NEWS

I've been contemplating a few things for Taffy, and I would like to get some member input. I won't promise that what everyone wants is going to happen, but I'm just curious to see how current member base feels about some things.

First of: Rewards.

I've been reading about this on the RPG-D and some games have a reward system.
I simply refuse to set up some elaborate shop idea, like I've seen on other games. It's too much work and upkeep for little old me and they're easily exploited and don't make for fun additions, in my opinion.
I have been considering perhaps rewarding people for activity and good RP. My thoughts went to "for x amount of IC posts you get to have *insert reward here*" and "for ever successfully run plot you get *insert reward here*"
I don't want to buy your activity, it's not like that, but I do think that people who are active and participating should have the option to something extra that flyby members don't get...

Thoughts? Good idea of bad idea? Possible suggestions for rewards, because I'm somewhat at a loss for them, to be honest. Things like free rerolls of jewel sets, banking rolls and extra Queen/dual caste come to mind...

Secondly: Information.

HyenaSloth already said information was nice and clear, and thanks for that compliment. I'm just a major worry-wart and constantly afraid info isn't clear enough, user-friendly enough, or not as readily available as I'd like to think. I want the game to be accessible to people unfamiliar with the books as well.

Is there anything information wise, about the canon of the world that you're missing, or feel is poorly represented? Anything you would like to know more about or would like to be able to quickly look up? I'm not a genius on the BJT myself, so if I'm missing something that coudl be important, do let me know.

I've been thinking of perhaps adding information topics on the following:
All the territories in play - general stuff like geography, capitol city, etc. To be honest, also because I'm ill informed on this subject myself.
Blood law - Blood law is complicated to begin with and hazy at best, for people not familiar with the books, I think this could use some outlining.
Link to the BJT wikia - it's not the best wikia in the world, but information is information.


Would love to hear your input on these two things. However much or little you have to share, I appreciate all the help you can get me. There will be cookies in it for people who reply =D

Ready for my two cents? :]

Rewards

These are always great incentives and it certainly gives people something to play towards. As my personal RP history originally derives from wolves, I'm at a loss as to what to suggest for an BJT RP, but I can offer a few suggestions should you choose to go that route.

There are different ways to give awards. Typically sites use a points system where members can gain points for achieving different goals both IC'ly and OOC'ly. These points can then be used to "unlock" rare abilities or anything else administration might wish to release on a somewhat infrequent basis.

IC Goals
Obtaining a Birth Right Jewel
Obtaining an Offering Jewel
Infected by Rot
Surviving Rot
Meeting X Amount of Characters
Visited all Territories
Etc...

OOC Goals
Join Taphonomy (Once per OOC account)
Adopt a Character
Have X Amount of Posts (Generally milestones: 5, 15, 25, 50, 100)
Refer someone to the Site
Advertise on X Amount of Sites
Survive an Activity Sweep
Finish a Small, Medium, Large Thread (15, 25, 50 posts)
Create a Graphic for the Site
Fulfill Graphics Request
Win a Contest
Etc...

As for rewards? That could be anything from allowing an additional character, allowing wings, odd hair colors, or other possibly restricted appearances, allowing a character to start with a darker jewel set, etc.

I know we are currently able to petition for darker jewels, but something of this manner might take away the subjectivity. It's easier for a member to say, "I'm going to work towards this goal to get what I want," as opposed to... "Maybe if I stay around long enough... the admin will start to like me?"

Other points can be given out for site events, such as a "Tour de Terrielle" challenge where characters can try to complete threads with different goals. For instance, completing a thread with each of the following objectives: Shopping, Drinking, Traveling, Horseback Riding, etc... The idea, would be that characters who complete threads of common, everyday activities would be able to win a whopping sum of points for accomplishing such a feat.

There are plenty of things that can be done. :]

Information

Umm... I love the lexicon. I frequently reference that just to make sure I'm remembering the books correctly. (It also helps that I'm currently re-reading them.)

I did have one quick question. I noticed the following:

Hayllian
A long lived race (thousands of years) that characteristically has black hair and golden eyes with bronzed skin.

Dhemlan
A long lived race (thousands of years) that characteristically has black hair and golden eyes with bronzed skin.

Do they have the same physical description? -can't remember-

It might be worth breaking the Lexicon into distinct sections such as "Race, Casts, Craft, Etc." It doesn't currently appear to have any sort of organization. But sorting it would make creating a profile sooo much easier.

