Brush Up Your Shakespeare

[arttoenchant]

Hello, Ruby City! This is Kelsey, player of many, but most relevantly, Caster of Red, aka William Shakespeare, coming to you with a little player plot. If you've seen Will's latest post, you can probably guess what it is (actually you can probably guess either way, what else does Shakespeare do).

( start quoting him now )

Information Post!

[rubycitymods]

We've noticed recently that there seems to be some confusion over exactly what technology is present and readily available in Ruby City, and how it works. We can only apologise as this is our own oversight, and this post has been written up in an effort to clear any issues up. Feel free to comment if there's anything that still seems unclear, or if there's anything we haven't covered.

Ruby City Technology

The Watches

The pocketwatches received by each resident on arrival are communication devices and are capable of the following:

• Text (including various colours)


• Audio


• Video


• Private communication


• Taking/Sending images


• Recording video/audio


• Providing an anon function

The watches are not capable of:

• Transfering data from devices not connected to the network (ie phones, music players, laptops)


• Playing music (unless recorded onto the watch itself)


• Providing games


• Any kind of self-aware VI function


• Allowing the user to pretend to be someone else


• Automatic archiving (though conversations can be manually saved)

Don't worry if you've used the watches for these things previously, you won't be asked to retcon or delete your posts. We're just taking this opportunity to clarify things for the future.

The Technology

Until now, what technology is available hasn't been very clear and again that's our own mistake and no one will be in trouble! Don't panic, hold onto your towel, and we apologise for the inconvenience.

The plumbing and heating in the city is fairly modern, with flushing toilets and running water fed from a water tower situated towards the city outskirts (this will be added on the upcoming new map). Waste feeds down into a sewer system under the city which is explorable, but.. why would you want to? Individual boilers are attached to each house and also work via gas - don't let your pilot light go out! The lighting is also fairly modern in appearance, but on close inspection no wires or power generators are able to be found. Fireplaces are wood-burning (or coal, if you can get it).

Kitchen appliances are fairly basic. The stoves run on gas, with canisters available in the general store to be changed when it runs out. There are no electric kettles, microwaves or electric coffee-makers. Refrigerators are very early models with each unit set on top of an ice box for freezing purposes. Of course, in the winter, you can always store things outside.

There are no electrical outlets, so we're afraid to say that if your character brings a laptop/phone/ipod shuffle in with them, it will work until the battery dies and then there is no way to recharge it. Exceptions to this would be if said technology runs using magic, can be modified to run using magic (granted that there is someone around who can do this), or if some bright spark manages to cobble together a generator and you don't mind risking frying your equipment.

Though the apartment blocks are four or five floors in height, there are no elevators. Enjoy the stairs!

The Stores

There's less of a problem here, but it doesn't hurt to make things clearer in all respects.

The stores do not stock anything that runs on electricity and the food provided is mostly fresh produce and canned goods. Hardware and tools provided will be rudimentary and the only modern convenience that is frequently resupplied is batteries.

Older technologies such as antique analogue radios are available for scavenging purposes - maybe someone can make use of them?

Finally and once again, please don't worry if you have been doing things differently. We're more than willing to accommodate and this post is only to serve the purpose of making things clear going forwards. If any of you have any ideas/questions/suggestions to put to us in regards to anything that might have been missed, please don't be shy of letting us know, we want to hear from you!

Thank you for your attention. Relevant parts of this post have been copied to the FAQ for future reference.