Who wants to collaborate? idea to bolster realm #'s

[anjovi]

Note: This idea is evolving/changing with further thread discussion

hey folks! so were lacking in realms and in result the ability for players to level there dudes/gals up.
The process of making realms with self contained narratives can be time consuming but i've got an idea:

What if some of us teamed up on making a bunch of realms that were individually light on story but put together added up to one story line? This would allow us to simply place all of our map layouts and fine tune them for good gameplay and share the story writing load upon multiple realms.

I'm thinking how this could work is we'd have a group of:
-Realm makers who are designated to designing a realm
-A moderator or 2 that'd check over the realms and make sure they all followed a cohesive design scheme
-Maybe a main writer who'd look over everyone's writing or even supply everyone the writing to place in encounters

Ideas for themes could include:
-shattered realms: just a series of less tamed realms were the king has been maimed by an invader and thus the whole realm is out of wack (this would be an excuse to place isolated buildings and vilages, wizard towers in ways to make the realm valid without hampering design choices)
-a series of realms that have been conquered/attacked by a powerful wizard and you must save.

what we'd do is come up with a theme and then each of us can work on our own little separate bits.

Was thinking the titles of realms could look something like:
Shattered Realms I, Shattered Realms II, III, IV,V, etc...fringe realms, broken realms, whatever theme we decided upon.

Otherwise i was thinking of doing something like this myself, so this thread would be a good opportunity to bounce it off the moderators to see if we can come to a compromise.

TLDR: A series of realms that had as much writing as 1 realm but the gameplay of 5-8 realms of varying difficulties.

[SlipperyJim]

Consider me your friendly Realm Moderator

Regards,

Jim

[Farious]

Great idea, I'm happy to help if I can and you don't hate my stuff

Personally, I think a better approach would be self contained Realms were a theme is decided then someone designs the map whilst the others write the encounters. The person designing the map would need to have the suitable talismans etc to customise the Wizard King. Anyway @anjovi, let me know what you want & we'll see if we can knock something together (I am currently working on a Level 5 Realm but I can make time).

[anjovi]

Consider me your friendly Realm Moderator

Regards,

Jim

coolios! so here's the idea, thought out some more.

Shattered Realms
Realms that have recently been destabilized by a previous invader. The empire is on the brink of collapse and everyone is just biding time until the realm eventually crumbles to space dust (or ether…whatever is thematically correct) They might not be necessarily aware of this reality though the realms will be in great turmoil. Islands with strategic buildings like citadels, mana fluxes will be all broken off in chunks and scattered about (this will help in making buildings inaccessible or adding wizard towers for realm development points though you’ll need to use discretion…of course at least having 1 of each building available.) Also these realms would be designed in a linear fashion, placing lords in choke points to encourage the battles.

Realm encounters will be limited as the main purpose of these realms will be providing battles/coop/invasion with AI and other players. Perhaps the main encounters will be the space to add general Chaos Lore…not focusing on a particular empire but making little tidbits here and there that relate to lore

This could be a little snippet about how your wizard woke up in the morning to whatever is there instead of the sun or look, something that explained little nuances of how mana fluxes or citadels worked as you approach them, the kind of environments the creatures live in, how towns population doesn’t have to necessarily consist of only humans, etc. Just general things that give the players an idea of the universe there in.

This would also be a good place to make references to various gods and how they might have had influence in these realms at certain points. Cross referencing other creator’s realms in this compilation would be cool to whether it was some random character or event that happened. I'll see if i can find a way to organize all of this so you can easily glance it over and get ideas.

If you don’t want to write but would rather just make the realm layouts, just have a event in place that you have a vague idea for and I’ll think up something to fill it in with. I’ll then send it to you to copy in place.

If no one else is up for it I’ll volunteer to look over realm stuffs and blow up allan’s lore thread with questions your writing brings up.

I think this could be a good compromise for meeting the requirements for submissions while making it easier to create content quicker. If I can I’ll try to organize lore information in a way that you can simply click a link, read at random for a quick idea for an encounter, write it up and pass it by me or whoever is up to cross referencing lore stuff…you could also do this if you want.

Applying:
Lets just keep this simple:
1)say “I” in the thread that I will probably make once the theme/concept for this compilation is thought through.
2)Take a number (we’ll use roman numerals)
3)Create and submit under the title with number (ex. Shattered Realms IV)
3b)if you change your mind just mention it so someone else can take that number.

Perhaps in the future other compilations can be made were we look at other themes then doomy and gloomy realms.

Otherwise just want to coordinate this with moderators and get the green light on the plan so when things do start things will go smooth.

