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Post by zipp on Dec 13, 2008 1:25:11 GMT -5
I know what you mean about the flawed nature of a reboot, Beowuuf. Believe me, I've realized this problem. That said, I do think that we are so far entrenched in the WW that it's nearly impossible for even old members who have been away to get back in. While a reboot won't solve the problem permanently, I do think along with a new site needs to come a new WW.
I think what would solve the problem is some more organization around the WW. For instance, full character bios that are frequently updated and easy to access for new members, so that they can easily know what they need to about the characters they would be interacting with. Also, more seperation of storylines within the forums themselves. By this I mean that, for instance, if Beowuuf decides to start a whole story about him running around the countryside, this should be its own thread, and when people want to enter this story, they can do so through that thread. If there's a story occuring at the kai monastery, this could be its own thread, too. Obviously, there are logistics to work out with this approach, but one of the hardest things about the WW is (and always has been) reading the stories when they are so broken up by other people's posts. Posts that may (and here I look guiltily away) never lead to any conclusion. Trying to follow a single storyline, let alone the interwoven ones, is so problematic that I usually gave it up as a bad job half way through. Only the most intense and interesting of the stories in the WW I ever found myself able to finish. Which is no offense to any of the writers here, I've read storylines from all classes and from all members. But I certainly haven't read as much as I'd like to, and to be honest, the blame was on the way the site presented it.
Those are my thoughts. Where this fits in with a reboot is that I think it would be much easier to instigate an organized system if we started over and did it from the start. Trying to back track now, especially with all the missing material and writers, would be a MAJOR headache that I don't think anyone would want to undertake.
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Post by Beowuuf on Dec 13, 2008 3:03:39 GMT -5
We had the character bios already, it was called the Tome of the New Order! I kept mine up to date, and before the crash was trying to tidy it up and add to it! If people in the past could not contribute to it, then there is no expectation with our busier lives that it would be any different. I think the Tome did just fine of organising the new players, key events, and summaries of individual storylines. It just needs a bigger commitment from those in the West Watch to add to the Tome in the future, in whatever form it takes.
I think the West Watch storyline is going to be convoluted no matter what. At least on one thread, you can follow the stories in chronological order, and it is the best or a set of worse solutions. Separate threads will divorce timeframes, so people wondering in to various stories could easily cause a confusion as to what their personal timescale is - plus it makes it harder for WW authors to know which threads they should be keeping track of for the overarcing continuity.
A radical solution would be to divorce the West Watch story from the normal forum. Instead, each West Watch post would be a separate file. Each post would have attached the author, the character they are currently playing, a date stamp, and also a 'story' field. And perhaps even a 'personal' field and chapter field.
The fault display of these would be all of them (perhaps from the current chapter) in date order (excluding personal posts) to ape the current West Watch threads . However, you could choose to include all the personal posts to integrate people's 'stories of' and other digressions that get included in a background story thread. You could choose to only display one person's work, or one character's work. And you could choose to display only one story, and providing the contribuors kept it a consistent story keyword, you could get all the posts connected to one story line.
I now the basic search functionality of forum posts would kinda let you do this now for author and certain odd keywords (you can display the full post in the search), but I am not sure it would be easy to expand it further. Whereas I think it is possible to easily do the suggested text files display thing in php from saved text files.
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Post by eviltb on Dec 13, 2008 4:41:22 GMT -5
Some also added their bio to the wiki, which had info listed as canon/non-canon. If we're having a wiki again, it would be prudent for those that want to to add their bio to that as well.
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Post by Ghost Bear on Dec 13, 2008 6:21:28 GMT -5
With regard to canonicity - every fan written story is going to diverge from canon at some point (or at least it should, in my opinion. Otherwise the story offers little that's new). A case in point here is the NAK. There are no Evil Kai. This is an established fact straight from the horse's mouth. But we allowed them in the WW, because they were cool, and because they offered something to our story.
