Suggestions?

Post by **Dray** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 8:03 pm

It's been on my mind of a while, and on other people's minds as well, I'm sure... is dragoning becoming watered down and less enjoyable then it once was? Are we losing the spirit of what we do in favor of just paging the next dragon, and the next, and so on?

If that's the case, then what can be done about it? I know that somebody suggested a week for writing-only, but it recieved some negative attention and the whole idea kind of got set on the backburner, or dismissed entirely.

What would happen if there was a split in the community? Say, for character-building vs. dragon-collecting? I know that this place was /created/ on some of each, but what if one was hyped over the other? Writers could still have fun with developing their plots and characters, while artists could still churn out templates galore, and both wouldn't have to feel threatened by the other 'side' taking over their gig. In fact, people could participate in /both/ areas (since a lot of us aren't just one or the other!) as we feel like it!

My first thoughts with something like this is that a section where writers were specifically catered to is that the people who are drawing dragons/templates/whatever would have to also be prepared to do hatching/bonding/flight stories, that whole bit. Make it an equal give-and-take scenario, so that you're not just getting another (XD It's come to this!?) dragon dumped in your lap that you're not quite sure what to do with!
A section geared towards artists might need something to make the artists feel like they're creating templates for a /reason/, and not just giving them out as shinies (though, of course, there's nothing wrong with that!)... perhaps art-trades and the like could be beneficial?

How can we rev up the dragoning 'business' again? What do we need to get this board full of excited, chatting girls and women (and the occasional man? XD) again? How can we really push that this is fun for the people that are starting to lose interest?

If you have any suggestions, complaints, ideas, or random comments that might help, post them here!

Mystic Dragon · Post by **Mystic Dragon** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 8:17 pm

I think what a lot of us need is an incentive to start doing what we love again. As Dray said, there's two distinct sides to the Nexus. For me, it's writing.

I've already started writing more and longer stories, but not near at the capacity I used to. I find what helps is RP'ing out plots. Therefore, if there's anyone willing to RP with me, just drop me a line. It doesn't even have to be for candidate purposes. I just like writing stories in general.

As for drawing, what happened to the weekly thing? Or the monthly exchange? Why have those died?

Yakima · Post by **Yakima** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 8:29 pm

I would be on both sides though my inspiration and time really only allows for drawing and such. I miss writting but I often lose energy to do much of it. *shrugs* I wouldn't mind a split, honestly.

Silver Midnight · Post by **Silver Midnight** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 8:37 pm

I like RP...I love images, but I don't like having random dragons floating around. But some of my favorite images are only given away in giveaways. To me though a major part of it is doing something for them. If you can just get a prettier dragon without something, what's it worth?

Skysong · Post by **Skysong** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 8:48 pm

Being fairly new to the Nexus, I guess I'm not sure what the 'spirit' of the board is that seems to be missing. Is it based around RPing, writing, developing plotlines that span generations and worlds? Are the pretty pictures just supposed to be secondary?

The Nexus seems like an active community to me, with lots of things going on.. but that's coming from the point of view of someone who's not much used to 'write a candidate and get a dragon'-style of adoption anymore :/

Myrror · Post by **Myrror** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 9:51 pm

I don't write.

I draw.

Shard · Post by **Shard** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 9:53 pm

Well, the history reads something like:

Many of us were into pern, started seeing dragons being drawn online, adopted em, began drawing and adopting out our own in the context of Pern.
Quality of stories began to rise as quality of art began to shift from simple single-color images to shaded ones, quality of page and sensibility of story writing began to be graded - good story = good dragon.

Then McCaffrey threw a wrench into it and threatened some of the old standard sites, some which had never been ON pern. We went 'underground' with our stuff. The RP side kicked itself in the head a lot (and that's when I left it) so we created other worlds. There was already one, which was dead when most of us got here, so we went with a new one, Alskyr. Others were created, Icarus and Danach.

By this time most folks were either on my board, the Kshau Protectorate Cyberpets group on yahoo, or had their own mailing list (or were on Ty's Ryslen group, the other huge one), so we were somewhat coherent as a group of cyberpet dragon lovers.

