| Welcome to our home, a world in which anything can happen. From sprawling deserts and vast forests to massive volcanoes and luscious hot springs, Soare and the Scattered Isles are beautiful places just waiting to be explored. For the brave and the bold or the cautious and the wary, creatures of all kinds roam the earth, looking for adventure or for a place to call their own. Species of all kinds - the well-known and the unknown - thrive here, though not always in harmony. Elenlond is an original medieval fantasy RPG with a world that's as broad as it is unique. Calling on characters of all kinds, the sky's the limit in a world where boundaries are blurred and the imagination runs rampant. Restrictions are limited and members are encouraged to embrace their creativity, to see where they can go and what they can do. It's no longer just text on a page - it becomes real. Enter Our World |
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| CURRENT EVENTS/JUICY DELICIOUS GOSSIP! | |
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| Topic Started: Jan 16 2015, 12:37 PM (1,257 Views) | |
| Phaedrus | Jan 16 2015, 12:37 PM Post #1 |
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Thus conscience does make cowards of us all/ And thus the native hue of resolution/ Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.
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so this idea isn't mine (it's juul's, i believe? all credit to him and his brilliance), but i just realized we have a suggestion box, and figured i'd put it up here, especially with the influx of new members. there should be a topic similar to the open threads board, updated every season, with gossip/current events/etc, and organized by country. the content, of course, would all be the result of ic threads. so, for instance, if your character goes nuts and murders a village, you'd post it up in the board with a location and brief description/link to the thread. that way other characters passing through the region (say, morrim), might have heard about it and can incorporate the current event into their posts. that way, people don't have to read through every single thread to get an idea of what's going on, and if you're looking for a good place to set an open thread, it could give members an idea of what areas of elly are currently most active. additionally, it'd be cool if characters gained a certain reputation, and their actions had rippling consequences (or benefits!) that spread by word of mouth to other characters. also, some major events might last for more than a season. for example, with isra amriel being replaced by leofric de hollemark, that's a pretty monumental event that will sweep morrim and make some people quite upset (or happy), i imagine. this could also be a good place to put up ongoing plots, since sometimes they can get lost in the plot board. EDIT: also, if you're looking to build up your character's reputation (say you want your character to be known as a great warrior, or it's part of their history), maaaaybe you could post it up as well? there could also be a "wanted" bulletin for criminals/fugitives/what have you. this might be too much for just one thread, but i keep getting ideas, haha. Edited by Phaedrus, Jan 16 2015, 12:42 PM.
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| Shrista | Jan 16 2015, 01:02 PM Post #2 |
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Pariah, Apostate, Heretic
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I HAVE EVER INCREASING APPROVAL. THAT IS ALL. We could also have a quest/job board set by characters or npcs to help facilitate interesting opens. Both player and DM'd ones that change seasonally with little rewards for the mercenary or wandering adventurer type characters, since there are quite a few. Edited by Shrista, Jan 16 2015, 01:13 PM.
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| Andromalius | Jan 16 2015, 01:02 PM Post #3 |
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I appreciate and second this motion. It was difficult, still is, to try and find how I can attach my character to what's going on universally, which is why I keep starting them out with IC limited knowledge. That is indeed limiting, and I don't consider myself a lazy person, but just catching up with the characters has been a monumental undertaking. Something like this would be really helpful if it was laid out in an organized manner. While I'm at it, if it's not too audacious, I'd like to maybe suggest giving the task of keeping such things current to a specific person, maybe a 5th staff member, if it sounds like too much for the active mods presently. |
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| Phaedrus | Jan 16 2015, 01:14 PM Post #4 |
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Thus conscience does make cowards of us all/ And thus the native hue of resolution/ Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.
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huehueheueue~ :V @ andi: yeah!! exactly. i remember first joining and being pretty overwhelmed, and talking to the new guy in the cbox reminded me about this idea. there's sooo much to read, even if you're established and familiar with the lore/characters. it's also quite the task to read entire character profiles to get an idea of what they're like. so if all that info can be truncated into something current and relevant, i think it'd help. i'm trying to iron out the mechanics of how it'd work with dnan atm. ^__^ i imagine the content would be member-generated, mostly -- they can post up current threads/character reputations/etc, and it'd all be edited into the master post by a mod, maybe weekly or whatever is manageable for them. @ dnan: a quest board would be fabulous as well. i guess it could function like the open thread board as well, with players posting potential jobs/quests, and then it all being edited into a master post. maybe there could be some default NPC quests available at all times, too, like: - Help! A spider is ravaging my cabbages! ... or whatever the hell happens to poor NPCs. ;c maybe some quests could have a certain numbers of players necessary for them. like a high-level, monster hunting quest would require 2-3 players and the DM/character account, for instance. it could also function as a recruitment board for guilds, pirate ships, yadda yadda. Edited by Phaedrus, Jan 16 2015, 01:18 PM.
