Shades_Of_Grey’s Neighborhood

Well, there is a developer's conference tomorrow and hopefully everyone will attend (-Djinni and TRM).

With a bit of luck this conference will come up with ideas and results as good as the last one. It should do - considering that most of the people will be there this time.

~Shades

The portal at http://daedulus.net has a spiffy new look. Check it out, it really is good (and kind of game related).

The forum has also been beautified and looks cool. Plus it has been re-organized and is more functional.

~Shades

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Addendum
Also if someone could make us a logo for the portal

Aprox Details:

Name: Daedulus.net
Slogan: Home of Project Azrael
Keep in with the theme please.
Thank you,

~Daedulus

An essay prepared based on the outcome of the developers meeting:

Perhaps one of the most intricate and revolutionary concepts incorporated into Project Azrael is the idea of multi-level gaming evolution. This literally means that, as you play through the game, the way you play the game will change. You will still have the ability to play in the previous style, but as you progress throughout the game many challenging new layers of game play will become available, necessitating the player's capability of quickly and easily adapting to new styles of game play.

You will start in a basic, first person shooter style environment. However far from being just a simple first person shooter this level of game play will incorporate elements from games such as the Fallout series and KOTOR (for the inventory interaction and feat enhancements), the TES series of games (for environmental interaction and skill/level upgrades) and Halo (for quick weapon changes and combat).

After gaining prestige, completing missions and amassing friends the game will evolve to a party based RPG (whilst still allowing the player to play at the single, FPS stage). This party based play will be third person, with parties of three to five people (i.e. 1 player 2+ npc's). The style of play will be similar to the Final Fantasy series and KOTOR (for the environmental interaction), the Diablo series (for combat).

From the party level, when the player has amassed a following the game will evolve to the next stage, the army stage (starting at gang level and moving forwards until the player controls an army over 100,000 strong). This will be similar to Dawn of War, StarCraft and Warcraft Three - whilst still providing a highly story and mission focused game environment. However unlike the above mentioned games, the player must also cater for the advanced logistics of his army, including support and supply.

The next stage, once the player has enough members of his army and is logistically capable, the game evolves to the city level. This level will be similar to Age of Empires, Empire Earth and CivCity, but will be highly micro-manageable. There will be several ways of advancement, including the economic, military and sociological.

Once the city has grown to such a size as to be unsupportable, or once the player has taken control (through military or economic means) of another city the game will advance to the province level, in which the player will take control of provinces comprised of several cities, each city manageable on every one of the previous levels. For a comparison think of any of the Total War series, Civilization II, III or IV and Risk.

The next level is a basic extension of the previous; once the player has taken control of the globe (through one means or another) they are able to access the world control layer. In this layer, logistics is simplified, as the need for control is broadened over a large number of cities and provinces. From this layer the largest jump is made.

The penultimate layer, or star system layer, is where the player gets several planets to rule over. This will play a bit like Masters of Orion and Haegomonia. Very intricate rule is required at this layer.

The final layer is universe control. This is still in the finalization process and will require knowledge of physical laws and so forth.

Well, here's a short blurb about the reason behind the name Project Azrael, and the meaning/history of the word Azrael itself (for a better, longer version go to the Wikipedia article).

The name Azrael stems from one of the names of the angel of death, and is an English form of the Arabic name Ezra'il or Ezra'eil, the name traditionally attributed to the angel of death in Islam. It is also spelled Izrail, Izrael, Azrail, and Asrail. In standard Arabic transliteration it is `Ezra'il or `Ezra'eil. Chambers English dictionary gives Azrael, but it doesn't seem to be in the Oxford English Dictionary. The name literally means whom God helps.

While there are many Deaths for different worlds (who are themselves divided into Deaths for different creatures) , Azrael, as the Death of Universes, is their ruler. All other Deaths are aspects of him. A single, muiltiphasic, omnipotent, omnicognicent death entity.

This name has been chosen because it reflects the state in which humanity has found itself, a state of decay, death and despair - having fallen from their dizzying height once the supports that held them steady were pulled away.

Well, the developers conference we had today was succesfull, although several people didn't turn up (nameley Erik and Stickyboy). We designed the game's basic structure and got to work on story line and game mechanics. We will have a compiled summary up later (when we've finished compiling it). It is actually really interesting - and a pain in the arse to program.

This is a cry for help for coders, designers and graphical artists.

~Shades

Shades has asked me to do a little research into how to travel faster than light.

On searching wikipedia, one concept was a thing called Space-Time fabric.

Now correct me if I am wrong on any of these ideas (or conceptions of the story that has been made so far), but I think this may be the easiest to implement into the game.