The point is though, that we need to balance our 'off canon' story arcs with ease of introduction for new players. Back when we started, it was easy since the story kicked off just after the gamebooks finished, so we were all starting from the same canvas. Now, this isn't the case.
I too wouldn't like to lose Ghost Bear the Supreme Master, because I like the character (obviously!). However, this particular Kai Lord is unfamiliar to anyone bar the current WW writers, and new players obviously see him with the same fondness that I do. BC's discussed his idea with me, so he should be posting sometime over the weekend. I'm going to be quiet this weekend, since I have a Christmas party today. But I'll chip in when I get time!
-GB
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Post by Beowuuf on Dec 13, 2008 6:32:11 GMT -5
Same here, I have one of our customer's christmas parties this weekend, my own company's one next weekend, then will be off to aberdeen for christmas
So if I dip in and out of the conversations, you will know why!
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Post by Aguila Saber on Dec 13, 2008 6:47:31 GMT -5
Some also added their bio to the wiki, which had info listed as canon/non-canon. If we're having a wiki again, it would be prudent for those that want to to add their bio to that as well. Having edited the wiki I'm not sure the part about including canon and non-canon things in the same wiki and the same articles was such a good idea. So therefore characters and player inventions might end up in a separate part of the wiki. I think this approach would be more appropriate. The problem is that there is a fairly large grey zone and also quite a lot of conflicting information. The history descriptions in the Mongoose Lone Wolf RPG meshes badly with what is in the game-books in a number of ways. For this reason the best way to start out is probably with nation descriptions, geographical descriptions, item descriptions, 'famous' persons and beastiaries. The kind of things which there is an overall agreement on in all sources. Player invented parts can then link to the general parts describing the world, beastiary and so on, but not the other way around.
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Post by Maerin on Dec 13, 2008 13:27:02 GMT -5
I think the Tome did just fine of organising the new players, key events, and summaries of individual storylines. It should be factually noted here that, of course yourself excepted, there were no new players/contributors to West Watch in the time frame we talk about here. Therefore, while your assertion above is probably an easy one to make in a vacuum, there is little enough recent history to actually back it up with. The point is fairly moot, however, as it is not character bios that are of any interest to a new writer/contributor. In an ideal world perhaps, there would be meaningful embrace of newcomers with new ideas and directions, but there was little enough past evidence of it in mid-2006 on. Most of West Watch devolved into individual-exclusive stories as a direct (and unsurprising) consequence. Consequently, putting aside idealism, what is going to have to be open for newcomers is the setting itself. West Watch has gone way past the gamebooks, as was said above, and is not a very approachable setting (it wasn't even before the crash made it even more unapproachable). There is too much past history and, yes, former "writer" baggage to wade through. I know, because I went to the trouble of doing so in my little corner of the Stornlands before starting Maerin's story attached to that previous history. And I can speak both authoratively and candidly on the level of trouble it took for me to do so. It's all well and good to, perhaps say that someone can start in a completely new part of the world, where there is not such baggage. I, however, have a hard time believing anyone who says that can be quite that egotistically clueless. We all know better, knowing as we do what the vast majority of potential newcomers are going to want to write stories about. New corners of Magnamund, indeed. And yes, I have read this said before, so do not pretend I invent this merely to make the point. One might as well just tell them to go find their own setting and leave ours alone. And that is probably always going to be the case. Bad things all around? No. As I said before, there are probably a small number of people who still want to keep going with West Watch, and I think they should still be able to do so. A reboot of West Watch as a way of addressing this subject is not itself a good idea, because what writers remain for that storyline will just reintroduce all their own pet elements and their characters back into the storyline again, just as they were before, as I mentioned previously. I cannot really blame any writer who does so (and I do not see how anyone here could rightly tell such writers they couldn't), but that does make a reboot effort largely a waste of time. As a "reform" of sorts to West Watch, I would encourage writers towards making that particular setting divergence more approachable to the outside reader, so that they might actually benefit from someone actually reading their efforts. But the continuance of West Watch is not a bad thing...so long as West Watch does not remain the only game in town.
