Anonymous

Well met Nadie
 
I personally am well aware of that in the Lore but find people tire of me pointing out stuff like that. /shrug. So to clarify - which city-states rose and dominated, in that sense. I have a personal and professional interest in spending time working that sort of fine detail no one ever sees but it's not always shared
 
It would seem we misundertood the OP however.
 
And in that context - yeah - just Players is fine. We don't need a label for each other beyond that, and externally it just makes us sound cultish, like EvEers or WoWers or any other social media tribe. In my mind - if DU us teh awesome, we don't need to label ourselves - only everyone else as we are the "normal" in terms of relative comparisons.
 
(And I may have spent too much of today buried in semantic modelling so also feel free to ignore me )

Make it the greek symbol Psi (used essentially to denote quanta in real life - I know - not exact but close enough).
 
Maybe it's like an open at the top O drawn counter clockwise with the top right then dropping down straight through. I'll edit later and show examples as I'm on my phone atm.)

Like this but without breaching copyright
 
http://larastock.com/shutterstock-photo-510777964/

Make it the greek symbol Psi (used essentially to denote quanta in real life - I know - not exact but close enough).
 
Maybe it's like an open at the top O drawn counter clockwise with the top right then dropping down straight through. I'll edit later and show examples as I'm on my phone atm.)

And just a gentle reminder from your local... me.
 
If you can make it in HTML and CSS, someone smart can probably work out all sorts of tricks they can play with your DOM/UI/CSS/HTML/script (and in game / within the ToS. Immersion.)
 
Before you all get too carried away Just saying.
 
As you were.

In the last video JC said that we'll be able to customize our own widgets for constructs in HTML & CSS. If you want a quick, interactive (and fun?) way to learn at least the basics, i suggest you to try this: https://www.codecademy.com/ , it does have some well done tutorials, easy to understand even for someone with no experience. I'm not related to that website, i'm not even sure i can post it so feel free to remove this post if it's the case, but it has been helpful to me so i'll share that with you. 

Well, in the lore we can find have some answer to your questions:
-The worlds seems to be almost the same in terms of countries, only the fact that the UMF buildings are over the world.
-The UMF seems to be called representatives
-And copy-pasted : "By the end of the 22nd century, almost everyone was speaking at least two languages: the global language (the “common”) and their local native language, each city-state having somehow evolved a variant from their original country’s language."
 
Hope I have solved some of your questions.
 
To OP, I prefer the term Earthling in the way we are like aliens to Alioth...

This is quite simple.
 
Those who were alive pre-leaving would refer to themselves by the identifier they previously used. Terran, Martian, Belter, Titan.
 
Those who are born on Alioth, or are so "native" as to having lost all previous connection - Aliothan (or Aliothi) would be appropriate.
 
Arkers, Novarkers etc etc would not likely be used since most people were on them less than a day or two really, in terms of "awake" time - mentally, most would likely feel the Ark was a bit like 'a very short bus trip where you fall asleep and have a vivid dream before being waken before you are ready because we're at your stop.'
 
HOWEVER - there is little chance that the countries which exist now would exist then, and a range of new "countries" would exist in some places, and have been dissolved in most, replaced with single world governments, or corporate powers. It's why I call my character an Terran (where I live) Anzaki (my cultural/genetic stock), not an Australian, and he politically is an Aetherean (as opposed to an Etherean, Alpha etc).
 
A more salient question would be "what are the countries of the world when we leave", or "what does a UMF'er call themselves", or "what languages are still spoken (and thus - what cultures still exist).

This is quite simple.
 
Those who were alive pre-leaving would refer to themselves by the identifier they previously used. Terran, Martian, Belter, Titan.
 
Those who are born on Alioth, or are so "native" as to having lost all previous connection - Aliothan (or Aliothi) would be appropriate.
 
Arkers, Novarkers etc etc would not likely be used since most people were on them less than a day or two really, in terms of "awake" time - mentally, most would likely feel the Ark was a bit like 'a very short bus trip where you fall asleep and have a vivid dream before being waken before you are ready because we're at your stop.'
 