We started running fast-paced clutches (remember how fast Talor Cliff filled up?) and then I started doing hybridizations, which has kind of led us to 'now'. Where the art of crafting a dragon is, in my opinion, sort of overshadowing the fact that we used to earn them by writing.

I like a combination of both, I wish I had time for RP too. But I like earning dragons with a nice page, though I *adore* the dragons I've been given with gifties.

I do wish we'd have a time where we'd have to go all-out to write, those who would do so anyway. It's like most of our rules have always said: no dragon is a consolation prize. You get a gold or a green, it's still something you work for. I like that work, I like staying on top of writing skills.

Maybe if we had a calendar, to simply put up deadlines - I think I used to have something like this on the group but I might be mistaken. We've had so many giveaways I think a lot of folks are blowing out on having to page things. ((with a side note: when you've had to put up a character to earn a dragon, there's already a page ready for that dragon... hint hint lol!))

Anyway, I'm going to hopefully have more time to run my own very VERY late swim and others, but I will probably not do it the same way I'd intended to either. Run part as the 'you already have a candidate' and choose their dragons, and probably run a giveaway for the rest. I dunno yet, but I want to get things done. Art, AND writing.

LakotaWolf · Post by **LakotaWolf** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 10:54 pm

It's odd - for as much as I like writing, for as much as I hope to make it my life's career, I get more and more tired of feeling like I have to barf out a story either before or after I adopt a dragon. I know the artists put a lot of effort into their dragons and I'm not saying they don't deserve a thought-out story, but since most characters can only "bond" once and bondings are still sort of more common than sponsorings, I feel like I'm just ripping these half-assed Mary Sue characters out of my heiny and then typing up some rushed, crappy, "o-look-we-found-a-Gate-to-Sitheil-Tirean" stories. (the stories are my own fault, not an artist's, obviously). So I dunno. I guess my bottom line is that I start to feel a little burnt out from writing stories I don't really connect to about characters I created but don't care about. Plus I still feel slightly uncomfortable including other people's characters in my stories, since I feel like I'm assuming how someone else's brain-baby would react or act... and we all know what happens when you assume XD That's just me, though. I think I've had to slog through so much "OMG COPYRIGHT, I even copyrighted my character's NAME, and you can't make a blue wolf character too because I COPYRIGHTED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" that I'm now hesitant and reticent to touch ANYone's character. And I guess I'd get pretty pissed if someone put Lakota in one of their stories and made her act like, I dunno, a biker vixen or something.

Of course, despite all my whining above, the dragons in general that are being adopted out here are so lovely that I write for them anyway XD I dunno. I guess because I'm trying to be a professional writer that I feel like I can't/don't want to put so much effort into something that can't be published? I don't know... I'm just getting my thoughts out onto "paper", so to speak.

The solution ISN'T "stop writing" or "offer gorgeous dragons that I don't have to work for". That's not what I'm trying to say :/ Argh. I'm not sure WHAT I'm trying to say XD I know I'm not exactly being helpful... sorry :/

::ponders a while::

I think things are still pretty exciting right now... we have a lot of things going on... some pretty cool breeding projects, giveaways, flights and frenzies, things like that. But! Maybe we could have some "activities" and "competitions" and "festivals" that won't result in breedings, but that would give awards or medals or otherwise commemorate the "winners". (we could make tiny pixel awards for the dragons' pages!) You know, races, beauty contests, mock fights (DRAGON WRESTLING), sports matches, things like that. Of course, we'll have to make size magic adjustments and things like that! XD And it would be more FUN, to me, to write stories for that and about that, since it's already got a plot established and I wouldn't feel like I'm just cheesing out another crappy "get to know Joe Smith, Hopeful Bonder" story. :DDD

Anyway, that's just me whines and me thinks. Thanks for listening, feel free to throw flames and comments my way XD

Xenoqueen · Post by **Xenoqueen** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 11:32 pm

As for drawing, what happened to the weekly thing? Or the monthly exchange? Why have those died?

The weekly thing, who knows. The monthly is still running, though. It just gets smaller and smaller each month as more people are Blacklisted, and never finish the image they owe.

