Discussion Topic

[The Frostbourne he/him]

@Frostbourne Woah. You win. Want to take over the map? Just kidding, that's my thing...

The only critique I really have is that the text is a bit hard to read - easy fix, either by increasing font size, bolding, or changing font to something that still fits the theme but is easier to read. By all means, jack what I did with the Cradle and make it twenty times more awesome.

Since I mentioned the map, this is the most recent rework - critiques appreciated. I don't have much time to devote to it, unfortunately, but I am working on it here and there.

So, what do I win...?

The map looks quite nice. The Mounts of Dichotomy are absent (Top would care; that's his hime.), and the water borders are conspicuously smooth, but those are relatively minor details.

As for my journal text, I'm thinking of adding seperate, "readme" files for each entry. The text looks nice in the original documents; I could send you them fine, for example, but the clarity gets iffy when I edit them to be photo-bucket compatable. Is there a better place to put them?

Oh, and thank you for the compliment! :]

Edited September 20, 2011 by The Frostbourne

[Comatose he/him]

Also, the big city in the middle of the lake seems to be missing, haha.

[Cuaiir he/him]

There are reasons for all these things If you'll notice, all the dungeons and cities are not in the picture at the moment. (Silus and I consider the Crags a dungeon, rather than a landscape feature)

I wanted to get the basic land and water down first, then focus on the cities and dungeons. The background up there is pretty much the final version, and the next step is to do one city at a time and put them in the map. I'm slowly building Lake City (#1 on the list of places) using Adobe Illustrator's perspective grid tools, and there's a lot about doing this that I'm figuring out as I go. It takes longer, but I'm learning quick - which means once I can finally sit down and spend a weekend on these cities, I should be able to crank them out. It's getting the details right that's the tricky part. Ex: Lake City has a Victorian-era style of architechture, and that is a pain in the butt to draw.

Illustrator's a fun tool to use for geometric-type things like this, this, and of course the Cradle. It's part of why the land-water borders look so smooth, Frost, and I couldn't think of a way to blur them without losing coloration.

Oh, you won a rep point. No big deal

Now back to your regularly scheduled Arena-fighting chatter.

[Emeralis00 she/her]

When you see it, you will laugh.

[The Frostbourne he/him]

Em- I understand you not a bit.

I hate to be nitpicky, but are you going to change the color of the terrain around the Mounts of Dichotomy? It bothers me that, in the original, the fiery area and the frozen area are both covered in lush, green grass.

Please don't be offended; I mean this in the best possible way.

In other news...

Woooooooh!!! Rep Point #1 FTW!!!.

Edited September 21, 2011 by The Frostbourne

[Cuaiir he/him]

Considering that the Crags will go from coast to coast both north-south and east-west... yes, you could say I'm changing the color of the terrain (by getting rid of it)

[Emeralis00 she/her]

Em- I understand you not a bit.

Read my story post very carefully.

[The Frostbourne he/him]

Are we talking that book Jack offered? I think I just felt a breeze. It was the wind of something going right over my head.

[Emeralis00 she/her]

Oh. Sorry. It was more intended for Silus and Eero and Comatose. The book's author is Kay-awhs. The site admin and theorist is Chaos. Put them together...

[Silus - Shard of Flame he/him]

LOL, I didn't even notice! This is BEST!

EDIT:

@Frost: Your links for the Grid pictures are broken now. And I can't put them in the Data Topic if they don't work. This is very sad.

Edited September 21, 2011 by Silus - Shard of Flame

[The Frostbourne he/him]

I will fix tthose links shortly, never fear. Also - Data Update? At last! Now I'll feel official!!!!!

Em- oh. I get it. The joke is no longer over my head. Or maybe I've just grown...?

[Emeralis00 she/her]

I will fix tthose links shortly, never fear. Also - Data Update? At last! Now I'll feel official!!!!!

Em- oh. I get it. The joke is no longer over my head. Or maybe I've just grown...?

You were in an elevator XD

[The Frostbourne he/him]

But then, wouldn't the joke also be rising?

Also, Silus- How is the arena organized? What I mean is, 1. Are the fights Round-Robin or KnockOut? 1a. If fights are KO, what happens to the losers? 2. Will the fights always be in the three arenas, or are they only for the first round? 3. What if someone wants to leave in between rounds?

I apologize for firing my Q-Broadside, but I feel this is something we should all like to know, and I don't remember having seen this information.

Edited September 21, 2011 by The Frostbourne

[Silus - Shard of Flame he/him]

1. Knockout.

2. The same three.

3. They are encouraged to stay, and why would they leave? Free room and board, resources aplenty, and a great place to strengthen their powers. Also, they don't know where they are at any given point, which would make things rather difficult, don't you think?

[The Frostbourne he/him]

By "leave", I really mean "go out and adventure/mess around until the next round begins", but I guess that depends on the time between each round, and whether there are attractions like monster-infested segments of the area. Considering the... unstable mental state of most of the arena fighters thus far, I would guess that most of them won't be content with waiting around.

Also - My links will be repaired in... say, 10 minutes.

[The Frostbourne he/him]

Fixed 'em!!!

AAAKKK!!! DOUBLE POST!!!!

Edited September 21, 2011 by The Frostbourne

[Silus - Shard of Flame he/him]

Okay, since there seems to be some misunderstanding of how the Waterfall Cavern, and by extension the Mist and Glyph Caverns, I have whipped up a handy diagram.