HOWEVER - there is little chance that the countries which exist now would exist then, and a range of new "countries" would exist in some places, and have been dissolved in most, replaced with single world governments, or corporate powers. It's why I call my character an Terran (where I live) Anzaki (my cultural/genetic stock), not an Australian, and he politically is an Aetherean (as opposed to an Etherean, Alpha etc).
 
A more salient question would be "what are the countries of the world when we leave", or "what does a UMF'er call themselves", or "what languages are still spoken (and thus - what cultures still exist).

If people think wider, they'll find plenty of reasonable uses for laws (and regulations) beyond pure security, contraband etc. laws and whatnot.

Other: Mix of biomes. Singular biome planets are a silly idea - no planet has that outside Star Wars etc, and even minecraft was doing it over a decade ago.
 
Why limit ourselves?

Other: Mix of biomes. Singular biome planets are a silly idea - no planet has that outside Star Wars etc, and even minecraft was doing it over a decade ago.
 
Why limit ourselves?

+1 - I asked OP in discord to add "Alien" as an option. Could easily be "Alien/Hostile" - spacesuits/helmets mandatory, stuff we don't have on Earth. Flying jellyfish trees and ammonia seas etc.

While we may prefer the more "decent" regions in reality (depending on what we're used to), in these games the hellish and hostile landscapes attract me.
 
There's various 'preferences'.
 
Can include:
 
- Lava all over and lack of atmosphere and whatnot
- Poisonous, greenish or similar with heavy industrial pollution and active or abandoned factories, mining installations, etc.
- War torn with settlements or cities left over, grey-ish bombed landscape - active fires optional
- Snow biome
 
The more bizarre and hostile to life or any scanning (with bare eye or technical), the better. I consider that passive defense.
 
Then again I would just as well roam in the biomes we're used to and chances are those more "lively" biomes will be a more favorable choice for settlements and whatnot, and thus commerce.
 
Time will tell.

Other: Mix of biomes. Singular biome planets are a silly idea - no planet has that outside Star Wars etc, and even minecraft was doing it over a decade ago.
 
Why limit ourselves?

"
 I simply stared at my screen for half a minute, before I remembered to breathe! Thanks a lot to Kurock, or I wouldn't have found out about the great news till tomorrow! 
 
It's been a wonderful, thrilling experience, and much like Devious_T, this is the first time my writing has won anything at all, but it would be utterly selfish for me to claim all the credit!
 
So, many thanks to Novaquark for providing something to write about - more importantly something interesting and bold to write about. The guidelines may have been a constraint, but, they helped to narrow down my thoughts to a very large extent! Thanks for providing something to put a lot of effort into! 
 
Secondly, thanks to my faithful friends in The Aether who shared enough about themselves, directly and indirectly to provide a solid character plot! The encouragement did much more than you would ever know, my friends, and thanks a lot for all the meaningful discussions we held! Thanks to Arkanos and Anon, who remained in wonderful spirits and joyous air throughout and even after the contest. I'll be rooting for you guys the next time!
 
Thirdly, an exclusive thank you to Almanac for his tutorship and help with my submission. He added a lot of depth, picked out more typos and corrected even more things that would certainly have made the masterpiece a mere artwork. Thanks, Almanac - I owe you!
 
A huge thank you to WilksChekov, Lethys, yamamushi, Twerk and Kurock for their groundbreaking help and sportsmanship. It's wonderful to compete when you have friendly rivals like Lethys and Kurock: they are the most gentlemanly rivals I could ever find outside of The Aether and I look forward to many more of your works, both in literature and in the game. 
 
Lastly, it would be depravity not to thank the entire Dual Universe Community. Some of you have read my works, but I have interacted with a lot more of you. It's rock solid safe to say that this Community has provided me with more friends and acquaintances than I ever would have imagined. Some of your character traits found their place within That Bright Dawn and I sincerely look forward to much more interaction in the future. 
 