[anjovi]

Great idea, I'm happy to help if I can and you don't hate my stuff

Personally, I think a better approach would be self contained Realms were a theme is decided then someone designs the map whilst the others write the encounters. The person designing the map would need to have the suitable talismans etc to customise the Wizard King. Anyway @anjovi, let me know what you want & we'll see if we can knock something together (I am currently working on a Level 5 Realm but I can make time).

oh definitely! Assuming this idea doesn't take off and i'm not devoting my chaos reborn time to that stuff i'd happily get some stuff going with you. could split up writing tasks even, though 1 would have to layout the map.

[Mazy]

Good idea this, maybe you could start a thread just for people to list various realm ideas and themes on (I guess this is that thread!). Sometimes collaborating is a good way to go, especially if there are lords and other non realm creators with ideas for realms that they can pass on to king+/realm creators, plus if the project idea is posted here maybe it could be verified here also, by a mod, before spending hours making it for real only to find it won't pass the test.

The stream of ideas for realms could be pretty far ranging. Any ideas posted could be taken up and used by any king in the process of creating realms. In theory it could share the workload, creative input from multiple sources, someone might supply the theme they want to see made (and roughly how it should play out), someone else could supply the bulk of the creative writing (encounters and enemy wizard customisation), one person could design the map (most likely the king who submits it).

In the meantime to solve the content problem it's worth spamming lots of very basic and easy to play lite realms (huge gap in the market for these), sort of one step up from tutorial realms whilst still experimental, getting a feel for how the new encounter system will work for later grander realms.

[anjovi]

the idea for collaborations in general would be cool and i could always use ideas for realms if others had any.

Perhaps some sort of moderation leniance towards those lite realms would be an even better idea. Would definately be easier, just setup some guideline for these LITE realms. say having encounters that thematically explain the nuances of the different mechanics that the tutorial might not.

though if that can't be done...

I think it would be ideal to keep the general theme on whatever this compilation might be fairly simple. Say you have 8 realms that deal with realms that are all blown up, another collection were a quirky character has impacted all of these different realms and you have to undo the damage they've done. Once the theme's set and i can get a clarification that there won't be any issues submitting these realms i'll make a new thread were folks can submit and get directions on who to hit up for help (whether writing/lore/spell checking/realm design/etc.)

[Farious]

say having encounters that thematically explain the nuances of the different mechanics that the tutorial might not.

I'd probably reject it because you'd likely be addressing the player as the realm creator outside of the context of the realm Eg if the main goal of the Realm is to defeat the Wizard King then having an encounter, for instance, saying 'casting a totem adds x% to a creature's stats' would be a breach of the guidance imho as the player's character of the Wizard would know this & tbh, I'm not sure what you could add that isn't covered by the tutorial & info boxes? :/

I think it would be ideal to keep the general theme on whatever this compilation might be fairly simple. Say you have 8 realms that deal with realms that are all blown up,

I don't see any problems with this as long as the introduction text and encounters explain the story and reasoning for it and the connection between the Realms... I'd be really careful though to make sure that no sort of 'progression' is indicated and that it is stated that each Realm, despite coming about as a result of the same cause, is effectively an entirely separate story, like episodes in a TV show like #StarTrek. You could say something like, 'The Portals, damaged and concealed by a century of no use were now virtually impossible to even stumble across, leading to the Realms becoming isolated, insular, and lacking in knowledge of the events elsewhere...'

Anyway, great ideas as ever.

Edit: Btw if @SlipperyJim is happy to mod your collection exclusively then that is fine by me & I'll keep my nose out

[SlipperyJim]

I am not claiming exclusivity - let anyone get involved who wants to I say as I am not always available.

Regards,

Jim

[anjovi]

oh yeah, not too concerned about going into specifics with the encounters but just basing the realms around gamey mechanics maybe explaining things indirectly in a flavor text here and there.

i'm thinking stuff like how you've recruited the spiders and there laying eggs that'll eventually hatch and become your forces so perhaps the quest regarding other said thing would be a good thing to do instead of idling..or if you've got a choke point between 2 mountain tiles you could explain the mountain regions and subtly hint how the mobility of the plains tiles would allow you to intercept the marauder if it tried to dodge to the left/right of your dudes....would all be subtle hints in flavor text me thinks.

Though i suppose these will be more focused on getting wizard battles going so villager/flux/citadel business would be kept to a minimum.

One idea could be having a small universal monologue that each realm shared followed by a little snippet that indicated how each differentiated.

maybe what i'll do is try to make 2-3 of them and if they get submitted succesfully i can make a thread for others to join in. Will kind of give people a better idea as to what's going on if they get to play over a realm or 2. I should have some time to plunk some effort into these pretty quick.