As for the rest of the situation, I don't know. I do find myself thinking, though, more and more often, that the supply of dragons has "outgrown" the demand. It seems like everybody has an agency or a giveaway, and running an agency takes a crazy amount of time and effort. When, then, do they have time to send candidates to everyone else?

I am not a quantity writer at all. I think I'm averaging one or two candidates every three months or so, when something reaaaaally catches my eye AND I'm lucky enough to come up with inspiration for a character I think I'd really enjoy. I don't like sending out quickie candidates, or candidates I'm not attached to in some way. Lately I keep going back to old candidates, wanting to second-bond them, or even just play with their stories more because I love the character.

I've also gotten attached to deadlines. I know we've all been in the boat of having a candidate sit at a place for month after month, so I'm attached to places that run on deadlines rather than egg-counts. The community just doesn't seem to produce enough writing anymore to cover egg-count based runnings within a reasonable time-frame.

Perhaps the community is... out of sync? I wonder, what would happen if we ALL adopted deadlines? Would it goad people into action--both knowing they had a limited time to produce something, and would have a limited wait to receive what they earned?

Myrror · Post by **Myrror** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 11:54 pm

I personally like the deadlines. Gives me something to work towards, and knowing that my wait won't be so long. Well, when I do write, you know...

..I think the weekly thing died due to a misunderstanding/miscommunication of rules or something.

And...I myself don't run a dragoning agency. I used to, loooong ago. I run what I would basically call a 'giveaway' agency. People send in forms, I give them critters. I've been doing that for quite awhile, accually.

Just that, everytime I see one of these posts, and people saying that dragons without effort don't mean much, it makes me feel that my critters are worthless to people.

Indigo · Post by **Indigo** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 11:55 pm

Deadlines - it works for NaNoWriMo. *shrugs* I rather like working to a deadline, gets me to think and be creative though I am horrible about sending things in last minute.

I'm still a 'newbie' here so I can't really stay, but what originally drew me to the community was the writing because usually I'm lazy about writing and I have so many good ideas for candidates. Came for the writing, stayed for the pretty dragons? heh. I'd probably write more characters if I didn't feel so paranoid about working in other people's worlds and characters.

For the monthly thing - how about we gather up a couple of volunteers to finish off what is owed then clear the blacklist and start fresh? Eh - festivals and such are alright, but I never really liked them. The thought of dragon wrestling amuses me though, so I'd give it a try. *shrugs* I'd love to rp but again, the paranoia. And I think that is about all the two cents I have. *g*

*pats Myrror* your critters aren't worthless to me, they are some of my favorites. ^^ They provide a different challenge because most of them are blank slates.

Cacopheny · Post by **Cacopheny** » Sat Apr 29, 2006 1:11 am

I agree with Phe that the supply seems to have outgrown the demand, in the dragon arena. I am a fairly prolific writer, and even I have a really hard time keeping up with just a few agencies, especially since I still have so much love for older stories that I keep wanting to write on. I can't even imagine how those of you who actually run an agency find any time to send out candidates. I don't know how to fix this, seeing as people don't exactly want to stop drawing and giving away their dragons. Maybe smaller clutch sizes? No frenzies with over fifty spaces to fill? That gets to be something like overkill....

I do know that deadlines, while they might help, don't always. Xalia instated a deadline on her clutch at the Lodge, but either no one noticed or no one had time to send anyone-- admitedly, she doesn't advertize as much as some people, but still. Deadlines do not always help. Though they would, at least, prevent candidates from sitting for months and months until things got moving again, if they ever did.... Provided, you know, the clutch actually hatched soon after said deadline, and all XD I personally prefer deadlines, but if people are scrambling to meet the deadline of several huge clutches, sending multiple candidates apiece, then... well, who is going to have time and energy left for the smaller agencies, ya know? ^^'

However... not all people like the story-for-dragon set-up. Some of us do, but others of us... just like collecting images. Character, personality, plot... no matter at all. It's in the collecting, not the further writing, that some people take enjoyment. We all have a little bit of that in us, I know, or why would agencies like the EverRealms or all the giveaways have such huge turnouts? So why not just have individuals themselves decide what they want to do, and leave it at that? Those of us who are feeling overwhelmed by the amount of dragons out there and the lack of time to write enjoyable, engaging stories for them all can just back off and not adopt so much, and those of us who really just want the pretty images can adopt every which way if they so choose. There are quite a few agencies who don't require stories, these days, after all. I don't see how a split is necessary just to cater to both types of adopter-- it just makes for more places to check and more things to keep track of, since a lot of us would be involved in both aspects.

