Hi everyone,

Well, at last, after a rather extended (ie. longer than I would have liked)
period of absence and infancy, the Online City Project has come into reality. So
now it is time for all of *YOU* to start to contribute to this project (which
your enthusiasm has helped to spawn).

A rather lengthy page has been added (or will soon be) to the OCP homepage (the
URL is in my sig if you haven't already bookmarked it). This contains many of
the things that we, the steering committee, have been talking about excitedly
for the last few weeks. Aspects such as the city layout, law, magic, trade and
many things specific to the design groups are covered. As well, some comments
are provided on the entry the City of Anuire has devoted to it in the Ruins of
Empire. We (the whole project) plan to stick to any published source material as
closely as possible, and this section gives our interpretations of this material
(only that from the RoE book). The information is meant to capture the 'feel' of
the city, and be an aid to design. It is NOT a set of concrete rules by which
you must all abide. So please, with that in mind, go and read the document and
then join up on this project.

We need as many people to join us as possible. Don't sit back and wait, because
the project IS going ahead, as of NOW. There is no 'limit' to the number of
contributors, and we are not going to stop anyone from changing groups if they
want to work on a particular project. If you want to join in, say, a month from
now, then that will be fine too.

The first projects are tentatively down as follows:

Magic: several NPC's which can be used to introduce PC's to the city/CoS.
Law/Government: the laws of the city.
Miscellaneous: the ferry system which carries people about the city.
Guilds: decide on what the other major guilds in the City are (only 3 of them
are known).
Military: The defences which are in place to protect the City from a seaward
attack.

As you can see above, we are going to start small, and see how our process
works. For this reason, we are not going to tackle the biggest projects first,
but plan to start on some modest, but less critical concepts. Once the major
ideas have been exhausted (ie. those which have been documented already), then
our individual ideas will become the focus of attention. All those little pet
projects that each of you have will all be included (if you want them to be, of
course) in this project. When I say 'we' or 'our', I don't refer to the steering
committee, but to all of *YOU* out there. *YOU* are going to determine how well
this project fares. *YOU* are going to determine what ideas are good and bad.
*YOU* are going to be commenting/suggesting on everyone else's (ie. each
other's) designs. At the end of all of this, you will be able to sit back and
say that the results are not 'theirs', but *OURS*.

So get to it now. Go read the page (when it is up) and then join us in this epic
adventure. I hope to be hearing from many of you soon.

So how do I join up?

Okay, now the tricky part. Once you have read the document, decide which group
you would like to start with (you can decide by where your interests lie, or
what the first projects are slated as). You can change later if you want to, or,
if you really enjoy a certain aspect, then you can remain with a certain group
for the life of the project (this is really good, because it means there will be
several people in each group who are very familiar with past projects, etc,
which will become important once each group has completed several projects).
Then send an email to the Steering Committee member for that group. The
addresses are all listed below for reference:

Law - James Ruhland (ruhlconob@sprynet.com )
Magic - Darren Cooper (Jim_Cooper@bc.sympatico.ca )
Guilds - Scott Koester (muaddib+@osu.edu )
Military - Joran Lindblom (jlindblo@online.no )
Miscellaneous - Mark VanderMeulen (vander+@pitt.edu )

If you really don't care which group you join, and are happy to help where you
are needed, then you can mail me (slg@nw.com.au) and I will select a group for
you based on how many people join up and which groups are most popular.

We realise that things will be a bit chaotic at first while things sort
themselves out, though I am sure you will all bear with us on this point. So if
you don't get a reply straight away, just hang tight, assume we are really busy
answering email, and wait another day.

If you have any other suggestions or ideas, feel free to send it to the relevant
steering committee member. If you have any general queries or comments about the
project, or if you are not sure where to send something, then mail it to me
(slg@nw.com.au ) and I will pass it on to the relevant person (if it needs to
be).

Thanks for all your time and patience in the last month or two. To all those
people who have contacted me with their ideas/comments during that time, thanks
as well. You can now look at what you have helped to create (with a sense of
amazement, rather than fear, I hope ;-) ).

We hope to be hearing from *ALL* of *YOU* in the near future. For, and on behalf
of, the steering committee,

Simon

Simon Graindorge
Coordinator, Birthright Online City Project

E-mail: slg@nw.com.au
ICQ: 9222846
Online City Project Homepage:
http://darkstar.cyberserv.com/netbook/city/index.html