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Devel Note: This forum will go read-only mode late Apr 2021, to be replaced by the New WAAPT Forum. See this announcement for more details.
--V.S.
WAAPT@tropi.us Legacy → OOC and Discussion → Silent's Discussion Posts
Archive of Silent's discussion posts ever since April 2012.
(Originally posted 2012-04-07)
Current plans, assuming I get to participate in the PMD-R arc, are the following:
Take part in the Portal 2 miniarc in PMD-B.
Have one of my mons, most likely Shahinne, temporarily join a Team in PMD-A.
Explore the lore resulting from Inka (and probably Vinollo/Rize) in PMD-B.
Have some of my mons train / improve their IQ Skills.
If not taking part in the arc, or if I join in but am constrained on time / planning, plans move to more or less what follows:
Explore AU!Ichtacya's background.
Have Shahinne and the bird family take on a couple of battles to train her.
Go explore some areas of Kanto.
Ideally do something related to Jemma.
I like the concept. Wanted to ask something: is the search for shards limited to PMD-A only?
This because I was thinking that, this being a timespace crystal, perhaps it would be a good idea to help justify the extra, that the portals that are opened to PMD-B are actually tears (as in, on a fabric, not wept tears) that the shards left ino the multiverse when they where spread around and some of them reached PMD-B (neighbour multiverse and all that). Don't know, perhaps it can be used for something.
(Did you guys check the nifty colors?) ;)
@Wolf: (If we end up moving) We'd not be moving only because of me. Truth is, being dependent on an extraneous community infrastructure was bound to eventually hit us. This might as well serve as a warning shot that we could use some actual technological independence. The Useful Notes document was a small step, the wiki was another step towards it, the testing forum is, atm, lifting one's foot to give another step towards it.
A forum under our control offers advantages that a borrowed system simply can't offer, in the political, logistical and technological sense. And from a perspective of the work itself, nothing is lost (the old thread still exists and can be archived either way). People can still come in and join the RP.
@Pentigan: Actually it was more the Lolita and later Fanfic Recs issue. I was OK with locking and cleaning Naughty Tentacles.
Anyway, if I want to stay participative in the meantime I'm gonna need recognition of my crossposts in the RP proper. That means links to posts in this thread whenever people are interacting with me. It also means people who are interacting with me have to understand that I'm going to be even slower than I was before to keep up with events and to offer triggers and hooks for action.
So it might be good to get started with testing. I'll likely attempt to rejoin the RP sometime today or tomorrow and interact with some people. Hopefully it'll work without be too tiring, otherwise other alternatives will have to be examined. The one I have for last in the backburner is simply starting another WAAPT continuity elsewhere.
(Originally posted 2012-04-18)
As Straw says, the idea is that there's no strong reason why we can't go to PMD in different groups as we are done and ready with our pending businesses. Some of us can go there first, earlier than the others, and some others (like most likely Tracer and I) will catch up later.
The advantage of the idea is that it does not only accommodate for our difficulties with RL or planning, but also it removes our dependence on Tagg to do anything meaningful to kickstart the action. For example, the first groups who go there can get accustomed to the PMD verse (in particular for the ones who go there for the first time, because a first-time mon!human is not going to perform wisely in battle or know what things are edible right off at the second post), go into a town and get the warring clans thing or any other pre-planned plot setup if not even started, introduce NPCs early so we don't lag with the first part of the plot, etc.
(In response to #5861)
@Wolf: Nifty suggestion of nouns. I was wondering if there is something that fits better than "tail" though, somehow it sounds less notable than the others.
Tomorrow and Saturday are the Ground Zero, and things are marching mostly well. Of course, those days, as well as Sunday, I'll be mostly if not wholly unreachable, so I'm leaving some commentary here.
If all goes well, I'll be arriving to PMD-A, and jumping almost instantly to PMD-B, sometime after next Thursday.
Also, for the people roaming PMD-B!Johto, some details that have come up in creative chat discussion.
Luke is working on a map of PMD-B!Johto.
Politics wise, the Johto mainland is going to be ruled by diverse groups, hopefully in order.
Geography wise, there's the There's "Golden Forests", covering from Ecruteak to Goldenrod, a Swamp of swamp!Bagons somewhere near Azalea, probably an established Tropii flock or migration station near Azalea as well. The core of the Nidoran Colony would be moved to the southeast, closer to what was the Magnet Train Area.
There is an empire of "ancient" mons running in Firuzland (ie.: far west of Olivine) and the have at least economical reach over some sections of Johto, but (on purpose) no actual strong military presence there.
As for Nidos-related lore, there's two key elements that would be more or less well-known: the legend of a figure of name still undecided, probably "Dov Volkaal" (roughly "champion horror of Dragonkind") or "Dovah Kriid" ("Dragon slayer"), who slew the strongest dragons from Johto, being an equivalent of the boogeyman in draconic tales (so yes, dragons tell their youth Inka stories to scare them straight / troll them at bedtime); the other piece of lore is the tale of various warriors going to a terrible battle in castle in a faraway land and never returned.
In the present time there might be a small draconic presence living in or near what was once Blackthorn, in particular the Dragon's Den or (if importing from anime, whhich I'll do for RtAU) Draconic Paradise. However, I expect that they wouldn't call attention to themselves. Otherwise they are nice and dandy (and I'm guessing a couple of NPCs can be drawn from there).
What is the status of the Twin Towers as religious / mythological landmarks during the timeframe of PMD-B?
