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Poll: How do you think custom lore should be done, with regards to the canon storyline?
You do not have permission to vote in this poll.
Go full out and change the canon story line, both in the minor details and the major outcomes.
48.84%
42 48.84%
Only touch up canon lore, changing details to improve the writing but not changing outcomes.
38.37%
33 38.37%
Do not touch canon story lines at all.
11.63%
10 11.63%
I have another opinion and will post below!
1.16%
1 1.16%
Total 86 vote(s) 100%
* You voted for this item. [Show Results]

Custom Lore Poll, Part 2!
#61
(08-24-2014, 12:01 PM)Harmonic Wrote:
(08-24-2014, 10:46 AM)Grakor456 Wrote:
(08-24-2014, 10:06 AM)Harmonic Wrote: I think for this poll to be fair and not broad, it needs to be discussed in conjunction with -why- people want to change it. Are we going to talk about players getting high ranks and stature in cities? Some will vote in favor of custom lore just based on that. The Garrosh thing? It's not an unreasonable thing to think that is why this topic was made, people complain about that frequently.

Thing is, this topic is broad. Of -course- there will be an overwhelming yes. But unless we get more information as to why this is up for discussion... it doesn't make sense to jutt this out and say "are we for it?" Because it's like asking someone if they want pizza. They will say yes, but might regret it if they get anchovies and mushrooms.

Person A wants custom lore to advance his character in the over-arching story. Person B wants custom lore in order to make the story fresh, exciting, and unpredictable again. Person C wants custom lore because that person thinks Blizzard's writing is terrible and believes we can do better. I've heard all these opinions, but I don't need to know how many of each we have. Why? Because in the end, we can satisfy all three needs at the same time without problem. Done and done. The nitty-gritty specifics of "Is Garrosh still going to flip out for no reason?", "Will Aggra continue to be nothing other than a womb for Thrall to impregnate?", or "Will Anduin still teach Velen the importance of friendship?" seems kind of pointless to discuss right now, beyond the possibility that they can change. One step at a time, we need to know how far we can go before we make that leap.

Not to be hostile, but given your position I don't think you should really be making that comparison, because you're coming off more as "I don't like pizza at all, so I'm going to shout out the worst possible outcomes that I can think of in the hopes of depriving others of pizza so I don't miss out."

So... because I don't like the idea, I can't say it's unfair to those who don't like it that this will slant towards "yes" because of a lack of information?

I could understand---again, a discussion about changes. While I'm not fond of changing blizz lore, that sort of topic gives people something to work with. Plus, it can give people like me a -reason- to change our minds. Something to discuss. Saying "do you wanna?" sets this up with -no context-, other than just changing the lore.

Yes I'm against it overall. In no way should that somehow negate my opinion that we -should- have information on what reason is behind this. Yes, I do think that is fair to everyone, so that people aren't blindly agreeing to something that we have no clue on how the GM's are currently planning on using to change CoTH.

I understand you guys are trying to get opinions from the community, but give us a clue what you are thinking behind the questions. What exactly would you guys change? Why? What wont be changed?

Otherwise this question of custom lore -is- weighted and already slanted by the assumptions of what custom lore could me to any single one of us.

I could care less about my pizza analogy. Mostly because I can settle down if it's known what changing lore -means-. The examples you provided even... while people might like one thing, they may hate another. Think it's more than fair to say we should really, really discuss this stuff and think it all through.

I don't see how these requests put me in a position were I am invalidated.

Edit: Also, I do find it pretty offensive at the end of your statement. People can find fun in these things. Good, I'm glad. But, I also find fun in lore, so how does it mean I'm depriving others for selfish gain? Because I think people should make informed judgement?

You know me better than that.

Let's calm down and stop taking things personally. I don't specifically mean the person I have quoted, I mean anyone discussing or mulling it over in their mind. I think one of our largest issues here is that we take everything personally, but that is a discussion for another time.

I understand where both sides are coming from, I think. The staff/pro-custom lore side is saying "Hey man, we don't know what we're changing yet. We just want to know if we should even think of ideas before we actually start doing that!" and that's cool and I am totally on board with that train of thought. Why build up ideas and thoughts when it's not even set that it will happen? That'd be silly, and a good chance to set yourself up for disappointment.

