I started a discussion about role playing as an age creator at the GOW here.

This suggestion is more of a plea for a little help from RAWA (if he could?) perhaps give us a way to explain how it was possible for explorers to learn to create descriptive and linking books.

As I suggested in the GOW thread the phrase, "Yes, it is entirely possible someone could happen upon materials that were for teaching students in the ancient GOW how to create descriptive and linking books." would be plenty to help us along.

It seems so far that keeping things simple and vague is what would be best for the GOW as the people creating ages do not want to be limited while they create their own story lines.

_________________
BAD is as good as BAD can be.

Visit our new site!

SOUP!

From the GoW thread,

BAD wrote:

Whether you know about it or not, many players of Uru dislike the GoW. For a long time I had trouble figuring out why. I think I have the solution..

Both the Guild of Greeters and Messengers are mostly OOC and manage to maintain good will among explorers, so that has nothing to do with the GoW's poor reputation.
Nevertheless, I like the idea of the GoW making an effort to explain their existence and work in an IC manner. It seems to me that the best place to start is with the final episode of MOUL where Yeesha & Watson planted the seeds for explorers to begin writing ages.


I will draw them away. Away from the cavern. Away from you.
I do not know how long the evil ones will seek me...
I do not know how long they will seek what I carry. It could be only days, it could be months.
Destruction is coming.
It is almost here.
I will delay it as long as I can but, in the meantime, you must find a way.
You must make a home.
Destruction will be here soon.
I will try to return and help you in the future.
If things go well, I will offer you my aid.
If things do not, you must find a way on your own.
Regardless, you must be ready.
Destruction will come... soon or later.
When it does, you must have a way.
You must make a home.
I will do all that I can in the meantime.
I must leave now.
Goodbye.
Funny thing about prophecies... they don't always come with an expiration date. But we have been told that "Destruction is coming." I believe specifically that that destruction is coming to the Cavern, but I could be wrong about that,too. it is entirely possible that the "destruction" is a great deal larger than that. Either way, we need to use the time we are being given to "Find a way. Make a home." How can we do that? That's where the Guilds come in. We have got to work together. It will not happen overnight. It will likely take many years, in fact. But I believe the Guilds are the key.
Yeesha has already been to hundreds of Ages, looking for something, anything, that might help to end the Bahro conflict, or, at the very least, help to protect us from it in case there comes a time when the "good" Bahro are no longer able to. As time passes, it grows increasingly unlikely that anything is going to be found in an Age the D'ni have or had access to. And so, we are going to need new Ages at some point. There are those among the Explorers who may eventually be able to assist in that regard. That is the direction I believe we must take. The Guilds (and even the Explorers who are not interested in joining a Guild) will have to work together: writing, maintaining, mapping, and exploring those new Ages. It is a grand undertaking. And much of it depends on you Explorers, and how well you choose to work together. Will we be up to the challenge? That definitely remains to be seen. I hope we are. Thank you for your kind attention.
If you can interpret these IC messages into OOC, then it should be simple enough to find a way to insert your OOC needs into the story in an IC manner.

_________________
OpenUru.org Minkata Test Shard is
OU-Minkata Shard Testers Guide (in laymen's terms)

BAD wrote:

I started a discussion about role playing as an age creator at the GOW here.

This suggestion is more of a plea for a little help from RAWA (if he could?) perhaps give us a way to explain how it was possible for explorers to learn to create descriptive and linking books.

As I suggested in the GOW thread the phrase, "Yes, it is entirely possible someone could happen upon materials that were for teaching students in the ancient GOW how to create descriptive and linking books." would be plenty to help us along.

It seems so far that keeping things simple and vague is what would be best for the GOW as the people creating ages do not want to be limited while they create their own story lines.

All I can say is "about time" Good to see the GoW finally embracing the IC side of things.

Atrus was able extend his knowledge of writing beyond what Gehn passed on and Catherine learned to create Ages even though Gehn withheld what he thought were the key characters. I don't see why the GoW couldn't study the Books available and begin creating their own Ages.

_________________
Frisky Badger
Guild of Maintainers
My opinions are my own and not necessarily those of the Guild of Maintainers.
KI# 00140468

Tai'lahr wrote:

Nevertheless, I like the idea of the GoW making an effort to explain their existence and work in an IC manner. It seems to me that the best place to start is with the final episode of MOUL where Yeesha & Watson planted the seeds for explorers to begin writing ages.
(...)
If you can interpret these IC messages into OOC, then it should be simple enough to find a way to insert your OOC needs into the story in an IC manner.

