It just occured to me that if WOTC is moving the Forgotten Realms setting about 100 years into the future (and likely doing the same with Greyhawk, etc...), then Sigil would logically have advanced 100 years, too, since time on the Prime and Sigil match up. If so, what would have happened in all that time...? Perhaps the banished Factions could've returned, or maybe new ones have formed to replace them! Or maybe the Guilds have returned to their former level of power, before the time of the Factions. Then again, maybe all is as it was, and only the Prime has changed... ???
Sigil - the future is NOW?
Tue, 2008-07-22 17:14
#1
Sigil - the future is NOW?
Wed, 2008-07-23 02:36
#3
I you have bad luck they
I you have bad luck they will use Sigil simply as a shopping base for interplanar dungeoncrawls... Complete with 4E stats for the Lady of Pain! 
Wed, 2008-07-23 14:43
#4
Judging from the material
Judging from the material they've been vomiting out so far, I'm guessing Sigil will be reduced to a shopping center for extraplanar dungeon crawls as well as a source of random thugs, Doomguard, Dustmen, Xaositects, Bleakers, Anarchists, and Sensates to kill for phat loot and experience. After all, Chaos is Evil.
Wed, 2008-07-23 15:10
#5
Frankly, I've always been
Frankly, I've always been interested in Sigil's potential for Steampunk/magepunk settings. I have experimented with Sigil in the throes of a magic-industrial revolution, as I feel that the city's life-blood is very Dickensian. By virtue of the cant, the smokiness and its cosmopolitan nature, Sigil always struck me as an early 19th century London, with all attendant massive economic/demographic growth, rising inequality, social fractures etc.
This is the effect I tried to convey in my current fiction project, which, for copyright reasons, cannot refer to Sigil - but I like the idea of hub/nexus city and the vibrant social and cultural tapestries which that implies.
Wed, 2008-07-23 18:22
#6
Sometimes less is more. As
Sometimes less is more. As in, the less they describe of Sigil beyond the confines of the canonical source "In The Cage" (which they're allegedly using for reference), the better. Better to leave Sigil exactly as-is in that book, then for them to screw it up by "modernising" it... hopefully they will just decribe the city's wards, buildings and a couple NPCs and leave it at that, the way they did in the previous Manual of the Planes and the Planar Handbook. Presumably there won't be enough space in the new Manual of the Planes for them to screw it up too badly, since they will need plenty of room to describe the details of their new-fangled cosmology and all its bells and whistles. More problematic would be the rumored Planescape Campaign book, which would present more of an oportunity for them to mess around with the material and botch things up... 
Thu, 2008-07-24 06:43
#7
Considering they got rid of
Considering they got rid of alignments - and the fact that alignments/philosophies/belief are a cornerstone of Planescape, I'm expecting Sigil to be a very vanilla fantasy city with monsters thrown into the roles of shopkeepers to make it feel strange.
Why would it be likely they advance the time frame of every campaign setting by the same extent they're doing for the Forgotten Realms? Eberron's creator has made several statements about Eberron in 4E, and it seems like something he would have mentioned should it have applied.
Regardless, I'm sure they'll introduce some changes beyond those pertaining to the new cosmology, like add or remove a faction or two, shake things up between major players like Shemeska, Zadara, and Estavan, etc.