But! It also might be fun to have some sort of Caste guide. There's the short description in the Lexicon, but it might also be nice to describe what the physical characteristics, requirements, and capabilities are available for each Caste. Just something that goes into a little more detail that could serve as a refresher. Similarly, something touching on basic Craft.

Descriptions of each Territory would be lovely. And perhaps in the future commonly visited locations could receive their own sub forum to help sort and organize threads. Something of that nature might also help Territory Rulers better establish their courts. -is an organizational junkie-

I think... those are my overall suggestions. If I happen to think of something else, I'll post again. :P

This post has been edited by Yazzeh on Apr 5 2012, 04:28 AM

My thought exactly on that xD

A topic about the castes is definitely a good idea, it can tie in with some more craft information, as a lot of the castes have specific areas of craft they work in. Great idea!

The lexicon really has no order other than "What came to my mind as I was writing" I started out at the beginning of what seemed important and added definitions as they came up in explanation.

The races (Dhemlan and Hayllian) -- yes, they are that similar and they make no sense canonically. The difference lies in the territory and culture around them, as far as I've gathered from the books I read. But the more you try to understand it the less sense it seems to make.
Example: I remember how Saetan is Hayllian, and so is Daemon (his son), but Lucivar (also his son) is Eyrien, because Lucivar's mother is Eyrien. She magically had no wings (random wingless Eyrien) and no one knew she was Eyrien. Lucivar is considered a full Eyrien though, not half of one (what is this?) though he apparently caught flack in Askavi for it (but how would they know seeing how Saetan's paternal claim got denied?)

So what if a Hayllian and a Dhemlan have a baby? What would it be? I honestly have no clue...



For clarification about rewards though: I'm not entirely sure on making a huge reward system. Though it's probably a fun system, it takes a fair bit of upkeep and, to me, feels like it focuses too much on getting stuff rather than on having fun. Which, really, should be the main incentive to post, right?
Some of the ideas for rewards are pretty good though, and I like the idea of giving rewards for some activities, they could be site-wide events.

The whole idea of putting up some rewards was to make it more accessible to everyone. I'm not a huge nazi on what you can and can't have. If you're an active member and contribute I'll be pretty lenient on letting you have what you want, same for plots, etc. But I know some people are a bit skittish of just coming up to an admin and asking, so outlining some rewards makes it simpler to get what they want, and they won't have to ask.

As such I kind of want the rewards to be things I wouldn't give to just anyone, but to people who I know won't abuse the little bit of extra leeway.

Would it be a good idea to go by time or by post count? Or both?

I like the idea of rewards however after seeing them on many sites in many different forms I’ve concluded that they can be very tricky things to do right. They should be something very appealing, something people actually really want. The more they have to do with in play the better, sometimes, but can’t be to hard to get (except maybe a few elite ones) because often I’ve noticed that members just ignore them because they don’t care enough.

There are many different ways and twists to award them too. Post counts, achieve goals, mini plots and polls.. I think my favorite to date was actually a mini plot where the admin randomly matched up pairs for a thread then they had something like a 6 post limit per thread before being ‘yanked’ out and into the next one. It was a great way for characters to randomly get to meet different ones and at the end everyone got to vote on there favorite thread, winners got both graphic prize and an ICC prize.

I completely agree with Yazzeh about the petition for darker jewels, it seems much less likely to be exploited if given a goal with set things to achieve. Maybe multiple different things to achieve thing goal?

Also like the idea "Tour de Terrielle" that sounds fun.


As for information, well shorter bites is always easier to digest. When pages of information get long it just leads to people not reading them or just skimming them and not really picking up the details which can cause trouble later. Its much more inviting when things are short, broken into easily defined sections.

I would love to see a little more description on the areas. Especially for places like the Raej where it could be hard to just constantly ‘random run in in the middle fo the desert’ Only so often that sounds plausible lol. Giving each section a couple little areas like cities or sections of a town would help a lot I think. And if a location has a stable character that has a set place where they might be found, might be nice to have bit of info about that too, just so everyone is on the same page of what it looks like and knows where to find it.

Aaaand its late and that’s all the brain has for you tonight! Can have my cookie now?

*opens big book of vagueness*

Lets see. Luthvian was born without wings because she had non-Eyriens in her bloodline. It is a random occurrence and a cause of some scoffing by 'pure' Eyriens. There was a Hayllian way back in the day in her line(namely Hekatah, if I am not mistaken) or a few. It's like... err... albino Africans! Or anything rare that could just randomly pop up. Luthvian just pulled the short straw. Not sure I am making any sense but what the hey.