 
It feels great to win something, but even greater to acknowledge all the help I received in winning it. So, thank you to Novaquark, everyone in The Aether, the folks back at Discord and everyone on the Forums. I look forward to much more pleasurable memories. 
 
 
Cheers. 
"

Congratulations all. Well done.

Greetings.
 
I am a passionate role player. I see a small problem: A server for all players. I have no way to go to an RP shard to find like-minded people. It is difficult with strangers. I can not know who does roleplay and who does not.
 
My wish:
Give me a command to color my display name.
 
Here's an example:

Type /rp on
to turn your name white(?) and signal to other role-players that you are ready for roleplay or are role-playing.
 
Type /rp off
to turn your name back to yellow(?) to signal to others that you are not role-playing.
 
Type /rp
to display your role-playing status.
 

I am well aware that it is for a minority. Alone by this color change, I know if I can appeal to role play.
 
And since we are on the subject:

Add a /me command to the local chat.
/me is the command used to describe an action that your character is doing. 
 
Here is an example that you type in the local chat: "/me sits down on the bench, and yawns." 
Output in Chat: "SirJohn85 sits down on the bench, and yawns."
 
 
Cheers!

Aiken regards you with the baleful glare that only annoyed bartenders can muster and leans over the bar and looks down at the large man out cold on the floor. "Should make you pay for that ya tool." he mumbles before straightening. "Oi! Charlene. Grab a mop. N' tell sunshine over there to do his fuckin' job while you're at it. Mick's come a cropper."
 
The young lady in question (lady being a generous label) is already moving, the altercation not having gone unnoticed, despite the noise of the bar starting up again as any show that was on offer is obviously not forthcoming. She drops a little yellow "wet floor" A-frame sign next to the man and starts picking up the remnants of the mug carefully. At the same time another figure appears through the press of patrons. The man is of average build and from a distance he is what springs to mind when looking for a definition of "nondescript" other than the darkened welders goggles he wears, not an uncommon piece of street wear in a place  like Port Drum. To the trained eye, he is someone who is otherwise practiced at not drawing attention to himself.
 
His build belies his strength as he lifts the unconscious Mick from the floor and into a fireman's carry with seemingly no effort, and carries him off to a corner booth where the poor drunk can sleep off his misery. The man, obviously a bouncer of some description, pointedly returns, and taking a seat at the far end of the bar where he can keep an eye on you as much as the rest of the room, picks up a new tablet and starts flicking through it. 
 
Aiken finally acknowledges you. "Ya choice is what's on tap, or basic spirits." he states, seemingly unimpressed, or unsuprised at the incident. Customer service is obviously not a strong point with him.

To add to this: Speaking as someone involved in the creation of such financial systems - what one sees today in the stock market is an evolution driven system based on needs - namely volume and the 24 hour trading cycle.
 
DU, for a long time, won't have the first, and well, unless we are talking planets to scale and time zones and rotation, we will never need to over come the second. So we will never need anything so complex as the real world.
 
As for my 2 cents on this topic - FWIW I agree with NQ on development priorities - this isn't a huge one.
 
Of course,  I would love to see these sorts of things IN-GAME so we can build constructs that display information to people, because, emergent game play etc. I think in that spirit it should be firmly limited to providing the means (read-only basically) for players to record local observations about the game world, and then it is up to us as developer-players to build our own in-game solutions which provide services to players.
 
NQ should not have to do our work for us. Think of them as Platform-as-a-Service. You've got to do the SaaS side yourself.
 
(Upon reflection - really what we should be asking for is permission to create API's in game, and for NQ to provide a very simple GET "web-service" that lets us grab only the limited basic game data which is relevant - namely some location information (where am I in the game world), Org names/ids, Character id number (not names - that's our job), Object ID. Really, anything else is something we, the players, could observe and track ourselves, including making connections and relationships between those things.)
 
