[Illusion]

Originally Posted by Quiet Man Cometh

Um, is not Trisphee already full of non-shop characters? Or is entire Taskal War/Deivai/Quesaria set all working stock in the shop warehouses?


Why not?

The characters were related to the shopkeepers, and or became shopkeepers themselves. Wasn't the Taskal War a lead up to what was eventually supposed to be the established Trisphee world? The whole bunch of cast that came from those events still related to the mascots like Pandora and so on. Which is why they worked. But what came after was.. Yeah.....
Take Gambino for example from Gaia, he wasn't a shopkeeper but a NPC that was identified for running the Marketplace/Banks of Gaia. He still had purpose that fit within Gaia's site. I'm not saying everyone needs to be a shopkeeper, but everyone needs to connect to with what features are on Trisphee, or what will be. Otherwise their purpose is meaningless. Santa Claus is a character that makes since because you had a Christmas event (yes I know we don't have Christmas events, example is an example), but if you give me Bob Nice Guy which has nothing to do with Trisphee's world or a Christmas event itself and was just there. He had no reason to exist as a NPC / Be in the story. (Unless that was the intention and he was a gag character, but his character himself is still meaningless unless you gave him meaning.)

This sounds like you are suggesting we toss the stories and characters that aren't involved in the shops, which is pretty much was is being discussed. What exactly is the point you are making here, besides they don't belong? The way you talk about tweaking characters and story, it seems like you want the other npcs and stories to be resolved at least. I don't see why we need to bother.

I'm saying the characters are a resource you can pool from, and I don't care if their stories are resolved or not. I'm saying you shouldn't throw out a good pair of sneakers that still work with your outfit even though you don't want them anymore.

That would essentially just be making new characters. What resources would we be reusing if the plan is to rework them? Do you mean like keep the name "Batman" and his batcave, but re-write his origin story? Not sure if you've noticed that but irritates a lot of people. Ultimately, when you do something like that, a character loses integrity and becomes an outfit rather than a character.

That first statement is actually a huge argument of it's own. Take any Comic Book Character ever, their story has been rebooted countless times, better origins, more sense made for their characters to fit the universe their in, and they are a different person but still are the same character in some forms. Parallel worlds, what if I jump to another world with you in it. You might have been a different person or thing, but you are still the same person or thing.

No, that's you making assumptions based on your own ideas of writing. Whether a character is relatable or not can depend entirely on the reader. I don't find him very relatable at all, or perhaps I just don't find him that interesting a character to read about. I haven't written for Kaimid because it wasn't something I had to do.

Same could be said for anyone assumption, thoughts, or knowledge pertaining to any subject or idea ever. So from my perspective, not being able to write for a character that isn't relative to someone's own is an example of bad writing, or a person with a poor creative thought who can't think differently.
(I feel like that's what you were saying, but didn't understand that is what I was trying to say... Or I could had misinterpret what you meant...)

Not talking about Kaimid specifically here, but if a character isn't that developed or has a contradictory personality to begin with, what personality is really there to work with? They way you keep suggesting we adapt the characters we have, makes it seem to me that, to you, a character is comprised of a name and a face and a few details about what they can do or have, the rest being malleable as needed. I call that shoddy writing.

Because you still have something to work with. Savage, use what's there even if it's broken, you can still erect or take broken things and recreate it into something better. Think of bad official art of something and people made a better version of it. (Almost every fan art ever LOL.)

And by doing that you don't actually have Kaimid anymore. You have a character that happens to be similar with a name you didn't bother to change. Really, what's the point?

That you have something that was already established in some form to work with.

[quote]Many of the NPC's are around because of events in a story that is now largely defunct. Why keep them at all? If we yank the story, the characters no longer have any reason to be around, nor do they have justifications for their personalities as what has defined them is gone. Is Ryuko going back to being happy dragon-man with two daughters or are they not going to exist any more?, and since they didn't get murdered by Meisha (or did they? Would she still be around too? there is no justification for dark god Ryuko, at least, not without writing something new. In that case, why not just start with something new in the first place?[quote]

I do agree, there is no point to holding onto ideas that are defunct and or simply won't function into a story anymore. Maybe there is no point for a evil dragon king anymore, you don't have to write someone from that angle. As I said, even if you write a new origin and change the identity of that character, it's still him. You could still (and..) savage and reuse what you can.

I figure much of the reason to keep the current cast around would be nostalgia for the users who are already here. To a new user who has no idea who any of these people are without back-reading through a mess of text and events, they won't mean a thing.

