04-12-2024, 09:50 AM | #1 |
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Zone Discussion: Djinn's Archives
Spoiler: show Hello all, now that I have been given the reins of power yet again, and also been made the ZA of this zone, it's coming it to be workshopped. I am maybe perhaps not the greatest person for discussing criticisms of this zone because I really quite like it, but it's important to here what the community has to say about it. So I'm opening this up to the public so see what everyone has to say about it. I've included the original OP at the top for ease of reference. I'm going to ask a number of questions here as well. Please do not limit your feedback to these questions. It is very important I get your full and complete thoughts on the matter.
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04-12-2024, 03:57 PM | #2 | |
Enraptured by Enigmatics
Join Date: Jun 2018
Location: Anchorage Alaska
Posts: 1,532
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As an updatee I believe I haven't actually even stepped into this zone, I will say I do like the options available and just haven't gotten around to posting a zone intro. As an updator I really don't like How much freedom I have. I am not good without structure of areas, ( look at lilts DA adventure and you can probably see where I was struggling ) I could probably be fine within L&Fiction but for other parts of DA i could see things struggling. Im not fully sure how to go about fixing these issues with at least my standpoint as of this moment in time only because I feel they are more interpersonal and may not be entirely zone related, but if they are I would recommend some form of structure in the form of a little bit more descriptive parts where the sections take place ( think laboratory for Tech and Science etc etc )
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04-13-2024, 01:26 PM | #3 |
Dragon's Tears
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Searching for light
Posts: 6,471
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Personally I'd like to see the intro blurb trimmed down a bit, at least/especially if we're keeping this as a purported "Training Zone" for ZUs. Like I've said before I don't think we need a lot of background loredump out the gate, if we can keep the OP introduction to no more than a paragraph or two so as not to overwhelm newbies.
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04-13-2024, 04:41 PM | #4 |
The Uncultured One
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I agree with the prior assessments of the zone from Discord discussions: It's a decent zone, but it could probably do with being a little less open-ended for the updaters' sakes. People rarely come to adventures with anything in mind more than a goal and a general vibe for the adventure, and the updater is left to throw an adventure together from that, the zone and their own imaginations, and while I don't update, I can't imagine that having such zones as these would help. Largely because the bulk of the adventures don't actually happen within the described zones, but within little freeform pocket worlds. Updaters have to create the world, the characters, the story, the backstory... They're essentially expected to create a microzone every single adventure, and I think that's too much to ask. I'm not exactly sure how we remedy this, though: Maybe have the books modify areas of the library and become more visual/interactable displays rather than "drag you into a pocket world", especially for areas like Science and History? I feel like keeping things within the set bounds of the zone would probably help updaters immensely.
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04-14-2024, 08:02 PM | #5 | |
Known Leafeon Enthusiast
Join Date: May 2016
Location: Ontario, Canada
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Love, I don't want you to change Take me far away / Let me go ─── ⋆⋅☼⋅⋆ ─── ✧ fizzy bubbles ✧ last.fm ✧ steam ✧ carrd ✧ |
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04-14-2024, 09:49 PM | #6 | |||||
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Also if Phantom Isle has taught me anything Fizzy Bubbles has a grudge against trains. |
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04-16-2024, 11:25 AM | #7 |
Insanity
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Alright so this zone. This is the one zone I just refuse to update in now and Naru pretty much. When we had the zone election for a "training zone", which btw we've scrapped this being that for over a year now so please take that idea and throw it into a trash can. Anyway, we did ask for an open-ended zone for people to try and get their updating training wheels in since the other zones are the time were "big and intimidating and lore-heavy". Well, we gave a brief, this zone perfectly fit the brief, and now we're realizing the brief was dogshit.
