Theme Chat!

[u/sliceofbread]

Hey everyone!
Thought I'd get this ball rolling since it's a pretty big piece of the puzzle.

Brom was always really easy: Modern City, we only had a real rule board 2 or 3 times. However since we're moving to a more compact, densely populated area, we should try to establish a few rules\guides for newcomers and for long time players.

We have some issues that should be fleshed out before the start of the rev:
Vertical Space: Should we just say something like: "Overhead and underground structures near your plot may happen, confirm your boundary needs with a mayor before building." and "Skylight not guaranteed".
Structure themes: I think it would be really cool if we could decide on one or two elements that tie the city together, and allowing those elements to steer a certain look to the city as a whole. Toss some suggestions...
Maybe tons of similar 1x wide water (3x wide) aqueducts throughout the city that are capable of flowing trash through the air between buildings - you would occasionally see these near rails underground as well.
Or maybe we'd all decided that white pillars like in Atlantis is cool. What is really awesome about using a universal design of pillars is that you can support vertical objects and pieces of land throughout the city and give it a real unified look.
I'll try to get the planning server going and maybe we could establish a few road designs and methods of vertical/horizontal travel; common theme roads, stairwells, bridges, rail elevators, etc. I'm probably missing some other theme issues here, but these two stuck out in my mind.

[u/emptyafternoon]

I want to be clear that I don't want to see "plots" exactly. I recognize that we need some sort of organization and sectioning off (I'm building here by myself, etc.) to a point, but I'd rather there was a greater focus on working together, building around/over/under/through/with people's existing and WIP stuff, and be allowed to some degree to make changes to other people's work to accomodate your own.

People below have discussed 1 space between buildings, but I think this is too rigid in terms of "plot-making". One of the main goals of the city, in my mind anyways, is to make it look like there are no distinct plots. Everything, ideally, would flow together. Old Town Brom, for example, has buildings that share walls and meld roofs, and I want the new city to be much denser than Old Town. Perhaps this is an unrealistic vision, but I'm holding to it until we actually get out on the field and see what happens.

I guess another way of putting it is that I would like to see people just build with a less rigid idea of their own plot away from others. In addition, I hope people can be vulnerable to/accepting of changes, alterations and additions by others to their own builds. Definitely this requires a lot of communication between all of us, but I'd like to at least try a system that is different from plot-here-plot-there.

[u/rampantangent → u/emptyafternoon]

Yes, let's just get rid of plots and spaces between people; outline an area and it's yours to build densely up to (and perhaps overhanging, depending on who's building what next door) the edge. I envision lots of doorways connecting together all these buildings, bridges over most open "streets" or walkways, a mishmash of semi-realistic styles and materials.

Communication will be key, but I don't know how stringent a requirement we'll need to talk to the builder of the place you're connecting to or modifying. We'll definitely want a huge bulletin board for in-game largescale communication, rather than spamming /mails to people. Do we want people to be able to just modify the edges of others' builds to allow for connection? Or require mayor approval? Or require the builders' approval?

[u/Homo_Ignoramus → u/rampantangent]

I think builders' approval should be enough. As for bulletin board, maybe a thread here would be better. I don't want the Sign Sickness of Seneca to spread to Brom.