New Nexus Manifesto
I've been chatting with some Nexus-folks about ways in which to help the Nexus grow -- invariably we got onto the topic of opening the Nexus up to newbies, and from there we have been working on an over-arching offshoot of the Nexus that I think would be compelling for both old participants and newbies alike. This offshoot would most likely require its own website and, likely, a new forum to support it. It would present a more unified front to newbies, and allow oldbies who wish to participate a chance to work together on projects. From the many worlds and adoption agencies of the Nexus, the offshoot would present one, unified agency and location (in character), and a group of oldbie admin who help to direct the newbies and get 'em set up -- in addition to playing around in this new environment and helping to build on it!
Here are some themes that I'd like to present to you! The following points encompass the in-character aspect, how oldbies play a part, how newbies play a part, how flights and clutches would likely work, side events and games, and a potential point or currency system -- not so much to buy dragons, as to function in a number of other ways around the site and forum.
Making the Transition: Oldbies (Us) in a New World
This offshoot would be located on a single world, but unlike Alskyr or Icarus, we would be functioning from a single location, and not a smattering of agencies across the world. Consider the rest of the offshoot world 'fog of war'd; we will get a chance to explore and build the landscape through events and writing!
Oldbies would be able to bring forward five dragons or dragon/bonded pairs each to begin with, and as time goes on, could import a few more. These characters would of course be able to move between the offshoot and the Nexus Proper, though we would consider them immigrants or settlers for the new location. There are out of game reasons for this: forcing oldbies to choose their five favourite characters requires them to pick only the best -- or dragons that they find the most compelling to write for. Picking five each will give us a good pool from which to draw flights and clutches, without being overwhelming. They increase the rarity of certain breeds (as will be described below!) and lastly, my eventual goal would be to have a character database on the website; I don't think it (or the coder who makes it) could handle the thousands upon thousands of characters we'd import if we could move them all, though there will be chances to slowly add more over time if need be. Part of this database would include a stats system similar to StarFyre's, with the possibility of an exploring game like Sherra's awesome tunnel system -- with the addition of leveling up characters (more on this later, as well!) Such a system would not have too much effect on writing, but it ought to be a fun side game to play while working on inspiration for clutch stories or waiting for a clutch to hatch!
As oldbies, we will be able to stage events -- be they writing, art-based, or role play, to explore different aspects of the world. We'll be working together as a team to ensure a system of quality and rarity for the dragons that hatch, and as guides for newbies who we'll hopefully be able to draw in! In this offshoot, I'd like to see writing become important again, and dragon hatchings to be more rare and sought after. We may not draw as much as we used to, but we should have a good amount of time to write for each clutch... more on that below!
Breeding Season: From Beginning to End
I propose a breeding season for the offshoot location that lasts five months out of game (that is, four real months). The following framework would go something like this:
First two weeks: Flight Season! All writers (both oldbies and new) get a chance to create a flight story in one of several ways:
*The owner of the female dragon puts out submissions, and owners of males apply. The owner of the female then writes the flight story, revealing the winner.
*The owners of a female and male dragon have a previously agreed to pairing. Either they roleplay out the flight story, or one of them writes it out.
*The owner of the female and male dragon (they'd be the owner of both) writes a flight story between her two dragons.
At the end of two weeks, the flight stories should be finished. Anyone can apply and can write as many as they want, though a female can only lead one flight per season, and a male can be a winner only once.
Week three and four of the first month: Planning and Lottery Season: Artists who would like to draw a clutch post to note their interest. Lots are drawn for the next four months for eight clutches total. Four of these clutches will be based on flight stories, and four clutches the artist gets to choose what she'd like to draw... to an extent! When an artist wins a lot for a flight-based clutch, she gets into contact with the writer of the flight story. The two get to collaborate over the hatching story, the clutch size, etc. When an artist wins a 'free' clutch, she can either choose to get into contact with one of the flight stories, if she really liked the pairing or the writing; she can choose any two of her own dragons, or she can ask other players if she can use theirs. The catch for this is that the artist will need some kind of in character flight story to precede her clutch! Her 'free' clutch does not allow her to create a brand new species either -- but more on that in a bit!
