Guild of Writers

This isn't really an argument against yours, but I will note that Cyan is more likely to communicate with someone who presents themselves as some sort of leader rather than just a representative.

A little more pertinent and center to my way of thinking however is that in order to "just make Ages", we need some sort of final say as to our direction. I agree that the purely democratic and free process will doubtlessly lead to some Ages, I just don't think they'll get done nearly as quickly or as efficiently.

Just to clarify, I don't want to limit that democratic process. The council system would just be in place to lead resources into priorities like the Showcase Age. Any of the contributors would be more than welcome to go off and work on their own projects whenever they wish.

It's sorta like.. ever played Savage? It's a mix of an MMORPG and an RTS. Everybody plays the individual units while one player is the commander and controls the whole board. The commander can make a huge arrow appear on the map to direct people to attack one place, but the players have the choice to refuse and go off doing their own thing. However, if the players listen to the commander's guidance and attack in unison, the team has a much better chance of winning. I think we need a council for guidance or we'll be too scattered to attack one project with our full might.

I think that if you don't want to have your idea looked at and decided by a higher up you don't have to use the power and time that the guild members would put in, ie. if you want to go it alone, go it alone don't make the writers spend time on a project that is maybe flawed and not thought out. The guild of writers should not have to model and script for ages that will not come to anything. And if a writer say has a friend that wants to make an age that did not pass the grand master then that writer can help the friend and this can be a non writers age. As I see it, you have guild ages(worked on by all of the guild) and personal ages worked on by small groups of writers. This is why I voted for the Extreme option in the poll.



Here's how I envision it:


POWER:

Grand Master
|
Council of knowledgeable age builders
|
Designer of the age (person who first came forward to the Grand Master and proposed age idea)
|
Age builders containing the designer if he/she is so inclined to(modelers etc.)



Channels:


Person has an age idea---->---person submits idea to Grand Master------->----->----Grand Master agrees to letting age through---->---->---Council decides if age should get work started on it right away or if the writers are to swamped with other ages to handle it(age is then put on hold if writers are too busy)--->----Age builders--->---Public

Lontahv wrote:I think that if you don't want to have your idea looked at and decided by a higher up

Looked at, of course. Judged by them as either worthy or unworthy? No.

Lontahv wrote:you don't have to use the power and time that the guild members would put in, ie. if you want to go it alone, go it alone don't make the writers spend time on a project that is maybe flawed and not thought out.

No one is "making" the writers do anything. No one can. This is a forum with people doing work on ages in their free time. The most of anyone's time you can possibly waste on a forum is the time spent reading the threads you post.

Lontahv wrote:The guild of writers should not have to model and script for ages that will not come to anything.

No one knows if any of this entire venture is going to come to anything. We're all working under the vague assumption that our work will be recognized by Cyan and, at some point, integrated into their game. They are under no obligation to do so, and none of us are under any obligation to model or script for any idea posted here.

Lontahv wrote:And if a writer say has a friend that wants to make an age that did not pass the grand master then that writer can help the friend and this can be a non writers age. As I see it, you have guild ages(worked on by all of the guild) and personal ages worked on by small groups of writers. This is why I voted for the Extreme option in the poll.

The whole guild? Who is going to be responsible for getting everyone registered here to work on an age, because they say so? Not going to fly. Not everyone with the skills may be interested in working on whatever the arbitrary priority is.

Lontahv wrote:Person has an age idea---->---person submits idea to Grand Master------->----->----Grand Master agrees to letting age through---->---->---Council decides if age should get work started on it right away or if the writers are to swamped with other ages to handle it(age is then put on hold if writers are too busy)--->----Age builders--->---Public)

So, you're going to let one person somehow pass final judgment over the worthiness of any given age to be worked on by the writers? A very conducive environment for concept work. Then, you're going to have the Grand Master start assigning people age building homework? So fun.

When people are working on age concepts that they find interesting, they are showing that they find the concept worthy of their effort. Every member's opinion on a concept will differ. The single opinion of a grand master is not necessary. Also, Pryftan, what would the difference between a representative and a leader be, to Cyan? They could present themselves as a leader to Cyan, and relay whatever is necessary.

(anyway, because I recognize the need for a proper contact with Cyan, if this is going to go anywhere, I'm currently in favor of the "Little" option)

Nadnerb wrote:Also, Pryftan, what would the difference between a representative and a leader be, to Cyan? They could present themselves as a leader to Cyan, and relay whatever is necessary.