While we are at it - ideally, we'd make the market mechanisms for the game, not NQ - they should provide the simple mechanism of being able to exchange things between two people. It should be up to us to build trading systems to handle stuff once the Alioth colony grows beyond what basic barter and coin exchange can provide. That's half the fun of an emergent sandbox game - like real life, working out innovative solutions to problems using the tools at your disposal).

It seems important to clarify a few things
 
- Why Novaquark implemented LUA script in Dual Universe:
 
The main goal is not to give a tremendous advantage to developers.
First, because LUA implementation has been decided for enabling more creativity freedom regarding the design of constructs like spaceship, not to automatize everything with bots. In short, we want for those having development skills to be able to use their talent  and be recognized for their contribution in the community, not to become the masterminds in control of everything.
Second, because there will be probably limits to what you can do with LUA scripts, for game balance.
 
- About Wallstreet and NASDAQ examples:
 
The fact that it exists in real life doesn't mean it's a perfect system and should be copied exactly the same way in our game. The real world has flaws, that's a fact. We probably won't create a perfect system, but we can at least learn from the mistakes made in the real world. We know that almost all transactions in real time have been automatized with advanced bots reacting to the microsecond at Wallstreet. Is this really a good thing? everyone can have a different opinion on this. Is it a fun system? it's safe to assume it's not, because nearly no human action is required anymore. If it's not a fun system, then it might become questionable to implement this in a game, as the primary goal of a game is to have fun, not necessarily to copy exactly what exist in the real world. Yes, we aim to offer a realistic game world to players... to the limit where it starts to hurt the game experience.
 
Best regards,
Nyzaltar

Aiken regards you with the baleful glare that only annoyed bartenders can muster and leans over the bar and looks down at the large man out cold on the floor. "Should make you pay for that ya tool." he mumbles before straightening. "Oi! Charlene. Grab a mop. N' tell sunshine over there to do his fuckin' job while you're at it. Mick's come a cropper."
 
The young lady in question (lady being a generous label) is already moving, the altercation not having gone unnoticed, despite the noise of the bar starting up again as any show that was on offer is obviously not forthcoming. She drops a little yellow "wet floor" A-frame sign next to the man and starts picking up the remnants of the mug carefully. At the same time another figure appears through the press of patrons. The man is of average build and from a distance he is what springs to mind when looking for a definition of "nondescript" other than the darkened welders goggles he wears, not an uncommon piece of street wear in a place  like Port Drum. To the trained eye, he is someone who is otherwise practiced at not drawing attention to himself.
 
His build belies his strength as he lifts the unconscious Mick from the floor and into a fireman's carry with seemingly no effort, and carries him off to a corner booth where the poor drunk can sleep off his misery. The man, obviously a bouncer of some description, pointedly returns, and taking a seat at the far end of the bar where he can keep an eye on you as much as the rest of the room, picks up a new tablet and starts flicking through it. 
 
Aiken finally acknowledges you. "Ya choice is what's on tap, or basic spirits." he states, seemingly unimpressed, or unsuprised at the incident. Customer service is obviously not a strong point with him.

Hi all.
 
Ok - this is simple, old school, forum based roleplay.
 
Play nice, give people chances to take actions, don't power play, all that type of thing.
 
I've deliberately set it over 100 years ago so people can play whatever character they like without having in-game character issues etc. It's all for fun. Please only post in-character - any out-of-character questions etc, start a new related thread please.
 
Anon.
 
<<Datetime: 24240124-19360000Z11>>
<<Location: geo:-31.2,136.816667>> 
 
Over one hundred years ago...
 
It is a dark and stormy night when you arrive at Port Drum. If you are a regular of the three day trip to or from from Armstrong Crater, you know this is always the case, a side effect of some 20 moon-shots and returns a day.
 