Month two,The first two clutches open for novos/candidates: Starting on the first of the month, the first clutch will open for candidates. This clutch (and all others that open on the first) will open with a short story from one of the flight parents, and some instructions (if necessary) for what they'd like to see out of candidate stories. At this point, the artist who drew this lot should have a basic sketch to show the writer. Clutch sizes/etc. will be discussed in just a bit! This clutch (and all others) will be open to candidates for two months, so it would close and hatch shortly after the thirty-first of the third month.
Starting on the fifteenth, the artist who drew the first 'free' clutch would begin the same process. Make up a short clutch story with any applicable rules, and give people two months to submit candidates/novos. Around the beginning of each clutch, the artist should have a quick sketch at least started.
The rest of the breeding season: The following process would be repeated for month three, four and five, and then another flight season would take place! Those writers who did not snag a clutch due to their efforts would be rewarded in another way; with points/currency -- this would go towards having flight stories picked in the future, or towards other purchases (pets, items, character designs for bonders, etc.)
The following breeding seasons could possibly wind up with writers spending a single point to ensure a clutch happening... though I haven't worked this out yet in a way that doesn't seem to invalidate the writing process. Perhaps instead of having an artist pick which flight story she likes, we can have it be lottery-based; those writers who have more points have that many more chances of being picked? Input on this section would be welcome!
Additionally, those dragons who won a clutch-space in a previous flight season should be discluded from participating in the next. I feel that that will help to allow more variety from season to season!
Clutches: Quality, Quantity and Ranking for the Artists:
For artists, one of the biggest changes in the offshoot Nexus will be a change in the sizes of clutches. To begin with, clutch sizes in general will not range beyond five eggs per clutch. (If you would like to say that there are twenty because your dragon would naturally lay twenty, either fifteen of them have to be unviable or have gone missing or what have you -- this is to keep the quantity low enough to ensure a bit of competition. If we're regularly as a community seeing more than five candidates submitted to each clutch, we can raise the cap... but supply should always be a little bit shy of demand.)
Secondly, clutches should always contain at least one unique image; artists can make up to five uniques, or any combination of coloured template to unique images, but there should always be one unique dragon image to emulate the rarity of a Queen egg back in the day with the Pernese system. Additionally, each clutch should have a young/egg image and an adult image.
Thirdly, before we even begin holding clutches, I'd love if we could settle a ranking system of rarity for different species of dragons in the Nexus. Not just a 'green/blue/brown/bronze/gold' system, but a system of how rare would you like your entire species to be on a scale of one to five, compared to other species? (Within that would be where the green/blue/etc. scale would nest!) Once this is made up, it should factor into how clutches are chosen and made: those mutts that descend from more rare species would potentially either have fewer eggs/offspring, or else breed more rarely (or both!)
Lastly, in this offshoot world, hybrids/mutts will be far more common than pure-breed dragons. Artists may wish to try to breed back to pure bloodlines (if possible; sort of like Unyko's SaaShiyovi having bred out and trying to breed back to a more pure line!) or muck around with interbreeding mutts to work towards more rare combinations. When drawing uniques, you may wish to test out some different combos of how species would mesh... or emphasize one side or another!
Clutches: Deadlines and Being Honest with Folks:
We're all a bit flaky at the Nexus. It's a fact. I'm pretty sure that 99.9% of us have a Swim or a Flurry or a Frenzy or a clutch to wrap up and finish. I'm pretty sure that 110% of us have more dragons to page than we know what to do with.
Following the offshoot, I'd like to set up ways for writers to put out their pieces on time, artists to contribute art on time, candidates to come in on time, and pairs to be paged on time. Part of this revolves around the clutch system that keeps the total number of dragons low, and the amount of work that the artist has to do low -- artists would only be drawing up to five images (+youngster/egg images) every five months. Candidate writers would be writing up to two candidates per month (and have two months each to complete those stories!) Clutch Writers would have only up to five dragonets to match up and send out; with a total of forty dragons hatching over five months in grand total, split between eight people to write for, that's not bad! There's still plenty to go around, but hopefully this will be more manageable!
