Guild Wars III Planning Thread

[Draco]

I not got into the past GWs because of problems, but always wanted to.

I've done multiple characters in other RPs and I know it was hard for me, and there were only a few people who were active in the RP However, it is differen't depending on the person. With the fact a lot of people would be posting in the GW it might tend to get confusing sometimes.

I also noticed, you never get what you really want in a RP. No mater what, someone will always change things at one point which causing you to have to replan things to get where you wanted again, and than you just give up and go with the flow

[Vyt: Down, but Not Out]

Dec 23, 2008 16:03:08 GMT -5 Draco said:

I also noticed, you never get what you really want in a RP. No mater what, someone will always change things at one point which causing you to have to replan things to get where you wanted again, and than you just give up and go with the flow

I had Vyt revived in GW2. I think my plan worked there.

It's a matter of creativity and decision, actually. Yes, you might have to go with the flow to be able to advance, but you are acting for your characters. If you were in their position, they'd try and try to get what they've set up as their goal. Reasonable yet creative roleplaying will lead some people to get what they want, and probably more.

*is reminiscing the time Vyt saw PFA in GW1*

[Draco]

And knowing this forum, one can only guess the chaos and weirdness that will happen, that will change the plans

[Fraze]

I've been biting my tongue while reading this thread, but I've decided it's time for me to post.

I don't really think we should start another Guild War for a while. Disregarding the still-active Redemption RP and the maybe-on-hiatus Ninja/Mages RP, we need to consider the amount of time that GW3 is likely to take up. GW ran for about five months before pretty much dying, and was finally wrapped up after more than nine months total. GW2 ran nonstop for eight-nine-ish months before its triumphant end, and that isn't even counting the time it took to compile the thing--becoming the longest thread in terms of total text in the history of the NTWF. It totaled over 710,000 words--making it 150,000 words longer than War and Peace! Like Hunty said on the Redemption OOC chat, we've all come a long way with our RPing skills, and as such, we're devoting much more time and effort into making the Guild RPs involved, entertaining...good.

This isn't to say I don't want to have a GW3. To be completely honest, I'd probably be thrilled if we started one tomorrow. But I think if we keep firing them off in rapid succession like this, people will start suffering from burnout. I think it would be best if we waited for a while--a few months at least, maybe even until May or so--before starting GW3. That would allow the Pirate/'Fleet and Ninja/Mage RPs to be wrapped up, and allow everyone to recharge their creative batteries.


That being said, I have been giving some thought to possible options for GW plotlines that don't necessarily involve mass-scale fighting amongst the guilds. One option might simply be going with the classic "gather the best fighters from around the world and match them up" sort of deal. This could tie in to Amnei's first option. This would make sure that the people who want to fight can fight, and vice versa. Of course, it would require significant OOC planning, which is something we don't seem to be very good at.

Another, more abstract idea: The players in the RP find themselves in an enormous maze, from which they must escape. They face riddles, tests of skill, tests of strength, and so forth. Again, it might take quite a bit of OOC planning. On the other hand, it would involve more cooperation between the guilds, and could easily become incredibly mind-screwy (which is why I am personally quite fond of this particular option).

[Kat]

The Ninjas/Mages RP was on a short hiatus when everyone got busy. XD As it is, yeah, it's moving slower than Redemption - which I have to somehow catch up with.

But yeah, I've got my hands full with both RPs. Not to mention the Knight RP. *pokes it* Oops, I think it's time for me to post. XDDDDDDDD

[Cyborg]

Well all I have is Redemption, the knights' RP is rarely active now, and the mercs' RP hasn't been active for at least a month and a half. So personally, I wouldn't mind starting GW3, at the end of January. That way I can finish exams first.

[Vyt: Down, but Not Out]

Fraze: This is why I've put this thread up this early. This is to plan for the upcoming Guild Wars III, and I think there hasn't been enough talk on when we should start it. It's probably because we're still discussing the main plot and guidelines, thus leaving the more technical issues like the timing of the roleplay delayed.

Personally, I'd start in February. By that month, everything seems to be more active in NTWF, IMO.

I haven't made a poll yet, and I'm already reconsidering the topic. Instead of putting up a poll for the chosen plotline, I'll go with the dates on when we can start Guild Wars III.

EDIT: I've posted the poll. Vote now.