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| Shrista | Jan 16 2015, 01:24 PM Post #5 |
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Pariah, Apostate, Heretic
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Awww yass. I don't think we have any set protocol for guild recruitment actually, that could be something quite interesting to take into account. I like the idea anyway, it'd be great for newer or returning characters, and just as good for old people (lol) who want to play catch up with everything. I could always do more around the site and watch over it, all I really do is move/delete stuff and approve stuff atm c: |
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| Phaedrus | Jan 16 2015, 01:33 PM Post #6 |
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Thus conscience does make cowards of us all/ And thus the native hue of resolution/ Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.
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ohhh yeah! i guess we can have a hybrid system. for instance, when making a character, you could just have them be in a guild by default (like a criminal character being a member of argos), OR if you wanted your character to switch guilds/join one, you could always go to the recruitment board for threading/character development ideas. so the whole recruiting process would be optional. just to give people more freedom and keep them from jumping through hoops, i suppose. |
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| Shrista | Jan 16 2015, 03:38 PM Post #7 |
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Pariah, Apostate, Heretic
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Yeah, I mean, I don't think we have any single specific process for guild recruitment, people just put it on their profile if they're a member, or former member or whatever. I know Aniketos and Namir had a thread where they were at a guild fair, which sounded like a fun thing to do. So maybe that's another thing we could mention on the seasonal doodas, so that anyone involved in a guild at the time could always get together to try to persuade anyone looking to join, and announce it as a general regional thing too. But yeah if they wanna switch, it could be cool to have a little thing about it in there, same as the gossip like, 'it's rumored that Spangly McFamousDude has joined Dido's Children.' |
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| Aniketos | Jan 16 2015, 05:42 PM Post #8 |
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Unter friedlichen Umständen fällt der kriegerische Mensch über sich selber her.
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The Ani and Namir thread wasn't a guild fair but a trade fair, ie. a bunch of merchants travelling together and invading a town for a while. Juul posted something about this in the admin boards a while back, and I've been thinking about it, but I thank you for the extra ideas for implementation. I've been considering how we might fit it into the box at the top of the site; perhaps it could have its own tab up there like the News & Season and so on. This, I think, would make it more accessible than having a master thread, and it could link to the thread where people submit their ideas. Shadow is down with this idea by the way, though she's dealing with her own stuff. It's just a matter of getting coding and such sorted out for the box should we wind up doing that (it's what I would prefer). It wouldn't require any extra mods. Juul volunteered to do write ups, and at that point it would be a matter of copying and pasting. Of course, this would be once or twice every season, depending. I imagine we could post up reminders to submit applications whenever the seasonal voting goes up. I think using it to announce new people in guilds or open threads would cloud it up with crap; I feel that the idea ought to be centred around stuff with a wide effect. A good example would be the "national incident" at Orion's party (which at this point would be outdated of course). Juul had ideas for inserting a sort of general atmosphere, like "shoulder parrots have become the newest fad in Angkarian fashion" or "there's been lots of minor earthquakes in Morrim lately" and so on. There is a certain benefit to it not being all member-generated, which is that it doesn't all have to be focused on what certain people are doing. Advertising plots that way would be interesting too. |
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| Sabellius | Jan 16 2015, 07:08 PM Post #9 |
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Fléctere si néqueo súperos, Acheronta movebo.
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This wasn't the same as the little things added to the box at the top of the site. It was more an idea of letting the members arrange little things regionally too, and information about character reputations etc without having to go literally hunting down all the characters individually and reading through a ton of stuff, because it's very time consuming and can be very overwhelming on top of all the lore etc already. Not to detract from the box at the top of the site. It's more to help people keep a track of things in general as the box at the top of the page would be changing often anyway. |
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| Phaedrus | Jan 16 2015, 07:29 PM Post #10 |
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Thus conscience does make cowards of us all/ And thus the native hue of resolution/ Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.