In addition to this, having a system between the writer and the artist working a clutch should be important. If the writer doesn't respond in a timely manner, the artist could forseeably pick the next flight story. If the artist doesn't respond in a timely manner, the writer could ask for a new artist. What 'timely' is for you guys, I'd love some input about. My idea is this:
When the artist/clutch writers have all been paired up, they should have a pretty good idea of what they want out of the clutch sometime a week before that clutch opens. (For the very first clutch of the season, that will have to be fast... but artists can probably tick off a box to let people know if they're willing to work that fast!) While the clutch is open, the artist should be working on images, and the writer should be working on adding story-bits as candidates come in. About two weeks before the clutch is ready to hatch, the artist should at least have the the youth/egg images done, and the writer should have a framework for the hatching. Each should check in with the other along the way with progress. If the writer/artist pair aren't happy with one another, they can at any time discuss with one another to have a switch out (this would probably be used more often when one party has disappeared without excuse for several weeks, or if drama crops up!) A reserve of people who are willing to rush the clutch should perhaps be made available in this event, though I hope that it will only very rarely crop up!
Paging of dragonets and any story-writing going with that should be done a month after a clutch hatches. At this point, the artist should have the adult images getting finished, and they should definitely be out at the end of the required paging time. Those dragons that aren't paged in time should have consequences -- those might be left up to the writers; they can go feral (more on this in a bit), be given away to candidates who wrote a story but didn't manage to snag the dragonet (should probably be accompanied by another bit of story to explain this!) or 'betweened' or the equivalent. Paging of adult dragons should be given another month, with similar consequences for failure to page.
Along with these deadlines, I feel that it's important as oldbies to present an honest rolemodel sort of role: if we can't write a story in time, or finish the art, we should work together to ameliorate the situation. Artists could ask for help to work together on a clutch; clutch writers could ask for help to help with hatching and growth story updates. If you're writing a candidate, you might consider leaving his or her story more open-ended; if you can't finish in time to make one clutch, perhaps you can work that into their story for another. If you're going on vacation and need an extension, settle something with the writer and both parties should stick to that. Extensions should not be so common that clutch deadlines are constantly extended; as hatching-writers, being firm but polite about cut-offs is important. Likewise as candidate writers, accepting that you may possibly not get the dragon you want and working with that is important, too. Newbies can sometimes be pretty dramatic about not getting what they want, so we should strive to show positive ways to deal with this. Sometimes not getting what we want can work well with a character's story, after all!
A New System: Using Newbie Vocabulary
While chatting with other Nexus folks who've remained active in other adoption communities, it became apparent that the world of adoption has picked up new terms that don't jive with the Nexus, necessarily. 'Point buy', 'Buying designs', etc. I don't think we should be converting over to adoptables as purchasable pets... that doesn't really stay true to the spirit of the Nexus, and I think that getting newbies interested in writing stories for their characters and dragons would probably draw them in beyond collecting and paging. It's for the fun, not the hoarding aspect!
In any case, I think that we should still instill a point system that can be used throughout the forum and the site. Dragons should be considered the real hot commodity of the offshoot Nexus, but things like pets could be purchasable. To an extent, people could spend points on specific items that would jive with a side-game to increase stats (which would largely be flavour-text based; the stats would have no impact on how likely a character would be to bond a dragon -- that's for the writing!) I'm going to be proposing a native bonder/candidate species for the offshoot, for which we could create elements of a 'design buy' system. Newbies could choose to purchase pre-made candidates with extra points; not so much stories, but a combo of drawn images and descriptions that they could then write for. (Again, a side-line event that is in no way hella important to the adoption of dragons, but a neat treat for those who want to draw more to participate with!)
Points could be acquired from several pastimes: writing stories, contributing artist assets or writing assets that are used in a side-quest, through transactions with said pets/character designs, etc. Points could also be accumulated on a monthly basis. Generally, I'd make this currency quite limited; one point for contributing a batch of five assets, one point for writing a story that didn't snag a clutch or a dragonet. I'm still iffy about the thought of issuing points for writing clutches or drawing art for 'em, as I'd like to keep points/currency as a very side-lined, flavour-text extra! Input's welcome, though: what do you guys want?
The Website, Sidequests, Stats and Other Neat Sideshows
Part of the offshoot Nexus that I'd like to build up over time is a whole system of text-based, sidequest exploration. If you've been around long enough to remember Sherra's underground tunnel, imagine this, but with more images, more resources, chances to battle enemies, craft items, and chances to increase stats of characters. This will require some considerable effort on the part of coders, artists, and writers, but I think it would be great fun to explore this branching adventure as a team! Here's my idea from setup to follow-through.
