Thought Experiments: A new way to introduce new items to Ur!

edited March 2017 in Ideas
As things are now, or at least, as things were, given that Eleven is still under construction, whenever new items were added to the game, they came either with feats, or were simply unceremoniously added to the game. However, what if the playerbase had some level of interactivity in allowing these things to be implemented?

This is where the Thought Experiment comes in.

Step 1: Get equipped!
Thought Experiments are science, but they are the science of metamentality and the vast expanse of the unideciscape. Such widely-encompassed science can be hard to keep track of! You're going to need a Scientific Notebook to keep your experiments together! You can buy one from a Hardware or Alchemical Goods vendor.

The Scientific Notebook is used to conduct and record Thought Experiments, and it has a very special quality: while it comes with only 20 pages, you can add more to it at any time if you have some paper on you, up to a maximum of 101.

Step 2: Do some science!
Okay, so you have the Scientific Notebook. Cool. But how do you use it? And for that matter, what is it?

First, find it in your inventory, and give it a click, then press Scientificize! to open the Thought Experiment interface in your notebook. Every page represents one Thought Experiment. In this interface, you will find two major categories: the tool category and the ingredients category.

For the Thought Experiment, you're going to imagine using the tool to create a recipe you don't know, costing you iMG instead of Energy. You must know how to use the tool, because if you know how to use it, then you can properly imaginate it! You can also do Thought Experiments together with other people and split the costs and share expertise in things like Intermediate Admixing, Cheffery, and other assorted item creation skills.

Your goal in a Thought Experiment is simple: There are a number of unfinished, conceptual items hidden within the unseen mentalities of the Giants. (Or, from a technical standpoint, there are items that exist only on a data level, without images or descriptions.)

As an example, let's say you set the Tool category to Cocktail Shaker, and for Ingredients, you set 2 Lemons, an Olive Oil, 4 Cloudberries, a Pocket Salmon, and a Spinach. When you initiate the Thought Experiment, you spend iMG to consider what would happen if you shake these things together, trying to uncover a hidden idea in the muddled thoughts of the Giants.

Now, success comes on a scale. If your recipe is, say, 50% right, your result will be an Incoherent Concept. An Incoherent Concept communicates nothing of the item it's supposed to represent; it simply means you're on the right track. It's time to switch out some ingredients, figure out which ones are right, and inch closer to the right concept. Any Incoherent Concept will simply be named "Incoherent Concept"; it will not say what it is a concept of.

Once you get closer, such as, for example, 70% correct, your result becomes a Hazy Concept. A Hazy Concept will yield its name to you, but have "Hazy" before it, to denote that it still hasn't been perfected. In this case, you may get, say, a Hazy Concept of Flying Fish Margarita. The name now becomes your hint as to what direction you should take the recipe.

At even closer levels, in the range of 85%, your result is a Deformed Concept. A Deformed Concept acts just like a Hazy Concept, but now it starts to become clear whether things are missing, or things need to be removed, or if there's too many or too little of a particular thing, but not exactly what. For example, the discovery of your Deformed Concept of Flying Fish Margarita may state that you have an unneeded ingredient, or are missing an ingredient, or that there are too many or too few of a certain kind.

Finally, you can ultimately, through repeated experiments, figure out exactly what the concept's recipe is, forming a Concept. The Concept represents your success; the recipe you put in is perfect. You got it right. But it's not yet real; that's where the next step comes in.

(Conceptual items do not have their own images; they use images for an Incoherent Concept, Hazy Concept, Deformed Concept, and Concept, respectively. This means these items can be put in without art assets, with said art assets being created when they're discovered and formed!)

Step 3: Make it real.
Now that the Concept has formed, it's time to bring it out to the world, because you can't make it exist alone! You have to Ascend the Concept. To do this, you need to share it! Make people aware of it! Make forum posts, talk in global chat, whatever.

Ascending a Concept is much like how Street Construction used to work, and how Tower and House construction works now. You need to gather other Glitchen and Present the Concept. (This works somewhat like pulling a Glitchmas cracker, but it's open to everyone!) With the Concept presented, other Glitchen can put items into it, which usually consist of all of the ingredients of the item in large amounts, along with a few of the tools used to make it. In addition, there is also a hefty iMG quota that needs to be filled that Glitchen can also contribute to.

Alternatively, other Glitchen can create the Concept for themselves, with their own Thought Experiment. If two identical Concepts exist, they use the same pool of ingredients and iMG; they can both be donated to to develop the concept. Spread the Concepts around! The more people that know about them, the more that can be contributed!

Step 4: Inspire the Giants.
When the Concept is developed, it becomes an Inspiration. The final step associated with an Inspiration is simple; you drop it into a shrine. Any shrine will do. This Inspiration will travel to the Giant and trigger a great big "Aha!" and so, soon enough, the item corresponding to the Inspiration will pop into existence in Ur. In the example of our Flying Fish Margarita, you can expect it as a new recipe for your Cocktail Shaker.

And that's all there is to that!

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