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@ ephie: ohhh yeah -- i guess my idea deviates a bit from what juul was proposing. i guess i was going more in the direction of current, regional events caused by players. that way, they could still incorporate local happenings into future posts, or create threads directly responding to something that happened in another thread. for example: dalim murdered an entire village in morrim. then wax and i got the idea that the same village should be haunted and used by necromancers; the thread "o death" is a direct response to what dalim did. however, a thread like dalim's could easily be missed, even though it'd have a big impact on the surrounding community in morrim. with this board, someone would post something like: MORRIM "Thread Name/Link Description: An entire village has been destroyed in the Morrimian countryside. Nobody knows who did it, but those passing by have reported an eldritch chill in the air." that "local gossip" could be the launching point for someone who wants to make an open but might not know where to start -- or they could just incorporate that tidbit into a post. /shrug like dnan said, instead of it being a tidbit at the top of the site, it would be an entire thread with a master post that's being updated with major, world-wide events (more permanent than a season, probably), and minor, more regional stuff. it's just a quicker way to see what's been going on in elly, and any stuff going through the rumor mill. a tab on the left sidebar would be neat, though -- it could be "current events" or something, and have a link to a Gossip thread and a Quests thread, and maybe a link to general, board-wide news. EDIT: and yep, i agree that open threads shouldn't be posted there. however, the effects of completed open threads very well could. as far as guild things go, i think it'd be for wider announcements, like: "Guild X is looking for new members to prove themselves by doing [Quest]." And that could be the launch-off point for threads if someone wants their character to join that guild in that way. Edited by Phaedrus, Jan 16 2015, 07:35 PM.
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| Aniketos | Jan 16 2015, 08:11 PM Post #11 |
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Unter friedlichen Umständen fällt der kriegerische Mensch über sich selber her.
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Okay, so I was imagining for this box that there would be both the member-generated stuff, such as haunted villages and Leo's coronation as well as whatever background stuff, like earthquakes or odd fashions. My concern is that, if the intention here is to do both, there'd be enough overlap to make one or the other redundant, unless the master thread expands on things/has links to things that are summarised in the box (which could very well be divided up by region). I sort of overlooked the quests/jobs thing before. Perhaps I am too pessimistic about this, but I don't see the quests thing having too much of an impact on what's already happening so far as regular member-to-member (heh) action goes. I sometimes see quest-styled open threads popping up naturally (one example would be the one I did with Kist being stuck in a cell needing to get out), and the only difference here is the reward, which would be...some item that doesn't require an ability? (Please correct if I'm wrong) The system could be abused, so we would need to set up hinderances to a system that is potentially already a hinderance to what tends to form organically. As for DMing threads: I advise, in general, against too much obligation on the staff, as I've always seen it to be our job to take care of administrative duties, to provide seeds of inspiration and to occasionally pump out plots for people to take part in. But in general we're just roleplayers too, and want to do stuff with our own characters without particular obligation and also have things going on outside the site. Such things work very well in games, but in roleplaying of the sort that we do here, it would take a long time to act a lot of this stuff out. If you can imagine the amount of writing that would be required on both sides for the kinds of quests you're thinking of (as there may be some disconnect in what we have in mind) and are still interested in doing it, then I will not argue against it. It could work out well and I could be wrong; I just prefer to be the voice of caution in these matters, even if I come off as a huge buzzkill for it. |
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| Kestrel Sumner | Jan 16 2015, 08:28 PM Post #12 |
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And then she was gone, her hips swinging as the knives jostled her thighs, passing by guards with her head held high, a haughty smile upon her lips.
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Popping in to say that I did skim this and I'm alive but lurking. I think this is a wonderful idea. I would prefer not to mess with the box at the top of the forum. Adding another tab is going to completely ruin the formatting for it and mess it up, so if there's a push to add information up there, I'll have to use a current tab and change it. I can add more links to the navigation down the left-hand side. I am open to whatever the members would prefer to go with (board, tabs, thread people post in, etc.), so long as the staff have a good understanding of how the setup would best benefit everyone. I also would discourage people from relying on the staff to DM a ton/most of the threads. I think here and there it's a great idea, but it's a lot of work to DM. We have 5 staff on already and I don't think we need a 6th at the moment. (And yes, the box at the top needs to be updated to add Juul, but I've been MIA and will continue to be MIA for an unforeseen amount of time.) Tl;dr: I support this. |
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| Phaedrus | Jan 16 2015, 08:33 PM Post #13 |
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Thus conscience does make cowards of us all/ And thus the native hue of resolution/ Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.
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nawww, you’re not being a buzzkill. c: these are legitimate concerns, and it’s good that you bring em up.
okay, so now i’m a bit confused about the box thing/wonder if i’m visualizing something different. xD i was imagining a thread organized somewhat like this: Spoiler: click to toggle i imagine the thread would be quite extensive and detailed, rather than just a blurb at the top of the page. as for quests/npc things, i generally agree. it would be 100% up to the player and whatever they feel they can handle. however, let’s say you want to play a dragon or monster pillaging the countryside. you could then post up that a monster is terrorizing someplace, and you’d like to have a thread about it. someone could then dm for that thread. it could also give people opportunities to play characters that normally wouldn't be able to -- with limitations, of course. you don't want some super overpowered monster. i don’t think there necessarily have to be rewards in place, depending on the thread situation (and certainly not rewards that would mess with the abilities system). i guess quests would be more related to events than anything else. i hope that makes sense? ;uu; my brain is a potato at the moment. EDIT: SHADOW. ;___; /clings also, i think there's a really easy way to get around messing with the box up top. you can just add a link called Current Events to the "Latest Post" tab or something. the link would lead to the master post involving all the gossip/thread descriptions/yadda yadda. Edited by Phaedrus, Jan 16 2015, 08:39 PM.