Also, Tangent and others: how long can the PEFE2 (get it? PEFe-DOS? DOS = two? in Spanish? </lamepun>) sidearc be delayed? And what is needed to have it be kickstarted?
On the subject of the dragon clans, first, really nice selection of the species so far. I was thinking it was going to be something like a council of pseudolegendary dragons, but this reads so much better. Also, who will be handling the non-Umbra/Pentigan NPCs? And what will their fate be? I was thinking whatever it is their punishment would be used to set example (as happenes with the Alakagross civilizations). What is known about them after this much time?
Also, I am planning on having Inka meet one / some of the clan leaders, alone or in their stronghold, sometime before the RtAU arc is finally solved. Don't worry, there won't be any fighting, though "warning shots" will most likely be given. Any volunteers?
On the subject of NPC aging and Pika's timeline: as I've mentioned a couple of times, it's more likely that RP!Silent fought Bugsy's (and probably Falkner's) predecesor / parent / whoever instead. If not, then Bugsy is really under a horrible torture, forever being that young that he'll also forever be confused for a girl. :p
As for the timeline, as Tagg has mentioned there are some practical issues with it in what regards using dates close to the present time. We have to remember this RP relies (a lot) on a multielastic timeline. September and October might be September and October, but a battle that begins in the middle of a month and ends in the middle of the other could have just taken some 3 days of internal time at most.
I'd suggest letting go all pretenses of using dates for near-past and near-future and using for those a floating timeline instead, which is what shows like The Simpsons and 24 do.
But hey, being eternally 25 does not sound that bad...
Also on the subject of eg.: Jeff and other players having RL issues, hugs. It's bound to get each one of us sooner or later, so long as, let's admit it, the RP is a tertiary or even lower category thing in our lives. Hence why, for better enjoyment, it's important to not rush arcs, and probably we should also start planning the end of each arc in a way that allows busy players to use it as a sort of closure, just in case. On the other paw, if we can start a WAAPT foundation we're all set~
Pika: I warned you bro. I warned you about complicated multiverses. :p
Hopefully this stuff does not cause you more of a headache than... well, any headache really. Though since we already have time travel and elastic events, its kind of unavoidable.
As for events in the (near)-past that could create a plot point or alternate timeline in the future, it might be worth to add the Arceus event in the Original Timeline. It was originally planned that the OU mini-Creation Trio would be assigned to the AU, that still might happen, but at this point it can still be used for something else.
Since I'm more or less freer now and PMD-B is going on, I guess it's about time I talk about the plans I have and the ability to run then. I have more or less three miniarcs planned for this arc, not in that specific order. None of the miniarcs needs to happen anytime soon actually, though one of them needs to specifically happen before something else.
First there's PEFE-B or as I like to call it, PEFE-dos (get it? :p). We are kinda waiting for Tracer before even planning how to kickstart it, so there's no hurry there.
Then there's Smuggler Chase, a Johto miniarc that should point to the Hoenn Kingdom(s). The idea is to have an eager Espeon and two or three characters try to track down a CRIMINAL SCUM ring that smuggles concentrated Lansat juice into the mainland from somewhere in Hoenn. The miniarc is not going to have much battle, it's going to be more like a "pin down a thug in an alley and scare him into shitting what he knows" thing with some hints of Law and Order: Criminal Intent. However at the end there will be a good scuffle and a reveal (no, not a Reveal).
This miniarc is going to run slow according to my availability and it's also going to be more or less short, since it needs to happen before there is much pull for the rest of the group to head to Hoenn, if any. So ideally it'll be done in a week, two at most. It also needs to happen before the role of the Ancients Empire in Johto is revealed because of plot purposes. If anyone wants to join, on either side of The Law, just ping me, the only requirement is no overpowered characters so as to avoid having to Idiot Ball either side on having the plot actually last however long it has to.
Last, I have Scavenger Sandbox, based on a small band of scavengers Treasure Hunters in PMD-B Orre. It's a band of various mons and three Kecleon under the command of a shady figure. They are trying to escape the STOP RIGHT THERE CRIMINAL SCUM peoplemons because they have stolen collected some important stuff, and they'll try go to various extents to leave Orre to another land, most likely Hoenn or Kanto, so that they can begin anew. So they might be available at the service of the villain of the week or enter an opportunistic spree and try to take advantage of other characters.
At the moment they have more or less figured out that Ammy is heir of the kingdom in Orre, but are not planning to do anything with it... yet~
This miniarc is much more sandboxed than the others and can go pretty much any possible way except Character Death. Basically, the mons are there available as villains or pseudovillains in any lower point of the villain threat scale. The only specific plot that I have decided for them is that near the "end" they will face internal struggle over a Shard, as some of them considers them the perfect solution to their problems whether the others consider them a risk too high for the "calm" life of scavenging Treasure Hunting they want.
So, any comments suggestions and or requests could be posted here or in the Discussion thread (though I'll privilege responses here since it's easier to organize). Of course, you can also ask in Creative.
Remember that the RtAU Primer WIP is a WIP and thus open to commentary (not to mention edition) for development.
I know there is a barrage of new information coming out, but can I ask please that spoilers are NOT posted in Creative chatroom? I'm always there, and even if I am not, I get up to date reading the logs. If a spoiler is posted there, I simply DON'T have a choice not to read it. I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way.
If you want to post spoilers there's Social, assuming no one complains (asking before posting a spoiler is GOOD EDUCATION, people!), or just right out go discuss them to the General thread, which is where they are being kept track of. Thanks.