On the flip side, the con argument is thinking that "Hey, we're totally against changing the lore. If you're proposing we write our own, well, what did you have in mind? It's totes def an issue worth discussing, man. I don't want us to vote for the idea of custom lore and then have it turn into a Easy-bake Oven role-play server, because we retconned all races into being a different child's cooking utensil. I'd feel horrible if that happened!" And this side is valid, too. I can definitely understand the fear that everything that gets pushed through is going to be a horrifying change that we need to adapt to.

This is an internet message board, so it's hard for us all to understand the true meaning behind a post. We are missing so many social cues that would indicate better our emotions and opinions. With this in mind, don't take it all personally. Nobody here is here specifically choosing to attack you, hell, not even your opinion. Everyone here is just trying to make their voices heard, and misinterpretations and misunderstandings are starting to cause some more personal disagreements and perhaps even some hostilities.

My main point of this post is to take a step back, review the opinions that agree with you, and read the opinions that are against yours. Now read them again, but this time flip your opinion around to walk in their big, goofy clown shoes. You might find that they fit a little more snugly than they looked at first, because they're not clown shoes at all.
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#62
(08-24-2014, 10:06 AM)Harmonic Wrote: Because it's like asking someone if they want pizza. They will say yes, but might regret it if they get anchovies and mushrooms.

Let me try to clarify what we're trying to say here using this metaphor.

The first poll and Meet and Greet was us asking "Hey, do you guys want pizza?" In which it was voted yes.

This poll here is us asking, "Alright, where are we ordering from?" Where the choices are, say, Domino's, Papa Johns or Little Ceasers.

Now that we know we want pizza from Papa Johns, we can start talking about what sort of toppings we're going for. If the majority reject wanting mushrooms on the pizza, we won't go with mushrooms and propose bacon instead and keep throwing out and talking ideas until we have a pizza built the community wants to eat.

However from the way it's being worded from your end, it seems like you want us to have the toppings picked out before we even decided we wanted pizza in the first place.

Does that make more sense?
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#63
Quote:1. Full-blown, change canon events to have different outcomes. Change up who are heroes and who are villains, have stories go in completely unexpected directions, and so on. This option allows for the greatest freedom, but is also the greatest deviation from the setting's story.

I think this is the best course to take. If you're going to do something ambitious, you might as well go for it full-throttle. Changing lore is a big, big decision, and I think that it's something that you just gotta go with, if you're going to do it.

Having said that, it's going to be a very, very, very heavy and stressful burden for anyone who chooses to write for it. I'm assuming the GM team is going to do it. And this is the kind of thing that can really, really blow back on the writing team.

I've never envied the job GM's do. It's one of those positions that's necessary for the server, and everyone thinks they want it, until they actually get it. A GM position is an invitation to all sorts of stress and drama, because it's one of those things that's incredibly easy to scrutinize from an outsider's perspective.

Those of us on the outside have the blessing of hindsight, and we're free from any responsibility. That makes it easy for us to judge and criticize every decision made, tearing it apart for any perceived in-fracture. And it isn't easy for a person to take that sort of criticism constantly. Which is why we go through so many GM's.

COTH already has a history of drama-bombing over GM decisions on server policy. There's always been this weird tension between the playerbase and the GM's, in which everyone seems comfortably miserable and angry at each other. Throwing the responsibility of re-writing lore quantifies the already heavy burden on the GM's.

Whatever decisions are made to the lore, I guarantee you that there will be groups of people who will be unreasonably unhappy about it, no matter what the changes are. Hell, even the mere idea that we're considering changing the lore has already irked a few people. Even if we end up writing something scores more brilliant than whatever Blizzard has come up with, there's going to be that lingering air of uncertainty, simply because we altered the text.

Let's face it--we're nerds. Huge nerds. And the lore of a setting is something very sacred in nerd culture. It's like the holy text for our religion, and the very idea of altering it just seems unsettling somehow. How could we--mere mortals--dare to alter the words of the gods? How audacious are we to assume that we could tamper with divine instruments.

What am I getting at?

It's going to be a colossal undertaking for those involved. It should not be taken lightly. I don't think just one person should be in charge of the writing process--I think it needs to be a team effort, with an open communication to the community. The threads thus far have been excellent motions, and I hope to see more of them in the future.

As for myself--I know very little of the actual current WoW lore. So I wouldn't be able to offer much insight on how things should change. I have a few ideas regarding the whole Bilgewater Cartel (ala it's stupid and turned goblin culture into a cheap joke. "LOL I KNOW LETS HAVE A TRADE PRINCE TRY TO SELL HIS RACE INTO SLAVERY AND THEN HAVE HIM JOIN THE HORDE EVEN THOUGH THEY HATE ALL FORMS OF ENSLAVEMENT YEAH THAT MAKES SENSE"), but that's just my particular axe to grind.