In short, it basically pulls the ship/body/thing forward by creating a vacuum (not much mass) at the front of the ship/body/thing, and at the same time, creating something quite the opposite on the other side of the thing (lots of mass).

My use of the 'mass' word is most probably incorrect, so I am sorry for that.

This would then call for a design of the ship (if it is implemented). One way of creating a ship that would be able to use this would be to basically create something with a big fan in the middle that pulls the mass from in front of the ship, to the back, thus causing propulsion. This may look a little weird (ugly), so another suggestion is all the more welcome.

This here is the wikipedia entry --

"Option H: Space-Time Fabric

Although the theory of special relativity forbids objects to have a relative velocity greater than light speed, and general relativity reduces to special relativity in a local sense (in small regions of space-time where curvature is negligible), general relativity does allow the space between distant objects to expand in such a way that they have a "recession velocity" which exceeds the speed of light, and it is thought that galaxies which are at a distance of more than about 14 billion light years from us today have a recession velocity which is faster than light.[1] Miguel Alcubierre theorized that it would be possible to create what is called an Alcubierre drive in which a ship would be enclosed in a "warp bubble" where the space at the front of the bubble is rapidly contracting and the space at the back is rapidly expanding, with the result that the bubble can reach a distant destination much faster than a light beam moving outside the bubble(journal paper). Such warping would require a source of negative energy which would act as anti-gravity."

If this helps you understand it any better than my description, all the better for you.

Now my limited brain doesn’t quite understand why antimatter would be involved, so if anyone else understands it, make sure you speak up. I wont try to tell you because I don’t know.

I hope my suggestion helps all peoples involved.

EDIT - There are some possible uses for this technology in other places.

Such as to split an atom, one side could be held still (no idea how) and the other have a vacuum right next to it. This will split the atom, but will release the energy involved. This may be bad but another concept could be placed on this (such as the energy is used to fuel this technology).

This technology could also be very ordinary to the Najir. They could use it to build stuff with, or farm whatever. This is a bit vague, but may not be very essential to the story line/game play.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light

~Stickyboy

Here is a tidied up version of the first article:

Right, a brief summary of the back-story so far:

The basic story premise is a semi-dystopian earth, with a decaying human society (ranging from Neolithic to feudal) scattered amidst the ruins of a previously glorious, technologically brilliant (i.e. Kardashev scale II) society. Humanity grew to this technological height with the help of a semi-reclusive alien race called the Najir (who first visited the Earth in 1150AD and began the process of educating us, it took fewer than 100 years to equip humanity with the knowledge and technology of the Najir and to forge a brotherhood of man otherwise known as the UNE or United Nations of Earth).

The Najir's technology is based on an intraspectra theory (stolen cunningly from Robert Heinlein - called the Ledbetter effect in his book The Day After Tomorrow aka The Sixth Column). This calls for the discovery and utilisation of 2 spectra found between existing spectra (i.e. magnetic, gravitic and electric /electro-magnetic) called the magneto-gravitic & electro-gravitic spectra.

These two additional spectra would allow easy manipulation of atoms (allowing the creation of any element from any other - somewhat akin to the concept of the replicator from Star-Trek) and discovery of different types of radiation (enabling new weaponry and sundry technologies).

However, an event (as yet undecided) caused the Najir to retract their help and our society began to crumble and regress. The date is 1977AD and the human race is currently living in squalor, in societal conditions ranging from Neolithic (i.e. late stone age) to feudal, amidst the ruins of technological wonders and megastructures. There are even humans still in space, on semi-functional space stations which, while still capable of sustaining life, have no human hand at the controls.

NOTE the dates. They are very important.

There are in total 5 factions and three races.

The photos are all copyright and just lend a general idea of the races - we own them in NO way *insert generic disclaimer here*.

1. Humans.

Just generic, generally feudal or empirical, used to be technological. The largest empire spans western Europe and eastern Russia and is ruled by the "God-Emperor" Nikolai von Krashnetkov.

2. The Najir.

Enigmatic reclusive beings, not much is known of them. They originally donated the technology and social order to humanity. They are bipedal yet inhuman. Semi-crocodilian, enhanced on a nano- and pico- scale.

3. The People.

Human's who actively embrace new technologies, and left Earth a few hundred years ago, live on giant space-stations and ring worlds - using the Dyson Sphere. They also incorporate technology into themselves and are thus humanoid techno-organics

4. Na-hukari.

A related species to the Najir, aggressive and currently at war with well... everyone (except the pathetic humans of course, to them the humans are little more than creatures unworthy of hunting).

5. Ku-hukari - Another related species to the Najir, formerly Na-hukari. Colonists who declared themselves independent, no inter-planetary government - pacifistic.