Character Setup: A PHP form that, when logged in, a user can change the basic stats of each character they possess. This form also includes a section that's unlockable for a dragon partner (or just a section they can leave blank in the meantime, if unlocking it becomes too tedious!) along with a stats-section that a point-buy system can slowly level up over time. The form would be displayed as such that when you're viewing the page, you're seeing the basic stats of the character. There might be a section where people can input URL's and titles for stories that are posted on the forum. Admin, on hatching day, would potentially unlock the dragon section, including the egg image, and users would then input the dragonet/egg info and update it via stories on the forum.
The stats system would be fairly basic: built to encompass simple fight/flight, turn-based combat for each character (with dragonets obviously being much more weak than their adult counterparts!) This system would be influenced by the spending of points acquired from elsewhere on the forum or site, or a percentage ('fill up the bars to level up') system. Over the course of clicking links and exploring, a character can defeat enemies, or flee. Filling up an XP bar will give them a point that they can spend on a stat, or unlock an ability for use. I think it would be neat to allow characters to name their own abilities -- Nexus dragons have SO MANY crazy powers. One could have a blank space to input ability one, ability two, etc. a drop down menu to choose the way the ability works (does x. damage, heals x. damage). These abilities would begin with the power to do 1 damage, or healing, or what have you, but as points are spent on strength, for example, that would translate into how much damage any attacks would deal. (Very complicated sounding; again, a job and a half that having input from coders would be very useful towards!)
Playing the Game, Exploration: To enter the exploration side-quests, a player would start on a front screen that asks them to choose a character/character-dragon pair. Once selected, the player would then be moved to a second start screen, from where the actual exploration would begin. A bar to measure the health of the characters, as well as an inventory for the characters would be present. Perhaps a limited cache of clicks would be required, to prevent people from clicking the site to death, as well! (Said click-cache could recharge over time, either universally for a player, or for each of their characters. Coder input here would be useful!)
The main point of interest here is that the player can choose which direction to go. Clicking on certain locations will lead characters to each new page with a small bit of flavour-text, a flavour-image, and irregularly, a resource-item that will go into their inventory. Occasionally enemies will appear to initiate combat; enemies might drop some resource items or crafted items of their own!
Playing the Game, Combat: When a player encounters a combat situation, she can choose to fight the enemy (either a text-based enemy, or using sprites -- see writer and artist assets below!) or to run. Fighting is almost always preferable, as incapacitating the enemy will leave the player with points and sometimes items. On the other hand, hit points are not regained between combat encounters, and when the character reaches zero, they are considered out of play for a good chunk of time; HP could recharge over time, or could reset to full after a certain number of hours.
A player would select the actions for her character and dragon. Once selected, the character would cycle through its attacks, and the enemy would return in kind. Some enemies could flee, but most will continue to cycle through attacks.
"JEROME SLASHES at A RED BUNNY for 5 damage."
"SILTITH FLAMES A RED BUNNY for 10 damage."
"The RED BUNNY LEAPS at JEROME, kicking them in the face for 10 damage."
(And meanwhile, the appropriate bars of HP are changed to represent the new levels.)
Enemies could potentially appear in groups, suited to match the skill level of each character. Or new areas could harbor more difficult enemies, such that new players would be urged to stay to certain areas.
Playing the Game: Inventory and Crafting: An inventory page will be separate from the adventure pages; inventory will be divided between 'resources' and 'items'. Resources will be the items that can be found by clicking to search an area. Proper items will be available only through crafting certain quantities of each resource; three feathers and a leather cord to make a feather necklace, for example. These items will generally have no significance in terms of writing for dragons, however, a little icon for each crafted item will appear on a user's page for each successfully crafted item. There may be a way to trade resources and items, and the recipes needed to craft each item would be kept behind the scenes unless players wanted to share them with one another. Occasionally, items might be dropped that add a small bonus to stats; these would typically come from specific enemies that are defeated!