I feel like Cyan will more readily accept them as someone the group will listen to if they actually have some sort of official authority. Instead of just going "What kinds of rules should we stick to when it comes to Ages?.. okay.. I'll tell them that.." the council would be able to say that they would pull support for any Ages that break rules handed down by Cyan. It's just a little bit of a difference but it'll help build Cyan's confidence in us.

I think I'll let this go for another day, and then set up one more for an additional Grandmaster above the council.. and then, if nobody has objections, I'd like to start the election process. Any ideas on how that should go? Should we go by nominations, or let anyone "run", or.. I dunno. Maybe we should set up a seperate section of the forum where each person looking to have a seat on the council makes a topic on why they'd be good for the Guild, and then run a poll for a week that allows you to pick however many options as there would be people on the council.

Actually that brings up something else, how many people should there be on the council? Still a lot of questions I suppose..

Pryftan wrote:

Nadnerb wrote:Also, Pryftan, what would the difference between a representative and a leader be, to Cyan? They could present themselves as a leader to Cyan, and relay whatever is necessary.

I feel like Cyan will more readily accept them as someone the group will listen to if they actually have some sort of official authority. Instead of just going "What kinds of rules should we stick to when it comes to Ages?.. okay.. I'll tell them that.." the council would be able to say that they would pull support for any Ages that break rules handed down by Cyan. It's just a little bit of a difference but it'll help build Cyan's confidence in us.

I think I'll let this go for another day, and then set up one more for an additional Grandmaster above the council.. and then, if nobody has objections, I'd like to start the election process. Any ideas on how that should go? Should we go by nominations, or let anyone "run", or.. I dunno. Maybe we should set up a seperate section of the forum where each person looking to have a seat on the council makes a topic on why they'd be good for the Guild, and then run a poll for a week that allows you to pick however many options as there would be people on the council.

Actually that brings up something else, how many people should there be on the council? Still a lot of questions I suppose..

Yes, it might be a bit too early to start with nominations.

What we really need is a constitution, and a way to ratify it (say get 70% of the guild agreed). Within the constitution it describes stuff like election process and term length, and also a means for modifying it.

Not to frighten anyone away from it, it's not a set of rules or anything... It's just a process for creating the council that (most of us) agree is necessary.

In other words, someone should take the initiative and write a constitution (or it should be assigned) then it will be presented, discussed, and finally voted on. Then we'll be getting somewhere.

Anyone agree with me?

Dovahn

Yeah, that does make sense. I don't know if it needs to be anything so formal or lengthy as a constitution - I think such a document would be a combination of this, our code of conduct, and the rules for age content stuff. But we should figure out some stuff for term length and election procedures.

MORE POLLING!! =D

Pryftan wrote:Yeah, that does make sense. I don't know if it needs to be anything so formal or lengthy as a constitution - I think such a document would be a combination of this, our code of conduct, and the rules for age content stuff. But we should figure out some stuff for term length and election procedures.

MORE POLLING!! =D

Certainly. However, IMHO having a Constitution is a pretty lofty goal, and could add some prestige to the Guild (as in, "Our guild has a constitution. What does your guild have?" )

As you said, though, it would essentially be a combination of those things.

I actually have a quickie draft that I made. I'll see if people hate it...

Dovahn

Seriously, what is everyone's fixation on elections? "We must have a ruling body, a council, grandmaster, votes, elections, power, glory, and Cyan."

If you have time to spare to think up crap like this, you're not doing enough age building. Go get to it. Get back to me when you have a showcase age that looks as good as Pahts or Yinfara or Odema do already, and has a lot of names on it. Then you'll have something to show Cyan that will actually prove that you're organized, instead of just saying "this forum poll shows that people want me to rule their age building actions with my nonexistent power"

And in response to the last post that I just read, if you're in this for the prestige, you're deluding yourself. Go build something useful, and see what kind of prestige falls on you. You'll probably get a lot more out of it than trying to become a "leader" and simply become the perfect target for everyone else's woes, nasty comments, and paranoia.

Agreed, there's no reason to put the cart before the horse. When we have sufficient /reason/ to have a leadership, we should implement it then and in a way that fits the organization.

We have to earn the right to have that sort of hamstringing.

If everybody's fixated on something, what's the harm in setting it up? Most people want a system like this. Once it's set up we'll get back to Age Building and we'll do it better and more focused than we could have before.

I haven't stopped work on Tromegahl, by the way. I'm not experienced enough yet to do the kind of work you can do. But I'm getting better.

Trying to lend a hand to the organization process has been exceedingly frustrating due to our inability to agree, or at the LEAST, defer to majority opinion. Most agree we should have a council. Let's make a council.