(And no, Myrror, there's nothing at all wrong with being an artist who sends out images without people having to do anything for them. It's just different from what these folks are talking about, that's all, more like Skysong's samanayr, and you know how popular those are, too. Your art and what you do with it is definitely worthwhile, it's just a slightly different genre of adoption, ya know?)

That said... I love the idea of events that you can send your dragons to which don't result in more dragons o.o But, like, in prizes or pets or image modification or something. So many of my dragons don't want to breed, but having events like this would give me something to write towards : D Someone must totally do this.

Dev · Post by **Dev** » Sat Apr 29, 2006 1:47 am

I have a few suggestions...

Why not make it a bit more accessable? for instance instead of making a couple dozen sites of individual adoptions. Join together and form a huge site and maybe play off the neopets look, make an island, set up a graphics walkthrough for the process of making and adopting a dragon. Have fan art, maybe a comic. Everyone loves comics... and icecream, but thats besides the point... damn now I want icecream... Anyway I would love to adopt a dragon but no matter how many times its explained to me I dont get it fully 100%

But keep in mind, I am just a person who sometimes hops on the forum to see what you all are up to, and maybe post a few times. Its your guys's projects, i'm just a... guy who watches. and waits... for my time to strike... phe you are first to go... Run kitty run...
~Dev

Shiolar · Post by **Shiolar** » Sat Apr 29, 2006 2:39 am

Think there's something to that suggestion, Dev. At least from the perspective of making this a bit more open to newcomers. It was rather scary when I arrived here last summer, coming into something that felt like a rather closed community...

Oddly enough, the thought occured a couple days ago that it might well be worth advertising what we do here to see if we can get some new people in. I know there used to be a lot of adoption roleplays and such on Neopets, and this might appeal to the people who frequent those. And there has to be other places out there that would be worth advertising in?

I love writing for characters to send off to get a dragon, and I never have any problems getting attached to that character and so on. The problem I have is that I can't do as much with them as I want to, because so many of the agencies these days say 'no novels' and so on. Puts me off putting a lot of effort into a character when I know that no one really wants to read it...

Kinda sounds like I'd have been more suited to be here back in the old days Shard was describing...

I adore collecting dragons, but I'd have to say, still, that with a few exceptions my favourite dragons are the ones I worked hard to get. There's something so satisfying about working hard on a character and getting a lovely dragon for them, and while I do love my giveaway dragons too, it feels better to me that I've actually earned the dragon through my writing. Obviously, that falls flat when nobody wants to read all these long stories anymore...

Naeodin · Post by **Naeodin** » Sat Apr 29, 2006 4:38 am

I don't know what it is. My interest died down in the beginning because of... I don't know. Sheer boredom? Not of the nexus per se, but of the internet. Writing stories took so much time, and while I love the images, it was always like chocolate.

After the first hint, move on to the next one, kind of thing.

I can't say that it's really the whole idea any more. Come on, I've been with it forever now, and I still love oogling over the images, reading stories, and sometimes I do get half assed into motivation.

>> It's not the whole idea either. Recently I've been entrenched in gaia, in the whole 'buy an image' section, so it's really not that aspect. I love the art as a collector, as a candidate, writer, owner. But yeah. I guess what I want are rps. A chance to flesh out my characters. Except... it's hard.

You see about ten clutches you want to send someone to, but to make well thought out characters for each one would kill you. And yet to have one character bond at all ten? That creates it's own madness...

I don't know. Maybe it's supposed to die down into a lull like this for a while? Maybe, naturally, something else will come along that everyone will hype about? ^^ by now, the majority of the members have been around for quite a while-- that is, this board has been up for quite a while.

