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Post by NAK Orson on Dec 4, 2008 19:56:15 GMT -5
Hey all the goodly folks .... Hail my evil brothers and sisters.
I haven't been on this temp forum in a while. Mostly due to the Wow expansion/EVE Online/Facebook appl games ... and whole bunch of other gaming sites .... Gaming junkie .... LOL
It also cram time for students with finals before winter break and others trying to deal with RL stuff ... I hope they'll be back around but, who can tell theses days ....
Strangely enough I've seen WH on facebook playing the Battle Stations and D&D app games of late.
I'll try to be on here more frequently but with some much going on at the end of the year can't promise ...
Until later all ...
PS: If the Kai have died off ... well a part of this NAK person will shed a tear, but my evil side will be beaming with joy as evil people go ....
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Post by Aguila Saber on Dec 5, 2008 15:22:25 GMT -5
Strangely enough I've seen WH on facebook playing the Battle Stations and D&D app games of late. Correct. If you want more crew in BattleStation you can add Winterhawk to your friends list and send him an invite. He needs to get his crew up too.
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Post by Beowuuf on Dec 5, 2008 17:59:38 GMT -5
Ah, so this was the thread answering my question in the 'past, present and future' forum then!
Yeah, my participation has been zero due to no internet with flat moving for three weeks, and before that very, very busy work killed my creative drive to the point i could just about sustain the two RPG games i was in and a few avalar moves and that was it
I don't see the name 'Tower of the Sun' carrying on as disrespectful at all, for exampel the Rising Sun publication swapped from magnamund.org to tower of the sun and kept the name.
I do think that the creative efforts of the community was what set it apart from other Lone Wolf sites. Whether that was in the LWRPGoL, the RPG elements of the site, or the body of work created in the forges, it was very impressive.
I think that any website attached to this community should definitely be bent on that aspect - i think we should concentrate on leaving the news of lone wolf as it is to project aon and those forums and participate there to make sure the community surroundign the canonical works remains informed and strong.
I think tots should be known as the place to go for when you wish to expand the mythology yourself, or show works that have been inspired by LW.
And, I don't think the RPG aspect should totally go away - I really, really, really enjoyed forming the KDJT last year because of all the contributions, and similarly the tournaments this year have shown how much fun this aspect is.
Whether the 'fields of battle' and west watch are the only places it is expressed, or whether it keeps being part of the forum and site as a whole i do not know - i suspect that it should be contained, as this aspec was what scared off many people from joining when tots was at its height - certainly it stopped me from joinign for a while, and doomy too.
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Post by Maerin on Dec 5, 2008 19:24:23 GMT -5
I do submit the notion that any such new community needing to conform to the Lone Wolf RPG "class" approach represents conformity that is both dated and inadequate (as well as counter-productive to the notion of this new site being a place to "expand the mythology yourself, or show works that have been inspired by LW").
The strength of a more generalized/non-class approach has been long since demonstrated by examples set by such groupings as the dwarves (which grew in character beyond the Gunner of Bor class that launched it), the collected good "knights" (the MKC), and the collected "bad guys".
Any sort of "sub-community" within the main community should be large enough, interesting enough and productive enough to be self-sustaining. The examples I indicated above are good examples of what I am talking about here. This is important, because otherwise there really little point in some sort of formal "sub-community" system.
While I am not saying that the Tower's system did not work out reasonably okay for its time, I am saying that time has largely run its course. The community has evolved from what it was several years ago. And that evolution started on the old Tower, not here, though much of that evolution certain came in the last couple years before this year.