Port Drum is one of the world's busiest lunar transit sites, handling most of the non-commercial traffic bound to or from in-system. As a transport hub, it is intensely busy, and one would be forgiven for not realising that not even a kilometre away was the end of a teeming transient populace and the start of desert for as far as the eye could see, until one eventually hit Perth some 2500 kilometres (around 1600 miles) away. Originally it was a military testing range, this sprawling space port covering an area larger than England named Woomera by the original inhabitants – now gone centuries past when the Australian mainland had become too damaged by climate change to sustain human settlement. Perth, the closest real urban centre, was now the most isolated (and subterranean) city in the world – a last stubborn holdout against a Southern Hemisphere summer which would kill an exposed man in under an hour. People finding themselves in Port Drum aren't like the huddled masses scratching out an existence in the camps around the Arks - people here have stories to tell.
 
Aiken’s Bar is typical of the drinking holes one finds in places which people never really call home. Dark, smoke filled and possessed with the quiet murmur of people who don’t like or trust the general patronage, and prefer to huddle in their own small cliques, talking amongst themselves.
 
You pause at the top of the steps, wondering if you are making the right choice entering. This was not your place, not your world. Your mianzi – your social standing and reputation, mean nothing here. But it doesn't look at first glance that those within give a tinker’s cuss about saving, or losing, face, or indeed, what level of social influence they exert at all. These people are Belters for the most part – miners and spacers who provide much of the raw materials required by a high technology society, let alone the Project Rebirth, which can not be sourced natively on Earth.
 
As you descend into the darkness, the details of the bar become clearer. Behind the bar stands the bartender, a short, skinny and mostly toothless Latino who you take took to be the bar owning Aiken in question, (by simple virtue of his black tool-jock’s shirt with his name stitched in cursive white over the pocket). He nods at you uninterestedly.
 
Scattered throughout the crowd are the obvious Alphas, easily spotted – off duty ship-security types, mercenaries, one or two off duty UMF officers, some escort pilots and more than a few of what you are pretty sure are pirates of various shades. Violence has remained, despite the calm of the world, surprisingly common place once one leaves atmosphere.
 
In other corners you spot Ethereans, discussing art, philosophy and politics, Emporeans cutting deals and more than one drunken Luminous academic debating with their peers, and every other representation of humanity one can think of.

Never before have I felt the urge to do something stupid this much. I'm not your average, sane human being. No, two years ago, I wondered whether I was even human. "Perhaps," I thought, "perhaps, I am a robot that has lost consciousness of being a robot."
It sounded crazy, even to me, but after hours of searching every part of my body for screws, locks, metal or even silicon, I was back at square one - plus a few dozen bruises and cuts across my body. Now, I look round this bar and suddenly feel like thrashing the whole place. I walk over to the counter and give the best smile I can manage at the bartender. It was one of those smiles you see models flash on commercials that advertise the newest toothpaste. He looks at me with the usual disinterest that's found in most of these sorry people, before his eyes go wide and he moves back on instinct.  
 
"What? Is there something in my teeth?" I ask, feeling my teeth with a weathered hand. He keeps his distance, eyeing with me with a strange expression of caution and impatience. Ignoring him, I rise from the desk and lean over the counter to stare at my teeth through the reflective glass bar on the other side. The bartender moves back a bit more, knocking over a man's glass of beer and pushing another customer's drink off the table and unto the melancholy man's trousers in an effort to save himself from falling. 
 
"There's nothing wrong with my face." I mutter, checking the somewhat long canines to see if they grew shorter. Perhaps, that's what ticked him off?
 
The man with the wet trousers is about to sit down when I snatch the stool from under him and take a seat. He falls down to the ground like a sack of potatoes and I signal the bartender to bring me a drink. The man just stares at me with wide eyes. 
 
"A drink. Getränk. A cup o' ale. Boisson." I enunciate, making the drink gesture with my left hand. 
 
He looks beyond me at the source of the big shadow and points at it, slowly. Instinctively, I turn round to face the Sack of Potatoes with the wet trousers glaring at me. 
 
"A Moravian cocktail. Shaken, not stirred." I say to him, taking a seat.
 
The man stares at me like a raving banshee about to howl. Does anyone here speak English at all? 
 