So maybe it's just a brief lull, the kind of thing that's supposed to come around... >.>

Mystic Dragon · Post by **Mystic Dragon** » Sat Apr 29, 2006 8:22 am

I said this in a big, long e-mail not long ago, but I think we needed the phase of endless giveaways. I now have a full character selection where as I only had a sparse few before. I have one-dimensional characters which I can throw into play with anyone and not have to worry about "does this fit with their background story?". However, now that I have that, I want to start writing the big stories again. It doesn't help that my lappy died on me and took all my partial stories with it. I have a few on the net which I need to get around to copying out so I can keep working on them.

Another thing about the big stories is that often we have to interact with other people's characters. I've become paranoid of the "OMG that's copywrited!" thing and because of that, I tend to use other's characters only sparingly. This is where the RP aspect comes in. I absolutely /love/ getting the "real" reactions from other characters without having to worry about stepping on toes. Not to mention that it's like writing a dozen short stories. You make the post, say it's a page long, wait for the person to make the next one, and then keep going. What you end up with is fourty pages of gold. No lulls, no uninspired conversations. Pure gold.

Now as many of you know, I have a tendancy to up and disappear for a few days at a time. Or even worse, put plots on hold while I tend to other things. We all do that. It's disheartening when you're really into an RP. However, I think part of the problem behind that is that there's often too many people involved. My one-on-one plots have gone beautifully thus far.

Maybe to expand on Dev's idea (and still pimp my love of RP'ing) what we could do is set up a section expressly for candidate RP's. Little stories that could be played out one on one, or be open to anyone. All of them with preset plots and posting requirements so that we can see where others are drawing inspiration from and perhaps use it to boost our own.

Or... if you guys are up to the big, group RP's. We could bring back The End of the Universe in thread format. One place where everyone can gather to chat about their day and just do innane, fluffy stuff.

I dunno. It's not that I want to do /only/ RP's. I know not everyone is into them. I just find it easier to write stories when you have someone else to bounce ideas off. Their enthusiasm to continue translates into my enthusiasm to write more.

(And Naeodin, one of the stories I have sitting online is something I need to finish before I can write the big story with Faust and Shy and all that. >.> Faust has an heir to his lab.)

@Myrror: Take a look at just how many critters you've given out, how fast they've gone up, and how interested people still are in getting more EverRealm critters. :3 That should give you a hint about how appreciated you are. We're all still obsessed with the artwork. It's understandable that you're not as interested in the writing, but for some of us, the writing is what we need in order to feel we've earned those beautiful images. You needn't worry about not having the interest you need in order to keep sending out critters. That's never going to die.

Shiolar · Post by **Shiolar** » Sat Apr 29, 2006 8:30 am

I think a lot of us have problems with using other people's characters. This is why, for the most part, I do the bulk of my Candidates stories on my own world, where I can create NPCs as and when I need them. I just run into problems when the Candidate goes offworld.

I think having roleplays for one-on-one character interaction is a good idea, though. Even if it's just a case of two characters meeting during the course of their own separate stories. It'd add a bit of flavour, if nothing else. I'm a bit out of practice on the roleplaying front, but I'm up for it anyway. I'd probably want to watch a few before actually doing one myself, though.

Mystic Dragon · Post by **Mystic Dragon** » Sat Apr 29, 2006 8:47 am

Um... so. Anyone interested in doing an RP /clutch/? I'd volunteer the V Dance if no one wants to make specific images for it.

