Guild of Writers

I've been thinking about a topic that has been argued before, but I think I have an idea of how it could work based off of how things have progressed since lst it was discussed.

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.

The GoW needs a story. I know, this has been a hot topic for quite a while and others have tried to implement an RP element here, however, these tries have failed. Why did they fail?

I believe they failed because they tried to implement a structure on how writers should act. This is obviously a big mistake to make. You never tell a creative person what to think or how to act (unless you are paying them money, ).

So my attempt here is to NOT put baby in a corner. My attempt is to give people a starting point. I'll be giving a couple starting points really. Also I encourage people to create their own starting point. The more the merrier. This isn't about making categories this is about reaching out to a section of the community that are uncomfortable with the near pure OCCness of the GoW.

Disclaimer: There is no WRONG way to Role play. I have no intention on claiming anyone's attempt at role playing is incorrect or should be stopped. However, it should be noted that any role play that is done here is done in a fan fiction way. No one should claim their story in any way effects the canon of Cyan's created worlds. That said, the sky is the limit.

So without further adoooo......

First starting point wrote:You heed the call. You find the clues. You find yourself in the middle of a desert. After talking to a strange man calling himself Zandi, you follow the path and now you are in the cavern. A new desire hits you like a wave. You wish to create.

Rumors of a guild take you to Kirel. You see many guilds being offered, but you already know which one you wish to join. Reaching out you take the black and gray shirt, with the red logo. You are now a member of the Guild of Writers.

Once in the guild you find the other writer's very helpful with learning about the way the D'ni wrote linking books and ages. Unfortunately there seems to be no way to write ages that will create a reliable link in the cavern. Something is missing, a piece of knowledge that the D'ni guarded so well that no one from the surface has yet to discover. Regardless, writers write, and there are rumors of places that have new working books and books discovered by the writers that no one else has access too.

From here is your choice, seek, learn, and create.

Second starting point wrote:The DRC has brought you down here to study some ancient city. Little did you know it was a couple miles below the surface of the Earth! Things went well for a while, and since you were an independent worker, you managed to stay well out of the limelight. Then bad news, the DRC pulled out.

You didn't. You decided to stay using your (insert skill set here) and keep working on restoring (insert age or area of D'ni here). Until you are forced otherwise, you will continue. Then suddenly things pick up in the foreground again, the DRC return, but the return is brief. Though it got a little more crowded, it didn't disturb your work. You seek help from this new guild that seems to have similar goals, the Guild of Writers.

Once empty again you may lack help from many others, but there are still some around when you need them. Suddenly another attempt to open the cavern starts. Thousands rush back into the cavern. There is even talk of areas and other ages possibly opening again. Excited you do what you do best, work on restoring (age name, area name here).

So there ya are, two ways I can see that we can have RP here, and not step all over canon. Even if someone does do a story where Atrus and they run off to Mexico to enlist mercenaries to take over New Mexico for the D'ni, technically if it's outside of MOULa it won't be anything but a fan story that runs in some parallel dimension or something.

My main goal is to get people having some fun here, and getting that fun to translate into the work done here. I myself am not a fan of Role playing, but I am willing to help out anyone who wants to do so. I think this will inject some new ideas into the guild.

El Atruso and his deadly mariachi band!

Si Whilyam, I think Tim Larkin could even write some Tejano age music.

I think BAD has a good idea, give the IC fans something to do which could foster goodwill with the GoW.

I'm all for a story, makes MOULa more then just a chat room, even with no new content.

But I also remember the heated debates during UU about fan stories. My only advice here is to tread carefully.

I think it's a great idea to have an IC story for how we learned the Art of Writing; it will definitely help provide background when our ages make it into MOULa.

However, once people want to talk shop, the IC portion breaks down. It seems like you could go one of two ways (at least):

1. Defer details for discussion on these forums instead of in the cavern. Plus, you can post snapshots to illustrate your point.

2. Explain that you see 3-D modeling as an excellent analogy to Writing ages, and that you're more comfortable using modeling terminology (e.g. geometry, textures, colliders) than you are at throwing around D'ni Writing terms. [This probably won't pan out very well with those who are strictly IC, but it makes it easier for us.]

Sounds like somebody needs to schedule a meeting in the Guild of Writers' Pub, and see how many show up. Tell people that one of the writers located a new age called Wiki, with much information about the writing of ages.

I cannot help noticing a major flaw in this idea. Most writers do not IC claim to have written their ages. The more common storyline for ages is that they are D'ni ages which the "writer" (if featured in the story at all) has discovered or restored. You are not alone in this misconception though. Cyan has in fact been making the same mistake.

D'Lanor wrote:I cannot help noticing a major flaw in this idea. Most writers do not IC claim to have written their ages. The more common storyline for ages is that they are D'ni ages which the "writer" (if featured in the story at all) has discovered or restored. You are not alone in this misconception though. Cyan has in fact been making the same mistake.

It's both, some of the Ages I've restored, some I've Written myself.

I too think both recovered and written ages are possible. To be honest I consider the existence of guilds, including this one, as a story on it's own. Seems to me like Cyan envisioned this. UrU made us start a guild like this one which kind of gives us the ideal start of new stories. I think it's easy to start several types of stories that don't intervene with Cyan's storyline:

Ages we found
1. Gardens of which the only thing we really need to describe is who's they are
2. Recreational ages (like Minkata)... no need for a real story but a puzzle, where the puzzle is the purpose
3. Ages where people live or have lived: here story is key. Who are they, how do they live, is there a problem with this age that needs to be solved, is there something to be discovered that is not obvious or in sight? Etc.

I am probably forgetting something writting this quick

Written ages
Same thing .... The things we write aren't created by us, but are like a portal to existing worlds... just like Atrus discovered and what Gehn didn't want to see. There's one difference though storywisez: two possibilities for story. One the story of the age we found, two the story of the creation of the linkingbook. For instance de proces of making it stable.

The only story thing we borough is the existence of ages and the art to write books to link to them. All other D'ni stuff and stuff we know from existing ages aren't relevant. The Book of Atrus kinda helps us out here. There was not much know about D'ni before The Book of Ti'anna. Still he managed to write books and link to ages. It is not necessary for the D'ni to have once visited the age we link to.

One thing to consider though is how to go about using this forum. Part IC and part OOC so we can also discus plugins and stuff? It could be interesting to write tutorials IC that correspond to OOC tutorials

While there's isn't really an 'official IC storyline' of how the GoW was formed etc the general IC consensus is pretty much that in '04, after the DRC closed the Cavern the 1st time around, several people started doing 'unaunthorized' explorations of the Cavern, found D'ni books of all kinds, studied them and slowly learned the Art.. (although not all of those people claimed themselves as part of the GoW) Although we don't have to match perfectly the IC and OOC aspect of our story.

BAD wrote:many players of Uru dislike the GoW. For a long time I had trouble figuring out why. I think I have the solution.
The GoW needs a story.

Most people who dislike us seem to do so because:
1) They don't actually know what we do.
2) They only see us as evil h4ck3rs stepping on Cyan's toes and disrespectful of their work.
While I agree that the lack of a proper IC integration is a big problem, I also think that ignorance and lack of proper communication might be the biggest culprit here...

Would it be a good idea to have an official IC facade for the guild? An new IC site explaining who we are; what we do, what are the Ages we produce, what are our relations with the DRC/Yeesha/the Explorers..etc. It would certainly help us and help more people understand and appreciate what we do. And that will be more and more important with Open source and MOUL Ages integration on the horizon..
Actually I think that now would be a really good time to do this.