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[Draco18s]

quote:Originally posted by Karlito:
<STRONG>These ones, I would guess.</STRONG>

I should be more specific:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_virtues#Cardinal_and_Theological_Virtues
OR http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_virtues#Roman_Catholic_Virtues

[Dark]

Ive got a great idea for a plane of reality: sanity-insanity! The more insane on the axis the more !?   :eek: !? the world is.

For example... at 0 (sane) on the scale, a tree is a tree 100% of the time. At 20 (woah) on the scale, a tree is a Giant Snake of Tearing 11% of the time.

Another idea is a plane of Grunt-Lawl, the Lawllier it is the more ridiculous things get!

Anyone want a plane of Tasty Treats where everything has its sweet and delicious edible counter-part? Starving dwarves will hunt around for Gingerbread-Goblin instead of rats! Woodcutters will fell Candycane Trees for your food stockpile!

The list can go on!

[ December 22, 2007: Message edited by: Dark ]

[Zurai]

quote:Originally posted by Capntastic:
<STRONG>I'd rather they be procedurally generated rather than ripped from D&D.</STRONG>

Originally posted by Aquillion:
<STRONG>Boo.  Those suggestions are from D&D</STRONG>

Those planes are not the D&D planes. They don't even resemble the D&D cosmology in the slightest. If you're going to be critical, at least be man enough to say that you just don't like the idea rather than inventing reasons.

[Capntastic]

I'll be critical and say that they are exceedingly like D&D if only because they are rather generic.   And because you clearly mention D&D being an inspiration in the post itself.  I'd say they rather well emulate the D&D planar cosmology to a degree.

(Also, hahaha.  "If you're going to be critical, say you don't like it instead of coming up with reasons!"  - I think doing both is fine.)

My thoughts about planes would be more like different worlds.   When worlds have uniquely generated creatures and cultures and histories and such, being able to travel between the different incarnations of 'the world'. (Similar to Moorcock's multiverse, I suppose)   This is one thing I was going to speak with Toady about.

[Reign on your Parade]

That's how I like them too.

Though I once saw an idea that did away with planes all together and just had a single infinite world. That had everything possible on it. There were some pretty cool things that were going to be included, like a desert made out of glass, and a whole underground area with a light source at the bottom but everything lived in upside down trees at the top.

[Nil Eyeglazed]

The move to 3d was the biggie.  The move to 4d, 5d, 25d is simple.  (What do you think the etymology of "plane" is, anyways?)

Hit l to move closer to ice, hit k to move closer to fire.  Brimstone tends to occur on shallow planes of fire.  Magma tends to occur on middle-deep planes of fire.  Caverns full of gaseous pitchblende tend to occur on slightly deeper planes of fire.  What's past ice?  Frozen air?

Gravity only affects z-plane.  What sort of attracting forces affect hell/heaven planes?

But really, it's not even close to time yet.  I mean, for one, our computers run at paltry gigahertz.  Wait a few years for REAL computers.

[Zurai]

quote:Originally posted by Capntastic:
<STRONG>I'll be critical and say that they are exceedingly like D&D if only because they are rather generic.   And because you clearly mention D&D being an inspiration in the post itself.  I'd say they rather well emulate the D&D planar cosmology to a degree.</STRONG>

He mentioned D&D as an inspiration only in law and chaos being alignments.

Also, the D&D planes really aren't very generic at all. The Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus (a plane where everything is based on gears and mechanics, all devoted to calculating some unknowable universal law)? Acheron, the Infernal Battlefield (a plane consisting of infinite amounts of metal cubes on which 'live' infinite numbers of eternally-damned souls who fight for no purpose at all)? The Blessed Fields of Elysium (the so-peaceful-and-perfect-that-visitors-lose-all-desire-to-leave afterlife)? The Infinite Depths of the Abyss (more demons than a million monkeys with a million sticks could shake a stick at in a million years)? The Plane of Concordant Opposition (all things in moderation, literally)? The Grey Waste (a plane so bleak, it actively drains all emotions except hopelessness and despair from its residents)? That's just a fraction of the Outer planes in the standard D&D cosmology.

quote:<STRONG>(Also, hahaha.  "If you're going to be critical, say you don't like it instead of coming up with reasons!"  - I think doing both is fine.)</STRONG>

Nice misquote. I said inventing reasons. As in making them up from thin air instead of forming them from actual truths. Giving reasons is of course a good thing - as long as they're actually grounded in reality instead of delusions or prejudice.