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| Aniketos | Jan 16 2015, 09:13 PM Post #14 |
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Unter friedlichen Umständen fällt der kriegerische Mensch über sich selber her.
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Ahh well, so my idea is defunct. I understand about the coding. This makes sense then. |
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| Lorialette | Jan 16 2015, 09:40 PM Post #15 |
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But Oh, if I could save the earth -- just one space in time/ I thought that wisdom would be mine: love, and purity...
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I like all these ideas but I have nothing to add except maybe a thread for plot hooks??? Though that's likely a different ball game, more of an OOC thread I guess. |
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| Shrista | Jan 17 2015, 07:58 AM Post #16 |
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Pariah, Apostate, Heretic
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I don't think I strictly said that the staff would have to be the driving force behind any DM'd threads. Like Crow said, if someone were to put up some gossip, and someone else wanted to go after it, I'd much rather see those people work out who is DM'ing the npc between them, because it makes for more variety in what could happen, and the staff have lives too ofc. I don't see how having one or two quests like that pop up seasonally is a hindrance either, or abusing the system. Rewards if given, wouldn't need an ability slot unless it was say, worked out beforehand. Like, if Jade offered someone a crafted weapon of their choice in compense to do something. Does that make it clearer at all? These things could be optional and a good way to essentially make open threads or thread requests for a local rumor or hunting down wanted people etc, that are a little different and let us feel that there is some weight and consequence behind our characters actions. Say a dragon turns up in Angkar and a trio of you take it out? Suddenly you'd be praised and a bit famous for doing such a deed. You could still add little local snippets to the box at the top as well. They could easily fit in with the seasonal weather, since it's done by region. It's just more that, a snippet, than anything else. The point of having a master thread for it is really for the purpose of keeping up with everything. Personally while I find it will help newer players get a grasp on what's going on in their region and adding some depth, it will also help us staff when it comes to selecting some of the interesting stuff for OTM's etc. If it doesn't appeal then we won't do it, and I'm not saying being cautious is a bad thing, cause it's not, but too much caution can be just as harmful as not enough. ;o Perhaps we could add a subforum of plot hooks to the plots board, if that would help? I guess you could post it in with the plots otherwise, but it's not really the same thing. Sorry for any crappiness, working from DS while doing other stuff is kinda mediocre medium. |
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| Aniketos | Jan 17 2015, 10:58 AM Post #17 |
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Unter friedlichen Umständen fällt der kriegerische Mensch über sich selber her.
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I don't think I explain myself well in the middle of the night. xD I'll try once more. I will clarify: I do like the idea of gossip about enormous spiders in people's cabbages and dragons hiding in caves. Everything would evolve naturally from that, I think, in that anyone who decides to pick up that plot hook will probably come up with NPCs that they will DM as they please. I do not see a need for any quest system, except in that we may want to ask in this master thread that people picking up a plot hook tell an admin so that we can cross it off the list so we don't have two people trying to kill the same dragon in alternate timelines. Perhaps some suggestions as to how you might set up your thread to fight the dragon would be helpful too, for people who are unsure.