Game Mechanics: Branches: All of the above points are likely not going to happen right away. In the meantime, we can work on including several branches of exploratory goodness. In this case, we will start with writers contributing flavour-text assets: a starting page describing the area being explored, with options to 1) go in several directions or 2) stay and explore a little longer. We can emulate the finding of items via a random image generator, though the logging of those items would need to be done by the player. (Which I think would be okay to start with, when only oldbies are playing, though we'll have to change things over eventually!) We'll start with a main branch, and try to keep it somewhat structured as it branches out. Maybe we'll say that any one main path can only extend 'forward' five clicks, with a max amount of side paths of five, each of these only extending two away from the main? (I'm imagining a river with a tributary in terms of structure!)
Once we have this first branch down, artists who'd like to can contribute resources for landscapes and items. If we have five branches to explore from the main one, we could ask for five scenery images, which could then be used for any of the side-paths. Resources would likely be tiny .png files, as would full item images. At the early stages of the game, we could spend time tossing around ideas for what sorts of items we'd like to see in the game, and how we'd go about creating them. We could build up a base of images and icons that would be useable later!
Game Mechanics: Enemies: Enemies will not likely show up in the game until we have the exploratory portion polished up. It would be neat to create some animated gifs, or simple png's of enemies. More importantly, I was thinking that if we wanted to use any dragons that didn't get adopted (or that were abandoned) as ferals, they would make potentially awesome enemies for later: they could potentially be the metallic slimes of the game, having the ability to disappear, and to drop those rare items that actually influence stats!
Exploration Game as a tool for writing and events: In the larger scheme of things, I'm thinking that the game can be used as a basis for writing, if people are stuck for things to do. Sometimes weird things will happen in the game, and they could be used for plot fodder. Items crafted in the game could be written into the story. Exchanging items could potentially be written into a person's story as gifts or as 'thievery' (of course out of game, this would be discussed beforehand. :P) It's not that I hope that everyone will only ever write about exploring and how many items were collected and how many bunyips were defeated, but I think that now and again it might give some inspiration. It will certainly give people an understanding of what the surrounding landscape is like, so they can more confidently write about that!
Over time, we could announce events: creating a new branch of the game, for example, or announcing that a dangerous feral dragon has been roaming the land, so look out! Those who wanted to could host live RP-nights using the stats found on player's pages, and give prizes in exchange for participation! These would probably not be very frequent, but it allows an opportunity for crossover between the forum-based events and the mindless wandering/clicking of the game.
Coding this Behemoth
So we will need a new forum and a new website, eventually. I know that some Nexus folk are coders, though I assume that this is probably going to take a lot of braining to pan out. I'm planning on, if necessary, hiring a coder who has worked with JKatkina and I before to work out the game mechanics; as well as the ability to have users and admin, to log in and have the neat stuff that comes with that. I've never been especially good with the stuff, so any input on where to begin would be fantastic! A custom forum would probably be a good start; options on ones that won't be immediately swamped with bots would be good. The website can probably take more time, and will be running in Alpha and Beta for a while. I'm going to suggest ahead of time (and continue to do so) that we as oldbies should probably keep a backup of tallies, and dragons to page, etc. Though I'd like to eventually transfer over 'paging' to filling in boxes on the main website, I think it would be nice to retain the ability to page dragons on your own site. Stories will likely be submitted on a forum, though it should stand to reason that we can continue to add pages to our off-site stories as we see fit. This set-up is mostly for the convenience of newbies, as that seems to be the more difficult aspect of our game to associate.
Dragon Species Ranking System and Pern Issues
At some point soon, I'd like to make a list of rarity for each pure-breed species. For those whose owners are not available anymore, we can generalize (probably based on how many of their critters are out in the Nexus, and how rare the owners used to make them out to be!) I'd just like this so that we have a list started that we can add to over time.
This game will largely focus on the idea that hybrids are common, and purebloods are not. I think I mentioned this above, but I think it bears repeating as it could emphasize some goals for oldbies if they'd like to work towards keeping a small population of their favoured species going in this offshoot. That said, those who manage to make a pure-blood clutch should take into consideration unique images and clutch sizes. In my opinion, I think that if a clutch is more pure-blooded, it should have more uniques compared to template art, just to keep this idea alive!
