Membership in the Unofficial Guild of Writers

Robert The Rebuilder · **Posted:** Wed Aug 29, 2007 12:30 pm

Added LaReh's answers, changed Ian's answer, and clarified question 3.

Dovahn · **Joined:** Mon Dec 11, 2006 11:12 pm **Posts:** 107

Okay, let's see...

1. a)

There is no easy way to determine who "has the skills" so even though a huge mass of writhing people will clamor to be in this guild, there is no way to limit them besides working with them and finding out who has no skills whatsoever. So you have to give everyone a chance.

2. b)

Certainly design is just as important as creation.

3. a)

I say this with a caveat: I think that people who have outdone themselves with the effort that they put into the GoW should be rewarded with at least a title. Besides that, everyone is in the Guild of Writers, therefore, they are Writers.

4. a)

See note to #5

5. This is tricky. Both the answers to 4. and 5. are based on what the mission statement of the guild is. If it is to provide tools to make ages, then the answers are obvious. If it is to create ages, the answers are again obvious. It may seem like a silly thing to say that the GoW only makes the tools (or at least it does to me), but a lot of people are insinuating that they would like this to be the case.

Eleri · **Posted:** Wed Aug 29, 2007 5:22 pm

1- a

2- b

3- a

4- a

5- a

I think the two most vital points are:

~That anyone who has skills that will *eventually* result in an explorable age, should be allowed to become a member of the Guild of Writers. So much more goes into making an age that the modeling, and the GoW should honor that.

Even if someone doesn't wish to become a Writer themselves, if they come to the Guild with "I've got this idea for an Age", the Guild should treat them with the same respect and attention that they give their own guild members.

~ That the tools developed by the Guild of Writers are accessable to EVERYONE, Guildmember or not. If, eventually, Cyan wishes to use the Guild fo Writers and the Guild of Maintainers as a sort of 'quality control' to make sure that user-created ages ported into Uru meet a certain standard of quality, I fully support that. But even then, the tools should not be hoarded and kept sacred to only the chosen ones.

Herohtar · **Joined:** Wed Nov 08, 2006 5:45 pm **Posts:** 2553

Since I seem to have voted without actually voting, I should probably post some official answers here.

1. b
2. b
3. b
4. a
5. a

Erik · **Posted:** Wed Aug 29, 2007 7:32 pm

1. b (or c, I don't really get what is meant with that subset) Anyway, what's the point in being a member of a Guilds if you can't contribute to it? People don't have to be a member to be able to support the Guild.
2. a
3. a
4. a
5. b People could try and build a private Age for themselves, but only Writers should write Ages for the entire community.

Robert The Rebuilder · **Posted:** Wed Aug 29, 2007 8:25 pm

Added the input from Dovahn, Eleri, Herohtar and Erik.

isomorphic · **Joined:** Tue Feb 13, 2007 4:36 pm **Posts:** 92

1: A.To this, I would add that new members should be required to list what skills they currently have and probably which skills they most want to obtain. I definitely think a testing requirement would be infeasible and a waste of time.

2: B, but no single person needs to have all of those skills.

3: A, unless somebody comes up with a very simple and fair system for one of the other options. (Not likely in my opinion.)

4: A. Anything less than a public repository for all tools and associated documentation would be contrary to the spirit of our new guild system.

5: A. A natural consequence of #4.

UGoW should serve 3 purposes:
1. Developing age creation tools
2. Create documentation and tutorials about creating Ages
3. The Guild should provide a forum for people with different skills to hook up and work together on Ages.

Maintainers should probably decide which ages (Guild-developed or not) are fit for public access.

Tweek · **Joined:** Tue May 09, 2006 12:11 am **Posts:** 2633

Posted by myself in another topic but echoed here.

The Guild of Writers wrote Ages for the other Guilds and themselves, if the Guild of Healers needed an Age they would go to the Writers for it.

This is how it should be in Uru, if the Maintainers need a training Age, GoW sorts it out. That is the Writers job.

However, the Guild of Writers should not (and to be quiet honest will not) have a monopoly over Age writing outside of the Guild, non Guild members will write their own Ages (as the D'ni did in the more upper class families).

Course that could not be what you were getting at.

MustardJeep · **Posted:** Wed Aug 29, 2007 10:04 pm

Speaking of which I've had a few ideas about bug hunt training ages for the Maintainers Guild Pre-Group.

But I will bring that up later once you folks are better setup.

/me scoots back out of the conversation.

Robert The Rebuilder · **Posted:** Thu Aug 30, 2007 2:32 am

isomorphic: added your answers

Tweek: added your answer for #5. Would you care to provide input for the other 4 questions?

Nateo · **Joined:** Wed Aug 29, 2007 11:38 pm **Posts:** 11

My two cents:

1. a (with sub-rankings determined by skill and contributions to the projects)

2. b

3. a

4. a

5. a (but surely the guild can produce more... professional works

)

Seanathon · **Posted:** Thu Aug 30, 2007 3:43 am

1. (a) Entering the guild should be simple and welcoming. Staying in the guild could depend on personal improvement or contributions to guild efforts and projects.

2. (b) I'm definitely behind the idea of a team of Writers with different skills working together within the structure of the guild.

3. (a) As a general name for someone within the GoW, Writer works well. But you can also be more descriptive if someone asks or just wants to clarify i.e. I'm a Writer who specializes in Age concepts, etc.

4. (a) Everyone should have the opportunity to explore the Age building tools in order to learn the process.

5. (b) This one's a tough question. I'd say since anyone could have access to the tools, anyone could produce an Age. As for publishing Ages, I believe it should be done through the structure of the guild. While I accept Ages could be made by non-members, they should realize they can find a lot of resources and people interested in helping the process if they join the guild.

Those are some good questions. Hopefully we'll get what we need from the answers and some of the discussion that's sure to go on.

Robert The Rebuilder · **Posted:** Thu Aug 30, 2007 12:21 pm

Added opinions by Nateo and Seanathon.

Background information regarding age distribution: After permission from Cyan to do so, people distribute fan-created ages for Uru: Complete Chronicles by using the Uru Library Manager (ULM) tool - which is currently available for everyone to use. People could also place their age files on a web site, but explorers that want to visit the age would still need ULM to incorporate the new age into Uru: CC.

So, here's a question to the people who selected 5b: how would you enforce the rule that only UGoW members can distribute ages to the community?

Tweek · **Joined:** Tue May 09, 2006 12:11 am **Posts:** 2633

1. b

2. b

3. Don't really have an answer, as long as no arrogance is involve I'm happy to call people Writers, Guildsman Bob, Mandy or their regular community name.

4. a

Hawkin · **Joined:** Mon Mar 19, 2007 3:50 am **Posts:** 123

Figured I'd get my vote in on this, though, sadly, I will not be able to participate much in Uru, the Guilds, or the communities thereof for the foreseeable future due to work and classes. Perhaps if I succeed in getting a less strenuous job that will change somewhat, but that remains to be seen.

1. a

2. b

3. a

4. a

5. a

Membership in the Unofficial Guild of Writers

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