I think we were understanding this quests thing differently. As far as I can tell, these sorts of "quests" made by staff pop up already, in their various manifestations – the GTK plot, AD's giants plot and so on. Perhaps those things are a bit more involved than what you were imagining – though to be fair any quest would take quite a lot of time to write out. Nonetheless, it seems redundant to strive for anything else when we already have staff plots coming up from time to time, as well as sovereign parties, as well as whatever the rest of the members come up with. What I meant when talking about abuse of such a system involving ability-less rewards is that, where they're involved, someone might decide to throw some character into as many as possible. This would mean that we'd have to forbid people from joining too many quests (sparse though they are), unless we really just don't care about the ability-less rewards (I imagine they'd be quite insignificant anyways). Nonetheless, if people set up their own quests as they have before, I have no problem with it, and it's none of my business. The long and short of it for me is that how we seem to be envisioning it (I still may be misunderstanding) relies too much on staff, or on certain characters (such as Jade) to dispense artefacts. But if you have some clear understanding of how it would work, please lay it out, because I'm still rather confused. Again, I still really like the idea of the current events thread. I am thinking, however, looking at Crow's conception of it, that things that are basically plot hooks would need to be separate from the gossip stemming from threads, so that people know the difference between something they can have characters to act on and something they can have characters mention. Another thought: I think that the events listed in gossip should probably be more momentous that Modeste goes to Ashcombe, because most people don't know what that's about anyways, new or not. If it's more scandalous stuff (something like Aniketos Hesperés and Alexandros Phloropoulos were seen being REALLY DRUNK in Kinaldi, to bring up a very old example) I can understand. We'd have to quality control, of course, and explain our reasons for not choosing to add something. Unfortunately, there will tend to be a bias towards sovereigns, rich people, and whoever manages to kill a dragon. However, that will be a good incentive for people to be sovereigns and dragon killers. : D Also, just a random idea. What if we made it out to be a newspaper? I'm reminded of the Black Horse Courier in Oblivion, which publicises whatever effects you've had on Cyrodiil through quests. We'd have to ignore the slight anachronism of a newspaper with the excuse of magic, though the time setting of Elenlond seems to be veering more towards the 1500s anyways, what with all the arquebuses and blunderbusses and mechanical contraptions. |
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| Phaedrus | Jan 17 2015, 11:23 AM Post #18 |
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Thus conscience does make cowards of us all/ And thus the native hue of resolution/ Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.
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i was thinking that a quest would be far less involved than an extensive plot. it would be more of a single thread with a strongly defined, desired outcome. in a way, a quest board could be used to list existing threads/opens, for example, and not necessarily have rewards. i guess it'd be more of a bulletin board? you could use your thread for a quest example: “Escape! Kist needs someone to help her escape from a prison in the City of Oracles.” in other words, a quest board would be a way to give specific attention to goal-oriented threads— either existing threads or those planned for the future, involving either characters or npc’s. and just to clarify, not every open thread would necessarily quality for this. it would have to entail a service/goal/specific outcome. examples like: “Bodyguard needed! My character needs to find a sellsword for hire to do some dirty work.” “Blacksmith for hire! Jade needs work honing her sword-making skills.” in those cases (if a thread doesn't exist already), the request could link to a character profile/preferred PMing account. so for example, if i'm playing a mercenary character, i could scroll down the bulletin board to see if anyone needs a soldier/bodyguard/blahblah. then i could easily click the name of a character requesting a service, shoot the player a pm, and plan a thread. i know this is kinda similar to the thread request board -- i just think that stuff gets buried really easily there. : S it might be easier to have a centralized bulletin board place (where people can request services and then maybe link to 1. a character profile or 2. a more detailed thread request board). ...so it would be largely member-generated and maintained as well. there’s no need for admins to step in and dm things, unless they specifically want to. does that make sense? ;uuuu; the only time a dm account would be necessary would be for some specifically planned quest npc or monster. and in that case, it wouldn't necessarily be an admin maintaining the dm account; i'm not entirely sure how dm accounts work, so i dunno if it'd be feasible for a non-admin member to use it, for example.
ooh, definitely. c: yeah, those were just examples — was trying to scrounge my brain for something appropriate. but priority would definitely be given to sovereigns/famous characters, or local events that would impact a lot of people OR news that would travel fast (like a fire in a major city, for instance). as far as character reputations go, i think (for the ease of new members and those who aren’t familiar), some further descriptions of their importance might be necessary. for example, instead of just saying “modeste bellamy,” specify something like “the sotoan councillor modeste bellamy…” etc. it’s first and foremost a resource for people who might be newer to elly or just don’t have time to sort through profiles/threads/etc, but still want to be up-to-date with what’s happening in-character on the site.
ahh! i hadn’t even thought about making it an in-character thing. hmmm. my only concern is that it’d be quite a lot of work to make an ic newspaper, with formatting/language/etc — i was thinking the thread would be used largely as an ooc resource; something informative but easy to skim and get ideas from. Edited by Phaedrus, Jan 17 2015, 11:30 AM.
