[XMark]

Here's the storyline to The Nexus.

It was late January in the year 2030 when an inexplicable phenomenon swept across the Earth. It looked like a massive, seemingly 2-dimensional wall of electricity that began to form somewhere in the middle of the pacific ocean. It rapidly grew hundreds of miles into the sky and stretched around the entire circumfrence of the globe from pole to pole over a period of 24 hours. The world watched the news with fearful anticipation as world governments sent their militaries, their top scientists, anyone they could think of to handle anything that the wall of energy might do. Thousands of theories emerged, none fully explaining what it could be.

A week later, it began to move, or more accurately, to rotate around the center of the earth. It was imperceptibly slow at first, but with every passing hour it doubled in speed until it was advancing across the earth at near the speed of sound. It had started primarily over the oceans, but when it ran into land, people panicked at the unstoppable wave of energy heading straight towards them. Hundreds of thousands died worldwide in the ensuing panic. But when the wave finally swept through the cities it seemed to have no effect other than electromagnetic disturbances. When the wall had finished its rotation around the world it disappeared at exactly the spot that it had started, so quickly that it seemed not to have existed at all.

The panic had taken a devestating toll on all the cities of earth, and it was only a month later, when the chaos had settled down, that it was realized that people were missing. Approximately 1 million people from around the globe had simply vanished into thin air (possibly much more, since many third-world countries didn't have any accurate way to count it)

There seemed to be no rhyme or reason, no common bond between the people who disappeared. It just seemed that the wall of energy had picked people completely at random and taken them away. Nobody on Earth knew where.

-

You are one of the displaced people. When the wave hit you were swept off your feet, and felt yourself being propelled across the universe. After what seemed to be both an instant and an eternity at the same time, you found yourself amongst a large crowd of people in a completely alien city, built around a tall central building with a strange glowing globe which came to be known as "The Nexus". Outside the walls of the city was the bleak and hostile surface of the alien planet. Strange creatures roamed the planet, coming in and out of dimensional rifts that led to a myriad of different worlds. There were roads branching off from the city that led through dimensionally stable areas to several smaller outlying cities, which were also connected by an automated transit system. Some people migrated to those cities, but most stayed in the central nexus city.

The city around the nexus seemed to have been prepared specifically for human habitation. It offered protection from the outside, a suitable temperature, a general purpose "factory" that could produce anything desired from a molecular level (within hard-coded safety guidelines), and a constant source of more than enough nutrition and water for everyone.

But still, the first year was hell. About a million lost and disoriented people simultaneously forced to deal with such a new and strange situation. Most panicked or despaired, but there were those who tried to take advantage of the situation and seize power. The first year was full of bloody conflict between the many groups who had all wanted to rule the cities.

Eventually, the people rose up as a whole against the warring parties and when the conflict finally came to an end (or at least a lull) a makeshift government was set up. Things gradually calmed down over time as the citizens adjusted to their new life.

-

It has been three years since the displacement, and now that people have adapted to life in the cities, their attention has turned to the world outside. The citizens for the most part feared the dimensionally unstable planet, and most never ventured outside city walls. But though the planet was quite hostile and dangerous, there were many things that could be explored in the dimensional rifts.

You are one of the many people who have come to be known as "adventurers", explorers of the many worlds to be found through the rifts. Perhaps you may one day find the secret behind the nexus, the reason for being here? There's only one way to find out...

My idea behind this story is to have a world which can be adapted and expanded in all sorts of different ways depending on who's creating their particular part of the world, while also having a core world which I would make, which would go deeper into the storyline. In the cities there will be a lot of NPC's who will have quests for you that delve deeper into the history of the Nexus (especially concerning the different groups plotting to take power over Nexus city, conspiracies within the government, et cetera.) And places that you can go which explain some of the mysteries behind the alien race, and why they created these cities and kidnapped everyone in the first place.

Any suggestions/comments/criticisms?
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Mark Hall
Abstract Productions
I PLAYS THE MUSIC THAT MAKES THE PEOPLES FALL DOWN!

[DrV]

This sounds like a game with potential for exciting gameplay. The exploration component could even be accentuated with a bit of random terrain generation - this would probably fit the idea of the multiple dimensions.

I liked the bit of surprise when the reader is told that he is one of the displaced; I was expecting to be left on earth. :)

It would also be nice to have some bit of dialogue or gameplay that shows that the characters who have been taken from the Earth still remember it and the people there - some display of homesickness or loss - that people can relate to with real-life experiences of leaving their homes behind or something similar. In my opinion, at least, if a game with the premise of being located somewhere other than earth (such as this one) is developed with a totally alien (as in uncommon or unfamiliar) environment, people will have a difficult time submerging themselves in the game world.

A bit of nit-picking (just grammar here): "possibly much more" should be "possibly many more"; "About a million lost and disoriented people simultaneously forced to deal with such a new and strange situation." has no verb.

BTW, you need to put an 'http:' in the [url] tag for it to be recognized.
_________________
Don't ask no stupid questions and I won't send you away.
If you want to talk fishing, well, I guess that'll be okay.

[PhyrFox]

I like it. Where's my beta-testing pass?

At any rate, being serious now, if you would like to have a team member on this project for anything of which I may be of assistance with, I would be more than willing to work on a title of this nature. Or, if you do need a beta-tester, I would be willing to expend time in that direction. I like the idea so far, and if properly realized, could be a highly enjoyable game.

~= phyrfox =~
... not dead, just resting ...

[XMark]

Well, you don't really need any kind of beta testing pass, just sign up for the abstract-productions.net forums and use that login ID to play with.
_________________
Mark Hall
Abstract Productions
I PLAYS THE MUSIC THAT MAKES THE PEOPLES FALL DOWN!