Yinfara Continues (Finally)

[Justintime9]

I'm sure many of you know about yinfara (I'm proud to say it was the first Thread ever posted in The Artist's Forum when the when this site began ) for those who don't know, it is my age project, and in the Yinfara project forum, for awile we were getting pretty far... but after awhile, when we needed to figure out a storyline... we kind of all just stoped... now, the reason I am posting this, is because finally, I have gotten the answer, and for those of you who have simply stopped checking the Yinfara project thread, we are now ready to move on, and I hope this age will become something great! here's our storyline: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=1024

[Aloys]

I just saw you were complaining on the MOUL forums about the lack of replies here, so here is one.

"An Age losing momentum!! GoW support team to the rescue!"

Momentum is key when you are building an Age with a team. (or just for any project for that matter).. You should try PMing the other people who were working on it and harass them till they come back! :p You have started this project, you should be the one showing the most enthuiasm.
However, as you mention in your MOUL post, just because no one has replied in a couple days doesn't mean the project is dead. Start worrying when people don't reply within 3 weeks...

Also I should add that if you're working 'seriously' on an Age writing the story should be the first thing done before anything else; but I'm not sure that's gonna help you at this point..
That may not be obvious but Ahra Pahts hit a serious block because of that a month ago. I had avoided all story issues so far but then it all came back to me; and for a while I had no idea where the project was going. Thankfuly with the help of my fellow teammates Robert and J'anim we were able to sort it out and the project started again.

[Justintime9]

ya, well, the age started just by an Age journal I was writing... in the jounal, I didn't really know any storyline, I was just simply exploring my age... and so we built upon that, and we got pretty far, and then... we decided that we need some storyline, however small, to build the puzzles around, etc. so, that took awhile... but perhaps i should wait a few more days for people to come back...

[andylegate]

I agree with Aloys, your Age should have some sort of a story.

Now, I'll be the first to say not EVERY single Age needs one. For example my Training Ages are just that: Training. The only back ground story is in the Age itself, journals that explain what you need to explore and find.

But, for most Ages, you'll want something in there that explains the WHY of the Age.
Remember Minkata? We loved it! We ran around going Wow!
But then we kept asking each other and the DRC: What was this Age for? What was going on here? Who made these things?
Same with Jalak.

So, you'll have people wondering about that in your Ages too.
This will also help determine most of what it is you're going to put in your Age too.

Now, if you made some sort of wilderness Age, were there is nothing but plants, animals and paths that lead no where, then maybe you wouldn't need a back ground story of any kind.
But you'd still have people wondering why a Writer established a link to the world, what were they planning? etc. etc.

Also: as Aloys said, If this is your baby, then you're the supervisor. It's up to the supervisor to crack that whip and motivate people. If you don't have people and you're going it alone (like me and many other writters do,) then you're cracking the whip on yourself.
If you have people, motivate them. But crack the whip nicely, not meanly. You want to motivate people, not scare them away.
One last thing to remember: no mater how excited you get, or your people get, Real Life always takes priority. Sometimes that's the problem. Learn to help work around it and find compromises.

[Justintime9]

hehe ya, I agree... and about the storyline... the storyline I figured out isn't exactly a stong storyline, just a tiny backstory to go along with some of the things (for example, a few structures were supposedly built by natives) but the rest of the stuctures were built by me, and there might be observations, I have in a journal, from a writer's point of veiw. for more info on what I'm doing for a storyline, just click my sig

[Erik]

I don't really understand why every Age needs to have a storyline with puzzles and such.

Justin, as I read it, you are very interested in writing a link to that landscape that you have in your head. Well, why wouldn't that be possible? The D'ni made simple Garden Ages. They just thought, I'd love to have an Age with green grass and some pools that looks pretty and relaxing, and tadaaam, they had a link to Tsogal. The writing process isn't that simple of course, but I just want to make clear that there doesn't need to be any story for an Age to be fun. It shouldn't be an obstacle for writing the Age you want to write.

What you could do is to pay attention to details. Make the landscape and the structures in a way that people can fantasize about it. You should have some basic ideas of what the Age is/was like, implement some hints about that in the Age, and make the explorers think of the rest.

And puzzles make an Age more fun of course. But that also shouldn't be an obstacle for writing the Age. When you're thinking that you need to have puzzles implemented, you may get puzzles for puzzles' sake, which is not what you want.

Also, the Guild of Writers has just started on a larger scale. There haven't been written that many Ages yet, and there are almost no finished Ages. I'd love it to explore an Age like Yinfara even without story and puzzles. We've just started writing Ages, I'm not expecting Cyan Ages yet, and I don't think anyone is. For now, I'd just be happy with seeing some nice scenery. Show what you're capable of!

Just my two cents.