Unfortunately if it were that simple we wouldn't be having this discussion. Background questions like 'how did we learn the Art? When? etc' are difficult to answer.

This is an important step for the GoW. While Uru was still Offline, IC aspects were a little less important. Now it's different.
Most of our work is very technical in nature, and hard to tie to IC aspects of Uru. Obviously the purpose of the GoW is to help produce Ages and contents that can (and should) be tied to IC stories, but what happens beside the eventuall IC ties is definitely OOC, and usually that represents well over 80% of the production time of any Age/content creation project..
Also, there is the major fact that the GoW doesn't have a fixed hierachical structure (or any kind of structure for that matter). It is in part intentionnal because it allow us to be more efficient in our work, but it also makes it a little more difficult to integrate IC-wise, and sometimes gives us the appearance of a nebulous entity.

But with the recent evolutions, and the perspective of having Explorer-written (as well as explorer-restored) Ages integrated in MOULa, more than ever the GoW needs to be present IC.

This is an interesting topic, and an excellent idea.

My personal thoughts on this may or may not come to be part of the story that the GoW embraces, but I've always thought that the IC history of the Writers shouldn't be far removed from the OOC side. So as to not detract too much from BAD's point that this is mostly a request for input from RAWA, and not myself, I will put my thoughts into a spoiler tag.


OOC, Writing of Ages began as part of the process when some very determined people began to decipher the way in which Uru worked, way back in 2004 when Uru stopped for the first time. Aside from the server development efforts, some of the earliest, if not THE earliest, new content that came about from these efforts were Dustin's "<x> Age of Dustin" Ages. And as would be expected, these first Ages were very primitive, but they were necessary and groundbreaking first steps.

All of this translates very nicely to IC if we can all accept that sometimes, dedicated people will do things in "grey" ways, and some people may shake their fingers but great results can still come of it all. The Writers have not, as a group, done anything horrifically or tragically wrong. But the greyness of some of the Writers' actions, I think, bothers some people... yet I think it should be embraced for the IC history because it is great story, and it would be telling a lie to pretend that things happened differently.

Thus: IC, as soon as explorers were forced to leave the cavern the first time, some of them took books from the Cavern and brought them to the surface to study, and experiment upon. Some of the scavenged books were empty - they were kor'neeahn. And someone had to take the first step, to "defile" one of these historical artifacts... and try to write an Age of their own upon it.
Along with BAD - I'd very much like to know what RAWA thinks too.

_________________

MOULa 26838 | Prologue Video Project: On Hold pending Minkata support
Visit rel.to to explore Myst, Uru, and D'ni communities!

Yeah Marten, That seems to be generally what's being agreed upon. So far it seems we want to keep things as vague as possible as to not tread on individual age stories and those who are RPing already.

I don't know all of the problems people have with the GOW, but I do believe creating a more rounded story of the group for IC purposes, will improve the reputation of the group immensely.

_________________
BAD is as good as BAD can be.

Visit our new site!

SOUP!

In many ways the IC role play in MOUL is a modified RL as role play... that U-r-u thing. Since people discover things and learn in various ways... we would probably do the same in Cavern.

Scientists studying and experimenting share information and people get new bright ideas. People leak or whistle blow secrets, industrial espionage, and more. I expect all that can contribute to an explanation. RAWA will likely come up with an interesting one. But, I can't see it being the only way.

_________________
Nalates - GoC - 418 - MOULagain: Nal KI#00 083 543, Nalates 111451 - Second Life: Nalates Urriah
Guild of Cartographers

aloys wrote:

Tai'lahr wrote:

It seems to me that the best place to start is with the final episode of MOUL where Yeesha & Watson planted the seeds for explorers to begin writing ages. (...) If you can interpret these IC messages into OOC, then it should be simple enough to find a way to insert your OOC needs into the story in an IC manner.

Unfortunately if it were that simple we wouldn't be having this discussion. Background questions like 'how did we learn the Art? When? etc' are difficult to answer.

You're right; it's not that simple and I should have elaborated. My point was more about learning how to be IC and have the IC stories run parallel with OOC events. I guess what I was trying to say was that, in order to learn how to turn OOC events into IC stories, you first have to learn how to translate IC speeches into OOC messages. Just as you had to learn how to read before you could learn how to write.