He grabs me by the collar and pushes me against the counter, bringing his face an inch away from mine. His eyes are narrowed like flint, his face is red, his mouth is narrowed to a scowl and his breath could exterminate a colony of termites. He is...angry...I guess? What did I do? But his mouth is way too close to mine for comfort.
 
"No, thanks. I'm not into men." I say, raising my two hands up, then thinking the better of it and trying to push him away, lest he steal a kiss and transfer that odious smell into my mouth.
 
Without a word, he growls and slams me against the counter. In that moment, I notice a small fly on his trousers. You know that spot where they the crotch is, no? I wonder what its looking for there, but I should do this man a favour and get rid of it. I move my leg back and with all the strength in me, I kick the fly. My leg makes contact, just catching the fly and the man howls. Very loud. Like a banshee. 
 
He sinks to his knees holding that spot like a child clutching a teddy bear. He's still howling like a crazed spirit: making "Aaaaaw! Oooo-ooo! Aaaaaw!" sounds and the noise is attracting attention. Perhaps, I should make him quiet? 
 
I look round the counter and find a heavy looking mug. It looks wonderful for the job: it's around eight inches tall and three inches across, with a rim half an inch thick. The edges are rough and remind me of the granite stones in the Armstrong Crater - why - it seems like the mug is made out of rock itself! Splendid. I pick the stone mug and with a decent amount of effort, bring it down on his head. There is a deep sound, like a bass guitar turned down to two or three decibels and the bar is totally quiet. Satisfied, I face the counter and take a seat. The mug has served it's purpose, so I toss it behind me and there's another quiet and deep bass guitar like sound followed by what must be the stone mug falling. I face the shaking man who has the "Aiken" name tag on his chest.
 
"A Moravian cocktail, bartender." I say and quickly add: "shaken, not stirred."

Hi all
 
So as promised, here's the entry I was going to submit for Novawrimo round 1 before time and life collided with each other.
 
On the upside, I took a couple of extra days to have friends proofread, so no spelling mistakes!
 
Authors Notes / Glossary:
 
Anzaki - derived from the old acronym ANZAC (Australian & New Zealand Army Corps), referring the to Armed Forces of two 21st century nation states. The Anzaki were the product of an inter-generational  genetic program designed to produce better soldiers. Originally a culturally homogenous Australian & New Zealand population drawn from the family and members of a large semi-permanent deployment of troops who were effectively stranded and isolated overseas when the governments of those two countries collapsed. The results of Anzaki gene tailoring include improved immune systems and physical health and well being (a way to explain the general lack of sickness and minor injury in MMO's), and notably, an almost complete suppression of the flight reflex, through careful application of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance. To the common person, the Anzaki were renowned for exhibiting virtually no fear in battle, never having retreated, fierce loyalty to their comrades, and surviving at any cost.
  Australia - 26th century Australia is largely uninhabitable, largely due to extreme climate conditions. Much of the population that remains is centered on the South East Coast, and around the Perth Metroplex. Port Drum, the southern hemisphere's major launch site for Lunar and in-system traffic is located some 2000km east of Perth.
  Genie - Slang term for genetically engineered or tailored people. By international consensus following bioweapon attacks during the 22nd century, such individuals are readily identifiable by the synthetic gene tailoring of pteridine pigment xanthopterin within certain chromatophores called xanthophores located in the iris stoma, resulting in a bright amber eye colour similar to that of the Great Horned Owl.
  Tomorrow Men - Slang term for convicted individuals who have been sentenced to military penal unit. Such individuals are traded between governments and corporate interests as assets. They are kept in cyrogenic storage until needed, and then deployed into conflict areas where the loss of life would be considered prohibitive for regular troops. The life expectancy of such individuals is quite low (17 days on average). The use of the term stems from the dark joke that each prisoner's release date is usually listed in a system simply as "tomorrow" (or today + 1), because tomorrow never comes... the_tomorrow_man.pdf