Astra · Post by **Astra** » Sat Apr 29, 2006 8:50 am

You know I've been bothered too by the general direction the dragoning community is going in. I've ALWAYS been more of a writer than an artist, but lately it seems to be a lot less about writing and character building and more about "Ooooh let's breed these dragons together because its COOL!" I think there's a lot more emphasis on quantity over quality, not so much of the art, which is all gorgeous, but of paging in general. That is why I am starting Pyrus Weir and having a more traditional setting, so that every dragon serves a purpose in the new Weir and they're not just there "to be cool." Really I am starting the new world to attempt to recreate dragoning the way it used to be, because really Cyrna got too "big" and was no longer fun to write about (from a dragoning standpoint). I also am a big fan of the older more traditional dragons, like Pernese and Alskyrian. I am all for breeding cool random traits in, but sometimes it gets to the point where dragons don't even look like dragons anymore. I think that if we made a more active community of "traditional" places like weyrs and caers then maybe we could return to dragoning the way it used to be. Of course it could also be that we're all growing up and we're not the kids we used to be (except for Shard who was never a kid except perhaps in the stone age

) but just because we're all busy now and have lives I don't find myself ready to give up on dragoning yet!

Post by **Dray** » Sat Apr 29, 2006 9:47 am

The first Merideti thingie's going to be an RP, and will probably last throughout the span of a couple of weeks, IC--though only certain events will be played out. X3 If anyone's interested in that, I can start setting it up. (There will probably be general RP on the forum, and a couple of specific events on Xalia's chatboard. :3)

I mean, I know it's the furthest thing from 'traditional', and they really don't even /look/ like dragons, but at least it's some random RP? >.>

I'll lay off of the random-breeding-in-of-traits for a while, too. I think I might be (not to be narcissistic) partially the cause of some of these problems. <_>" I'm sorry.

JKatkina · Post by **JKatkina** » Sat Apr 29, 2006 9:52 am

Yay playing devil's advocate!

Me, I really like the current system. It works for me. I'm such a slow writer that without easy-to-get-into clutches or giveaways (stat sheets, etc) I would probably have all of twenty dragons after four-ish years of being here. Honest to goodness, I have to invest so much time and energy in writing a candidate that I feel good sending somewhere, that I'm the opposite of a lot of poeple here -- if it came about that everywhere needed long, involved and ingenious stories to get anything better than a green anymore, I'd probably drop out of the community through sheer exhaustion.

There are still places that reward, and reward highy, for good stories. I mean, look at the Destiny! I worked my ass off on a story for the first time in several months, and it really paid off. Nydaag the 15-headed white is what I have to show for my troubles, and is that not incredibly cool? For those of you worried that stories don't mean anything anymore, look at that. Heck, when I do clutches at the Nidus, I do give out the coolest dragons to the stories I like best.

BUT I also endeavor to make all the dragons cool, for people like me, for people who love taking part but have neither the time nor the mental energy to write stories that exhaust them.

I think that a -- just A, not THE -- solution to our problem would be to slow down clutches, and to aknowledge that they're going to move slower. If you want more candidates, more writing, give us slow people a chance to catch up to the speed-writers like Caco and Astra. If you want instant gratification and not having to wait for a clutch to hatch, that's what the giveaways are for.

I LIKE giveaways. They swell my ranks so I have a relatively realistic number of mundane lives to the awesome, cool, DRAMAtic lives of my 'main' characters. They also give me a chance to breed things, which I can understand why that would peeve people off that they're "just breeding farms", but I find it intensely gratifying to me to see what could come out of a set of parents. To research their lineages, come up with colors, and make beautiful young'uns from 'em.

Working (and it is a lot of work, for me) to breed two cool dragons together and get beautiful results is, to me, like working to write a story and get beautiful results is to the writers. And right now, the seeming anger towards we who like "just breeding things" is kinda making me want to slink away with my tail between my legs... I don't mean to upset anyone, I'm just doing what I enjoy doing.

Astra · Post by **Astra** » Sat Apr 29, 2006 10:10 am

I'm sorry if I offended you JKat ... I didn't mean to appear openly hostile to those who like breeding best, it's just not my thing persay. If it's your thing then go for it, sorry if I sounded otherwise.

I also thought of something else while I was taking a shower (lol). Although it still exists in some places (the Destiny especially), a lot of the competition has gone out of dragoning. I mean yes I know that a green is SUPPOSED to be as good as a gold and there are no consolation prizes and all that but everyone has to admit that back in the old days we were ALL (or those of us who were into that sort of thing anyway) scrambling to write the best story worthy of the queen. Of course the overcompetitiveness turned away some people which is probably why it was phased out in the long run ... but that is the problem, isn't it, that different people like different things so really nothing we do is going to make everyone happy. This is just my two cents I guess.