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Post by Black Cat on Dec 6, 2008 16:15:12 GMT -5
I don't see the name 'Tower of the Sun' carrying on as disrespectful at all, for exampel the Rising Sun publication swapped from magnamund.org to tower of the sun and kept the name. Rising Sun kept its name because we did asked permission to the original editing staff to use it. That first editing team didn't have anything to do at all with the second editing team that we are, so we needed to ask their permission to use the name. Now, we as the second editing team, as long as we stay the same group, we can keep the name, even if we all move together from one website to the other (like we did when moving from TotS to this place). With the name of TotS, that's another matter. WH was the creator. He built the site himself, with all the RPG elements that we came to know well. If we are to make a new website, we need a new name because: A) WH doesn't have anything to do with the construction of a new website, so we need to ask permission first (in the case he decides to join us, then maybe we could keep the name) B) It won't be THE TotS we knew back then, with the RPG elements. We need a name that will show that it is not the same website that TotS was. I do think that the creative efforts of the community was what set it apart from other Lone Wolf sites. Whether that was in the LWRPGoL, the RPG elements of the site, or the body of work created in the forges, it was very impressive. I think that any website attached to this community should definitely be bent on that aspect - i think we should concentrate on leaving the news of lone wolf as it is to project aon and those forums and participate there to make sure the community surroundign the canonical works remains informed and strong. The creative efforts of the community will still be important in the new site. That's what made the original TotS good: PA is about canonical work, mostly the original gamebooks written by JD, and Mongoose Publishing is about the official RPG and new version of the gamebooks. With a new website, just like TotS was, we will fill a need in the community: creation by the fans of things about the whole LW universe, which includes the gamebooks (old and new), the novels (old and new), the RPG (old and new), the video games (again, old and new) and probably other projects that are yet to come. I don't agree that we should stay out of the news business, if you can call this a business. Every website has a news section. With TotS and even this surrogate forum, we provide news not only from Mongoose, Ksatria and PA, but also from communities that are not in English: Librogameland (Italian), Le Grimoire (French), etc. English is the main language on the web, so everybody at least understands it when they navigate. People from France, Italy, Spain, Germany and every country where there is a LW fan came visiting us at TotS because we were providing a lot more information than any other website regarding LW. We should keep this in a new website. And, I don't think the RPG aspect should totally go away - I really, really, really enjoyed forming the KDJT last year because of all the contributions, and similarly the tournaments this year have shown how much fun this aspect is. Whether the 'fields of battle' and west watch are the only places it is expressed, or whether it keeps being part of the forum and site as a whole i do not know - i suspect that it should be contained, as this aspec was what scared off many people from joining when tots was at its height - certainly it stopped me from joinign for a while, and doomy too. RPG aspects could be kept in a new website, but that's something we should think of much later, after an actual new website is made. If we find a way to code something RPG-like in the new website, then we may go with it but first, we need to have content in the said website and I think the suggestions I've made earlier about which sections we could have is a good start.
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Post by zipp on Dec 7, 2008 0:30:32 GMT -5
Ah, so are we building a new site, then? Or is this all just speculative?
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Post by Beowuuf on Dec 7, 2008 2:02:28 GMT -5
Speculative I would guess, I don't think anyone with free time and talents is around. We can certainly get a hold of a webspace, with a name, and have a simple front page as a placeholder.
I still think the tower of the sun name should continue on with the site, as the community WH built up is still here and still doing what it used to do, even if it's infrastructure and history have been removed.