Things get hazy when we get to the children(Won't no one think of the children?!?!). Saetan and Daemon were Hayllians but Lucivar... was Eyrien. Makes no sense but HE HAS WINGS! I think mostly Lucivar caught flack in Askavi about being a bastard rather than being a half-Hayllian. I don't think any sane person would suggest he wasn't what he appeared to be and that is Eyrien. It is strange at all that a mixed blood Eyrien and a Hayllian could get a baby with wings to begin with(what are the odds?!) but I guess he needed to be special snowflake somehow and appearance is the easiest to roll with, yeah?

So in conclusion, the long-lived races define themselves by the society they grow up in and well, by whether they have wings or not? I never saw much difference in Hayllians and Dhemlanese so I'll go nuts and compare the two with modern day Americans and Canadians. Similar but not at all the same.

Aside from that little tirade, I have nothing useful to add to the discussion. I'm happy when people are happy to get rewards though not fussed about them personally.

Today I tackled territory information. You can find it in the Extra Information forum (subforum of the information forum) or you can be lazy and click here. Bear with me folks, information about all this is... impossible to find. So I made a lot of stuff up, figuring it's been thousands of years since the books, things can change.

I also added a short topic about the three realms and the place their each have in Taphonomy's setting.

Will see about tackling the Craft/Caste additional info and a bit about Protocol and Blood Law later this week.

Thanks Macbeth! It looks wonderful!

A long time ago a certain amount of posts had to be accomplished to receive an offering jewel. This you had no choice in and I believe it was 50 posts (which flew by surprisingly). But this can apply here differently for those who perhaps join with just their birthright.

Shops I hate so... I'm glad you and I are on the same page. <3

Ever consider quests? They could move plots along and such while giving members/characters a goal and thus a reward at the end. Not like give a quest every day or week. That would be far too much work. But have an event happen every now and then that characters in that territory can act upon and work together - or against each other - to accomplish an end to the quest.

And the race thing... depending on where they were born and such... but if it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, and quacks like a freaking duck then it's a bloody duck.

Hurp, most of my main issues with the info have been addressed. But... I get this feeling we missed something.

Macbeth, do you want some help with writing guides? That way we who help can send you a basic explanation of things and you can just... approve it section by section and not have to do nearly so much. Because I can totally do an Eyrien/Hayllian breakdown expo thing. With Punnet squares to clear up the genetics question. (Just saying, don't have to take me up on it.)

On that issue, the main difference is actually in their genetics. Yes, they look the same save wings, but there's a fundamental difference in that Eyrien are just stronger physically and mentally. Then they tend to take that strength and hone it with ridiculous training and a society that emphasizes this. Hayllians are sleeker, more prone to being beautiful and exotic representations of how the Blood should be. They're better at understanding emotional concepts, like how Daemon had to explain to Lucivar just why his wife was upset at him. Part of these difference is culture, and part of it is hard wiring in their brains. Put them together and you have the Eyriens forming the flipside to the Hayllians. I thought about this waaay too much.


Aside from that, we're going to need a walkthrough written up to guide new players through the info section in an efficient manner. Just so that new people can navigate it quicker and thus get less confused by what's going on.

As I said before, if you have information you feel you can pour into a nice format, by all means, write a guide about it and I can check it and proof is and put it up if it works. Do keep in mind, I want to keep the information largely streamlined and I'm not looking to make a BJT wikia. So yes, I'd like help with write ups. BUT I would just like to point out I appreciate all the help, I really do, but don't forget you guys came here to play. ;D

Sure there's still a fair bit that needs doing evidently and all extra information could be useful but they're not exactly life-threateningly urgent. It's a lot of details, dotting i's and crossing t's and like the Hayllina/Eyrien difference (using that as an example, but same goes for the communication topic etc.) a lot of that is just discussing stereotypical assets that people don't need to adhere to or know. I'm pretty lenient about interpretation of the canon so if people come in with a slightly different idea, I'm cool with that. As long as they don't go overboard and in a wildly different direction.

Point being: Don't forget to have some fun you guys...! You came to RolePlay, and I think maybe that should come before dotting i's and crossing t's on my sloppy information. You're not my mods, so ... your main priority should be to have some fun and RolePlay. I understand you guys love the hell out of this though... so by all means, have at it. But priorities and such... *coffeeee*