Also, I wanted to draw attention to the fact that there may have been information in the speeches which might help the Writers, now. To me, the simple fact that Dr. Watson was the one imploring the explorers to learn to write new ages sets him up as a go-to person for information. He said, "Will we be up to the challenge? ... I hope we are." Note that he said "we" not "you."

Additionally, Yeesha said, "I will try to return and help you in the future. If things go well, I will offer you my aid ." IMO, "If things go well" could be tied to the CAVCON Meter and as long as it's up, RAWA should have time to assist the Writers in working out their backstory on how they learned to write ages. It also allows for the possibility that Yeesha may have provided information and materials to some of the Writers.

Marten has more knowledge about Uru history than I do and seems to have presented a good place to start.

BAD wrote:

I don't know all of the problems people have with the GOW

Sending you a PM to explain.

_________________
OpenUru.org Minkata Test Shard is
OU-Minkata Shard Testers Guide (in laymen's terms)

People "fear" the GoW based on their own ignorance, nothing more. I looked at the Writers during Uru Live 2007 as part of a series I did on the then-emerging Guilds (Cartographers, Maintainers, Messengers, and Writers) which can be found here.

What I said then is still largely true today, though some development has gone on. The Cartographers still have a long way to go, the Messengers are still not under the same banner, and the Maintainers are still not organized into an overly-useful resource. Meanwhile, the Writers have continued to develop their tools for Uru and their creativity and talent (in both Age creation and coding) continue to impress me.

From what I see, the reason people fear the GoW is because the group's open membership supports a variety of viewpoints and not exclusively those of the paranoid.

_________________
-Whilyam

Whilyam wrote:

The Cartographers still have a long way to go, the Messengers are still not under the same banner, and the Maintainers are still not organized into an overly-useful resource. Meanwhile, the Writers have continued to develop their tools for Uru and their creativity and talent (in both Age creation and coding) continue to impress me.

This is not the appropriate thread to hold a discussion about the success or failure of the guilds in general. While the praise you give the Writers is deserved, your criticism of the other guilds above is both impolite and incorrect.

_________________

MOULa 26838 | Prologue Video Project: On Hold pending Minkata support
Visit rel.to to explore Myst, Uru, and D'ni communities!

Whilyam wrote:

People "fear" the GoW based on their own ignorance, nothing more. I looked at the Writers during Uru Live 2007 as part of a series I did on the then-emerging Guilds (Cartographers, Maintainers, Messengers, and Writers) which can be found here.

What I said then is still largely true today, though some development has gone on. The Cartographers still have a long way to go, the Messengers are still not under the same banner, and the Maintainers are still not organized into an overly-useful resource. Meanwhile, the Writers have continued to develop their tools for Uru and their creativity and talent (in both Age creation and coding) continue to impress me.

From what I see, the reason people fear the GoW is because the group's open membership supports a variety of viewpoints and not exclusively those of the paranoid.

This may be just my view, but I personally find many of the Guilds currently in existence a more "enjoyable" experience than the Writers, even if right now they are simply groups united in their dreams rather than actual abilities. Again, just my view, but many of the "serious" discussion and actual "progress" made in the GoW are made only by those with an intimate and near-complete knowledge of the tools of Age Creation. Simply put, if you don't know how to use Blender or PyPRP, your Age "ideas" never truly amount to much more than that.

Even if the other Guilds are finding themselves with little to do, they seem to be a more open environment because they focus on the "community" element of Uru over the "content" element. While many of the Guilds have had little to do "out in the open," many of them are progressing towards more open roles and have been doing quite a bit of work in the background to progress to a point where they have a visual "purpose."

I just feel that Uru should be an experience where everyone can enjoy themselves and feel as if they are part of the "Guild" experience without needing to have gone through a graphics design course to feel as if what they're doing actually amounts to something.

The points you make concerning the Guilds are true, Whilyam, but I wouldn't be so bold as to say people "fear" the Guild of Writers for no reason whatsoever.

Marcus Wheeler wrote:

This may be just my view, but I personally find many of the Guilds currently in existence a more "enjoyable" experience than the Writers, even if right now they are simply groups united in their dreams rather than actual abilities. Again, just my view, but many of the "serious" discussion and actual "progress" made in the GoW are made only by those with an intimate and near-complete knowledge of the tools of Age Creation. Simply put, if you don't know how to use Blender or PyPRP, your Age "ideas" never truly amount to much more than that.