If we carry on with a new name, then some people who have fallen away might not find the new site, or realise it is the same community with a new name. If we have to have a new name, then at the least we'd have to see if we could acquire the tots webspace name to put up a new redirect page, and also see if a few stickes could be put up at PA with the information about the new name
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Post by Maerin on Dec 7, 2008 11:08:47 GMT -5
If we carry on with a new name, then some people who have fallen away might not find the new site, or realise it is the same community with a new name. I think that, if the Internet were stuffed full of Lone Wolf fan communities, this would be a problem. Heck, if there were a mere dozen or so, this might be a problem. But needless to say, we do not have that particular problem. It is worth nothing that Tower of Sun was not the community that Winterhawk built. He built the site, sure. And in the early years of the site, his active involvement was responsible for keeping the site going. And through its history, he provided a fair amount of the financial support the site required. But it does not in any way belittle Winterhawk credit for the Tower of the Sun than to say that, in point of fact, the community built itself. I would be willing to be that most of the members that arrived at the site in the last year or two of its existence did not come at the express encouragement or invitation of Winterhawk. I know I did not, and I think it reasonable to guess Beowuuf did not either. So, how realistic is it to presume that, if Lone Wolf fans could find Tower of the Sun on their own in years past, that those same Lone Wolf fans (and, more importantly, new ones!) could not find a new fan site? Lastly, if we are going to cling tenaciously to the ownership of symbols, then according to the arguements put forth here (that the name "Tower of the Sun" is intrinsictly tied to Winterhawk and his efforts creating the old site) it is neither fair nor just to force that name upon another person or people who elect to build a new Lone Wolf fan site and the resulting community. In other words, to justify the efforts of new site designers and administrators, the site and community would have to carry a new name. Now, I am not saying I agree with this arguement, mind you, but I am saying that both sides, and not just one side, of the same arguement apply equally here. Not to put too fine a point on this, any new site and community would not be Tower of the Sun, no more than Tower of the Sun was any of the communities prior to it.
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Post by Doomy on Dec 7, 2008 12:10:28 GMT -5
As Kevin Costner said, "If you build it, they will come" ?
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Post by eviltb on Dec 7, 2008 13:09:59 GMT -5
I myself found TOTS via Wikipedia when looking up info about LW. I would imagine that most people would link from there to TOTS or to Aon, depending on their focus of interest (those more RPG minded would probably come here). So as long as an active Wikipedia user properly updates said wiki entry, getting to the new site will/should not be a problem.
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Post by Doomy on Dec 7, 2008 14:44:32 GMT -5
And the odd news post on PA will also draw people in. That's what finally lured me over here. I think it was Zipp with an announcement regarding a Dever interview.
Those of us with PA and Mongoose accounts could also advertise the new site in our forum signatures. Of course, like BC said, we need to establish the site as having its own identity and offering something unique. Following the legacy of the old TotS, this forum is a more "social" place than PA, in that it has more accommodation for casual chat between LW fans, and it is also the home of fan-created materials. That's a good starting point. A new site would offer the opportunity to build on it by having fancy (but useable) web pages and perhaps adding an IRC channel. The original TotS had at least some of that, but in the period when I joined it was also very bloated and off-putting for newcomers. The content was great, but the navigability was not.
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Post by Ghost Bear on Dec 7, 2008 15:53:17 GMT -5
I don't see why we shouldn't call the new site TotS. The site will be created by our members, and will be largely populated (at least at first) by our members. Having said that, it might be a good idea to go for a clean break. That way, we don't have to be tied to doing anything a certain way because 'that's how it's always been done'. Nor do the designers need to worry about whether the longtime 'TotS old farts' (and I'm one of 'em!) would approve of their design choices. Hmmm, originally when writing this post I was leaning towards sticking with the TotS name - but now, my last paragraph has made me think otherwise -GB
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Post by Doomy on Dec 7, 2008 16:10:35 GMT -5
We could name it with a weird symbol and call it "the online community formerly known as TotS".
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Post by zipp on Dec 7, 2008 16:17:29 GMT -5
I brought in a lot of people. I was, after all, named the TOTS PR a long time ago, and while I could never get the site noticed much outside of the main community, I was always recruiting wherever I went. I take some pride in that, cause I do love the community.
I also toss in a vote for a new name. Part of building a new site should be letting go of the old. The old site comes with a lot of history that I think would burden the creation of something truly new. I would also be for starting a new WW on a new site. The old one should be kept for posterity, but I think we really should try to start fresh, and bring in some fresh members.
This is a good time to gain new LW fans, from a new generation.
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Mydnight
New Member
I zaps you with me lighting bultz
Posts: 49
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Post by Mydnight on Dec 8, 2008 11:54:04 GMT -5
Well we can always have a poll, a name-choosing contest or better still, a WW name-polling event spinning out from this episode.
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