The world is flat.
The world does rests upon four elephants, upon an infinite pillar of turtles.
The earth flooded for over a month.
The universe was created in six days.
Lycanthropy is an infectious disease.
Dragons roam the skies picking off unwary travellers.
Wizards battle over magically charged realms.
Witchcraft is a science, not a religion.
They don't all happen in the same irreality, however
In
Irreality I made suggestions about how computer games could allow us to create our own
computer generated
worlds.
However, there is a problem.
All of these fantasies do not simulaneously exist in any one fictional universe. A world where Robin Hood continues to rob the rich to feed the poor, or a world where vampires and werewolves slug it out over the cities behind the veil, or a world before history, where elves, pixies, hobbits, dwarves, trolls, orcs and goblins live are all self-coherent: they all make sense within their own confines.
However, they cannot be easily put together in a whole that makes any sort of sense. Nottingham must be a medieval city with hundreds of poor quality houses where carts trundle by on cobbled stones; it must also be a modern city with traffic jams and car parks; it must also be a grassy knoll with warrens, caves and other non-human structures.
But there is a bigger problem: how can a modern RPG (for that is what I am talking about) be considered remotely serious where some characters don't exist (like Elves and Pixies), where magic exists? Without some sort of major plotline, probably involving either a time machine or an invasion of aliens: Elves, trolls and hobbits, it's not going to be happening.
So these places need to exist in different universes, where characters can not cross over.
There are other problems, however: the quality of Role Playing. Some people are going to be looking for a nice place to hang out; others are going to be looking for somewhere more attuned to enabling a realistic story of a different reality; others looking for fame and glory.
So how can these all be pulled together to a semi-coherent OOC whole?
At the moment, each multiplayer system has its own rules, commands and other differences. If a single system could be devised, it would make playing these games much easier, and the changes between them easier still.
Imagine the Nexus from Star Trek: Generations. Whilst written out of a need to preserve James T. Kirk for a century or so, it serves our needs. It is much like the OOC lounge that exists on GarouMUSH - some RP goes on there, but it is only light humoured. If you move away from the Nexus, you move into other people's worlds. These people have control over their own domains, enforcing RP rules, setting the plotlines, and other work. Essentially, these worlds would be developed by individuals, corporations and many other setups. The software to run this may be free, it may be paid for. The individual worlds may charge a one-off administation fee to cover costs; they may also be free.
Each universe controls its own destiny; one log-in can control many characters. You can play on a light-hearted ares, then move into more serious roleplaying when there's enough people to do so.