Even if the other Guilds are finding themselves with little to do, they seem to be a more open environment because they focus on the "community" element of Uru over the "content" element. While many of the Guilds have had little to do "out in the open," many of them are progressing towards more open roles and have been doing quite a bit of work in the background to progress to a point where they have a visual "purpose."

I just feel that Uru should be an experience where everyone can enjoy themselves and feel as if they are part of the "Guild" experience without needing to have gone through a graphics design course to feel as if what they're doing actually amounts to something.

The points you make concerning the Guilds are true, Whilyam, but I wouldn't be so bold as to say people "fear" the Guild of Writers for no reason whatsoever.

This is the ever-present myth that people use as an excuse. I make Ages. People say I make good Ages. I took no graphics design courses. I had fun learning on my own. I explored Blender and experimented with what I found and started making Ages. I asked for help when I got stuck and learned from the experiences of others. It is no harder to make an Age right now than it is to relay the news or to approve an Age or to stand in a neighborhood greeting newcomers. Beyond that, it is an experience which has exponentially-greater rewards.

In short, I do not accept this nonsense that the Age writing differs in any substantive way from the ways we explore Myst and Uru. We explore, we ask questions, we find out what stuff does. The concerns I've seen raised are the absurd of "they want to kill Uru!" and the ignorant "they want to tell us how to make our Ages!"

_________________
-Whilyam

Whilyam wrote:

Marcus Wheeler wrote:

This may be just my view, but I personally find many of the Guilds currently in existence a more "enjoyable" experience than the Writers, even if right now they are simply groups united in their dreams rather than actual abilities. Again, just my view, but many of the "serious" discussion and actual "progress" made in the GoW are made only by those with an intimate and near-complete knowledge of the tools of Age Creation. Simply put, if you don't know how to use Blender or PyPRP, your Age "ideas" never truly amount to much more than that.

Even if the other Guilds are finding themselves with little to do, they seem to be a more open environment because they focus on the "community" element of Uru over the "content" element. While many of the Guilds have had little to do "out in the open," many of them are progressing towards more open roles and have been doing quite a bit of work in the background to progress to a point where they have a visual "purpose."

I just feel that Uru should be an experience where everyone can enjoy themselves and feel as if they are part of the "Guild" experience without needing to have gone through a graphics design course to feel as if what they're doing actually amounts to something.

The points you make concerning the Guilds are true, Whilyam, but I wouldn't be so bold as to say people "fear" the Guild of Writers for no reason whatsoever.

This is the ever-present myth that people use as an excuse. I make Ages. People say I make good Ages. I took no graphics design courses. I had fun learning on my own. I explored Blender and experimented with what I found and started making Ages. I asked for help when I got stuck and learned from the experiences of others. It is no harder to make an Age right now than it is to relay the news or to approve an Age or to stand in a neighborhood greeting newcomers. Beyond that, it is an experience which has exponentially-greater rewards.

In short, I do not accept this nonsense that the Age writing differs in any substantive way from the ways we explore Myst and Uru. We explore, we ask questions, we find out what stuff does. The concerns I've seen raised are the absurd of "they want to kill Uru!" and the ignorant "they want to tell us how to make our Ages!"

Mate, I didn't mean to offend you, and my views were of my own. I've spent upwards of a month or two looking around Blender and using GoW tutorials, yet I still find myself with various questions or just reaching points where the system feels clunky or cumbersome to the point where I just become so irritated that I never push myself to "complete" anything I start.

I wasn't speaking of the GoW so much as the tools which currently exist. I, personally, find Blender and its necessary components difficult to manage even with the release of the new Alpha version of Blender.

Clearly I'm doing more harm than good, so I'll leave it at that. I was merely trying to express an opinion from a non-Writer, clearly it was not a rational one.

Marcus Wheeler wrote:

Mate, I didn't mean to offend you, and my views were of my own. I've spent upwards of a month or two looking around Blender and using GoW tutorials, yet I still find myself with various questions or just reaching points where the system feels clunky or cumbersome to the point where I just become so irritated that I never push myself to "complete" anything I start.

I wasn't speaking of the GoW so much as the tools which currently exist. I, personally, find Blender and its necessary components difficult to manage even with the release of the new Alpha version of Blender.

Clearly I'm doing more harm than good, so I'll leave it at that. I was merely trying to express an opinion from a non-Writer, clearly it was not a rational one.

No offense was taken at all. I was purely responding the the idea. If you are having troubles, you should contact the Writers. Most will be glad to help.

_________________
-Whilyam