Typically, I'm unable to just give a simple answer to most of these questions:
1. Who is eligible for membership in the UGoW?
a. Anyone that agrees to uphold the mission statement and follow the code of conduct
2. What skills are considered necessary to building an age?
b. (a) + design skills (conceptual sketches, age layout)
….I know your (a) category broadly included “any (of the) skills needed to contribute to building an age”, but I would have thought that list of skills would necessarily include design skills already.
And really, before the layout, the sketches, the modeling/texturing/animation etc – the Writers’ Guild needs Writers, the folks that formulate great story lines around which the structure of the Ages are formed, not the other way around. We can have the most gorgeous environments imaginable, but they will be hollow and purposeless without the cause imparted by strong storylines. Good writers should also connect and integrate the disparate plots that our diverse group concocts, so that they at least give the semblance of a unified whole!
3. What should a member of the UGoW be called by the general community?
a. Writer
4. How should the UGoW control access to age creation tools and their documentation?
b. Only members should have access to certain tools and their documentation
AND
c. Only members should have access to INTERNALLY CREATED OR CYAN-PROVIDED age-creation tool(s) and their documentation
Here’s the one place I will advocate exclusivity, and for several reasons.
1. Though I know that we have some very talented people in our midst, I’m guessing it’ll still take a LONG time to bring all our members up to a level of functional competence whereby we are turning out ages we’re proud of at any clip acceptable to the players-at-large. There’s going to be a LONG period where we are all educating one another, where we are forming and reforming our methodologies, where we’re making LOTS of mistakes. We don’t want to broadcast our internal difficulties to the outside communities any more than Cyan does theirs. Nor do we want to be called upon to educate the world at large, since we’re gonna have our hands quite full with our own business. Keeping both our tools and chatter internal will help keep us out of more trouble than we're already gonna have.
2. As with MOUL itself, storylines should predicate the timing of the release of content. Giving away too many (or sometimes any) tidbits of advance info prior to an Age’s release can completely ruin the new-player experience. If we are going to really try to create a true IC experience for players, we need to keep our plans, progress and documentation to ourselves – at least until an age’s release.
3. I am hoping that Cyan themselves eventually starts to provide our Guild with the tools for Age creation. If that is the case, I believe that they’d prefer to see those tools in the hands of trusted individuals rather than throwing them on a website for the world to download, whine over and break. I could be wrong here, but I think we stand a better chance of getting Cyan’s cooperation in this if we demonstrate a history of competency and restraint.
5. Who should be able to produce ages for the general community?
Well, I think we’ll eventually see all kinds of ages produced by individuals and groups, both inside and outside of the Guild of Writers, using all kinds of tools. Frankly, this will be out of the GoWs’ control. Likewise, the GoWs can produce dozens of ages its members think are the best thing ever, but in the end it’s going to be Cyan’s choice as to whether these ages are uploaded to and accessible within MOUL for play by the general community. So ultimately, I think this question is moot.
Last edited by Emor D'ni Lap on Wed Sep 12, 2007 11:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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