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Post by Aguila Saber on Dec 13, 2008 14:31:39 GMT -5
There is a lot of things to consider for the West Watch.
A lot of new information will be available in the Chronicles and in the Lone Wolf 29-32 gamebooks, and they will cover more or less the same period of time.
I think it was decided that the West Watch was a separate timeline, but ignoring all the new information we will gain in the next 1-2 years might not be a wise course of action to take.
I guess there is overall two courses of actions which can be taken. Continue or step the time an appropriate number of years, perhaps 10. Likely we will then be after the era of war, but still without the knowledge of what happened during it.
When it comes to the West Watch itself I think we would be much better served by having it a standalone forum the way LW RPoL was. When we want to create a new character we make a new user with that name.
I'd also like to see topics for Storylines which are co-made by a couple of players and their characters, rather than trying to lump all Storylines together in one thread.
Simply put: I found the idea to put all in one thread very chaotic and it was very difficult to potential newcomers to write much if anything at all.
Separating storylines into threads makes it easier to follow them.
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Post by zipp on Dec 14, 2008 1:57:53 GMT -5
Right, that's part of what I was saying. Having everything in one giant WW thread was a pain for even the OLD writers.
A reboot, I'll agree, is not a great idea. But a continuation of the WW without any adjustment is also a bad idea. It's become an almost elitist part of the site. On the most basic level, this is due to the amount of history that long time writers are drawing on. Also, like Maerin pointed out, most writers have gone off on their own creating side stories (which begs the question of why the WW hasn't yet been broken into seperate threads for these stories). The sense of solidarity that originally made the WW appealing has been totally lost.
I DO think that with seperate threads for stories, this solidarity has a chance to be regained. Here's how I envision it, in an example:
I log on, check the WW forum. In it is a thread called "travels in the Westlands." Opening it I see a synopsis of the tale so far, including the writers currently working on it. i decide I want in, so I contact one of the authors (say, Beowuuf) and ask if I can join in. And the rest is history.
This would solve the main problem. There are other problems, like the fact that most authors don't want their characters to die, so we end up with a bunch of super powered people running around NOT being able to harm one another. It ends up being a lot like Dragon Ball Z, actually. Fights are more word slinging than actual battles. But if things were more organized as stated above, these issues could work themselves out hopefully as authors communicate.
Essentially it would become a lot more like "Where the Eagles Soar," the LWERPG site that our very own AS started. And that was a good system. The only improvement here would be that, rather than requiring one moderator (AS) to upload and organize everything, it would be user run.
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Post by Aguila Saber on Dec 14, 2008 4:50:29 GMT -5
Funny you should mention the LW ERPG group.
The group now runs on an ad-infested Yahoo Groups. It is mostly inactive.
A few months ago I suggested to the group that we move to a forum based approach instead and it was accepted by the few writers who are left. I've looked for a suitable place to move but not really ahd the time to spend. Reasons for moving are: - Too many ad-banners and what not on Yahoo's service - Need for admin (me) to upload everything. It happens 1-2 year. - Forums makes for a better structure than html based archives.
Perhaps the new Tower of the Sun Forums can host a separate section for the LW ERPG as well.
The LW ERPG will face the same choices as the West Watch. In the case of the LW ERPG I'm perfectly happy to let the old archives remain on my site and only use the new forums for events which happens in new writing periods, i.e. in our case only events taking place in MS 5075.
If there are writers forums in the new TotS they would have to be completely separate since they use different time-lines.
Is several separate writer's forums a good or bad idea? I'm not sure.
If we assume that both forums receive their own sub-forums (and character registrations) then I think the main difference between the two would likely be the level of moderation of writers, and then possibly the time in which the adventure is set (MS 5075 vs MS 5104.).