Welcome to WAAPT, and hope you enjoy your stay and being a Pokémon for a good while~
Well, since I'm pretty much open to any not-hurried interaction for the time being, I guess I could start by setting some thins up. Of course the idea is to interact with other people, ideally having the chance to interact with players I don't get to "see" very often (hey, Slouch and Gamer).
First, two of my three groups are in Treasure Town. Ichtacya and Sol are stuck in Blizzard Island and there is a job notice to rescue them, hopefully somemon takes it. Afterwards they can go join some guild or set up a stand or something, though my original plan ATM is for them to put a stand somewhere for the duration of our PMD stay and offer their various services (you'll see~ hire at your own risk~).
Algira is going to stay in town and make some money. Hopefully she should not cause troubles of the very important news variety this time. She'll probably be the one to interact with other players's mons the most.
Roc and Shahinne are on Treasure Town minding their own business, I'm thinking of having them start an Exploration Team or get into another line of business. They'll eventually be transported to PMD-B though, still undecided on the destination but most likely Kanto.
No, Shahinne won't evolve yet.
One thing I have planned (thanks to Luke for the explanation) is to sic Monster Houses on my characters and see how they react. I plan to start with Ichtacya and Sol because character development, but there should come the time for Roc and Shahinne to face one (or two, or three...) as well. Of course, facing those in company of other mons would be welcome.
With the latest posts I've made yesterday and today I've completed 100 posts of testing forum usage on a row. While on the one hand it's "hey, good, it works", it still makes me feel depressed, and complicates my life enough when trying to interact with other people, to be the only one making use of it for the RP. I don't need to mention how that sucksb because, honestly, in the last few weeks I have not felt as a member of the RP. I'm separated of the other players in such a fundamental business that a player can just ignore or even retcon something I do without me being able to do much about it, or that person reading the thread can actually skip all of my posts and not even find out I'm still here.
People who want to interact are invited to followup in this forum as well, but eventually as I start getting into more complicated plots, posting events separately will become much harder in both an RP and a personal level.
I expect that eventually I'll have to fully move my interaction here for both convenience and sanity. That means moving my plotstrands to this forum (or to whatever other definitive forum if we get one) and act upon responses posted here.
Yes I know there are complains that this can split the RP or that we shouldn't be moving "only for one person" (that's pretty mistaken, for one), but as I have mentioned above, sanity. I can continue here under the capacity I still can have, or I would have to go elsewhere.
There's been some talk on PMD-B Alto Mare and Hoenn the last few days with Tracer and we've been designing some scenarios. Once enough worldbuilding is prepared and I feel like it, I'll launch another discussion post with details on the two miniarcs I want to run, both related to the Lansat smuggling ring which is more or less my (second) main piece of WB and participation for this arc.
So far, the first miniarc, which is actually already ongoing, will feature eradicating the ring's presence from Alto Mare as a gateway, hopefully, to introduce the worldbuilding done. That should be open to more players and can go any way including perp sweating, wolfpack boss battles and some highly convoluted (for kicks, it makes sense in-universe) prisoner exchanges. The ending however will be reserved.
The second miniarc will take place in Hoenn closer to the end of the PMD-R arc as a whole, whenever that happens (ideally not too soon of course) and will run for the first part more like a police procedural (yes, taking off sunglasses and doing lame-y oneliners for a quip to black is welcome~) but should evolve more into a "It's Persomonal" situation for the characters involved. Also, for that miniarc I'll welcome villain proposals once I make that other Discussion post, since I can't run interaction with too many characters myself.
On another subject, for when there's a more extended PMD-B!Johto visit I intend to make a couple of internal reveals about the setting and the lore there, so I'll try to design some small story about that for players to join. However, a requirement is that since it's intended to be an internal reveal, characters who by that time have already found out about most of the key history of PMD-B will be forbidden to enter (it wouldn't make sense to "*gasp*" at things they already know), so sorry in advance. As I have explained before, for my worldbuilding I want the history behind PMD-B to remain in a layer of mysticism for as long as possible.
There's also the plans for PEFE-2 (or PEFE-B) but we haven't delved much into that planning because of real life.
Welcome \ô to the new people. While it's still a WIP we have a wiki which documents some of the aspects of the RP. If it doesn't solve your doubt (I'm sure it won't :p ) you can always ask us in the chatrooms.
Right now we are in the PMD arc and it is going to last a good while, which means you and any other newcomer is going to be a Pokémon and live in the mon verse(s) for a good while, unless you stay in the original universe where, at the moment, mostly secondary characters remain.
Also, hopefully you have read Every's Essay on how to join the RP. it solves some doubts and hints to some guidelines. Most importantly, kinda sorta, keep things senseful and fun.
In other news, I am invited to a fic writing contest, I'm still thinking about it. WAAPT is a creativity and time siphon~ :p
Also, translated Playfield to Spanish and published it (finally, after one year). “Campo Traviesa” is published here and a PDF version is also available at the bottom of the page (thanks to Tangent for the hosting). It's published in Spanish so you'll need some points in Spanish awesomeness, but since the English version is also available (in Serebii and Pokécommunity) it might be of interest to the other players dealing with Spanish (Jeff, Rex and Tangent, AFAIR).
Enjoy~
And in yet another news, I'll be experimenting in the testing forum trying to add a couple of things to make the experience more comfortable. My two priorities are accesskeys, like CTRL+B for bold, which should ease the writing of posts tremendously, and mon tags for the people who like mon names to be present with color or other formatting. Please don't take this statement as a promise of implementation or anything of the sort, I'm only mostly starting reserach on how to do those stuff.
