for later player creations to make use of and be built  around). That 'Lifeboat' actually looks like it could have started as a possible replacement for the  Lighthouse, so the developed story could encompass many big aspects like that. Bold text''' =='Bold text'Bold text'Bold text'''Bold text'Italic text'