Moderation of writers: what you can or cannot write especially in regard to the normal players. WW is more free-form than the LW ERPG, this is one difference I can see will be maintained. Zipp, GB, WH and a couple more are old LW ERPG writers, and could probably attest to this.
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Post by huntingmoon on Dec 14, 2008 18:12:24 GMT -5
When I joined the Tower a year or two ago (has it been that long?) I was a little confused by some of the terms. The NAK? To be honest, I am still not sure what that stands for but I know its an Anti-Kai. The MKC?
I think organization is good, and I like the WW, but as other have already mentioned I think the WW and its ideas need to be moved back a little to make the community a little more accessible. I visited the Tower many times as a lurker and never joined because a lot of what was happening on the forums were a little confusing. When I finally jumped in with both feet I never looked back, but I hesitated for the longest time.
Thats not to say that the IDEAS presented are confusing, just the terms and how they changed over time translated to entities that I had a hard time relating to. A knights organization makes a certain kind of sense to me, as does grouping "dark" characters in a group but I think we can come up with more accessible ways to present these ideas that make it more friendly to casual participants and newcomers to our vision. By de-integrating the WW we may increase membership in the Tower since understanding the WW is no longer a requirement (even if they don't read it).
That being said I would like to get back to Tower life, posting with my character stats and the feeling of belonging that the old tower seemed to have that the surrogate seems to be missing. Maybe its because all I see is temporary around me I just want to move back to the stability we had. The old Tower felt like a fixture, whatever we move to I would like to see it happen soon. Like paperback game books soon. I know nothing about hosting and coding but I know that there will soon be new fans looking for brotherhood on the Internet and I would like to have a fortress for them to visit. ;D
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Post by eviltb on Dec 15, 2008 2:26:11 GMT -5
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Post by Beowuuf on Dec 15, 2008 2:50:16 GMT -5
HM, out of interest could you scan over my summary of summary of the West Watch, and tell me if a slightly edited down version of that (along with some 'state of the world/state of the classes') would have helped?
No matter what we do, it's going to get just as bad again (apparently, within two years as I had the same problem when I first joined, and needed to at least read the summaries which was a commitment of time). It would be good to know which ways to combat this when it happens
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Post by Black Cat on Dec 15, 2008 13:45:57 GMT -5
About the WW, I have an idea for it. Like AS suggests, we could jump forward in time. I thought that maybe we should set the "new" WW in MS 5130, which is roughly 30 years after the current timeline.
You surely noticed that I used the " when talking a the new WW. That's because it will be up to each character to decide how new the WW will be. Some of you might want to take part in the new WW with a new character (i.e. Zipp might become Chenia, a KotWM) while other would use their old avatar (I would still be BlackCat, although my character would be 30 years older). Some of you might even want to keep the same name for their character although it would be a totally different one from the old WW (GhostBear could keep the name and character, although all the events that took place in the old WW regarding him would be ignored).
Speaking of the events that occured in the old WW, if some of you want to use elements from it to add to your backstory, go for it. If not, then just ignored everything.
Like AS said, there are events in the new publications that are totally in contradiction with what is currently written in the WW. By moving the WW a few years in the future, it gives us room to create new characters, to include the elements of the new gamebooks and novels and to allow new members to join the story since there won't be a daunting amount of backstory to learn.
As for a new organisation of the WW threads, I don't know what to think. It has its advantages and its problems. We need to think about it.
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Post by Beowuuf on Dec 15, 2008 14:35:15 GMT -5
The trouble with the time jump is that while it would reset as happened with the original west watch and let everyone play again, it would further divorce the timeline from the recognised fun characters and settings of the original books. Still, it was suggested before. A 30 year jump would be odd for the character I had thought of taking next (Kalmyn Tolan) unless I made the story plots I had for him backstory, like AS is doing now for her character. Still, it is an option. Lots of the Kai SMs have the excuse of slow body aging to be the sae character, of course! They'd only be 6 years older
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