[Rider]

Dec 24, 2008 4:36:03 GMT -5 Fraze said:

Another, more abstract idea: The players in the RP find themselves in an enormous maze, from which they must escape. They face riddles, tests of skill, tests of strength, and so forth. Again, it might take quite a bit of OOC planning. On the other hand, it would involve more cooperation between the guilds, and could easily become incredibly mind-screwy (which is why I am personally quite fond of this particular option).

[glow=red,2,300]Oooh! Oooh! Oooh! I like mind-screws!

*shot and never allowed to control the Bike again* x_o

Anyway, I don't think we should set an exact date, but we should definitely wait for Redemption and the Mage/Ninja RPs to end.

... We'll be lucky if that ends in May if Jina and Hunty keep tempting me to throw wrenches in the works. ^_^[/glow]

[Huntress]

Well, I voted Other. More specifically, I don't think we should determine a starting month. Better put, I don't think we can determine a starting month. There's no way of telling when Redemption ends, or those other RPs, and I definitely wouldn't want GW3 to cut into those, because as we should well know, GWs tend to start with a big WHEE and pages of textwalls and hype and completely drown out any other ongoing RPs.

My point being, things should run their course. Let's finish the ongoing RPs first. Then we'll see if we feel like plunging into the big monster of a GW right away, or after a short break or so. If we were to decide that GW3 Shall Start In February, we'd have to rush to finish the current RPs and that'd drain all the fun out of them. No sense in limiting ourselves like that.

[Kengplant]

I'd also like to bring up more of the "OMG EXAMS" issue. We will all be finishing them around different times, There's midterms and finals to think about. Around the end of march or beginning of april I think most people will be closing off midterms which gives us a month before people start getting buried in finals. This tends to be when most people start falling out of the RP because they've fallen too far behind.

Now with redemption this actually turned out fairly nicely because with a smaller crowd the majority of us were busy which meant there were only a few posts over the two or so weeks of finals panic and it was easy to catch up.

With GW this isn't as convenient as there are ALWAYS people active and always people away. So to continue my ramble onto another topic: putting all the pressure of a summary onto one person isn't a great way to go about things. Wolf does wonderful summaries but they never quite caught up. In our summary thread we need a essential info only. (eg. no need to mention that time when we stepped on a leaf and nothing happened) and we need everyone contributing. To keep it under control we'll have a set format to stick to. At the end of every page whoever gets there first posts the next summary. I'd request that we keep only summary posts on there and leave any comments about the summary to the OOC chat so we can keep the thread streamlined for people trying to catch up.

Maybe even every ten or twenty pages or so we'll have a need-to-know summary that condenses it into the major, and I mean MAJOR events. (like Shino called a meeting. When everyone got there he turned out to be a traitor and sent a shadow army against the guilds. Some people chased him and Sev caught and scorched him. The shadow army was defeated. : This condenses several pages into one short sentence, without getting into specifics.)

I'd be willing to do the character page again. I know I kinda slacked off towards the end of the last one but I don't think I'd worry about the list so much this time. Or if I do I won't worry about linking to profiles or organizing into groups. Just putting what page each character is on, or better yet which RPer and keep their characters condensed into one post.

Eh, I'll figure it out when the time comes. I definitely want to streamline the process this time, make it easier to update and less intimidating to post. (less info required per character. I noticed some people never did post their characters. I think I may have been asking for too much specific info.)

[Vyt: Down, but Not Out]

Dec 24, 2008 16:44:51 GMT -5 Kengplant said:

With GW this isn't as convenient as there are ALWAYS people active and always people away. So to continue my ramble onto another topic: putting all the pressure of a summary onto one person isn't a great way to go about things. Wolf does wonderful summaries but they never quite caught up. In our summary thread we need a essential info only. (eg. no need to mention that time when we stepped on a leaf and nothing happened) and we need everyone contributing. To keep it under control we'll have a set format to stick to. At the end of every page whoever gets there first posts the next summary. I'd request that we keep only summary posts on there and leave any comments about the summary to the OOC chat so we can keep the thread streamlined for people trying to catch up.

Maybe even every ten or twenty pages or so we'll have a need-to-know summary that condenses it into the major, and I mean MAJOR events. (like Shino called a meeting. When everyone got there he turned out to be a traitor and sent a shadow army against the guilds. Some people chased him and Sev caught and scorched him. The shadow army was defeated. : This condenses several pages into one short sentence, without getting into specifics.)

The problem with letting more than one person managing the summary is the potential bias coming with it. For example, in the summary of GW2, Wolf mentions about Bluisa's transformation to Subila. If someone who wasn't too attentive to that event got to the end of the page and was forced to make a summary, he would have a hard time figuring out how to summarize that event and might leave out important information later on. Also, not everyone would volunteer to post a summary of what happened in that entire page.

I also fear about condensing more than five pages of posts into one single post. Even three pages can contain a lot of action that a single post will not be able to summarize. No one would like to see a big wall of text in front of them to serve as a "summary", neither would they want to see their posts left out due to someone missing them because they attend to a whole lot of pages. Personally, I hate summarizing a thousand-word page in one very wordy sentence.

I say, stick to the one-person summary. And when I mean one-person, I meant one who can catch up. He should be very objective to everyone's posts, and must be aware about any updates to the thread. I can opt to volunteer, but honestly I tend to create short summaries and occasionally leave out some important information.

[Kengplant]

Well here's the thing, the super detailed summary where everyone gets included is almost as hard to catch up through if you come in late as the RP itself is. It is significantly shorter but I want to make it easy for people to just come in. Past summaries have often included things like "they are traveling from here to there". Which is lovely but it's not until they arrive that stuff of any significance happens. (unless they meet someone. In which case it could be handled something like: A, B, and C arrived at location after meeting D and escaping E.)

[Rider]

[glow=red,2,300]Point two: Where are we gonna find a person with the time and attentiveness to do such a complete one-person summary?

I mean, Wolf's summary was half for the lulz anyway. It can't stand by itself any more than a "I skipped seven posts in an attempt to summarize X pages" can.

Fact is we'll be lucky if anyone does step forward to do even a Wolf-esque summary. I mean, I can't see that far into the future, but if I'm lucky, I'll be busy.[/glow]

[Vyt: Down, but Not Out]

Dec 25, 2008 11:31:12 GMT -5 Rider said:

[glow=red,2,300]Point two: Where are we gonna find a person with the time and attentiveness to do such a complete one-person summary?

I mean, Wolf's summary was half for the lulz anyway. It can't stand by itself any more than a "I skipped seven posts in an attempt to summarize X pages" can.

Fact is we'll be lucky if anyone does step forward to do even a Wolf-esque summary. I mean, I can't see that far into the future, but if I'm lucky, I'll be busy.[/glow]

I think we're getting into two different mindsets, and it's all my fault. I apologize, I meant one who can make a post-RP summary that would serve as a good reminder of how the GW3 would go, and not a summary-during-RP that only helps people remember what had happened to their own characters. Wolf's summary might not help roleplayers much about what their characters and those around them had done, but it certainly adds to the paraphrasing effect that it does (the lulz, for example).

However, if summaries that tend to help roleplayers rather than paraphrase is what you need, then I'm still awry about letting more than one people do those kind of summary because of the different focus they might have. You might say that it's easier that way than finding someone who would volunteer to do one, but there's still the potential misses that each person might incur to the summary like omitting some characters or misreading some posts.

There's one part of the summary that is underrecognized and underestimated, by the way. It's the Guild Summaries, where each guild has a representative that will read all the posts of his/her guildmates and summarizes them. Seeing that all roleplayers in the upcoming GW3 come from guilds, don't you think these will help some roleplayers in their plots?

Just to let you know, there's a big chance I'll do one again for the Ninja Guild, and I might also opt to make Guild Summaries for the other guilds if I know them enough.

[Kengplant]

Then we once again hit the wall of split loyalties. A lot of people are in multiple guilds though most keep their allegiance to one.

And even with a single person doing the summary we still risk bias. In a group summary people can always add foot notes to the last summary if anything was missed. This is another reason to not have any chit-chat in the summary thread. What happens when the person or people designated for the summary get busy? We all have lives that are getting busier each year. No matter how sure you are that you'll have the time something is going to come up. If you really want to dedicate yourself to a summary you can still do it via the community summary system, but people will be around to pick up the slack when stuff pops up. When Wolf was the 'official' summary writer there was this foreboding aura around the thread like no-one else was allowed to help people catch up, even if he had to disappear for a few days. (and we all know what kind of mass of posts can occur in a few days)