Hello again,

Well, I have had some feedback from our (wonderful :-) )list moderator who
has indicated that he is willing to allow Online City Discussion on the
list. However, to be fair to others on the list, I am going to impose the
following restriction on any OCP (Online City Project) mail sent to this
mailing list. The subject line must be formatted exactly as follows
(without the quotes of course :-) ):

Subject: "OCP - xxxxxx" where xxxxxx is the subject.

Please remember to observe this 'rule' when replying, forwarding etc as
well as for plain messages. In addition, could everyone please refrain from
posting "I bags xxx area of the city to do" messages (or similar - you know
what I mean), and also do NOT send any of the ideas/NPC's/... you have been
working on (unless informed otherwise).

So to those list members who do not want to see any of these messages
(though I sincerely hope that there are not many who are in this position
:-) ), you can filter out everything which has "OCP" in the subject and
this should solve your dillema.

Now, onto other matters:

1. The Homepage (http://darkstar.cyberserv.com/netbook/city/index.html)
Darkstar (hoss@box.net.au) is hosting and maintaining the homepage, for
which I think he deserves our collective thanks. He is looking for some
pictures of fantasy cities to use. If anyone has any (or can draw some),
send them on to him. Likewise if you think you can help with the homepage,
talk to Darkstar.

2. Steering Committee
I have received quite a positive response on the following organisation
system, so for the benefit of all who don't have access to the message
board or the homepage, I will paste it below:

This method of organisation is the revised form of the organisation system
put up on the message board, and incorporates some of the changes suggested
by Kevin Moss. It consists of 7 (major) categories as follows:

*Magic #1 - Temples*
Temples to all the gods
Healers

*Magic #2 - Wizardly*
College of Magic
Rogue mages and organisations
Sages
Some control over the number of high-level mages (magicians and true wizards)

*Law & Government*
Ruling council (or whatever) structure & members
Local laws/crimes & punishments
City police/sheriffs
Courts/magistrates & judges
Jails & Dungeons
Imperial (Iron) throne & the Chamberlain's office
Imperial Heralds

*Defence & Military Matters*
City guard and/or watch
City defences (includes military units)
Imperial navy
Mercenaries guild (or equivalent)
Mercenary companies (for hire)
Bounty hunters
Training Academies

*Guilds*
Thieves guild(s)
Assassin(s) (organised??)
Spies
Red light district/whorehouses
Smuggling operations
Major & minor trading houses/companies
Markets
Noteworthy shops (weapons/armour/horses/healers...)

*Other/Miscellaneous*
Split into various sub-categories as follows:
- --->Historical Sites: including Imperial Palace, Old College of Sorcery
building...etc
- --->Public Works: The city map, cartographers, roads, transport system
(ferries), Imperial harbour & boating, sewers,
- --->Accomodation: inns, taverns, bars, hotels, adventurer's shops...etc
- --->Cultural: Museum(s), art galleries, Theatre, Universities, Library
- --->Non-human Quarters: the non-human parts of town (elves, halflings,
dwarves, anything else).
Powerful/interesting/important NPCs, not fitting anywhere else
Anything which does not fit anywhere else

Some other suggestions to change this include:
* join the two magic groups together
* join the military & government groups together.

What does everyone think of this system?

If anyone wishes to be considered for the steering committee (whatever
shape it takes), then email me (slg@nw.com.au), and include what sections
of the city you would (or would not) like to 'steer'.

Also, if anyone thinks they can perform some job (other than being on the
steering committee) which will help the project (like darkstar is
maintaining the website) that has not been brought up yet, email me with
your ideas.

3. Submission Structure
darkstar has given the following feedback on a way that the submission
process could work. What does everyone think?

>As I said in a few messages when this was starting up I only intend
>running the webpage so I was thinking something like the following.
>
>Anyone who wants to submit something sends it to either you or the
>steering comittee and it is then decided on if to accept it or not. If
>you like I can set up a page where files can be stored so you can look
>at them.
>
>Once it has been accepted it can be sent to me (txt/word6/html prefered)
>and I will convert it to html and add it the page. Also any announcments
>etc send a copy to me and I will put it in the information for the city.

I will add my opinion, and say that before someone decides to design
something they should talk to the (relevant) steering committee member.
This prevents duplication of work, and will allow people to easily get in
touch with anyone if they want to work together on some idea. Also, it
allows the 'steering committee' to keep track of the work going on in their
area and ensure that there is an even coverage of material (obviously some
things will require more detail than others). Following the go-ahead from
the relevant committee member, the 'design' could be submitted to them for
initial appraisal. If the OK is given, then it would be passed onto the
homepage, where others could read it and pass on their comments.

What I would love to see is some way where others could leave a comment on
the web-page, about the submission, for the designer (and everyone else) to
see. If people wish to interact their designs, it would allow them to get
in contact eassily. I don't know how this could be done (I don't know
anything about html..:-( ) so if anyone has any ideas, contact me.

4. Contact Information of Project Members
There will need to be some record of who everyone is, what area they are
working on, how to get in contact with them somewhere. Again, Darkstar has
proposed putting the email links on a page on his (or someone else's?)
site.

I am busy trying to set up the steering committee, and the details of
design submission etc, so I don't want my mailbox to be filled with
messages saying "I want to be in on this and write about such-and-such".
Just in case it is not clear enough, DO NOT post this sort of thing to the
mailing list. If someone out there is willing to collate this information
about the contributors, that would be a great help. Please contact me
*privately* and we can arrange how you want this to be done and I will
announce it to the list.

5. Those files
The attachments I sent to the list yesterday (sorry about that, btw) didn't
come out very well. There were a lot of spaces missing in the text. You can
find the corrected files on the homepage.

6. City Map
This is going to be one of the most difficult parts of the project (I
think) - translating all those locations into a map of the Imperial City.
Somebody once suggested a separate group in charge of 'mapping' the city
and putting everything on the map. Someone put a map on the net, drawn by
one of their players, but I've lost the URL (sorry). Could that person
contact me (I already have the map) so we can discuss possibly using it (or
it's general layout). If anyone else has any maps of the Imperial City that
could be used, we could display them on the homepage for everyone to vote
on. We needn't adopt the exact map, but just the general layout/idea of it.
I'm kind of rambling here, and I have to admit I am quite stuck on this
mapping bit, so if anyone has any ideas, please put them forward.

Well, I will leave it at that, and let people start some discussion on this
subject. Please provide some feedback on what I have said. Also, note that
due to the fact that I live in Australia (the *best* country in the world
:-) ), there will be some delay in responding to things.

Regards from down under,

Simon