lilcurt
Outlaws
Back Home, Somewhere along the Lenfeld, Garheim Border Preparing for winter :)
Posts: 1,041
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Post by lilcurt on Feb 24, 2015 13:15:31 GMT -8
I am Falsus (Lilcurt's wife)
As a female, avid gamer, outsider, and a previous MOD of a chat room based RPG Mercat has it right. As does Andared and herostand.
There is a lot of room for improvement here. Including your participants is crucial. If their builds and individual stories have NOTHING to do with what's going on why should they continue to participate? Do they need to influence EVERY choice? Gods no. Then you will have anarchy. But at least allow them to have a voice within their faction and have the faction raise hell if they have to. Having the faction who wins the challenge having more sway could indeed help your story development.
On that note, as a writer, trying to write something, hand it off to someone else to continue and getting it back three months later flat out SUCKS. Been there, it's very difficult to maintain any sort of cohesion at all. A Scribe as described before would greatly help you on this aspect. And I'm sure you could find someone involved with the hobby but not on the forum who would be willing to write your story for you so the king's council could focus their attentions on more important tasks. Just as having a regular member build up a MOC for the updates. It's called delegating. Hand out smaller responsibilities so that you can fry bigger fish.
And the story changing directions can be limited very easily. Anyone else remember the adventure books where you read a chapter and at the end you had two options? Option A led you farther into the book; option B sent you into a dark pit where you were impaled on spikes. Leave it this way, left or right. You still maintain control of your story while allowing the peasants to live within it.
You may want to consider a 'Challenge Master' a role dedicated to running all of the challenges you want to have done. So they can have a scoreboard of who has done what, who has won and who lost. They can also run the brawls to the point of laying out the limitations for each. This way the kings council doesn't have to manage every single build or brawl that comes up. This can also come down to faction leaders running ones for their faction. But for the larger scale of the 'global challenges' it would ease another burden off the backs of the council.
Bottom line on this tiradeā¦ perhaps the council needs to consider a restructuring as well as the RPG. Too few people trying to do too much in what little time they have away from work is making this into WORK rather than a hobby to be enjoyed. Bring in member you trust to HELP you.
I realize this is a 'kingdom' however with RPG's there is a need for a touch of democracy. The kings council is a good idea because it gives you a base on which you can stand. Should they be voted in and out? I don't know, I think it could hurt more than help. However having rotating apprentices who can help in idea generating and ruling can bring in new blood. Something I believe you may need.
And yes, this appears, from the outside to be a sausage fest. The few who have ID'd themselves by gender are male. I have yet to see a female identified ANYWHERE. Being a strong willed and vocal female I have been voted off the island from situations like this before. And no, I don't want to endure that again when I do indeed enjoy the hobby. If you are going to have female characters you interact with within your story you should at least talk to a person of that gender to portray their reactions correctly. NPC's or played characters, doesn't matter.
Another point as an outsider, trying to navigate through the forum to find information on the guilds or even the story is rather difficult. I am not the type to sit and read through six or seven pages of conversation when I am here to game. Lay out my challenge and allow me to face it. But that is me.
War can be tedious. It's time consuming to plan, execute and play out. Peace can be equally taxing and you risk losing the interest of your people. Exploration can be beneficial, new lands with new goods, new trading partners, new problems. A solutionā¦.
"We are from the planet duplo and we are here to destroy you" plop that in the middle of you warring nations, they will unite to repel the interlopers and then "everything is awesome!"
This was not meant to insult or injure anyone's pride. It was observation only from an outsider. Yes, this has immense possibilities and I hope it succeeds, but it will need some tweaking. Rant over
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Gideon
Loreos
For the glory of Loreos!
Posts: 148
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Post by Gideon on Feb 24, 2015 14:17:34 GMT -8
Took the survey and there are some really good ideas and thoughts in this thread. My personal reflections: - A reboot (but without the tech-y '2.0' in the title) would be a great opportunity to get new players in, I could for example make a marketing post on our national AFOL forum and then talk well about LoR at the next annual gathering
- Challenges should impact the storyline, but I don't think there's anything to gain from having an influence system stretching over several challenges. Let the winning faction have some kind of decision on the story (multiple alternatives/LC or some other way) and then reset the table for the next challenge where all factions would be on an equal footing again to impact the story.