I understand what you mean by what the overall point is to keep old characters if they are not for nostalgia or for people who already know about said character when new people who come to site wouldn't know them. Simply put, because they were a great character and you shouldn't can them. Some people disliked Kamid, he was my favorite character period. And the same could be said for any old character made. If you threw them out, you might had lost something that might had been even better.
Look at Deadpool, he was a cool character but the X-Men creators didn't care for him that much. Give him a new direction and he now has a famous personality, identity, popularity that no one could had imagine at the time he was originally created. I'm sure most non die hard X-Men fans knew about Deadpool, but now he's an internet sensation.

Sure, that will happen overtime with any cast we create, but at least if we start a new, we can build up a better foundation from with to launch a story that wouldn't be so arduous on newcomers.

Anytime someone says foundation I immediately think of Log Horizon, which is an anime that does nothing but build foundation, and took what could had been a terrible story about a virtual world into a good one. All because they kept building upon it's foundation throughout the story.

I agree that a stronger foundation makes for a better thing to grow from, which is why I suggest a soft reset or if there was a hard one to at least retool everything into a better foundation.

I didn't proofread a thing in this post so I hope is makes some sense.

I hope it did. I'm already expecting a reply back with you clarifying on what you meant. xD

[Suzerain of Sheol]

Originally Posted by Illusion

In that case, why do we have to have a story at all? (Deep critical thought and response on this question gives you bonus imaginary points!)

Well, considering I've voiced that very question elsewhere, I'm not sure what sort of response you're looking for here. I'm not sure if that was a sarcastic question or not, but that is my serious answer, regardless. I don't know that we do need one.

As to the rest of your post, I think Quiet already covered it sufficiently. I don't disagree with any of her points, which I suppose means I disagree with most of yours, but I can't imagine that surprises you at all.

I'm not sure I'm going to keep responding to you, since nothing productive is coming out of this conversation, and it's really derailing this thread from its intended purpose. If you want to feed this personal vendetta you have against me with a separate discussion or taking it to PMs, be my guest, but let's not delude ourselves into thinking anything valuable is emerging from this exchange.

[Illusion]

Originally Posted by Suzerain of Sheol

Well, considering I've voiced that very question elsewhere, I'm not sure what sort of response you're looking for here. I'm not sure if that was a sarcastic question or not, but that is my serious answer, regardless. I don't know that we do need one.

As to the rest of your post, I think Quiet already covered it sufficiently. I don't disagree with any of her points, which I suppose means I disagree with most of yours, but I can't imagine that surprises you at all.

I'm not sure I'm going to keep responding to you, since nothing productive is coming out of this conversation, and it's really derailing this thread from its intended purpose. If you want to feed this personal vendetta you have against me with a separate discussion or taking it to PMs, be my guest, but let's not delude ourselves into thinking anything valuable is emerging from this exchange.

I personally thought there was, and I wrote with that in mind. And it's technically not derailing from the original topic. Let alone you brought up the conversation in the first place...

But okay, I sense what vibe you got going there and I probably pressed some buttons here and there. But okay, cool beans, see you around... Youuuu.

[Quiet Man Cometh]

I'm saying the characters are a resource you can pool from, and I don't care if their stories are resolved or not. I'm saying you shouldn't throw out a good pair of sneakers that still work with your outfit even though you don't want them anymore.

I think this would be the crux of the disagreements right here. To some, the shoes still go with the outfit. To others, they do not. Buy new shoes.

[Espy]

I mean, in this case, we have a rather badly patched-up pair of misshapen shoes, cloth on leather, sole falling out but haphazardl stapled in, a pair of schoolgirl uniform shoes you've outgrown, something you wouldn't wear to college and definitely have grown out of. I think you'd want to move on from those...

[Lucid:]

After reading the whole story discussion up to this point, my personal opinion is to delete the old story and go back to the original Trisiana plot, which was completely scrapped.

I liked that one because it was full of adventure and time travel. A merry party of adventurers who already have outfits made into items. What's not to like? :D

As far as presentation, I think Trisphee needs more non-plot events. There are two main reasons that events get delayed: Lack of items pixeled, or lack of story written. If we didn't have to rely on writers to make Sebastian ramble on about how excited he is, we could hold more fun events with a simple game and a couple items, or even just contests and currency handouts. One lore event per year would give the writers time to create a compelling story where the users feel like they the outcome affects them as a person (but of course not where they can affect the outcome).