Naeodin · Post by **Naeodin** » Sat Apr 29, 2006 10:12 am

FAUST HAS AN HEIR AND YOU DIDN'T PM ME???!!

*ahem*

carry on.

Shiolar · Post by **Shiolar** » Sat Apr 29, 2006 11:21 am

Yes, sorry if I offended also, JKat. Thinking about it... we've all been speeding up the clutches because nobody wants to write a Candidate and then have them sitting around for ages and ages waiting for the clutch to hatch... But then if you limit the time in which Candidates can be sent, all the slower writers miss out. You can't win either way, it seems.

I have to admit, though, I do somewhat agree with Astra about the ranking thing. Obviously, it has its problems, but there is something nice about having a little competition sometimes...

Cacopheny · Post by **Cacopheny** » Sat Apr 29, 2006 12:05 pm

No anger meant on my part :: blinks :: Just meant that having events-- honest to goodness events, with story-deadlines and specific results-- for characters who don't like to breed or adopt would be nice.... XD Then I could include more of my favorite chars, ya know?

... I do know, though, that large group rps tend to be... difficult. I avoid them like the plague. If there's two people involved, fine, that's fun-- three is okay, too. But you get into four, five, six, ten, fifteen people? Not fun at all, at least for me. It becomes work, annoying and complicated work at that, and who wants to do work in regards to their hobby? Work that's not fun, at any rate.

It's also not fun for whoever's running said rp. I remember when poor Kat was running those huge rps for Avengaea, and Terry for the F&FF, and I know they were very, incredibly stressed for the duration. And the war rp that Mystic ran required so much poking and prodding to get people to post, and even then, as I recall, people still didn't post. It's much easier to keep up, keep interested, and keep focused if you're not having to slog through eighteen different people's posts to find something you're reacting to, and less stressful for all around. So if people are planning huge group rps... count me out?

Shiolar · Post by **Shiolar** » Sat Apr 29, 2006 12:22 pm

I quote agree, actually. I can manage up to maybe three or four people in a roleplay, and then I struggle to follow what each character is doing, and often even struggle to keep up. The trouble with being five timezones minimum ahead of the majority of the world's online population is roleplays can sometimes run away from me while I'm sleeping; I've left roleplaying groups for that reason alone in the past.

And definitely, events for characters would be nice. I've got a fair few bonded pairs who don't want to bond or sponsor any more dragons and don't want to breed... Actually, I'm rather... old-fashioned, maybe? I struggle with having one person bond a dragon and then go off to bond another one. If they multiple bond at one hatching, that's cool, though. And then, too, I can hardly send Kathamus and Khasrynth out to breed, since they're attached to Rheyanva and Carethyn; it wouldn't really be appropriate... So yeah, roll on the events!

Shard · Post by **Shard** » Sat Apr 29, 2006 12:47 pm

There are so many pros and cons to all of what we do.

On one hand there's the 'apply and wait' technique that served online Pern for years, where a page is written and you *hope* that there's a chance you'll get your favorite rank of dragon.

This has become more moot over time of course, because there aren't just 5 or 6 colors to be had, and a lot of times the color / rank doesn't matter any more, it's personality and if you like the color. But what it did give was a sense of accomplishment to me anyway, for having impressed the person doing the clutch enough to have gotten whatever out of it.

The con to this, of course, is that clutches take forever to fill, if a story is requires. Not every story will result in what the writer *expected* to get. So that can cause some hard feelings. (Husamawazith anyone?

sorry astra!)

But then on the other hand there are the clutches which I've actually become very fond of, the BWR list strikes me as being a very good way to pull off a mixture of writing and freebies.

The pro of course here is that you don't *have* to write, merely have a page up, acknowledge that you want to participate. That's great for the folks who don't have time or feel they don't have the skill. For the others you know what's expected to get a particular dragon, so if you intend to do it, you can write your fingers off in the process.