In this one, there's gaps for the Waterfalls, but not in the Glyph or Mist Cavern. Really, the Waterfalls are too far off to truly be utilized by someone other than say, a waterbender. (This was determined BEFORE River, with his Waterbender Form, showed up.)

[Eerongal he/him]

Okay, since there seems to be some misunderstanding of how the Waterfall Cavern, and by extension the Mist and Glyph Caverns, I have whipped up a handy diagram.

In this one, there's gaps for the Waterfalls, but not in the Glyph or Mist Cavern. Really, the Waterfalls are too far off to truly be utilized by someone other than say, a waterbender. (This was determined BEFORE River, with his Waterbender Form, showed up.)

So......they don't pour into the chasm around the arena? but rather flow past it and out some sort of duct/drain (presumably )?

The way you described it earlier made it sound essentially like there was basically a "moat" surrounding the fighting platform, but i assume this isn't true based on this image?

If so, no biggie, i'll just remove my post until i get a chance to rewrite it.

Also, and i just thought of this, where did the teddy bear thing break through/explode out of? There doesn't appear to be any terribly good hiding places, and i assume it would leave some sort of significant breakage, right?

[Silus - Shard of Flame he/him]

There's no drainage, other than the fact that it's a bottomless chasm. There's magic going on, don't worry about it. But yeah, no moat.

Summoned out of thin air.

[The Frostbourne he/him]

So what would happeen if a fighter crossed thee bridges into the audience? Would they be disqualified? Also, in the Glyph Cavern, tthe glyphs must exert more force than is being put on them, or the person tryinng to touch them just wouldn't be able to move towards them, correct? If that's the case, how much extra force is exerted, and is it constant, or does it increase linearly in relation to the force exerted, or quadratically, etc.? (That's right. Math. It does matter, though, for some of my ideas.)

[KChan she/her]

Okay, so I'm debating whether I want to join or not, but I have a few questions about the RP itself and the magic system before I make up my mind:

1. How much do physiological changes undergone in a specific form affect the base form? If a person spends a lot of time fighting in their forms, would that be reflected in some increased muscle definition in the base form? (I'm not talking increased base stats here beyond what activity would do to a person, but muscles do tend to react at least somewhat to being used.) What about scars, etc?
   
2. Do special spheres require a special spot in a grid? Or a spot at all, for that matter?
   
3. How are new members brought into the RP? And is there/will there be any sort of synopsis? 20 pages of present-tense text is really hard to read through.
   
4. For that matter, is present tense required? My strength as a writer is in third-person past, not first-person present.
   

[Silus - Shard of Flame he/him]

Awesome! Always love to see new people interested in Nexus.

1. It depends partially on what kind of Spheremount you have (meaning whether it was made in the Current Age or Lost Age), Current Age ones experience some bleedthrough of characteristics, depending on what kind of Forms you use. Ones that mess with your mind or drastically affect your physical form are more likely to experience this. The majority of them, the Lost Age ones, don't have this; which is good since it tends to be very unpleasant.

Muscle exercising is a different matter, though, which you were asking about. I'd say yes, if the amount you exert yourself is proportional to the strength you have. You wouldn't be exercised by doing bench presses in a Form with super strength unless you're benching a car or something. Scars would come through only if you suffered significant damage.

2. No, because they are not activated like normal Formspheres. The ability to use a Special Form is tied to you.

3. Really? I like present tense a lot. Synopsis? Maybe. I'm not sure there's enough to put into one to justify it.

4. The point of the first person present use is that the atmosphere I'm trying to create is one of being around a table, playing a game like D&D. But that's not a rule, you write however you want to.

[The Frostbourne he/him]

All great questions. In fact, I'm surprised I haven't already thought of the first two!!!

(Wow - I've not been at this very long, yet I'm already greeting newer prospective members! )

I can answer your third question - once your character is approved by Silus (the approving bit is mostly to help you fine-tune your character. It really helps!), you basically just introduce yourself. My character practically *poof*'d out of nowhere, and started talking to another "PC" by mere coincidence; game coincidences being coincidentally uncoincidental. Also, I agree that a synopsis would be a good idea; maybe someone can look into that...

Hopefully, you decide to join, because this group is very friendly (if somewhat insane), helpful, and relatively easy-going. Welcome to Nexus!

(I'm the one who gets to say that first... :D !!!!!!)

EDIT - Ninja'd... I feel so sad.

Edited September 23, 2011 by The Frostbourne

[Silus - Shard of Flame he/him]

Actually, I completely missed that part of the question. LOL Good job! If you want me to, though, KChan, I can write an introductory post for your character, showing them being someplace. Though the only time I've actually done this was to start off the RP.

EDIT: And really, since the characters are all grouped around one place, it's a good place to start. Unless you want to do your own thing. I can do that.

Edited September 23, 2011 by Silus - Shard of Flame

[KChan she/her]

Thanks for the answers! I totally see where you're coming from with the present tense thing, Silus, and I'm not arguing against it. I just find it harder to read than past (hence the synopsis), and harder to write in. It's more personal preference than anything else, so it's good to know I have the option to write in the style I'm strongest with.

Anyways, I still have some mulling over to do. I'll let y'all know if I have any more questions.