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| Shrista | Jan 17 2015, 11:31 AM Post #19 |
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Pariah, Apostate, Heretic
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Okay, so, really when I say 'quests', it doesn't need much in thebway of staff overlooking it in the way any regular thread would. I do think that if someone decides to act on some gossip or criminal activity, that it should be noted to the staff so yeah, no alternate clashes c: Really I expect that most of it will stem from the gossip and rumors, if we wanted to mention something as a potential plot hook we could either highlight it or move it to a separate caregory. I don't think there necessarily would be rewards for absolutely everything and I just used Jade as an example, sibce practically anyone could essentially set up their own 'go do this for me and I'll teach/give you this'. It's not mandatory for people to do it, but I thought it could be a cool way for characters to interact and build on relationships, say, you're looking for a contact for information, an apprentice, someobe avle to get their hands on bananas, whatever really. Maybe you hear about a local threat and for whatever reason go after it, good or bad. These quests are really just excuses for characters to start or encourage others to start threads together that don't necessarily mean 'I'm wandering aimlessly in the forest' or 'look at me wandering bored through a marketplace' ya know? I'll be on Skype in an hour or so I expect so we can always chat if it's still unclear? I think you're right about the more trivial rumors, as things likely will lean towards stuff that impacts the realm, like Dalim killing an entire village, or localized scandalous stuff lol. The better more vague stuff like the court fashion to wear coloured birds is a good general one though. I guess these lists would be a mix of more general stuff and serious stuff. The Black Horse Courier sounds like fun, I never paid much attention to the newsletters except when I tried to rob the courier or chase them like a dog after a car but I guess that shows the kinda person I am XD That could be really cool though, maybe it could be part of an author guild in soto? ...maybe said guild also publishes Smutpurn. Edit: I love how we keep overlapping. What Crow said about it being a goal oriented thread is accurate. Also makes it easier to check people looking for these things than lots of individual possibly buried thread requests, but only specific threads looking for whatever fits,our parameters should go up rather than every open c: Edited by Shrista, Jan 17 2015, 11:37 AM.
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| Aniketos | Jan 18 2015, 09:11 AM Post #20 |
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Unter friedlichen Umständen fällt der kriegerische Mensch über sich selber her.
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This is literally what the open threads and thread request board are for. Kist's open thread got filled in like 2 days. There's no reason to put what basically sounds like an open thread request in yet another place. Things aren't getting buried in the thread request board because no one uses it any more. I can see the interest in having long term character requests (Jade's was a good example) put on a bulletin board, despite the fact that it is still rather redundant to my mind. I'd like to know what other people think. Nonetheless, I can see a way for fitting such requests into the gossip thread, and I'll just post an example of all that I've been thinking and collecting from people rather than trying to explain, I think.
Obviously it can be made all pretty with coding and obviously we can come up with a title, maybe a slogan, but that's for later. I don't intend it to be a proper IC newspaper or anything, just a gimmick that has the feel of being slightly IC, just for the funsies. I propose that, if this idea works, it should be put out with seasonal changes, perhaps updated in between then if we deem it necessary, and that a new topic be made for each issue for the sake of posterity. People would submit their content to a master thread (which also explains what the bulletin is about and how it's used) with a template like this:
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| Kestrel Sumner | Jan 18 2015, 01:33 PM Post #21 |
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And then she was gone, her hips swinging as the knives jostled her thighs, passing by guards with her head held high, a haughty smile upon her lips.
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I think I have a good understanding of what is being suggested here, and I think I understand how this differs from the open threads. but correct me if I'm wrong.
I personally have no problem with two separate threads. And even creating a separate forum for a pinned quest thread and then the rumours below it (I like Ephie's formatting—I've seen that done on other forums before, too.) or something to that effect. Alternatively, the open threads and quests could be combined into a single thread and then split up via coding and such. There are a lot of options. Rumours and seasons could definitely be in the same place in the box. It would make it quite long, but that's something that could be worked out. I think this proposed quest idea mimics what RPing used to be for me, where you do small quest-style threads and can possibly continue to thread between two characters after the fact. That's how a lot of my threads used to start, anyway, and then sometimes I'd just end up with a particular character travelling with another character. The DM account is another matter. Honestly, I would say people should just "DM" the NPC under the account they're using for that thread like people used to do in the olden days. I would only suggest the DM account where you need an NPC to be an entirely separate entity, or someone's really jonesing for another person to play the dragon that needs to be killed, for example. Otherwise I think players can take turns going back and forth with that NPC and stuff. |
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| Shrista | Jan 18 2015, 03:12 PM Post #22 |
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Pariah, Apostate, Heretic
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Kist's thread might have been filled within 2 days but I often hear about people asking if anyone will join their open in the skype chat, or some sit there forever until they are finally filled or just die. The point of the 'quest' threads or whatever we call 'em, is exactly as Shadow said, in that they require a certain type of person to fill them and basically wouldn't be open to anyone. I wouldn't join a quest to go hunt large monsters with 3 people who are basically healers and have no offensive capabilities. Instead of it being open to all, it would generally be a better way for those actively seeking adventure to join something combat oriented, as a lot of threads tend towards the peaceful side of things and don't have preordained goals, and just drag on forever. If nobody is using the thread request board, then surely that begs the question of why..the point in having differing lists of these threads is just that. They are more goal oriented and more likely to result in having some effect on your character in the long term. Nobody is going to mention the fact maybe they saw you having tea in a parlour, or shopping in the market. If you defended a village from a band of marauding thugs however..well that has an impact. And I like to think that if my character has been caught killing people or thieving or whatever, that they would suffer the consequences of such an act. Take Tekun for example. Only recently were his crimes waived by Isra. That doesn't change the fact that despite his repentant ways, he's a mass murderer. People should fear him naturally with that name, because of what that reputation means. I've seen one or two people react like that, but it shouldn't ultimately come down to 'lol i can butcher this village and nobody cares.' That's the kind of thing that adds depth. It was just an idea to liven things up in a more direct fashion and cut down on the 'wandering pointlessly in the woods' type of threads, which get really old, really fast, and it could, as Shadow said, be grouped into other forums. Set up like a bulletin board it is literally threads aimed at fulfilling jobs. Regular opens, insofar as I see, do not do that.