The con to this, to me anyway, is that I don't always *want to know* what the dragon is that I'm going to get. So it's a different sense after a clutch like this is released, it's more "relief" that you got what you intended, not "surprise" when you get something else from a hidden clutch. And also, I'd like to have a link to the others vying for the same dragon, in the BWR clutches, because that way at least we know who our competition is... lol.

On that note, when writing in the past for a Pernese clutch, you could always click around on the competition and see - does SHE deserve a gold? Will HE get a brown or a bronze? I really do like seeing who else is applying. But that's just me.

I'm thinking of running the swim more and more this way, but without necessarily having the images up. Remember when I did the first April Fools clutch, I had the 'newspaper want ads' thing? It's a variation on that idea, I guess. But I also will likely have a number of dragons that can easily be given out to a pretty page rather than one with tons of writing. (I just wanna hatch it... but that means I have to finish coloring them....)

Anyway, that's my next two cents.

Astra · Post by **Astra** » Sat Apr 29, 2006 1:20 pm

Hey Husamawazith was COOL! Though I lost the image because 'Ronia was on an old aol site and my family stopped using aol AGES ago. Besides, the candidate who ended up with the gold in that clutch became freaking weyrwoman of ryslen so I guess I can't complain

One thing I'd like to point out though is that I am NOT a speed writer. I take forever to write candidates. I like characters with long and detailed backstories and lots of angst and lots of experiences drawn from real life. A good character to me takes weeks even months to write. So that's why I think that having slower clutches wouldn't be SUCH a bad thing. And I just realized that I keep CAPITALIZING things and i don't know WHY. Anyway.

I can churn out a story in like 5 minutes if I want to, but it turns into a chore unless it's a story I like. If a candidate doesn't interest me, then writing a story for them is just /painful/. The only good characters I have are the ones that I have taken forever on. I am definitely a quality over quantity person in this; I would rather have a few dragons that I worked hard for and care deeply about than a whole lot of dragons that I just got randomly once and have no real use for. Of course I do still have the occasional filler character and there are giveaways I can't pass up, don't get me wrong. I'm just trying now (as opposed to before) to make sure that every dragon I get is one that I will use. Besides, its hard to imagine one dragonry filled with thousands upon thousands of dragons the size of 747s without it being a wee bit uncomfortable. But this is just me.

As an aside, I agree with Shard that the way Dray does BWR does seem very fair and balanced (unlike fox news tehee). But I miss the "element of surprise," too.

Cacopheny · Post by **Cacopheny** » Sat Apr 29, 2006 1:31 pm

Having a long time until a due date is one thing. That's cool, give people more time to write and all that. Having a long time from due date to hatching is another XD

The only real problem I see with having long due dates is... well, people have variable lengths of time. Say you have one character who you want to bond at one hatching, so you send him there. That character's story is now stagnant until the clutch hatches. Fine by me, gives me time to write for other characters. But then say another clutch pops up that has a much shorter due date, and is due to hatch well before the clutch you've sent your first candidate to-- and yet it is completely perfect for another character in the first candidate's story that you'd intended to bond after the first candidate? I've had this happen to me multiple times now XD It gets a mite frustrating.

Another problem with long due date periods is that some of us are last-minute writers, who write best with pressure >.> But that's my own problem, and should not really be taken into account, since I usually wind up with fairly long stories, anyway, cuz, you know, I have nothing better to be doing with my time : P Though I have seen clutches with longer due dates still have trouble filling-- admittedly, this might be because they're usually so huge >.>

Anyway. So if we move for longer interims before a due date, I'd love to see this across the board rather than at one or two sites. That way I can still have in-character continuity, at least a little ;.;

Myrror · Post by **Myrror** » Sat Apr 29, 2006 1:42 pm

Unfortuneately, forcing people to run their agency to howe other people want it run will probably lead to resistance and hurt feelings.

I know all this talk of 'must write more' is doing the opposite effect on me, it's making me want to write less. Or heck, do much or anything except hide in a corner somewhere.

I was planning on doing more writing this summer--as then I'll have time. Now, I'm not so sure..I don't like feeling forced to do anything, it has the opposite effect on me.