- Having all story illustrated with MOCs is very important imho. Either by including MOCs from the challenges or by having people building new MOCs for the challenge. Definitely not necessarily by the author of the story. A good example is the buildup to the coming challenge in Guilds of Historica where one of the leaders is writing the story and made a call for MOCs. He then PMed out suggestions for MOCs fitting into the story to the volunteers.
- LCs should be able to influence the internal affairs of a land.
Roles The Bard - This will be the Senior Editor and Story Teller. They will make sure there is continuity in the writing and be in charge of the story - without railroading, of course. The Bard probably won't do much building. The Bard will volunteer for 1 year to run the story. After that, a vote/survey will take place with all the players. If reelected, the Bard has the option of continuing. If the Bard doesn't get reelected, or decides to step down, then the story should pass to one of the Minstrels. The Minstrel/new Bard will then decide to take Roawia into a new age or remain in the same age. The Bard will allocate points for challenges, both global and local. The Minstrels - These will be a group of assistant storytellers. The will participate in the writing, editing, and story development. They will keep up with various individual storylines and make the Bard aware of them. They will keep tally of the points. And finally, they may assist in mocs for the story updates. The Council - This will be comprised of fraction leaders and guild leaders. They will advise the Bard and Minstrels of the sentiment and desires of their domains. The story group should incorporate some of the sentiment into the story. Also, the story group will seek council from the leaders on where they plan to take the fractions/guilds. The council can request Local Challenges as well. The council should also advise, or have oversight, of the game mechanics. Thoughts? Very good ideas for roles, I like it a lot! Consistent writing would in my opinion make it easier for someone like me joining late to read up on the story and follow what's happened before. And I really think quality should be prioritized over quantity. Too long and wordy story posts just makes me skip them too often... Writing good and short is harder than writing a lot
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Post by thedonald13 on Feb 24, 2015 14:27:23 GMT -8
Much of what was has been written rings true, but I do was to defend the MODs a bit. I can relate to how tasking a project like this can be, especially when you consider it a hobby! Between family, work, and everything else we all have going in our lives I understand how it this can be a gray line between a hobby and obligation. But, with that being said, a little more delegation to other members wouldn't hurt. Especially when it comes to accompaning GC MoCs. I do think there are more people around willing to help than you would think.
As far as how my character effects the over all story line ... I don't know if that is the point of GC's. I always felt that was the point of the LC's, progressing the story line week to week and filling in the gaps. And, I do feel that I can effect and even have some say in these. I don't know if it's the laissez faire nature of Loreos, but in our private chat we hold pretty general discussions on what we want to do as the faction and it reflects in our leadership(maybe not so much our Prince).
My idea would be to combine some of the listed "upgrades", in doing so we would be able to keep the original story line, but open it up for a more interactive game play. Using exploration as a vehicle we could open up a battle system and storyline where land can be conquired from other players and factions. Nothing caused more global contention than our own real world Age of Discovery, this knocks out two bird with stone. We already have a solid Brawl system in place, now lets make it count for something!
Just my two cents...
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Schmidt
Adventurer
Lord of the Bargain
All for one, one for all, every man for himself!
Posts: 1,330
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Post by Schmidt on Feb 24, 2015 17:33:06 GMT -8
Thanks guys for your general input.
Nowhere, have we stated the title of the update will be LoR 2.0
We have stated that we are internally (amongst ourselves) calling it that at the moment. We have not dubbed it that title, it's just easier for us to reference it as 2.0 amongst ourselves.
Hope this clears that confusion up.