[Capntastic]

Alright.   Taking Mechanus and Acheron and such into account, his suggestions are far far far less creative than D&D's.  My 'invented' reasons are made invalid, and the original suggestions are made to seem a lot worse in the process.

D&D's planes seem to have a lot of specific thought and flavor put into each place , whereas the ones suggested here are about as basic/bland/done-to-death as they were back when plots for console RPGs focused entirely on collecting trinkets representing elements.   Do they still do that?     :p

Anyways, I tried to re-rail the conversation with more suggestions.   I'll give it another go!

Different 'planes' could be different aspects or shards or realities of the same world in an alternate universe or whatever, kinda like the Multiverse in Michael Moorcock's stuff.   In that, pretty much all of the big heroes are the same guy, but in different timelines/realities and such.  Some of his writing isn't well thought out ("Hey let's have different incarnations of this guy meet up and fuse into a giant warrior to kill a god!  And the whole plotline takes place in 10 pages!") but the general idea would be that all worlds created by DF, across every player, would all be aspects of the same world.  And Armok would oversee all, or something.   It sort of borders on an overarching 'plot', which I myself see as blatant heresy towards the plotless style of the game.

But the cruz of this idea is that when customizeable world parameters are in, different 'planes' could be generated by taking the same seed and running it with proceduralized parameters, giving you a glimpse of what your Homeworld would be like if fishmen ruled the world, or if clouds dropped steatite instead of rain.  Along with planes would come the facility to traverse them, perhaps allowing better sharing of savefiles.   Instead of simply opening some other person's save, you could import their world as a different plane of reality, and send your adventurer in to cause a ruckus.  

Regardless, it's all up to Toady to decide what to do when the time is right.

[ December 23, 2007: Message edited by: Capntastic ]

[Aquillion]

quote:Originally posted by Zurai:
<STRONG>

Those planes are not the D&D planes. They don't even resemble the D&D cosmology in the slightest. If you're going to be critical, at least be man enough to say that you just don't like the idea rather than inventing reasons.</STRONG>

I don't mean to be rude, but you all but said that they were ("The law and order planer axis is because I am a fan of DND.")  You didn't use the exact D&D planes, no; you changed a few names, merged a few, and broke apart others, but they follow the same basic layout and are based almost entirely on D&D cosmology.  Why did you have law and order planes?  There isn't really anything about law and order in Dwarf Fortress.  Simple, you had them because D&D does.  Why did you have elemental planes?  There's nothing about that sort of elemental system in Dwarf Fortress.  D&D again.  'Heaven' and 'hell' themed planes?  Again, although the D&D world breaks them up slightly differently, you took them from there again.  Your description of the elemental planes as pure areas of the appropriate element and your description of a 'planer axis' are both taken directly from D&D cosmology.

Maybe you didn't do it deliberately, but that's the end result.  I don't think anyone familiar with the D&D system could look at yours without realizing that you were heavily inspired by it.

I provided many other reasons as well, which you ignored.  What do law and chaos have to do with Dwarf Fortress?  I know you're stuck in the D&D mindset, but not every world views those two things as immutable metaphysical concepts.  Likewise for the four elements.  What makes you think that an obscure, discredited concept of interest to a few western philosophers is of any great significance in the Dwarf Fortress universe?  What do Heaven and Hell, concepts from religions in an entirely different world, have to do with Dwarf Fortress?

