Music Box

The Music Box plays music in your home on voice command. It holds the shard's library of player compositions: free songs, songs you have bought, and your own. Composers publish their songs to it and are paid when players buy them.

General Usage

Buy a music box from any Bard NPC, lock it down in your home, and double-click it. It plays your whole playlist from start to finish, then stops. Double-click it again to stop it sooner.

Give your music box a name: single-click it and choose the rename option. You then speak to it by name, as you would to a smart speaker (its designer named his "Alexa"):

Alexa, play Douce Dame Jolie
Alexa, next
Alexa, previous
Alexa, repeat
Alexa, shuffle
Alexa, loop

You never need a song's whole name: a few words of it are enough, and the music box works out which song you mean, using Angel Island's Intelligent Dialogue System. Alexa, help lists every command.

To see what music is available, say list:

Alexa, list

Yellow titles are yours to play: free songs, songs you have bought, and songs you composed. Red titles are premium songs, which cost gold.

To hear a premium song before buying it, ask the music box to play it:

Alexa, play strut

It plays a 10-second sample. To buy the song:

Alexa, buy strut

The music box walks you through the purchase:

When you agree, the price is taken from your bank (or your shared bank accounts) and paid into the composer's bank, here Pastor Wydstrin's. In this screenshot the player has named the music box Bach, and asked for the song by part of its name.

The song is now in your library and your playlist, ready to play:

• Your library is every song you have access to.
• Your playlist is the songs from your library that the music box plays. You might take the Christmas songs out of it in July. Remove takes a song out; add puts it back.

List of Commands

Say the music box's name, then the command. Several commands have a second word that does the same thing.

Say	What it does
play song	Plays a song from your library, or a 10-second sample of one you don't own.
stop (or cancel)	Stops playing.
pause	Pauses.
resume (or continue)	Resumes after a pause.
what (or who)	Says the song and its composer.
next, previous	The next or previous song in your playlist.
repeat	Plays the last song again.
loop	Plays your playlist over and over.
shuffle	Shuffles your playlist.
list	Lists the songs.
new	Lists recently approved songs.
buy song	Buys a premium song.
remove song (or ignore)	Takes a song out of your playlist.
add song	Puts a removed song back. add alone is the same as submit.
refresh	Adds new free songs to your library. This also happens on its own.
purchases	The songs you have bought.
sales	Your sales as a composer (see Getting Paid).
submit (or add)	Publishes a song (see Instructions for Composers).
remaster	Asks to replace one of your approved songs with a new version.
rename	Renames the music box.
help	Lists the commands.

Instructions for Composers

The Music Box is how composers share and sell their work across the shard.

1. Write your song in a composition book and transcribe it into Sheet Music. Set its name and price at the top of the composition with # Song: and # Price: (a price of 0 makes it free). See Settings for every setting.
2. Single-click your music box and choose Add, or say submit (or just add). Target your sheet music.

Your song is now in the shard-wide library, not just your own music box, and goes into a review queue. Staff review songs to keep out offensive content, not to judge their quality (songs can have lyrics). While it waits, you can still play it on your own music box: it is in your playlist, and the box says it is pending approval. Once approved, it appears for every player: free songs in their libraries, premium songs as red titles they can sample and buy.

Each approved song earns you Music Karma, and so does every sale and every play.

To publish a new version of an approved song, say remaster.

The library is permanent and not tied to your account: once a song is in, it stays available to other players. If the character who composed a song is deleted, the song becomes free.

Napster Tracks

A song transcribed with # Napster: True is passed hand to hand instead of sold. Anyone who has a copy of its sheet music can add it to their own music box, which gives them the song (the sheet is used up). Other players hear only a sample, and are told to get a copy from the composer.

Getting Paid

When a player buys your song, the price goes straight into your bank. Say sales to see your totals:

Alexa, sales

If your bank box can't take the gold, the sale is recorded as a credit to you instead, shown in your sales. Credits are paid the next time you use a music box, any music box: walk up to it, double-click it, open its menu or speak to it. The gold goes into your bank, and you're told how much. If your bank box is still full, you're told the gold is waiting: make room, then visit a music box again.

Credits are paid only to the character who earned them, on the shard where they were earned. If that character is deleted, or the music library moves to another shard, the credit is not paid.

Say purchases to see the songs you have bought:

Alexa, purchases

Leaderboard

The Music Box records each composer's sales and the gold they have earned. The leaderboard at your local bank shows them.

Staff Reference

Staff use these commands to run the library. Players can't use them.

Say	What it does	Access
review	Lists the songs waiting for review.	Owner
approve song	Approves a song: it becomes available to every player.	Owner
deny song	Rejects a song.	Owner
delete song	Removes a song from the library.	Owner
find song	Shows a song's serial number, owner, and name.	Owner
dupe song	Puts a copy of a song's sheet music in your backpack.	Seer
flushall	Removes every song, everywhere.	Owner, Test Center only

History

The Music Box was designed and built by Adam Ant in 2022, inspired by his Amazon Echo: hence "Alexa". See History and Credits.