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Post by Andared on Feb 24, 2015 19:19:41 GMT -8
Roles The Bard - This will be the Senior Editor and Story Teller. They will make sure there is continuity in the writing and be in charge of the story - without railroading, of course. The Bard probably won't do much building. The Bard will volunteer for 1 year to run the story. After that, a vote/survey will take place with all the players. If reelected, the Bard has the option of continuing. If the Bard doesn't get reelected, or decides to step down, then the story should pass to one of the Minstrels. The Minstrel/new Bard will then decide to take Roawia into a new age or remain in the same age. The Bard will allocate points for challenges, both global and local. The Minstrels - These will be a group of assistant storytellers. The will participate in the writing, editing, and story development. They will keep up with various individual storylines and make the Bard aware of them. They will keep tally of the points. And finally, they may assist in mocs for the story updates. The Council - This will be comprised of fraction leaders and guild leaders. They will advise the Bard and Minstrels of the sentiment and desires of their domains. The story group should incorporate some of the sentiment into the story. Also, the story group will seek council from the leaders on where they plan to take the fractions/guilds. The council can request Local Challenges as well. The council should also advise, or have oversight, of the game mechanics. I think that this may be slightly more than what LoR really needs. The concept itself is sound, but I'm not sure LoR is big enough to merit such a large amount of people involved. This is why I suggested only one "Scribe" and then leaving the KC as it is (for the most part). I think it'd make things less confusing if we keep the amount of people in various positions to a minimum. Having assistants isn't a bad thing by any means, but I'm not really sure LoR is big enough that it's necessary. Just my two drakens! Also, I may as well throw this out there now while we're still discussing everything. If we do end up creating a King's Scribe role, I happily volunteer to fill that position. Obviously we'd need to have the KC vote for whoever they like, so I'm certainly not laying any claims on the position. Just wanted to throw my name in the hat if possible. I love to write, and I love to keep up with the lore and stories in LoR. It's not always easy for me to build MOCs for my faction due to collection issues or lack of time, but I'm always happy to churn out stories.
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SpearralSquid
Garheim
Green is not a creative color.
Posts: 1,049
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Post by SpearralSquid on Feb 24, 2015 19:31:52 GMT -8
I'd also love to be the Scribe. I really like to write saga-style stories, as can be seen in many of my LoR builds.
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AK_Brickster
Innkeeper
Scouting the Lenfel Border
Posts: 3,272
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Post by AK_Brickster on Feb 24, 2015 21:31:39 GMT -8
If we go in that direction, we'll start a dedicated self-nomination thread. No need to get everyone volunteering for that here
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Post by Sir Caedric Moore on Feb 25, 2015 2:33:56 GMT -8
Survey taken A lot of good points were brought up and I'd like to chine in with my two cents, here. First off, I'd just like to point out that I greatly appreciate everything the KC has done here - if it wasn't for LoR (and, likewise the new Struggle for Klegon over at galactic-bricks.boards.net/board/7/struggle-klegon) I likely would have abandoned the prospect of building for good and my Lego's would have sat idle in storage. I perused a few different forums and RPG's and through Mark of Falworth's MOCs I found LCC and was hooked. The idea of the three factions - and the Outlaws that exist beyond those borders - was intriguing, to say the least, and I really wanted to be a part of it, despite my feeling inadequate from time to time when pitted up against such great builders this community has to offer. I've really enjoyed the Global Story overall, even when my own faction was invaded for almost a year, but I do agree that we as players are completely railroaded in this aspect. As wonderfully driven as the plot you guys have written is, having little to no real impact upon it - or even the geography of Roawia - is a bit disheartening. Yes, the landscape is such that there is plenty of room and leniency for you to create entire Holds or realms within each faction just to suit your own character's story, but the fact that our cities have no real existence within the realm or on the World Map is one I do greatly oppose, especially when the overall participation in the game is as low as it has been. I feel that including (active) players' cities or at least their character's main city in the overall map or at least in their own factions' maps would be beneficial, if anything, and not at all detrimental to the freedom of new members to create their own cities. Secondly, I have a point of contention, I guess you could say, at limiting each player to one playable character. If players who feel no true bias show a desire to build for both, say Gus of Garheim and Lenny of Loreros, I see no reason why this shouldn't be allowed. Any time this has been brought up in the past, it has been assumed that we were showing disinterest in our faction and an intent to leave, which is not the case at all; I love building for Garheim and Caedric is a character I will probably never kill off, but I wouldn't mind at all building for a different faction here and there, without the necessity of having my one and only character travel out of his way to other countries. Thirdly, I suggest acknowledging the Outlaws as a true fourth faction and freeing up the title of Outlaw to any within each faction who wishes to act outside the law, for example Lenny of Loreos has a lot of patriotism for his country and would fight for her in a war, but he is a bit of an outlaw, like Aladdin. He would then gain the title Lenny, Outlaw of Loreos. Just an idea. I really liked the idea of the Influence system - it's very reminiscent of the House points from J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books. Positive actions and participation will gain your faction points while negative ones and a consistent lack of participation in GC's could garnish your faction's points. The prospect of one faction gaining an upper-hand and a bit of sway in the Global Story is also quite intriguing. Again, let me express my gratitude to the KC and that in no way do I mean to offend with any of my critiques. I simply feel that constructive criticism is the best way to evolve and move forward, both for us as builders and for the game as a whole. Looking forward to what 2015 has in store for LoR! Ronin p.s. Garheim rules
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josdu
Outlaws
Marooned on the Island of Lost Souls
Posts: 1,176
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Post by josdu on Feb 25, 2015 2:41:40 GMT -8
- Challenges should impact the storyline, but I don't think there's anything to gain from having an influence system stretching over several challenges. Let the winning faction have some kind of decision on the story (multiple alternatives/LC or some other way) and then reset the table for the next challenge where all factions would be on an equal footing again to impact the story.
