The PPC Posting Board - Latest posts

But i'll never broaden my horizons if i never try new things - particularly things that I might not see the value of right away.

And while writing fan fiction may not be my cup of tea, making fun of it actually sounds pretty intriguing. I may find that I don't have the stomach for badfic - in fact, I probably would have been content to lurk if July wasn't constantly poking me.

Yes, bringing one's own supplies is a good idea.

However, precedent in TOS says that agents aren't supposed to leave the fi...il the mission is done, so unless the situation were particularly dire, portalling to HQ in the middle of the mission would be out. The reason for this, I suppose, is that it presents a challenge to the agents, and challenges make for good stories.

~Neshomeh

I've always wondered what would happen if I put in a </HTML>...

I think I remember seeing you around. Good to know you found the place.

However, not wanting to be rude, I nonetheless feel the need to ask why you're here if you're not interested in what we do. There are lots of other places to go if you don't like us, and I personally could do without the sneering at us on our own forum--which uses HTML, not [] tags, and suits us very well.

~Neshomeh

I'm also an artist, and I specialize in digital - you can see alot of my character portraits on my deviantart account, and you can see my various comics on my website.

doesn't look like i can edit old posts though.

Couldn't he just bring his own supplies?

If the story is too long to realistically carry supplies for the remainder, would it be economical for him to teleport back to hq, resupply, then teleport back?

Good to see you here, and I hope everything's going well.

The boards support most HTML tags -

Google turns into Google.
Italics turns into Italics.
Strikethrough turns into Strikethough
Bold makes things Bold.

Haven't tested everything, but the more common tags work. Would recommend against the ones.

How involved is the story in Wizards 101? If the story almost seems separate from the mechanics of the game itself, you may just decide to ignore them completely.

I have more experience with World of Warcraft as the only non-flash MMO i've ever played - while I'm sure alot of people like making sillier stories that reference levels and spending gold for spells, the better stories are the ones that ignore that aspect completely and focus on the characters of the Warcraft lore, which is backed up by 3 games prior to the MMO.

If you've ever read any novels based on Dungeons and Dragons, you can see similar things happening - DnD is a very rules-based game, but the novels make no mention of levels, make references to classes only when there are extremely obvious archetypes associated with them (I cannot recall any Salvador novels actually labeling someone as a Rogue).

I've been lurking the PPC IRC channel for a bit, and the PPC board for a little less than that (while deriding the poor forum technology it uses) but July has been bugging me to post an introduction.

I'm not actually a regular reader of fan fiction, and I don't see the point in writing fan fiction rather than original fiction, so I guess the trial period before I start trying to write any MST's is a good idea.

Should I actually develop any liking for the entire concept, I'll probably be using Grey as an agent - an author avatar character I use in a webcomic that i'm not updating anymore called Grey Matters http://cyphimedia.com/graymatters/index.html (how do you link text on this thing? Standard [] tags?)

Dann already brought up the example of City of Heroes, where Security Levels (and the villainous equivalent, Threat Levels) are stamped on an ID card every character carries around and must display to get into certain areas -- it'd nearly impossible for anyone in that setting to not use the terminology. In sufficiently 'meta' games, such as S4 League, it'd make sense for everything visible to the players to be visible, since the characters are canonically just avatars for their players. In comedy, I think you can have characters randomly reference levels and other "universe rules" without it being a problem: the Order of the Stick and its various heirs, many World of Warcraft comedies, and some other series do this on occasion.

On the other hand, it's very easy to accidentally end up with narmy "It's over 9000!" sorta things. The class schedule or how long someone's been there may be a lot smoother to write, especially since you can go to relative values rather than end up with painful-to-write level numbers. Another option would be something similar to the "years" comparisons from Harry Potter; someone five ten levels above you would be from a higher year, someone five or ten levels under from a younger year. Wizards101 does shameless emulate borrow from Harry Potter enough for the overlap to work.

Alternatively, you may not want to use that information at all. Characters don't know everything, and metagame is often something that's very easy for them to not know. It removes the easy method of simply telling information about power, but there are a lot of other ways to establish strength -- everything from method of dress to weaponry to powers to movement tells a lot in most MMOs. Lots of opportunity to show, rather than tell.

You are most likely to be able to get hold of me via email - trojanhorseshadowfax AT gmail DOT com. I try to avoid chats and IMs as much as possible - apart from anything else, when most of the rest of the world is being nocturnal, I am at uni trying to work (stupid timezones!), and I share an office, so I can't be on chat really. But I am pretty fast at email replying :)

You can also friend me on LJ if you like - my username (for now at least) is agenttrojie.

Hello and Welcome to the PPC Posting Board! Please have some chocolate and enjoy your stay!

Those are always fun to work on. I'll admit, I tend to twist canon characters into doing what I want them to do (though I do my very best to do it gradually, so that it's believable), but side-characters are also great fun. I work mainly within the Harry Potter continuum, meaning there are lots and lots of fun characters to torture... er, I mean write about.

As soon as I get home from school, I'll go looking for your story.

--anamia

Sorry, should have looked at photo before hand. I didn't see the link.

Sparkly rock, or fire opal. they look the same, but are very different.

The story I'm working on is not mainstream. It's more a side-story. Completely different characters, same story line, different view. Nothing that would play havoc on the Canon. Like I said, that just pisses me off.

Sorry that this is late. I've been MIA for a bit.

Anyway, welcome! I offer you a sparkly rock.

--anamia

I had a look over the writing sample and commented a few days before it was posted, so I didn't feel right about saying yea or nay here.

I will say that my initial response was pretty much the same as what everyone is saying now, though.

~Neshomeh

Hey, [The] Trojanhorse. Are you still open for a little sib?
And while I am here, Artists are amazing. I wish I could draw people, but that wish was not granted. Oh well.

As Techno-Dann correctly Googled, it is indeed Wizard101. Sorry for not mentioning that earlier. I think I need to go reclaim my brain; it seems to have wandered off somewhere and begun a game of hide-and-seek without telling me.

Anyway, I like the idea of the levels being more tied into education. I'm reluctant to use words like 'grade' or anything else so recognizable, but they're supposed to be at school anyway, so that makes sense. (We're ignoring here the fact that a student wizard, especially one who comes from a distant land that doesn't know about magic, is in change of saving the world. This game is really frighteningly similar to Harry Potter. Really. But I digress.)

On a side note, would the PPC deal with this kind of story? Not the subject, but the fact that the people who write them are just plain bad writers. I haven't been able to get through enough of any one to see if they involve 'Sues, but they're just badly written. Would they be left alone, or is it something a department like the Dept. of Technical Errors might handle?

Thanks for ideas and replies,
--anamia

Anyways, except for certain types of parodies, it is traditional to not refer directly to game mechanics, unless the game story itself mentions them explicitly in the story and gives a specific explanation for what they are. Keep track of what level the characters are, though, so they don't have inconsistent power levels.

You'll note that pretty much all single player roleplaying games considered to be of high quality never mention level in dialogue. It's on a level with saying, "The sword does 2d6+1d10fire". The level is part of the game, but presumably the characters don't actually know what level anyone is.

A lot of us have a gift that we give to everyone. Some will be useful for future agents, some (like mine) are just random. (It's also a literary reference, but that's beside the point.)

I read the last book of the Olympians series. I probably should have started with book 1, but the last was the book that was lying around. It wasn't bad. Percy seems relatively likeable, which is unusual. -grins-

--anamia

Hello and welcome to the Board! Have some chocolate and enjoy your stay!