On the question one or two pages behind, I think a fair assumption a child of two mons, be them normal mons or humons, would be a normal mon. Assuming, that is, if it was conceived while the parents were mons. It makes sense among other thins because otherwise fixing most of the loss of humanity from global monification in PMD-B (or Return to AU) would be trivial in a WAAPT-sense.
Don't take any of this as an absolute truth though, we haven't delved into the matter too much, and some of the players don't really want to.
I mentioned the keep it senseful and read Every's essay, yes?
Yes.
So for the newbies mostly a reminder to ask. We are likely to say yes (techincally, more likely to say wait, check this one thing or two) but when we say no is for a good reason.
Thanks.
Can't say with full certainity (still asking chat, and DS is unfortunately not here) but Dimensional Scream is reserved for plot purposes. DS's character got it, works pretty much just like in the games and had to be given to her by Legendary intervention.
Also take into consideration any human who crosses to PMD can not just acquire the ability, or else this would be an arc about precognition, what with all the humans around :p. Also, migh be good to check Every's Essay here in the section about powers.
1.- Awwwww, man. *hugs*
2.- Well, as soon as you get the chance, Stick it to the Man, Mon! Mostly by showing them that you can deal with those arbitrary regulations. But once that is done, I recommend you show them your social life is not to be toyed around with. Breeds respect that way.
I am currently in a storyline with Xavier and Monty('s gang) as they visit the PMD-B Johto Nidoran Colony. However, I can't RC them at the moment because that'd mean I'd be writing fanfic mode, so if anyone else can step in and play them in the meantime until that visit is over, it'd help me a lot. As in, open the worldbuilding that I need to continue in PMD-B lot.
Other than that, I could try my paw at Gino and Terry if the opportunity presents itself. It'd mostly depend on who are they with so that I can coordinate interaction.
Given the recent issues with characters, plots, worldbuilding details, etc... may I remind people that we have a wiki? Most of the questions and WB details we've seen here in the last few days could have been solved much easier if more people were working on it. There's a lot of things we can write for~.
Long time I hadn't need to use this, and perhaps it was too long to be good.
And it seems there are some things to be said.
Considering the little outburst that was there while I was gone and that originated a couple of comments on would have-s and must have-s, there are some things to reconsider.
First, and I think this needs to be stressed enough, we kinda sorta took a commitment to always post overall planning details in Discussion Thread, regardless or where and how did the planning process go. We haven't really followed on that, I guess. Discussion (Thread) is in the end the place intended for most of us to reliably check if something is up for, well, Discussion. There have been quite some issues simply because in the last four weeks or so we haven't been majorly pushing plot changes and RFCs there and it has bit us badly a couple of times already. (As an aside, you'll have to excuse me for not posting in Discussion - for the most part, it's not like I explicitly can. But I trust that someone will adequately reflect my voice when the time comes to do so.)
So yeah, let's use Discussion more, the way we said we would, I guess.
That is not an excuse though, to complain that things are not being planned or that we are keeping people out of the loop, except for what we are at fault by design for Continuity Lockout. This in particular in what comes to planning of upcoming arcs. We have a wiki now and that is where a good amount of information on characters and plots can be finally, reliably centralized so that it can be checked and worked upon, much easier than eg.: trying to check the chatroom logs looking for RP!Luke's family name or the origin of RP!Fool's fry pan (yeah, those are things to add ¬¬).
There is no complaining that "you wouldn't know what to look for" - there is a search box, there are categories, three big pages to start wikiwalking with, and we have some indexes for stuff like plots and characters. We even have at least one page on planning of a future arc.
What can be complained, and there's no point denying, is that "there's nothing to look for" - It is true that (like, in the end, any wiki) it could have more information, but that does not mean you shouldn't look there – on the contrary, to paraphrase TVTropes, there are redlinks or missing information, "You could always edit it yourself". For pretty much every redlink there is chance, even if minimal, that you know at least a little bit of the character, plot or whatever so as to write a stub. And from there the articles grow, but if people use the wiki.
Editing the wiki is not mandatory, of course, but that goes both ways: if you are going to complain to someone like me, or Jeff, that the wiki does not have information, ask yourself why, then remind people like Jeff and I take the time to do the work, then take a look at the mirror. Protip: The mirror is not at fault.
Which reminds me, we should be grateful to Jeff for setting up the (important part of) software backend that keeps the WAAPT wiki running and functional. And to Tangent for providing the server backend to keep the chatroom, etc. Now all we need is a Minecraft server with a PEFE scenario and-*brick'd*
If all that fails, you could always ask. The actions indicated by the verb "to ask", for which you can find information here, have been carried out since even before the Babylonian Era by people in need (or by annoying children) in an effort to express doubts and inquiries as statements of problems that can then be processed for a solution, an "answer", and there is no particular reason this millenia-proved procedure would fails for us, now, here.
Most of the time you don't need an answer RIGHT NAO, so you can live with the question being transmitted from player to player until it hopefully reaches someone who can answer you. It has happened to all of us. Incidentally, it is one of the things the Discussion thread solves easily (hint hint). And if you need an answer RIGHT NAO, then you'll have to trust the people who are there and the sources of information we've tried to make available. We are all volunteers.
While it might sound somewhat jerkish, I can not apologize for the issues that the move (if partial) to the punBB thread caused to some players. I announced and requested for this to be prepared if there was going to be participation on my end for weeks, seems obvious to me now that no one cared, and I am not more or less between a rock and a hard place on timing and priorities.