I know you weren't the first to bring this up, but this reminded me of an example . If you remember the GC about the siege of the queen's castle, we outlaws had a choice to fight for or against the queen, that made a great opportunity to have us effect the outcome. Depending on how many outlaws sided for the queen and how many against, or even something a little more complicated like whether the average quality of the MOCs people depicting the defense of the queen's castle built was better then the average quality of the MOCs people depicting the attack on the queen's fortress built could have decided if the siege would fail or succeed. Instead it was all planed out and the fact that Navarre (my character) chose to fight against the queen didn't matter in the least. That's all . Never mind: Thirdly, I suggest acknowledging the Outlaws as a true fourth faction and freeing up the title of Outlaw to any within each faction who wishes to act outside the law, for example Lenny of Loreos has a lot of patriotism for his country and would fight for her in a war, but he is a bit of an outlaw, like Aladdin. He would then gain the title Lenny, Outlaw of Loreos. Just an idea. I actually like us outlaws as we are. I don't want to be a faction (how could we be outlaws and a faction?), though a leader could be nice.
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Post by soccerkid6 on Feb 25, 2015 5:50:46 GMT -8
Survey completed. Having GC results affect the storyline would be nice.
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Post by gid617 on Feb 25, 2015 8:54:04 GMT -8
...I have yet to see a female identified ANYWHERE... FFOL here!
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Post by Sir Caedric Moore on Feb 25, 2015 9:55:15 GMT -8
I actually like us outlaws as we are. I don't want to be a faction (how could we be outlaws and a faction?), though a leader could be nice. That's more of what I meant. Rather than limiting you guys to the swamps and such beyond the borders of Roawia, allow the Outlaws to live within the same borders as our players. You'd still be Outlaws, through and through, but maybe you'd all have a secret pact, uniting you all beneath the banner of one Baron Lord or something with your true capital being in the Shade.
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josdu
Outlaws
Marooned on the Island of Lost Souls
Posts: 1,176
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Post by josdu on Feb 25, 2015 12:29:13 GMT -8
I actually like us outlaws as we are. I don't want to be a faction (how could we be outlaws and a faction?), though a leader could be nice. That's more of what I meant. Rather than limiting you guys to the swamps and such beyond the borders of Roawia, allow the Outlaws to live within the same borders as our players. You'd still be Outlaws, through and through, but maybe you'd all have a secret pact, uniting you all beneath the banner of one Baron Lord or something with your true capital being in the Shade. As far as I know, we can do that now , at least we can wander about in the other factions territories.
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Post by valtias on Feb 25, 2015 17:47:18 GMT -8
took the survey, I love LoR right now though I wish their could be faction updates not challenges where only your faction goes on individual. It would be small and only affect that factions story and characters but it would give us some more back story on our charatcers. Somerthing like drought or pirates or even new leader or leaders of the faction could add incentives and make us feel more invested. This also would allow newer people to a faction read up on faction news quicker and important figures rather than all of LoR. For example I do not know alot about my faction leader in-game and would love to learn more.
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andhe
Squire
More building, less talking.
Posts: 948
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Post by andhe on Feb 26, 2015 2:04:15 GMT -8
...I have yet to see a female identified ANYWHERE... FFOL here! Gid's a girl! Just recovering from this revelation.
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