Regarding Pern in this offshoot. I know it's something of a powderkeg issue, but I think that for the offshoot, any Pernese or part-Pernese dragons that immigrate should go by another name; potentially the Weyr-name from which they came. ('Ryslenese' for example.) This not only helps to avoid copyright issues, as I would like this game to eventually be a seriously popular game, but it also places an emphasis on the artists who contributed. Alternately, we could address all Pernese dragons by another name, similar to 'old worlders' that had been going around for a while, beforehand. It's simply a matter of that we know that Pern has been an issue in the past, and it's been such a large part of the Nexus that the dragons are bloody everywhere... but this game does not focus on Pern life-styles and traditions and isn't even on the same planet. I think we should cut mention of it down for the meantime. This isn't to disclude people who prefer Pern over other Nexus-based agencies, as I still think it possible to surreptitiously bring your dragons forward and work on starting a small population of the species if that's the personal challenge you'd like to set yourself!
This is also not meant to disclude individual adoption agencies. If yours is still active, we can have a portion of the forum devoted to advertising your agencies. They will just not likely enter in on this offshoot directly, so direct linkage to them in every facet doesn't make as much sense (save for crediting art and dragon species!)
Feedback
That's a lot of info to read... if you've made it this far, thank you for going through it! Any feedback that you have would be greatly appreciated. Suggestions, critiques, general 'yay/nay's?
I'll be posting the choose-your-own-adventure style game start in the next few days... keep an eye out for it!
Nexus Offshoot Manifesto
Moderators: Mystic Dragon, Xalia, Shard
Nexus Offshoot Manifesto
Last edited by Dray on Mon Jul 04, 2011 10:51 am, edited 5 times in total.
Forgive me for bringing up an old(ish) thread.
I think there's a lot of good ideas here. I think a new forum is pretty much a requirement at this point and I really like the list of things mentioned in the Nexus++ thread as ways to ramp up our existing game (chat, calendar!!, front page).
While I like the idea of bringing in a group of newbies and realize that this'll mean changing things, I'm much more heavily on the writing side of things which leads to some reluctance to adopt certain aspects of this such as the banking/currency system as well as combat/exploration minigame. I also think double rewarding someone for a rare dragon is especially odd - the rare image should be the reward not points as well, in my opinion. That said, these are easily made into optional systems assuming you don't want to make your own species.
I'd be curious to see how this would work in practice instead of just in theory. 80 dragons/5 months seems pretty feasible if we manage to pump up attendance (especially over the summer) but I worry that might not happen. That can always be tweaked, though!
That said this sounds super awesome!
(I'm also a bit weirded out by the idea of bringing in a bunch of high school or elementary school age people because omg guys I used to be the baby and now I'm 22 what is this I feel so old.)
I think there's a lot of good ideas here. I think a new forum is pretty much a requirement at this point and I really like the list of things mentioned in the Nexus++ thread as ways to ramp up our existing game (chat, calendar!!, front page).
While I like the idea of bringing in a group of newbies and realize that this'll mean changing things, I'm much more heavily on the writing side of things which leads to some reluctance to adopt certain aspects of this such as the banking/currency system as well as combat/exploration minigame. I also think double rewarding someone for a rare dragon is especially odd - the rare image should be the reward not points as well, in my opinion. That said, these are easily made into optional systems assuming you don't want to make your own species.
I'd be curious to see how this would work in practice instead of just in theory. 80 dragons/5 months seems pretty feasible if we manage to pump up attendance (especially over the summer) but I worry that might not happen. That can always be tweaked, though!
That said this sounds super awesome!
(I'm also a bit weirded out by the idea of bringing in a bunch of high school or elementary school age people because omg guys I used to be the baby and now I'm 22 what is this I feel so old.)
We might be able to find some folks who are our age but still interested in doing the whole adoption business... I'm just guessing that it's going to be more attractive to younger newbies who still have free time and are actively looking for this sort of activity as a hobby. I'd like to actually some folks who are our age get involved, but I'm not sure where to look to cultivate that sort of audience.
I agree about the rare dragons being their own reward, though. The points and banking system were always intended to be a supplementary sort of out of character way to help balance things, rather than people having to write about investing and selling etc. Cultivating writing, role playing, and generally interacting with one another through reading one another's work is what I'd love to see come out of this. There are people who are more artists than writers, And I can see how that would potentially put a negative spin on things... but with free reign, it seems like if art is the focus and not the writing, the Nexus loses a little of its uniqueness and thus grows stagnant over time. I think that writing (or roleplaying, or something similar) needs to be a core of the game, so to speak.