^ This is basically what I meant. The DM account shouldn't be needed except on the rare occasions there is something like a beast that could be played, just to add the complete unpredictable nature of 'omg what will happen' so those hunting it won't know. Obviously the end result is the same, but that doesn't mean you can't have fun getting there. If you don't want to take part then don't, nobody is forcing you to do it. There are five members of staff so on these rare occasions we should be more than capable of handling it between us. As soon as writing feels like work then just take a break. It's really very simple. Edited by Shrista, Jan 18 2015, 03:16 PM.
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| Aniketos | Jan 18 2015, 05:52 PM Post #23 |
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Unter friedlichen Umständen fällt der kriegerische Mensch über sich selber her.
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Okay, I'm going to give one last shot at explaining my qualms with the idea of a separate quests bulletin whatchamacallit. But it's all just qualming and projecting and so on, so if all is good with the proponents of the idea after this, then I should probably just drop it. It is quite easy, when putting something up in the Open Thread Ads, to append to your description of an "open" thread that you're looking for a certain kind of person, say a warrior or a healer – pretty sure I've seen it done before It's also quite easy to note that this thread is plotty and directed and focussed. It is also quite easy to have a thread request about it, and it's is also quite easy to contact some particular person to see if they'd be interested. This has worked just fine for as long as this particular system has been in place, and I don't see much of a reason to fix it or improve on it, as it seems to me that any "fix" will probably make it worse. Also, having some separate place to advertise quest threads would mean one more place to check when you're hunting down threads, which is something of an inconvenience. This small distinction between "open thread" and "quest thread" could also be confusing to new members. Again, it comes off as very redundant. The only thing I can think of as an upside to having a separate place for quests is that, if it's a forum, then you can negotiate with people about your thread in the open rather than asking that people PM you...which you could probably just do in the thread request board if that's your jam. I also don't see how having a specific spot for quest threads, as we are calling them, would encourage people to make threads that aren't sitting around in a forest doing nothing. That has always been a trend with forum roleplaying, people will do what they want, and we can't force that to change and it tends to work out fine in the end anyways. My understanding was that the thing that would encourage people to make different sorts of threads would be the gossip bulletin/current events that I attempted to make a prototype of above. Actually, what I'm not too clear on is whether or not these quest threads would be part of the gossip bulletin. It feels like sometimes we're talking about it like it is, sometimes like it isn't? If it's part of the gossip bulletin/current events, assuming that's updated seasonally (I suppose it could be constantly updated) then the little blurbs about these quest threads would probably become quickly irrelevant; I don't feel like it would fit in. It would clutter it up as well. If it's a master thread in the Thread Request forum, then it's likely to compete with the Open Thread Ads, and one will cover the other up, meaning that more things are likely to get neglected, which is the opposite of what we want. If we have a Quests sub-forum, then it doesn't seem very different from a regular Thread Request or from anything in the Plots sub-forum. As for why certain quest/open threads don't get responses: this is somewhat unavoidable. Open threads are always a gamble, and sometimes the statement of a specific intent at the beginning makes people even more wary of joining. Sometimes there's just something off with an open thread, any open thread, that makes it hard for people to join, in which case it's something for the writer to deal with. There is a fantastic article on this in the Documents board. As far as I can tell, you have to get lucky, and sometimes you don't, in which case you move on. I don't see why having a specific system for quests would help rectify this more than harm it. People have been saying that it would be better without explaining a clear conception of how it would work or why it would be better. I think it's worth mentioning that I don't really see quest threads, as they've been defined, turning up all too often. Maybe I am missing something. I never said anything against the idea of adding more depth by making the actions of characters have more impact; I am with it to the point that I made a prototype of the thing taking into account what people have said and what I saw Crow doing. I don't think the quests system idea has anything to do with that. On DMing: we have also been doing fine by letting people to deal with their own NPCs, wild animals or not, and we've reserved the Dungeon Master account for site-wide plots. I don't see why we need to open such services up to everyone, even if it's probably not going to come up very often and even if it's a matter of "well don't do it if you don't want to." All of the staff is in their 20s, dealing with lives and being grown ups, and it has happened before that everyone in the staff has been busy in some way or another, without the time to help people by DMing for them when they could do it themselves. One last thing: I think that the reason that people don't use the thread request board is because most of the old members aren't any more, because it's all negotiated through PM and Skype. I'm guilty of this too. I don't think it has anything to do with any inherent problems with the thread request board, just that we are mostly doing very plotty things with our characters that limit us to certain threads about certain things. TL;DR This is how my opinions lie, if it's not clear: A specific place for quest threads: NO A "gossip bulletin"/current events thread: YES Staff DMing for members in anything except site plots: NO |