I know I am one of the people who was turned off of the story due to sheer volume of reading to do. I tried hard to keep up with it, but just couldn't anymore after the Deivai chapters. Presenting the bulk of the story gradually over the course of an event and then having occasional mini-chapters (presented maybe as a single day's captain's log, a couple field sketches, a short video, there's a lot of possibilities here) throughout keeps it fresh and mixes up the presentation in an interesting and, most importantly, easy to consume way.

[Espy]

Do...uh...do Tris&co actually have stuff written out for them? Like, I don't remember anything particularly solid. Also, doesn't that group also include Pandora?

[Gallagher]

Yes they have like 1 thread, and no they don't include her.

[Espy]

Second part is good. First part is not so good.

Honestly, I'd rather just start over with a new writing team and new characters designed by that team.

[Sei]

Originally Posted by Lucid:

After reading the whole story discussion up to this point, my personal opinion is to delete the old story and go back to the original Trisiana plot, which was completely scrapped.

I did like the Trisiana plot back in the day, but it has been so long since it has been worked on that I don't know where it would have gone. The people who started the groundwork are all gone and the writers we have left were never attached to this work at all. As bad as our other plot may be, at least our current writers have worked on it a bit.

Originally Posted by Lucid:

As far as presentation, I think Trisphee needs more non-plot events. There are two main reasons that events get delayed: Lack of items pixeled, or lack of story written. We could hold more fun events with a simple game and a couple items, or even just contests and currency handouts. One lore event per year would give the writers time to create a compelling story where the users feel like they the outcome affects them as a person (but of course not where they can affect the outcome).

This is why I always fought for having more real life holidays and events as well as fictitious ones. Other sites don't need an elaborate explanation of their holidays every year (for new users) because they already know what to expect.

Honestly, throwing in some real holidays instead of just Nox (Day of the Dead) would also help a bit, in my opinion.

Originally Posted by Lucid:

If we didn't have to rely on writers to make Sebastian ramble on about how excited he is...

Amen to that. Sebby is too... caffeinated all the time. No one is that happy or excited all the time. >.>;;

[ml1201]

I agree with Sei, real life themed holiday events would be awesome to do. You don't have to do all of them, and you don't have to make them intensive like some sites do *cough*Aywas*cough*. And when is this or the original sites creation day month and day wise? You could make the story related event around that time, unless you want to do it for when the new story begins, either time of the year would be a good time to have something like that.

[Quiet Man Cometh]

I like this idea, too. The story events are fun, but the site specific events like Nox (even though it has a story base as well) and Tris' birthday could easily feel more inclusive to users of the site as a whole especially for those who might not care to get into all the lore. If there were, say, maybe three per year, that would also give the staff something of a predictable schedule and a calender for sorts for the users who want to know when the next event might arrive. Other stuff can happen as it happens.

What about taking the masquerade party from the story and making it an annual thing? Lore wise, it could be a remembrance of the original party crashed by rebels, etc, which would give "characters" who appreciate tradition something to RP about if they like, while it remains essentially a costume party for everyone else, with the usual hang-out and chat threads, games, and currency getting.

[ml1201]

I have no idea when that took place, but I would think Spring would be a good time to have that take place. Because that's when people usually start wearing bright colors again. And of course we could keep Nox since its already kind of a Halloween themed thing, though an idea for that is maybe having it earlier in October or fall later into November? Only reason why I'm saying this is because a lot of site have events going on at that time and it will stress out users more if all the events on all the sites they are on occur at the same time. So this way people are not so stressed by it.

As for the party one I would suggest mid-late April as being a good time for it since Easter is earlier in the month when it happens in April so we can completely miss any stress from other sites having Easter events. And I have no idea when the site's birthday is. x'D

[Coda]

Nox DOES run into November. We already thought of that. :P

[Espy]

IIRC, the Masquerade event was a late-summer thing, but I'd fully support having a Carnival event in the spring. If we wanted to add a bit of lore to it, we wouldn't even need to include names or go into the details. So it'd be mostly a carnival but with a side of Memorial Day, or something.

Having a small New Year's celebration could also work, since we do release new yearlies at around that time, if things go smoothly.

[ml1201]

I like that idea, though would we plan on releasing the new yearlies then, before or after? I think it would be awesome to do it after to be honest because it could be like celebrating the coming new year like in real life. Though in real life I don't really celebrate. x'D