Workshop Wishlist

[Loxmardin]

Hello folks!

With the introduction of the Mentor Program, we also intended to start new "workshops" in the game. To refresh your memory on these workshops, here's the quote from the announcement post:

The Workshops

The Workshops (separate from the Workshop subforum) is another new element. Twice a month, in the 1st and the 3rd week, there’ll be arranged out-of-character meetings in-game where players can freely discuss various roleplaying concepts, ranging from simple character profiles to entire storylines. It's also a meeting place for players to exchange ideas and find others with similar interests.

The Workshops are open for anyone, whether they're mentors, peons or have no relation to the rest of the Mentor Program whatsoever. Everyone is welcome!

In short, the workshops are intended to be get-togethers with the purpose of bouncing ideas for future storylines and character concepts, but also to discuss the lore surrounding races and classes. It's a good opportunity for people who consider themselves knowledgeable on certain races to come forward and share their knowledge and for others to ask questions and receive ideas, pointers and inspiration and to get help in developing character concepts in real-time.

Those are just a few examples of what the workshops are for. All in all, they're supposed to forge connections, inspire people and educate people when it comes to in-game lore. If there was ever a race you thought of playing before but you weren't sure how, it'd be a good idea to come to one of the race-themed workshops, for example.

The purpose of this thread, however, isn't so much to discuss the purpose of the workshops as it is for people to drop us ideas or suggestions for topics or themes for said workshops. What sorts of things would you want to discuss during these events and what would make you log on to participate in them? Any subjects that you would like to discuss, want more clarity on, any stereotypes you want to highlight, any guild or storyline you want to advertise...

Pitch your ideas here. These workshops are for all of our benefit, after all, so all ideas and thoughts are welcome!

Love,
Loxmardin

[Diethe]

I'd like a storyline summit on where we stand in lore and in the story, what directions we might be taking and perhaps even discuss an event where we might all meet ICly, Horde and Alliance (Illegally led by conservatives of course, since we're at war with each other) on the threat of Deathwing. Even if we don't get the ball rolling immediately, at least I think this will open up more possibilities as we discuss Cataclysm, both in-game and OOC.

Also, can I have a five year badge pls.

[Loxmardin]

'tis a good suggestion. Keep 'em coming!

nobadgeforyou

[Delta]

I dunno! That's not really helpful, though. You could structure them in such a way that we cover a variety of topics. For instance, the first half-hour block might cover an Alliance race, like dwarves, and the second a Horde race, such as trolls. We could discuss parts of lore in other blocks; organisations, like the Kirin Tor, racial bad guys, like the Grimtotem... Stuff like that. It might help inspire people who're looking for bad guys for their events. There might then be a section at the end where people are allocated time to pitch ideas about storylines and gather interest.

I like discussing this setting, so it's something I'd be interested in coming along to.

[Loxmardin]

Hmmm! It's an option, definitely. I'd hoped that the workshops would focus around specific topics each time, however, so it's given an appropriate amount of time where people can discuss freely rather than follow a strict schedule, so to speak. Schedules often mean taking turns to speak, which I'm hoping to avoid with the workshops themselves.

Hmm, hmm, hmm.

[FlyingSquirrel]

Perhaps we could do it as it's scheduled, but we take a vote at the beginning of each Workshop to see what we want to do?

[Valicor]

Perhaps you can have a poll, where you publicly ask "If you could answer questions about the culture of a race, which would it be?" with each race as an answer. Get some people for each race, take them, and as a part of one of these Workshops, allow these people to take the reigns. For each race there could be 2-3 educators, and the rest of the people gathered in the Workshop can simply ask the groups questions they have about the cultures!

This could help open up all the races to people who have been too intimidated to play them, which in turn could lead to some more enriched RP with races that (perhaps) wouldn't be played before. Plus, I like the idea of some Q & A activities for noobies, and this is the first thing that crossed my mind.

[Loxmardin]

Send us more suggestions, if you have them! Meanwhile, I will try to figure out a good date and time for the first workshop!