My suggestion will be simple and brief, since I haven't been sleeping very well:

Whereas stages accept bards and occasionally hold performances, the Lyceums would be facilities for IC cultural and intellectual discussion, attached either to the Libraries or Collegiums. Each Lyceum would have a few or more lecture rooms organized by subject where NPC professors would recite the speeches and doctrines of premade and/or just player-written philosophy, science, religion, and so on.

The hardest part of Lusternia has been finding something meaningful that captures me. I was very excited when I first came to Magnagora and began about my Collegium tasks, especially the ones regarding history. I loved how elaborate the Viscanti culture seemed to be and hoped to emerge after my studies into a city whose guilds followed, built upon, and encouraged such depth in their roleplay. While some definitely appear to do so more than others, I found myself in a rather nebulous place without any given direction to motivate me. No one and nothing drew me further into the game after that. I was oblivious. My interest gradually waned until I flickered out. I quit Magnagora, ground my way to level 80, and I haven't logged in since.

What I have noticed is that people who roleplay well (in my opinion) take brilliantly from the world around them, and reflect that light to make the game a much richer environment. Establishing the Lyceums will give a very powerful (but not dogmatic) source from which enthusiastic new players seeking guidance for concepts can take!

(unless you want us to be cat-eared faelings)


...But what do I know?

Please discuss!

NOTE!: My story is just an example of how the Lyceums could have had a positive affect. This thread isn't about the end of roleplay and how we must fend it off, but a new feature.

Neat idea. I wonder if guilds and people would use the allready existing stages to create these plays that teach you stuff like that. And I wonder if they would be watched by people/directed to them.

I believe the fact that the stages could be used for this idea is a very plausible point - in fact, so much so that perhaps somebody should make an attempt at it.

I like. Will we be able to use (magical) Powerpoint slides?

You can use illusions, so I'm sure you can illusion images on a flat screen if you feel like it. Though why you wouldn't just make them 3D is beyond me.

I can't use illusions, which is why I'd like something like that for lectures.

You can if you're directing on a stage.

I know, but why hold a lecture on a stage? Kinda seems off, though I know I can create a lectern as a prop or something to make it look more scholarly. Also, it wouldn't make sense for me, as a non-illusionist, to have flashing images for no reasons. If I had some magical screen, which I can 'tap on' to form those images, it would make more sense, no?

If I had the time I'd make a play that shows the history of the world, from the point of view of saying that the taint is a really powerfull illusion.

This paragraph doesn't make sense with what little I know about the stage system...

You know what will be awesome? IG lectures of the Histories, using the system Vhaas mentioned above.

In Glom at least, I see more lectures than plays on the stage. Also if you don't think that it makes sense for stages to be able to have "flashing images" etc, then either you don't approve of anything ever done on the stages, or you don't understand the concept of what stages mean IC. The whole point of a stage is to facilitate illusions in-game without having to learn the skill. I mean, "replays" are just grand illusions made possible because of the stage: why wouldn't stages let people use illusions there?

I do not know much about the stage system, because I have never seen it in action. The idea here is that these NPCs would be automated to give their lectures at regular intervals or as requested by those attending. They would 'say' and 'emote' from a predetermined, player-made and admin/city approved script.

On the one hand:

1.) This similar to a C/GHELP scroll

2.) and might be abused in the way of senior players referring novices to the Lyceums rather than answering their questions directly.

In the other:

1.) C/GHELP scroll material isn't exactly what I had in mind. I had envisioned content similar to what you find in the Library, but more accessible and (more importantly) being promoted by the city. Well-written treatises on the Taint would be presented in Magnagora with a healthy does of nationalistic opinions, for example, and thus contribute to exerting a theme.

2.) It seems to me that when things are bad this is basically what goes on anyways, but with the less engaging and sometimes vague or limited. The lectures would teach a player the fundamental principles and impart the general perspective of her organization.

For all the pros and cons, I wouldn't want to see this added as a substitute for player guidance or anything else, but as an additional feature.

This is pretty much already available, if you can find a God willing to facilitate it... and somebody willing to write up all of those mprogs. Weeky Pedia does some similar stuff, I'm sure if the Magnagoran leadership wanted to create an area like this, Fain would facilitate that.

I'm just not sure it's worth it. I know how long it's been since the Harbingers were asked to come up with stuff just for their guild tutor, and I know that she's still not all that fleshed out.

comedy play: history of the world part 1?

While it might be nice to do this without the baggage of "stages are for plays", you're talking about a considerable investment in coding/building to make something that's 99% identical to what stages already are and already can do and already have been doing practically since day one, just to avoid some baggage people have with the word "stage". I think it'd make a lot more sense to just go use your stage for it. HELP THEATER already explicitly states that stages are for "productions, such as plays, concerts, speeches, and ceremonies" after all.

(BTW, wouldn't it be lycea? )

I'm not saying that stages should be just for plays, although I must admit I had a slight misconception inclined towards that.

Maybe I don't understand the purposes, or the qualities of the stages. For me, I've always thought that the 'illusions' allowed in stages are so that there can be a more flexible way of displaying other than having to have your name in front of everything like in emoting. I've always imagined it more as scene-changes, stuff that involve props and maybe certain plausible 'special effects' (like wind blowing or snow falling). Sure, we could treat it as literal illusions to create scenes which are really impossible, but one can do that with emoting as well. Say, for example, I emote: Caerulo has slain Fain. Does that mean it happened? Same goes for stages. I could create a play where I summon a huge fireball with Estarra's face on it, but how did I do it, even within a stage? CG special effects? Unless the stages are specifically magical in nature, I don't know if it works that way.

Even if the scenes aren't explicitly magical in nature, everyone treats them like that.

CGI special effects is an excellent way of looking at it, actually. My later plays often were done with more "low tech" means (you can hear stagehands moving around behind closed curtains) but earlier ones, and most done by other people, are very free with the illusions that the stage generates.

Anyway, that's the one part you wouldn't need at all if you're doing a speech. You could certainly have "informational illusions" used in an educational production but you could also just have you (playing yourself or someone else) reciting a narrative. One of my more popular "plays", How Autumn Got Its Colours, is just a fairy tale fable being essentially recited as an act of storytelling, with a very thin veneer of putting my daughter to bed first so it can be a bedtime story, and her reacting to the story.

I think you'll be surprised at how apt the stages can be for what you imagine if you give them a try. Go nudge your bard guilds and have them show you.

I do have some ideas for using the stage which are not conventional plays. I do wonder, though, if the stages are considered magical. It would make a rather big difference as to how those ideas would develop.


Edit: Actually, I was joking about the Powerpoint slides thing, but I think it raises an important question. Sorry for hijacking your idea, Vhaas, I still like it. Stuff like the History collegium quests would have really helped me when I first started.