In light of these events and considering that some players won't be able to access the new forum, or the wiki, or nothing but TVTropes, I will have to take tighter considerations for my participation in upcoming arcs, of which they would be essentially PEFE-B, Almer/Hoenn and most importantly a possible preview, or pre-retcon, to RtAU, which I have to start planning next week and which should mark my either-winddown-or-exit from the RP.
For the moment, I have the understanding that the idea is to run PEFE-B on both thread simultaneously by having the people who post mirroring / transcribinig their posts in each forum, which though slow is at least sure to work. If there's anything more to comment on that end that would be good. I would also like to have a more centralized assessment on how are the various PEFE-B players in what regards to 1.- plot availability and 2.- connection availability, if only to help delay / avoid more Poor Communication Kills moments.
Which brings me to another important subject...
Look, people, I grok that some of you can not access the new forum, or perhaps that you can not access the wiki, but we are not at fault here. If I was given power to implement the wiki or the testing forum in the TVTropes domain, I would, but I can't. I can only work with the power that is given to me, and with that I've been able to give you all of this.
But I have to say, if all of the RP you can access is TVTropes and not even something like Bulbapedia as a source of intel, then really, all I can say is your internet connection is screwed, fight for one better.
Heck, even here in Chile we rise up and fight for our digital rights and try to get proxies taken down or made opt-in, people in more important countries with more money and awesome T1, wifi or satcom connections and, in the end of the day, a larger culture, like many of you, surely can set up a proxy, install Tor, stand up, write to your congressman or go complain to a political talk show or something that gets other sites de-blacklisted.
But I can not operate (in particular, not at this point) under the constraint of "this person can only see these three IPs", because simply I have no meaningful way to do anything about that now. Perhaps later in time, under other circumstances, but not now. I already gave you plenty of time.
For the moment, my plan is still to move wholly to the new forum. If that leaves some people I could interact with behind, sorry, I can not do anything about that right now, you had enough time, all I can ask is that someone else reflects them to keep them up to speed. We can still interact over the punBB forum, or heck by Pidgin PM if it comes that far and we can set it up...
But at some point in the next week or two I am going to just drop the RP thread from my browser tabs. Too much noise in there for what the interaction I'm focused in needs. I will still catch up on weekends mostly until I am forced to leave, hopefully only temporarily.
Ok, today is a speshul day people... and that reminds me there are some things that can be done.
As it turns out, soon on July 25th is Shahinne's first birthday ever :3, which can be celebrated somehow. But that is not important (yeah, yeah, you can punch me now¬¬), what is important is that Team Skyclaw (ie.: Shahinne and Roc) are still in Treasure Town and they have a chest with about 65 thousand Poké-whatever to spend. So feel free to kinda sorta ask for coins.
However, these coins can not be spent nilly-willy, since there is An Aesop coming ahead about blood money (or blood diamonds, or whatever you want) that Shahinne has to learn as a maturation point. So if you have suggestions on things to spend some of the money on, bring them ahead to chatroom. For purposes of fun, let's assume Roc approves of none of the expenditures (but you cant tempt him if you want~).
Now, for something more important...
It is time to begin…
Since I very probably won't be here for when the Return to AU arc is run, and I rely on it to give a good amount of closure to my characters (or at least to their AU selves) and it is a thing that I very much Want to Do, I'll take a step sideways and run an alternate RtAU arc of my own. Barring any important modifications up ahead, depending on whether I can come back in meaningful capacity and how the originally planned RtAU arc goes, this will be my canon RtAU arc.
The basics of this arc is that it will be a very compressed version of the draconic uprising story, focused on three groups of my characters that need to have stuff done. Group One is Inka, Baluarkos and some other mons; Group Two is Ichtacya's trio; Group Three is to be revealed soon.
I'm still iffy on how is the arc going to be run plot-wise and continuity-wise (hey, that's why this section is about planning) because of some factors such that, honestly, I don't know how much time I have, which is annoying. Also, the whole thing about posting in a secondary forum is not working as I expected, and I have seen some people (that I trusted) essentially referring to it as a dumping ground.
First idea was to have it run a chronology based on that one of the original RtAU, but I need to prepare the adequate timeskips for that, and it relies on a fair amount of NPC and main characters being available (which means people playing them). In this case, the resulting Alt arc would become essentially a sort of preview story, that will take precedence over conflicting events in the future RtAU arc but not precedence over the arc itself.
Another alternative which is the fallback for more drastic scenarios is to run it in a kinda sorta fanfic mode, as much as I despise to do that, where I'll control all the required characters by default, but their normal handlers will be given a fair amount of say in their actions and fates; in this case the Alt arc would most likely become a AU2 of sorts, and run off from a time divergence very shortly before the beginning of the future RtAU arc.
Any details can be (and will be, mostly) wrapped up in discussion chat during today and tomorrow.
So, the overall planning and execution for this arc is what is going to keep me occupied RP-wise from here until my departure, with all other plans coming secondary. If you want me to focus in any other secondary thing, please take into consideration my time and energy are limited, so please offer adequate compensation.
Thanks for attention.
I'd rather not the 90% of the "known" Pokémon verse be Japan, but rather have much more variability and richness, thanks. At least I'll ignore any such treatment.
It is quite a stretch. For one, the statement "Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh are unquestionably part of real-world Japan. " is false, or at lleast a gross exageration.