And you didn't answer my last point, either.  The real problem is that Dwarf Fortress doesn't have a supernatural cosmology yet, so we can't really talk about the kind of planes you're thinking of meaningfully.

[ December 23, 2007: Message edited by: Aquillion ]

[Captain Failmore]

I know this doesn't have very much to do with the topic, but something that kind of bugged me about this whole light-dark order-chaos bit:

In the most basic sense, chaos would be represented by entropy itself. That means that at the opposite end of the spectrum, you would have the absolute opposite of entropy. Light is a property of energy, while darkness is a property of the absence of energy. Wouldn't the addition of energy to a system or object imply the addition of entropy - as things become more active and harder to confine - while the removal of energy would imply the addition of non-entropy - in that the less energetic a system or object is, the closer it is to stasis and a state of perfect, unchanging order?

I don't see why light should be orderly at all. If there's a god of chaos in the game at some later point at time, he, she, or it should be robed in the disintegrating light of a thousand suns. Order can keep that Hot Topic darkness bullshit and go cry in a corner about how things change while we all party and possibly mutate or dissolve into strange matter with the god of chaos.

[Zurai]

quote:Originally posted by Aquillion:
<STRONG>I don't mean to be rude, but you all but said that they were ("The law and order planer axis is because I am a fan of DND.")  You didn't use the exact D&D planes, no; you changed a few names, merged a few, and broke apart others, but they follow the same basic layout and are based almost entirely on D&D cosmology.  Why did you have law and order planes?  There isn't really anything about law and order in Dwarf Fortress.  Simple, you had them because D&D does.  Why did you have elemental planes?  There's nothing about that sort of elemental system in Dwarf Fortress.  D&D again.  'Heaven' and 'hell' themed planes?  Again, although the D&D world breaks them up slightly differently, you took them from there again.  Your description of the elemental planes as pure areas of the appropriate element and your description of a 'planer axis' are both taken directly from D&D cosmology.

Maybe you didn't do it deliberately, but that's the end result.  I don't think anyone familiar with the D&D system could look at yours without realizing that you were heavily inspired by it.

I provided many other reasons as well, which you ignored.  What do law and chaos have to do with Dwarf Fortress?  I know you're stuck in the D&D mindset, but not every world views those two things as immutable metaphysical concepts.  Likewise for the four elements.  What makes you think that an obscure, discredited concept of interest to a few western philosophers is of any great significance in the Dwarf Fortress universe?  What do Heaven and Hell, concepts from religions in an entirely different world, have to do with Dwarf Fortress?

And you didn't answer my last point, either.  The real problem is that Dwarf Fortress doesn't have a supernatural cosmology yet, so we can't really talk about the kind of planes you're thinking of meaningfully.

[ December 23, 2007: Message edited by: Aquillion ]</STRONG>

First, buy a clue. I'm not the one that presented this idea. The handles "Zurai" and "THLawrence" don't even remotely look alike.

Second, if you're going to quote something and use it to make a point, make sure the quote supports the point you're trying to make. "The law and order planer axis is because I am a fan of DND" is the only reference to D&D in the original post, and there are no law/chaos planes in D&D.

Third, there is no plane of light in D&D.

Fourth, there is no plane of creation in D&D.

Fifth, there is no plane of destruction in D&D.

Sixth, there is no plane of life in D&D.

Seventh, there is no plane of death in D&D.

Eighth, there is no seven planes of Hell in D&D (there's the infinite layers of the abyss and the nine hells, but no Hell based off the seven cardinal sins).

Ninth, there is no elemental plane of ice in D&D.

Tenth, there is no plane of darkness in D&D (there is a plane of shadow, but it's not the same as what's being suggested here).

Eleventh, there is no seven planes of Heaven in D&D (There is a good-aligned plane with seven layers, but it's not based off the seven holy virtues and there are about a half dozen different "heaven" planes).