As for advice, I have three things.

1) Aim Big, Move Small. There should be a through-line for a sort of "big picture," and I hope it's ambitious and daring. Unpredictable and exciting. Like I said before, if you're gonna change the lore, go full throttle. This isn't something you should tip-toe around or hold back on; commit to it, fully. However, the process in which the "Big Picture" comes together should be made up of small events and occurrences that seemingly don't have anything to do with one another--at first.

Start small. Then build on those small things, slowly but steadily, until the larger picture comes up.

2) Have a clearly-defined objective for every change you make. Every time the creative team comes to the decision to change something in the lore, have them ask; why are we changing it? What purpose would our change serve? What objective is this change going to achieve?

Let's say you wanted to change something about Garrosh. Let's say you want to keep him as a villain, but actually develop him and make him into a coherent character rather than the mess Blizzard currently has him as. In order to do that, you'll probably have to change an event or something within the timeline.

In the process of doing that, you should have a clear objective. In this case, "we want Garrosh to be a better villain." So then change event X. When the change in Event X happens, ask yourself "does this make Garrosh a better villain?" And also ask yourself, "why does Garrosh need to be a better villain? What does making Garrosh a better villain accomplish?" This should be the process that all changes in the lore should follow.

3)....agh. For the life of me, I forgot what the third point was. And I've spent like the past 20 minutes trying to remember it. Iggggh....uhhh, here.

Have some Megumi Nakajima.

Spoiler:

Why is she so perfect.

EDIT: I remember now! Number 3 was going to be Knock Everyone Together. Strive to create inter-sectional plots between all of the players. Aim for inclusive events that knock everyone together. If we have Alliance Guild A, Horde Guild B, and Alliance Guild C all doing different stuff, knock them all together. Make the noble families have to cross paths with the Old-Horde military folks and get the evil underground guilds out in the open. We should try to weave a sort of server-wide web, putting people together. Try to avoid letting the cliques stay in their respective bubbles--if we really want a sprawling, epic story, we gotta have everyone interact with each other. I think that would fix a lot of problems COTH has historically had in regards to RP and stagnation.
Spoiler:
[video]www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrkzIN2eP0U[/video]

"What a mess we made, when it all went wrong..."
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#64
Now, I'm just gonna post despite probably having no credibility in this community.

I feel that option 1 is best, but it should only happen if the players wish for it to happen.

A world that's truly persistent is usually a world that can be changed by those whom make up that world, and I feel that a absolutely persistent world may help benefit CoTH. Not that there's anything wrong with the way things are going now, but because it makes people feel like they have a impact. Storylines of our own are good, believe me, I love nothing more than a storyline that shys away or holds tight to the lore we all know a love; But if we don't try new things, it's going to eventually become dull and boring, and it'll be the same thing over and over again.

Option 1 appeals to me because, frankly, I want to see some amazing things potentially happen from this playerbase. The idea of people having the ability to, perhaps, create massive armies and to wage war or to possibly go out of their way to construct settlements and possibly even destroy settlements is something that I would love to see. From destructive and earth shattering capabilities that is within our characters, to the deepest and darkest reaches of the void in which absolute creation is nothing but the norm. All of these things are something that I think we should at least try. Now, this isn't me saying; "Hey guys, lets make all of our characters have the proportions of gods so we can destroy everything and pretty much bring about a massive depression for the everything of forever." Rather this is me saying, "Freedom to the people, so long as it's within the rules- If a character has the capabilities to potentially change the world as we know it? It'd be entertaining to at least let them try, and to experience what would come out of these attempts and the eventual outcome of the determination of these individuals. Experiencing what we haven't already is all we really have going for us in the end, because doing the same thing over and over won't teach us more about ourselves, what we like and don't like and all of the sort." Of course, I acknowledge and respect the fact that the GMs have the power to completely retcon anything that happens, despite whatever option is chosen in the longrun.

tl;dr, I wanna see crazy crap happen, so option 1 for me, babes.
"Death is terrible for anyone. Young or old, good or evil, it’s all the same. Death is impartial. There is no especially terrible death. That’s why death is so fearsome. Your deeds, your age, your personality, your wealth, your beauty: they are all meaningless in the face of death." - Sunako Kirishiki, Shiki.
[Image: tumblr_n85vpnXsUN1r4n0roo1_500.gif]
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