One canon source at least shows that only the individual regions look like their shapes are drawn from Japan, but their location and layout is different (though to be fair I expected Sinnoh to be further north). Another canon source does not prove but strongly suggests that Pokémon takes place not in an alternative Earth (like eg.: Marvel and DC's Earth-[number] stuff) but in an Earth-like planet or an Earth with a vastly different geological history (ceteris paribus applies for purposes of plot and the game-interface projection has to be considered, eg.: real-life place references in the Pokédex, that we all know how weirdly is written).
Though there is also the funnier possibility that someone told Regigigas to take Scandinavia and PUSH it somewhere else... like, say, Africa. Could be made into a plot.
The recent situation that happened today reminds me one thing that I think this RP needs, and that I'd push further for (more than I've done already) if I could. namely, a PSP. No, not a gaming console that Audrey would probably loooooooooove to have on paw right now, but a-
-yeah, that.
See the thing is, compared to most of the steady-running Pokémon RPs I've seen, WAAPT is quite the thing. Sampling from at least five sites (Pokécommunity and Serebii being two of them), it is quite evident. Most Pokémon RPs have a playerbase size of like four; WAAPT has a more or less stable playerbase of 15 plus minus a floating population. Most RPs take place in a tightly defined setting more or less established to be the games or anime Pokémon verse; WAAPT has an official, canon multiverse. Most RPs are limited to a specific medium's set of mechanics and set up tight boundaries on things like movesets and player character resources; in WAAPT, our mons can eventually learn everything they can learn in the games, from more than one continuity, and the trainers can have pretty much literal Hammerspace item bags; if that's not enough, then we can import moves (Regen), items (Keyblades) and entire settings (PEFE HQ = Aperture Science from Portal) from other franchises via a process of adaptation. And then we come up with our own stuff (see eg.: the Wiki).
We are a big thing in terms of what Pokémon fanworks are, even if some of us wouldn't say that. And with being big, comes the cost of having a higher barrier to entry.
Most of you probably associate the concept of a signup procedure with the tiring concept of signup sheets in forum threads, a format where potential players sign up by filling a form that has whatever the Game Master (another thing we don't have) deems convenient, trying to filter in fake quality by adding what in terms of tropes amounts to Fake Difficulty. Candidates are expected to post whole biographies for their characters, describe their appearance in terms that fashion and marketing students would recognize, provide immense backstories written in prose that at least doesn't make an official publisher label's examiner to vomit.
…
Yeah, we don't want that.
But I think we do want to both be able to discern what kind of people are not ready to join this RP, and promote the people who we think are ready.
A proper signup procedure goes beyond a simple form to fill. It is… well, a procedure. Candidates to join are expected to be interested in the verse we are building as well as in the playerbase and try to get in touch with us. In turn, we are expected to describe to them how things work, evaluate their initial efforts and provide guidance towards steering both their characters and their "player-figure" towards our acceptable parameters. Conversations in the chatroom or in the discussion threads, Q&A sessions or character testing, that kind of stuff, are things that are added to an initial, well-defined, character sheet in order to polish an incoming character or to prepare a new player to deal with some of the details in the setting that are simply not clear or trivial to interact with unless you are "deep in".
For those who remember how was Umbra's procedure of joining this RP, I think it describes wonders what we should aim for, only in a more formalized manner.
I think we should aim more to that. I would do if I could, and will if I eventually have the chance. It's not just a sheet with which we can accept or discard new players as a machine would, but a work that helps us define who we are, what do we expect from new players and what do they expect from us. And the early stages, that already help a lot, not only should not be hard to do but are things that, overall, we have done already. They just lack more formalization.
Would welcome thoughts on this matter.
Ok, since the Most Official Iteration on Avenger is come in and we are looking for opinions, I guess I could give my take on it.
I'm OK with the Ability as presented in that Discussion post. Looks sensible, looks balanced (much more than when it was always active even while inside the Pokéball), and looks like something that mons like eg.: Bisharp and the Sabots would like to have. Still can't help but think it's not really designed for Absol since 1.- it's somewhat redundant with Justified for the desired effect and 2.- from anime and PEFE at least Absol is not really a pack mon, meaning the only circumstances where specimens would really benefit from the Ability if not being trained would be during the breeding and pregnancy period.
I'm assuming things like Trace and Mold Breaker would work as expected with or against Avenger?
As for how such a fake ability would be gettable, if we go with main games and TCG, you are "just born with it". There are some idiosincrasies about Abilities in the different canons (eg.: PMD has Ability-like things that are switchable and activable), and in the PEFE interpretation of them as well, though, so such things should be brought up for a checkup for each individual case until we can build a better guideline for that. Avenger sounds far more leaned to the behavioural side of the scale for me so there's no saying it can't be present alongside another ability, so long as it is in a balanced manner.
As a final consideration I am thinking some teams could be set up exclusively to take advantage of this ability and others like that (Houndoom's Revenge Fang, for example) in case they are faced with large numerical disadvantage.
Now, I can see and can understand Every's concerns about having to make stuff up and letting it go rampant. All I can say to that regard is what I've already said - if you are looking for something that looks special or unique and is not readily apparent in the main games, do some research and or ask for assistance: PMD, TCG and now Nobunaga all bring us stuff lie new moves, abilities and items so it's very likely that unless what you want is very geared towards your specific character or species (and is henceforth most likely not well balanced), one of those canons already offers something like what you are looking for.
As for how to keep them from running amok and setting precedent for the new guy who wants his Pokémon to be speshul, well, that's quite precisely the kind of things we should be using a Discussion thread for :p - I'd consider as a good basis for discussion of such made up things a period of at last three days that allows (ideally) a significant portion of the playerbase to discuss the fake ability or move, and having a couple of test cases be run or designed for it (such as when we discussed 6-vs-6 battles for Avenger).
Thanks to Jeff for pointing to the signup proposal. On that matter, while already active players would not be subject to it, there's no reason why they can't submit a signup if they want, which I plan to do if I eventually return after my leave. For example, that could be used (or reused) to help solve some questions about character development or for the people who have doubts about their characters, or other things, after all it's easier to know what to look for when you have taken the time to organize the concepts and put them somewhere on write.
Also I wholeheartedly agree with the last paragraph of Wolf's D!post about quirks and stuff. Those are better to treat during the Q&A phase. And a very good catch on the Starter, I hadn't considered it. Making age required too, even though it could as well fit into Appearance (which would be also required anyway).
I'll add those and other details and revisions to the proposal tomorrow, since for the moment my focus is on starting RtAU-alt. To whcih I'll also get to Discussion!post eventually to clear some things about what would be some future canon events we'd need to agree upon so as to my preview arc to be canonical.
Yes. No. Maybe.
The overall idea of Heart == Superempath seems nice. It also allows to give them various chances for Heart is an Awesome Power. And not only for heroes but for villains too, since we really need a Villain Heart. Just think of the possibilities, of all the EVIL that can be done by a person who can essentially, force you to like him and worship him to the point that you'll actually put all your heart (pun intended) into fighting for his side. It's More than Mind Control, people! :3
I'm already seeing the scene... some characters like, say, Umbra or Mezzo have managed to capture this villain... but then in an unexpected move he looks at them with a :3 face and explains his plans and his vision of a beautiful world. And then they suddenly like this dream, and truly believe this villain can make it happen, and that it is, in the deepest of their hearts, the right thing to do. So they let him go, or worse better, help break him out.
…
Anyway, enough on villains. There's been some discussion on how to make Attributes themselves more workable but less required.
As for the question of how to determine who has what Attribute, I think the best and most interesting choice is to use some particular item. For example a flaming hat that burns your hair with different-colored flames according to your affiliation. Fine, it doesn't have to be a flaming hat, but I do think that the item has to be unique, or at least adequately rare. While the idea is not to have to depend on Legendaries for this (and I completely support that), I'd rather we don't cross to the other extreme into Flanderizing whatever item is chosen into being something that is delivered by the plot as easily as a candy, as we sorta did with Armbands.
As for mons who can sense Attributeness, I'd rather them not have to be Psychics, they are already overpowered enough in the "feeling things" department plot-wise, because, well, psychics. Not to mention mind-reading (which we don't seem to have blocks against except things like Sunny as a hat) and teleportation. I was thinking perhaps Attributeness is a more "inner" thing, more of the true self, and thus is perhaps something that Fighting or Ghost types can feel better.
That or, for some weird novelty, perhaps Attributeness can be revealed by a person's aura (not Aura) reactions when dealt damage with "multitype" techniques such as Hidden Power / Secret Power. Best thing we'd only need an aura reader (not an Aura Reader).
Thoughts?
Since Tangent has left us some Eevees to find in Phoenix Landing, I'll be taking part of that in a time-delayed manner (my connectivity these days has been taking a hit).
Kit #3 has been found already.
I'll reserve kit #11, kit #24 and optionally kit #5, if noone has found him/her before my lunchtime tomorrow. They'll be kept safe and clean I promise.
Also, does anyone object if I make reference to Ichtacya's future Eeveelution wishlist? Since the PMD-B is an alternate future and the future Generations haven't showed up yet (except when Shahinne time-travelled from the future) perhaps some of her names for future Eeveelutions might end up being "canon", for a while.
(Technically, she doesn't mind if you object, since she'll call them that because that's how she dreams them to be, more or less, so they're kinda buddy-names if you want. But the basic idea is, since we don't know what Eeveelutions will the future bring, we can as well take advantage of the various ambiguities beyond "lol use the remaining [x] types")
There have been several issues with miscommunication in the chatroom the last few days/weeks/fortnights. And I feel one of the reasons why this is happening is that people who are in the chatroom are ignoring some basic facts and falling into the dreaded "xat spk plz reply my tweet 1313" infraculture.
First, I'd like to remind all present that the chatrooms are a volunteer service. Tangent is not obligued to provide it. Those of us who are connected are not obligued to answer questions nor to stay all day in spite of other things. Added to that the chatroom is a secondary service – important discussion and notices should to in Discussion!
Second, coming from that, we have lives beyond the RP. Sure, I try to be always connected when I'm online, but so do I try to be connected to the other ~20 chatrooms where I have some activity. That I'm online does not imply in any way that I'm available, and surely that applies for other players as well, in particular those who connect on their spare times or when they are tired after returning to home. If someone seems to not be responding you, ping or ask others for recent activity - sometimes we AFK without having the chance or the mindset to let the others know...
Third, the chatroom is a chatroom. That means it is (hopefully!) subject to chatroom netiquette not only from the people who answer questions, but also from the people to ask. Asking does not imply that the other people owe you an answer, in particular if there is a larger topic at hand. Answering does not imply that your answer is correct or timely. Speaking of which, people: use the /topic, or at least announce big subjects of conversation. It could help a lot against misunderstandings (it could have helped a lot yesterday ¬¬). Also try to keep on topic and, in particular in Creative, please don't take it wrong if you are told to take it to Social -- it's there for a reason. If you are going to add image links add a "?" at the end of the link, to prevent Speeqe users from having to instantly load what is perhaps a large image. If you are adding unclear links to youtube or any other service really, ideally take some time to explain what the link is about. If you need to paste a large amount of text, use a Pastebin.
Fourth, please don't assume the chatroom is "instant Facebook like Google +1!!!!11eleventyone" communication, in particular when it comes to planning for RP events. Not all of us use it, and not all of us check the logs either, so if you discuss something RP-related there is a chance people for whom is relevant is simply not online at the moment. Don't assume that if after only two minutes of exposition two people are OK with your idea, then everyone will. The next person who comes in online tomorrow might just have a key question that requires reformulating the whole idea. Of course this ties with the "if it is important it should go to Discussion" guideline.
I strongly recommend people take some time to read the Netiquette Guidelines RFC in particular points 2.1.2, 4.1.2 and ALL of 3.0. As Tagg says, don't assume [bad faith]. If your question goes unanswered, it may be that it just went unnoticed, or that it sank into another subject, or that for some reason people think t is not a real question/problem; if that happens ask again, don't start brooding on how technology separates humans and how the world can not revolve around you bla bla woof woof. This article on why asking questions is HARD seems to also be of some relevance.
I hope these reminders help a little to keep our community stable, for what it has left.
(The one in this page)
No, it's not Nidoran. That'd be the Pokémon I'm more externally associated to, yes.
After a night of brief consideration I'll have to say Noctowl. That or Persian, but I think Noctowl fits better.
My thoughts on Heat Shield start here. Basically they amount to the following:
* …I thought we wanted to reduce the OPness, not increase it?
* Heat Shield is too powerful a move. Let's recall that Celestia used it to function as a Sun, which means feeding heat to a large portion of Pokéarth for a very long period of time, probably in the order of months. The only other move I can think can be held functioning for that long is Transform.
* Heat Shield is also a SNK-Boss, screen-fill, kill-everything move for which, in between raw power and aftereffects, neither Protect nor WAAPT!Safeguard would be usable defenses.
* From those two, I'd presume if we are going to spread usage of Heat Shield it'll have to be a toned down more down-to-Pokéarth version. It needs to have some balancing measures built in besides being a tremendously telegraphed move (you can't run away from a nuclear bomb no matter how easily you can see it is about to be dropped on you).
* If we are giving Heat Shield to Legendaries, Tagg already has a Victini so now he has double the killing power and double the OPness. It'd also place Victini above the other "Sprite Gods".
* For some reason I can't see Groudon as using the move. Sure, he's given a lot of Fire moves but the base type is Ground and conceptually speaking Kyogre and Groudon are more about releasing latent power than explosive power, terraforming and all.
* Can't see how Magmortar, Rapidash or any of the Fire starters could withold the conditions for the move, and not even a powered-down version; more considering the starters at least already get the bonus Fire-typed moves, so that'd place them above the other Starters in the triangle for no raisin. The closest to having the required traits IMO are Torkoal and Magcargo.
* OTOH, Magcargo should totally be able to use Heat Shield if we're giving it to more mons. It could even be / have been a sensible in-universe explanation for rumors that could lead to their temperature being mislabeled as over nine thousand and meme.
* Magcargo needs more love.
On OPness and Heat Shield
My thoughts on Heat Shield start here. Basically they amount to the following:
* …I thought we wanted to reduce the OPness, not increase it?
My thoughts exactly, which is why I was speaking in theoreticals. (Why do people find this so hard to understand? It's hardly organic chemistry. >_>)
* Heat Shield is also a SNK-Boss, screen-fill, kill-everything move for which, in between raw power and aftereffects, neither Protect nor WAAPT!Safeguard would be usable defenses.
Well, WAAPT!Safeguard might be able to pull it off, but that's a pretty big might. Maybe if a legendary was doing it.
* If we are giving Heat Shield to Legendaries, Tagg already has a Victini so now he has double the killing power and double the OPness. It'd also place Victini above the other "Sprite Gods".
The reason Victini would potentially be able to use the move is due to its ability to generate infinite energy, besides being a Fire type and described as "a living nuke" in-RP. (Not that mine would be using it, I don't need two traumatized mons.)
* For some reason I can't see Groudon as using the move. Sure, he's given a lot of Fire moves but the base type is Ground and conceptually speaking Kyogre and Groudon are more about releasing latent power than explosive power, terraforming and all.
Despite its typing I can see Groudon getting it mainly because of Drought and its already known powers over magma. (And no one bring up Droughtales, as far as I'm concerned its Drought is the cheap bootleg version of Groudon's real deal.)
* Can't see how Magmortar, Rapidash or any of the Fire starters could withold the conditions for the move, and not even a powered-down version; more considering the starters at least already get the bonus Fire-typed moves, so that'd place them above the other Starters in the triangle for no raisin. The closest to having the required traits IMO are Torkoal and Magcargo.
I'm making this very clear, no starters get the move, so I'm in agreement with that.
How does a Magmortar learn Heat Shield? It lives in the same environment as Magcargo for Christ's sake, volcanic craters, so it definitely meets the physiological requirements. (And perhaps I should remind some people that Magmortar is hot all the time due to Flame Body.)
(Unlike Helios and Volcarona in general, I doubt Magmortar can turn its own off.)
WAAPT@tropi.us Legacy → OOC and Discussion → Silent's Discussion Posts
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