Basically, the only planes that are in the proposal that exist in the D&D cosmology are the planes of fire, earth, and air, and the astral plane.

Twelfth, I didn't respond to your last point because it wasn't directed at me.

There, twelve things wrong with your post, just in time for Christmas. Frankly, you come off as someone who is completely clueless as to D&D and are opposed to the idea because you're making a spurious connection about something that doesn't exist because of an off-hand comment taken out of context. Your actual criticisms are sound (yes, these planes are extremely generic and don't really fit Dwarf Fortress at all) but you are building it on a shitty, termite-ridden particle board foundation.

I've said it before and I'll say it again here: Your argument can stand on its own two feet. You don't have to invent reasons to dislike this proposal out of thin air.

[Dark]

Welcome to the Plane of Blood, home to Armok. Rivers run red, trees are dead and withered, corpses from here-to-there. The rock is hot with veins of fire and adamantine. Demons freely roam the surface and the deeps. The sky is a deep red colour with clouds black as soot. Menacing Steel Spikes poke out in random places. Here, you never lose the sight of blood, which is how Armok likes it.

Welcome to the Plane of Frostbite, home of the Blizzard Men. The land is an endless white mass, everything is frozen hard, wood is as stiff as rock, your clothes offer no protection from the bladed-wind. Here the Blizzard Men build their ice palaces, cities, homes. Here they live in peace, guarded by the ice bears that never sleep.

Welcome to the Plane of Truth, the home of Death. There is nothing here but truth, and the truth of the endless desert that extends for all eternity in each direction. No life can survive here. What is beneath the sand is more sand, deeper than any ocean you can imagine. The only comfort in this place is the truth that Death will come and take you to see Armok, where your judgement awaits.

[ December 24, 2007: Message edited by: Dark ]

[Draco18s]

quote:Originally posted by Captain Failmore:
<STRONG>I know this doesn't have very much to do with the topic, but something that kind of bugged me about this whole light-dark order-chaos bit:

In the most basic sense, chaos would be represented by entropy itself. That means that at the opposite end of the spectrum, you would have the absolute opposite of entropy. Light is a property of energy, while darkness is a property of the absence of energy. Wouldn't the addition of energy to a system or object imply the addition of entropy - as things become more active and harder to confine - while the removal of energy would imply the addition of non-entropy - in that the less energetic a system or object is, the closer it is to stasis and a state of perfect, unchanging order?</STRONG>

I agree with this statement, as unobvious as it seems (reminds me of someone who--this is their personal belief--said that they'd experienced "heaven" a white nothing, unchanging and unending, the perfectedness of order and law).
Although.
A clock is VERY orderly (if you ignore the tiny bit of entropy in the spring).  It tick-tocks at an extreamly regular level, doing the same thing over and over and over again.  Hence why clockwork is the basis for the D&D plane of order, it doesn't have a powersource, it just ticks.

Life (as in all of it) is quite chaotic (even in the scientific realm where the question was posed, "what effect does life have on the Heat Death of the universe").    Terry Pratchet once wrote about beings who attempted to bring Order back into the universe, The Arbiters.  They traveled in 3s (two to watch the other one) and when came in groups larger, they came in 9s (two sets of three to watch the other two) and they persuaded a briliant clocksmith to build a glass clock which would entrap Time herself and in perfect unchanging-ness they would bring Order.

Though they did go a little crazy when they tried to figure out "art."  Deconstructed it to its constitute atoms and counted.

Oh, and chocolate killed them (well, any food, as they'd never tasted before).

Ah....Theif of Time was an amazing book...

[Dark]

All Discworlds are amazing... we should have a Plane of Discs in honour of it. Everything disc shaped, disc shaped trees, disc shaped rocks, disc shaped world. Of course the dwarves wouldnt be disc shaped because they are outsiders from the Plane of Reality.

[Red Jackard]

well, people keep bringing it up, so i figured this might help: