[Spirit/Abstract's Scrapbook]Musings of a muser...

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[Spirit/Abstract's Scrapbook]Musings of a muser...

Postby Kit Rowan on October 22nd, 2013, 12:49 am

Tell us about modding! How you come up with new ideas, cool thread things. What are your favorite topics in it? In what way do you like to torment PCs? And in what way do you like to reward them?
Unless Otherwise Stated, Expect Kit To Have Already Disguised Herself With Illusionism As 'Shy' In Every Ravok Thread.
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[Spirit/Abstract's Scrapbook]Musings of a muser...

Postby Trickster on October 22nd, 2013, 6:03 am

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Have to agree with both Alva and Kit. ;)
(Definitely music though! ♪)

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Postby Abstract on October 22nd, 2013, 4:03 pm

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I decided to focus on Kit’s question… so… voila! I;m just going over various things about being an ST, going into detail in some parts... and being vague in others. And I'll start at the beginning...

So… in my opinion… STness (at least at the moment) is a combination of three things:
- Development
- Grading
- Moderation
Of course, an ST running their own city would have a lot more responsibilities, but since that isn't the case at the moment, I stick with these crucial things. I keep track of how ‘active’ I am ST-wise by making sure I’m always doing some of these things… and to avoid just wandering as I am prone to do. So… when I explain this, I’ll divide it into the three sections, and go into each.

Grading:

So… I actually quite enjoy grading. I’ve set myself up with generally two threads every other day, with an average a thread a day. Sometimes I feel like grading- other times I don’t. Personally, I prefer threads 2 pages and under, with 1 page perfect. This isn’t optimal for the PC, I know, since 3 pages of a decent thread will often get you the right amount of XP. It’s more I’m incredibly lazy about long threads… as I’ve mentioned to some people, I’d rather grade 3 short solos rather than one 3 page thread. Honestly, I love grading solos, as it’s much easier to keep track of the lores and xp with those. More often than not, PCs delve into awkward stuff with not much to give in social threads, generally leaving me with little to give. Solos are generally more to the point, and simpler to grade. However, there are some pretty good collab threads out there… but sadly, I haven’t come across many. It seems like 1 out of 4 threads are abandoned, sadly… and though those are also easy to grade, it’s also kind of depressing.

Now… I love grading for two main reasons: I enjoy reading the actions and thoughts of other PCs, and I like making people feel good. A grade is always something nice, and I personally love it when I get a grade for my PC, no matter how small. I enjoy passing on that feeling to other people, by grading their threads and giving them the XP that they earned. As Baldy so conveniently says: “A happy you is a happy Balderdash” (or Abstract, in this case). It’s the same thing with development and moderation as well: this is one of my main driving forces for being an ST : ). Now.. for the first reason, I like grading for the same reason I like reading. However, it gives me a reason to judge character’s actions, and see how they’ve improved in their skills. It’s incredibly interesting for me to see how stories and tales pan out- or don’t, in some cases.
I honestly don’t feel like going into how I grade, since.. well… there isn’t much to say about it, but if you guys want… I can add some stuff about that : )

Moderation:

Now… moderation is where things get a little complicated. I have modded very few threads, and despite some long and serious ones… I’m not very good at them. I’d love more practice however, but I’m trying not to start any new ones right now for various reasons… which will be explained at another time. Now, I am not a good ‘plotter’ as you could say. My plots are pretty vague and not as amazing or epic as I’d love them to be. Most of the time, to come up with an idea, I take pieces of various stories and information and shove them together so they make something where you can (hopefully) not tell the source. These might be a certain minor plot point from a book, or a certain loophole I saw in a monster lore article. I have to admit, Mizahar has a lot of weird lore stuff to work off of, which is very useful. At the moment however… I think maybe for my next quest I’m going to pull out my favor from Caelum and see what she comes up with…

Now, for actually moderating the quests, I still have a long way to go. My discretional skills are… iffy… and though I can come up and play NPCs pretty well, I’m not sure how well I do in posts overall. Maybe some feedback on those who I’ve moderated for? That would be highly appreciated. On two of the quests I’ve done, most of the plot was completely improve, something I’d like to change for next time. If I can, when I start up moderation again, I’d love to put together an intricate quest for somebody… and see how that turns out.

Now, to go specifically to what Kit asked… messing with PCs. I like messing with them, it’s actually quite fun. However, my favourite thing to do is give choices- and each will lead to something completely different and epic. Though I’ve done this once or twice, I’ve only really been able to do ‘yes you get it’ and ‘no you don’t get it’. It’s kind of annoying, honestly… and again comes back to putting together some complicated quest. Also… I’d like to be able to hone a quest to a PCs skills. Though quests with fighting are common, and generally wanted, I find they sometimes get a little… stale. Though they can be incredibly interesting, what about all those PCs who don’t focus on fighting? I know I only have one. What about those scholars, those medics, all those other people who want to work on their skills and gain something appropriate for their PC? That’s where fighting quests aren’t useful anymore. I’d love to make a quest with something for every PC that joins… :D

Now, as a side comment, I’ve found one ST whose quests are just… epic. I’ve been following the Lhavitan SQ for a while, and I have to admit… it’s AMAZING! The plot… the suspense… Ely, you’ve done an amazing job! I’m super jealous of all the PCs in your city… they’re so lucky to have an ST like you :D

Development

Wow… this is getting long… Now, for keeping up in development, I always like to have the project on the go. Sadly, since I’m sort of in a limbo moment right now, that isn’t the case. However, for all September, I was writing up a bestiary for the wildlands. It took a WHILE… but it was pretty satisfying when I finished. I plan on later coming up with a list of projects and development stuff I need to do and chip off things on that, to always give me something development-related to do.

Now, when developing things, people generally think of locations. True, that’s a big part. But there’s also animals, plants, NPCs… all that jazz. Something like making a bestiary is probably very useful for both PCs and STs, as they know what normal and abnormal creatures reside in those locations. As well as IC development, however, there’s also OOC development… for example, creating systems to make a city run more effectively. This could be setting up a codex, or a grade request thread, maybe a development forum or a perk point system! All those funky systems that make the city more attractive for new and old players to come to. Those are what I’d love to work on… and hopefully soon enough I will be : )

I think I’ll stop here… I did skimp out on some parts, so if you guys have any questions, just tell me, and I’ll write something up. Honestly… this was pretty fun! Explaining stuff is interesting. I hope you guys enjoyed this as much as I did! Hopefully something on music will be coming soon : )

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Postby Abstract on October 27th, 2013, 1:34 am

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All that Lorem ipsum stuff... officially weird. I tried pasting it into google translate (Latin to English) and this is what I came up with...

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Morbi tempus dictum vulputate. Nunc quis lectus sagittis, rhoncus sem non, condimentum flavored snow eros. Curabitur consequat, justo vitae tincidunt aliquam, orci tellus lobortis lorem, ut tristique dolor elit ut purus. Proin donut molestie eros sapien, quis congue velit posuere eget. Interdum et malesuada fames ac ante ipsum primis in faucibus. Ut neque mi, pellentesque sed enim vel, lobortis hendrerit nibh. Integer bibendum elit ac laoreet.

Etiam enim neque, gravida sit amet augue ac, tempus sollicitudin sem. Suspendisse at quam justo. Nullam laoreet placerat tristique. Duis tempus tellus sit potato salad amet velit fringilla, et iaculis magna consequat. Duis eu auctor leo. Nullam cotton candy eget adipiscing dui. Mauris ut luctus nibh. Cras orci magna, tomato cursus quis nunc id, vulputate tincidunt arcu. Pellentesque banana auctor elit sed risus molestie, id faucibus nunc volutpat. Morbi sagittis dui eu mi malesuada, eu tempor velit blandit. Aenean vestibulum purus eu hamburger lorem consequat cursus.


to....

We will be sure to post a comment . Top Manufacturers . Now a bed of arrows , not orange salad , sauce flavored snow samples. Post , just to get a life , career development Powered to employees as pure oxygen tank . Microwave donut Products , this is a normal supply chain hotel . At times in the throat and advising hunger and before itself first . In order that neither my dear , but for the diesel or, in the planning of policies options. More and more investors .

Yes, in fact that neither is affordable and bar , and also, a lot of time troubleshooting . About the truck. Please use the tank . Our time machine is almost closed salads drunk salesman , brakes and large businesses. We Scholarship funds. Cotton candy, no chemical processing performance. Resources to develop skills. Tomorrow 's great , tomato Chinese characteristics now that many, many more pictures. Add banana travel but laughter television, now that tourism activities. Soccer balls housing comments were accessible , good transitory outdoor attractions. Sample pure football hamburger product development cycle.


Oddly enough, the words make sense, but WHAT??? This makes NO logical sense at all... *facedesk* And another version....

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum. Typi non habent claritatem insitam; est usus legentis in iis qui facit eorum claritatem. Investigationes demonstraverunt lectores legere me lius quod ii legunt saepius. Claritas est etiam processus dynamicus, qui sequitur mutationem consuetudium lectorum. Mirum est notare quam littera gothica, quam nunc putamus parum claram, anteposuerit litterarum formas humanitatis per seacula quarta decima et quinta decima. Eodem modo typi, qui nunc nobis videntur parum clari, fiant sollemnes in futurum.


to....

We will be sure to leave a rating , but also get Joomla administer and reliable flow to the column on this page . In addition to a trivial example , which of us This is text Add to Cart fill in the form when some of his men from the selection below . Search Edit or want to be a pain in the near future in the Olympic annoying consequences, or one at a range of scale there is no freight Select this text and who just hate the lack of a ready asset value is licensed vehicle duis pain zzril the rghit pclae . For the moment, when we broke free telephone option allows Domingo hotel nothing that you can do to get mazim roast . They do not have printed through weakness of will in them that makes the reader is the use of their clarity . Investigations pointed readers to read what I read more often . The brightness is also a dynamic process , which follows a comment. It is strange to note how the Gothic alphabet , we think a little now than a clear , literary forms anteposuerit of humanity through the ages of the fourteenth and fifteenth . In the same way types , who seem to be a small thing for us now may contact you in the future.


...yea. This one has some strange mistakes, but it works. I found this version here... literally 'loremipsum.net'. It solely has a version of lorem ipsum on it. Just... wow. XD The other version came with this post template... :D

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Postby Alva Marek on October 27th, 2013, 11:16 pm

I found one about suffering and pain and recognizing the art and talent and blah....it made sense until like the last two or three sentences.
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[Spirit/Abstract's Scrapbook]Musings of a muser...

Postby Alric Wilmot on November 19th, 2013, 4:36 pm

Actually I'd like to know how you grade. How do we get the elusive 5's? I keep trying but I always fail. :((

Just curious :smirk:
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Postby Khida on November 19th, 2013, 4:47 pm

A belated comment on lorem ipsum -- it's not necessarily supposed to make sense. It's filler that has the cadence/appearance of normal prose, but no meaning to the reader, which lets you more completely tune out the text and focus on layout/design.

I think 'lorem ipsum' paragraphs were originally derived from an actual Latin text, and you can always use real Latin if you like -- but a lot of what's floating around out there is generated, which makes it meaningless in translation.
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Postby Caelum on November 19th, 2013, 5:05 pm

Khida’s correct. The original is a famous essay by Cicero, one of those often used for instructional purposes in Latin language classes. It’s become a placeholder text with the words garbled so it won’t translate properly.
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Postby Abstract on November 20th, 2013, 2:48 pm

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Heh, thanks for the comments guys! On the Lorem ipsum thing, I guess it makes sense that it's been garbled over time. In the filler in this post template, I found 'cotton candy', 'tomato', and 'hamburger'...right...

Alric, I'll try and write up something on grading when I have time. Generally for the five, you either need 5+ posts in a solo (using the skill in each post) or, again, about fiveish uses of it in co-lab thread... that's usually 2+ pages. There are exceptions, of course :)

On another note, I did basically nothing yesterday, as my computer decided it would be a great idea to forget something... it forgot how to boot up (or something like that) so wanted me to completely restart the system (and loose all my stuff)... luckily, we didn't have to do that by, in simple terms, reminding the computer how to boot up. I don't really understand it myself... not a tecchy person :P

However, this meant that I wasn't able to do a presentation that had ALREADY been postponed... so the teacher was a little annoyed, but he understood. We were going to present today, BUT... I'm sick now... Yay >.> I wonder what he's going to say about that... *sigh*

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Postby Alric Wilmot on November 20th, 2013, 3:04 pm

Sorry about all that. I've had computer trouble in the past, though its never gotten in the way of school work.

Also, that's kind of a bummer about needing 5 posts, all of my solos are one long post. Been doing it that way ever since I got here.
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