The adventuring and the point system are aimed (hopefully) at people who want to draw dragon clutches but aren't as interested writing bondings and the like... as I know that there are a few people here who are of that bent. It doesn't quite address the problem of how to make the game exciting for them, as well... but I feel that if we work on it, we can eventually figure out something that fits with everyone's needs.
Of course, we don't need to be pumping out 16 dragons a month; we can easily lower the numbers if it looks like there are only three people participating. XD Those numbers are I suppose a soft max number, meant to represent where I think a healthy little community should be sitting at. Essentially I think that having a chance at at least one of the two clutches per month should be where everyone stands, so the equation would probably be .5-2 dragonets/eggs available per active member. If that means that it's you, I, Starburst, Houka, Unyko and Jess D, for example, That'd mean that there would be 3 to 10 dragonets going out per month... if that makes any sense?
As said, this is all quite speculative at the moment. I think that we should try it for a bit as oldbies who know the process of hatching and bonding, then work on bringing in some newbies once it seems like things are more ironed out. I'm excited to hopefully work on a more collaborative/directed project, too... I think the Nexus could benefit from having a direction to go in. We'll see!
I agree about the rare dragons being their own reward, though. The points and banking system were always intended to be a supplementary sort of out of character way to help balance things, rather than people having to write about investing and selling etc. Cultivating writing, role playing, and generally interacting with one another through reading one another's work is what I'd love to see come out of this. There are people who are more artists than writers, And I can see how that would potentially put a negative spin on things... but with free reign, it seems like if art is the focus and not the writing, the Nexus loses a little of its uniqueness and thus grows stagnant over time. I think that writing (or roleplaying, or something similar) needs to be a core of the game, so to speak.
The adventuring and the point system are aimed (hopefully) at people who want to draw dragon clutches but aren't as interested writing bondings and the like... as I know that there are a few people here who are of that bent. It doesn't quite address the problem of how to make the game exciting for them, as well... but I feel that if we work on it, we can eventually figure out something that fits with everyone's needs.
Of course, we don't need to be pumping out 16 dragons a month; we can easily lower the numbers if it looks like there are only three people participating. XD Those numbers are I suppose a soft max number, meant to represent where I think a healthy little community should be sitting at. Essentially I think that having a chance at at least one of the two clutches per month should be where everyone stands, so the equation would probably be .5-2 dragonets/eggs available per active member. If that means that it's you, I, Starburst, Houka, Unyko and Jess D, for example, That'd mean that there would be 3 to 10 dragonets going out per month... if that makes any sense?
As said, this is all quite speculative at the moment. I think that we should try it for a bit as oldbies who know the process of hatching and bonding, then work on bringing in some newbies once it seems like things are more ironed out. I'm excited to hopefully work on a more collaborative/directed project, too... I think the Nexus could benefit from having a direction to go in. We'll see!
Also: Beta usually is fun for the sake of saying you were there from the start. >:D
Points, I am sort of planning, would be used to purchase things that are mundania that wouldn't normally be written a lot about. House upgrades, or pets, or if people really wanted to pool all of their points together to build a new town... that is actually kind of a major development, but I think it would have to be balanced with writing or RP events.
Regarding events, I was thinking (and am still in the works of making) some writing and roleplay-based events to give those interested a chance to settle in. Once that is done, we could collectively put forward some future events that affect the settlement as a whole but don't necessarily involve bondings or flights. I suppose that I'm thinking of this offshoot as a place where I'm directing the flow of events, oldbies work together to build off of that frame-work, and newbies are progressing through our combined events to accumulate dragons, develop characters, and join our much atrophied social group and make it a bit more lively again.
Points, I am sort of planning, would be used to purchase things that are mundania that wouldn't normally be written a lot about. House upgrades, or pets, or if people really wanted to pool all of their points together to build a new town... that is actually kind of a major development, but I think it would have to be balanced with writing or RP events.
Regarding events, I was thinking (and am still in the works of making) some writing and roleplay-based events to give those interested a chance to settle in. Once that is done, we could collectively put forward some future events that affect the settlement as a whole but don't necessarily involve bondings or flights. I suppose that I'm thinking of this offshoot as a place where I'm directing the flow of events, oldbies work together to build off of that frame-work, and newbies are progressing through our combined events to accumulate dragons, develop characters, and join our much atrophied social group and make it a bit more lively again.