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| Juul Shaepah | Jan 18 2015, 06:35 PM Post #24 |
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This seems to have turned into a discussion of two different things. Alright, the current events thing as a newspaper is a terrific idea, and I agree on its organisation - as for character recognition within it, my essential idea was this: with the seasonal voting announcement, ask players to PM me or whoever is writing the thing with cool threads that are either in progress or are finished just because it doesn't make sense to link to something in which the narrative has yet to be fully established//explored. This will reward good writing, people like to be recognised for it, as well they should! It will -also- boil down what exactly is going on, helping newer people get a feel for the site. The lore can be slightly intimidating, it will help newer players get it in 'bitesized' forms, perhaps give them a point of reference. -hurls grenade, dives for cover- Personally, I am against there being a 'Quests' forum, for three reasons - firstly because I don't think it will be used much, and it never looks good to have a subforum with tumbleweeds blowing through it. These next two are very much personal opinions. Secondly I kinda think making an 'official' quests thing is a little bit MMO-like, and bleh to MMOs. To me, this is primarily a writing forum, the focus should be on crafting narratives, not getting special items or ability perks because you defeated x or helped find y. For sure, they can be used to springboard narratives or reinforce them, but if you have to put a carrot there that isn't 'this will make a cool story' then that is probably not the focus. Thirdly, I don't wanna DM any threads - I don't have the inclination to post for npcs and monsters that serve to arbitrarily say 'go here' or die when I am drowning in post debt and attempting to keep my own plots going. And it would kinda suck for players if whoever was DMing the thing suddenly went 'oh fuck, I cba' and it died - because I certainly would if I had to spend weeks DMing a thread I didn't care about. Just my two cents. // possibly incendiary personal opinions It seems to me that the main problem people are having is a visibility issue - which I do agree with. Perhaps making a separate sub-forum for opens - or just moving the open thread ads megathread to another place so the 'thread request' board looks like its serving its own purpose would alleviate the confusion. Now, if players want to do their own DMing (I can appreciate that switching between a character narrative to an objective 'this thing happens here' narrative is very difficult) having a bog-standard NPC account would be useful. A third caveat would be to link newer members to these boards. Totally obvious, I know, and its something that we do already. But we should always keep it in mind. None of these things would 'solve' anything, not that there are any really crippling problems on the site that I can see. Anyway. Thats all I've gotta say about it BUT WOTEVA 8D Edited by Juul Shaepah, Jan 18 2015, 07:43 PM.
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| Bast | Jan 18 2015, 08:33 PM Post #25 |
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'He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone.../And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up, for ever and ever;'
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Okay fine, whatever. It was just an idea and we were exploring and running with it because it seemed quite popular in the chat. I will point this out though - 1. The idea of having them together was to make it 'quite easy' to find them all without having to browse through lots of thread requests and separate characters, as mentioned before. 2. It doesn't 'cover up' the open thread ads because that's what the active topics of the day is for, and if you don't see it there then you go to the forum area where it is listed as a pinned topic anyway so it's not being buried by anything at all. 3. If having threads oriented with actual purposes in mind doesn't detract from the dull wandering the forest/market, what makes the general gossip any different? 4. The 'LF whatever' blurbs wouldn't be written by staff so that takes next to no work. 5. The entire point of having these little quests or jobs is to give people something that is going to make some minor impact on the area other than 'lol i'm in a forest picking flowers'. That ties directly into having an impact, since it's to do with how the character is dealing with situations that could affect the world on a smaller scale than plots. 6. I think everyone's getting totally the wrong idea. It's not meant to be a huge, serious damned thing, but something that has the potential, like the regional gossip, to spark threads for people that are more interesting to read. It's not meant to be an MMO, and it's not meant to be a chore. But hey that's just my two cents. Since you seem so against it, forget I opened my mouth in the first place. I thought I was being straightforward and I obviously wasn't. |
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