Post by Vio on Feb 21, 2023 15:42:53 GMT -5
Hey, folks!
I’m here to deliver some news regarding some coming changes to Bon Voyage, focusing on areas such as the Calm Belt, various gateways, and even the New World. A quick disclaimer: These are only the most basic ideas we’ve agreed upon, and much more work still needs to go into them before they go live. Let’s get to it!
The New World
Currently, the New World is a peculiar part of the site that hasn’t had much to it for a long, long time, and unfortunately we’ve decided that it has to remain so for just a little bit longer. For absolute clarity, the New World is currently unavailable for use. You can still have characters that originate from there, but actual threads cannot happen within its waters. That one bit of bad news aside, let’s talk about the good!
We’re starting to piece together how exactly we want it to work. It’ll have a few restrictions, but accessibility will become a thing. The New World’s identity is very much the end game of One Piece, where those who challenge it will sink or swim, and we want to reflect the amount of danger it represents both as the wildest of the seas, and the territories of some of the most powerful people in the world. Access will include a new system we’re actively working on (spoilers~), alongside a minimum Class requirement of “C” (for OCs, at least), which is around the strength that most New World tier grunts tend to be around. As a tradeoff to represent just how vicious this sea is, and to really hammer home that this is the destination for late game, we’ll be setting the New World’s Base X-Poinz per post to 25!
As for how we’re going to structure it, here’s some insight behind the scenes. Rather than using the Routes format of Paradise, we’ll be using Bands (work in progress name), because the very nature of the New World means there is no single Log Pose route to follow. Bands will be individual stretches of the New World that each contain various islands, and each island within the New World will have information in its description to tell which islands are linked to it via Log Pose (both heading to it and departing from it). Currently, we’re thinking of naming each Band after a colour that relates to one of the Four Emperors (past and present by site timeline)—White, Pink, Blue/Azure, Black, Red, and finally Gold for the late Pirate King!
The Calm Belt & The Red Line
We all know that the Grand Line and the Red Line divide the world into its four major sections, but little do we understand just how much of a blockade the Calm Belts and the encircling continent that is the Red Line become to people travelling around. While this is usually handwaved for site purposes and exists in the form of the “one sea at a time” rule, these two things really deserve a proper identity.
We’ll be renaming the Calm Belt category on site to “Barriers” (or something very similar). In addition to this, we’ll be dividing the Calm Belt itself into four separate boards within that category—one for each of the Four Blues—to help clarify the regions of the world. For example, we’re pretty sure that Amazon Lily, Rusukaina, and Impel Down are all located within the South Blue-bordering stretch of Calm Belt. We’ll also, at some point, be including the Red Line as an active location to visit, though what this entails is currently unknown.
The Gateways
Locations such as Reverse Mountain, Fishman Island and Mary Geoise prove to be a little bit problematic for site purposes. Canonically, these are the only locations that allow reasonable passage from one side of the Red Line to the other, and from the Four Blues into the Grand Line. The problem they’ve been posing is that they are specific locations, not entire regions like the Blues or the Grand Line, and don’t really exist in any of the seas they connect to.
To fix this, and to represent the very transient nature of passing through them, Gateways will be given a special rule that allows them to be used for threads even when characters are in another sea. This helps maintain these locations’ identities while opening them up quite a bit for use. Mary Geoise in particular is a somewhat special case due to its nature, but that’s something we’ll properly establish sooner rather than later.
And that’s pretty much it for this announcement! We’ll be rolling out these changes and a few new systems in the near future, so there’s something to look forward to! Thanks for reading~!