A short essay on first contact:

We don't speak the same language. How does one communicate with another species? Through pictures? Perhaps... mathematical equations?

With the Najir in orbit around Earth, the planet is in a veritable panic, nobody knows if they're going to attack or not. Both parties have attempted communication, but no understanding can be reached. A brilliant young man in a one-room apartment in Tokyo devises a method for communication, the elements. The young man starts sending transmissions to a Najir aboard their discovery vessel. Around this time several more Najir vessels how up, however none of Earth's governments (miraculously) send any attacks against them.

The young man and his Najir counterpart begin to make a break through in communications. While most earthbound scientists keep trying to make radio contact. When radio contact was made (by the Najir) the lack of any common understanding or language base made it almost useless. Attempts at pictorial communication fail due to a lack of comprehension and point of reference. The Najir had not moved from their geo-synchronous orbit around the planet.

Back to our young Japanese friend, he and his Najir comrade had gone past the stage of exchanging and solving each other's chemical equations. After establishing a common set of symbols for communicating this they began to use their new alphabet to explore other concepts.

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First contact communication occurs through exchange of symbology or characters in relation to elements, icons or forces.

This is because, contrary to popular opinion, it is highly likely that alien cultures will have any point or reference with which to begin communication with our culture. Therefore on e must resort to basic mathematics, physics or chemistry and work on exchange of symbology from there.

Mathematics is quite a good way to achieve this. Another is to get an object and ask both parties to name it. Do the same for actions and abstract ideas.

Some background info on this (wikipedia):

First contact is a term used to describe a first meeting of two previously unknown cultures.

It is clear from the historical record here on Earth between societies of the same species that the disruptive nature of first contact generally favors the more technologically advanced side, often with dire consequences for the less advanced side. It is nearly impossible to predict what the first interactions between two different intelligent species might be. Beyond the language barrier, physical differences might make a common basis for shared experience impossible, or perhaps even repugnant.

One notable first contact is Christopher Columbus's contact with the Arawak living in the West Indies.

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An Outside Context Problem or an OCP is any problem outside a given group's (organisation, society, culture or civilisation) experience, with an immediate, ubiquitous and lasting impact upon it. An OCP is "outside the context" as it is generally not considered until it occurs, and the capacity to actually conceive of or consider the OCP in the first place may not be possible or very limited (i.e., the majority of the group's population may not have the knowledge or ability to realize that the OCP can arise or assume it is extremely unlikely). An example of OCP is an event where a civilization does not consider the possibility that a much more technologically advanced society can exist, and then encounters one. The term was coined by Iain M. Banks in his novel Excession:

"An Outside Context Problem was the sort of thing most civilisations encountered just once, and which they tended to encounter rather in the same way a sentence encountered a full stop. The usual example given to illustrate an Outside Context Problem was imagining you were a tribe on a largish, fertile island; you'd tamed the land, invented the wheel or writing or whatever, the neighbours were cooperative or enslaved but at any rate peaceful and you were busy raising temples to yourself with all the excess productive capacity you had, you were in a position of near-absolute power and control which your hallowed ancestors could hardly have dreamed of and the whole situation was just running along nicely like a canoe on wet grass... when suddenly this bristling lump of iron appears sailless and trailing steam in the bay and these guys carrying long funny-looking sticks come ashore and announce you've just been discovered, you're all subjects of the Emperor now, he's keen on presents called tax and these bright-eyed holy men would like a word with your priests."

For a small civilization dealing with their own problems, suddenly being threatened by a much larger, more technologically sophisticated civilization would be an OCP. There have been some examples of cultures encountering such problems in the course of human history, such as the scenario alluded to by Banks: the discovery of America, and the subsequent conquests of South and Central America by the Conquistadores. Another real-world historical example of OCP would be the arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry's "Black Ships" to Japan in 1853, which eventually precipitated the Meiji Restoration and radically transformed Japanese society. It was an event that was almost unimaginable to the Japanese until it actually happened.

A possible example of an OCP that may affect our current civilization would be an unexpectedly appearing threat of another asteroid (or comet) impact on Earth. Another conceivable OCP example would be the arrival on Earth of space-travelling extraterrestrials. A technological singularity would be another clear example of an OCP, though it differs from extraterrestrial contact or near-earth object collisions in that modern humans would likely be able to determine its approach, although we could never anticipate its outcome.

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Wiki things you must read!!! -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegemonising_swarm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_goo

http://www.rfreitas.com/Astro/Xenopsychology.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale

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Who would you like to kiss under the mistletoe?

Misletoe is an archetype of an outmoded belief system!

Collectivley? Linus Torvalds, Dennis Richie, Any of the original Bell Labs guys...

Singularly? Well.... atm my SO.

Shades