I've had two adventures in this zone. The first one ended because the updater was sort of overwhelmed with the size of the adventure they had planned and realized they didn't wish to update. The second one was short, but the updater struggled immensely with the adventure due to the sub-area. While I did enjoy parts of both adventures, I realized that the zone itself was limiting both of them. Thus, it's sort of something where I'm not too inclined to want to adventure in here unless the zone is heavily reworked. Which is a shame, a magical library can be hella cool. I do think Iron's idea has a lot of merit and makes it feel more like a magical library instead of just the Free-For-All Zone with a fresh coat of paint. As for being an updater, no. Just, no. I've only ever updated two adventures into this zone, one of which is currently inactive. For the first one, I pulled inspiration from the more classical Repunzal fairy-tale and still struggled to feel like I was fully fulfilling the story beats. The other is using the Pokemon Mansion as a background, and I feel is a lot easier to have breathing room with as a result. Often as an udpater here you'll need to pull from stories or facts from history. The other sub-areas deal with a lot more abstract concepts and for me that's really challenging. As an updater, the zone really needs to be a concrete setting that's easy to comprehend from the OP for updating. (MR, parts of NFC, the Nyx Labs, and the Confalgerant Spire are all perfect examples here. Good ol' Cultist Volcano). It's too much of a headache to have to craft every single aspect of the adventure yourself with a vague theme or want being presented from the update. And if the updatee is along the lines of "do whatever you want/surprise" it's a massive SOL feeling. I feel like part of the zone should also lean more into the library itself. Not everyone is going to want to experience stories or history but still want to come to a library. I was looking for a more clerical adventure my second go around and the zone in theory should support this, but in practice, it doesn't. I know CB submitted a magical library zone in a zone submission a while back that did have some good beats to it that DA could probably correlate (with their permission obviously). Like, I feel the concept of "magical library" very much could work in Fizzy Bubbles. Capture the magic that LMN, HM, and other zones of that brand had that we're sort of missing. Just, not in its current state. I very much am fine with scrapping how DA currently is, but I do feel the concept itself warrants existence.
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04-18-2024, 01:59 PM | #8 |
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The Djinn's Archives This archive had been named for one of the powerful Pokemon said to lie in its belly as a prison, Hyun-pa, the Hoopa. It was a suitable enough explanation for the people of Bedlam Ridge, whose rediscovery of the lost library had been a source of both political intrigue as well as greed. It has been said that the library was the source of all knowledge in Fizzytopia history, containing the secrets to all in existence. But mankind, in their greed, made a simple mistake. They opened books never meant to be open. In the absence of the librarians who normally kept the Library in a stable state, chaos reigned as books swallowed people whole. With the return of the Library's workers, slowly, peace began to settle back into the Archives. The more dangerous books were put away, and they knew once more than mankind would need to be tempered in their greed of the knowable. With this, they worked on reshaping the Archives, a thought once believed impossible, into the state it is in now. Hall of Reception (Please reply in linen) The large entry hall serves as both the entryway into the Archives, but also as the main hub of the various workers here. The Archives are massive, and so the need for more workers is always present. One could easily volunteer their services here if they need to, although there are no guarantees on what kind of work might end up being done. It could range from simple clerical work, to trawling the closed down floors, hunting down the dangerous library books still brimming with magical power. Bach is the Senior Librarian here. He is serious, stern, and incredibly direct to the point as a person, gaining the reputation amongst the lower Librarians as a slave driver of a boss. He cares the most about the image of the library and keeps everything in perfect working order. Study of World History (Please reply in burlywood) On the next floor is the Study of World History, both as a space and as a vocation. Those here may choose to simply relax in the quiet environment or take note of the various history books lying around. Opening them will create a simulacra of the events, people, and places recorded in them, entirely confined to the space within the library. Visitors are encouraged to not leave the books open for long though, as the figures inside sometimes want to leap out of the pages and back into the real world. Esther is the Senior Librarian in charge of this floor. Her attitude is cheerful and upbeat, and she often eagerly welcomes visitors whenever she can. She can usually be found with a couple of her treasured Pokemon: a Bewear named Stuffy, a Vespiquen called "Her Highness' ', and a Litwick named Matchlight. She believes that no matter what awful things are written in these books, it is the capability of mankind to overcome and move past them. Parlor of Literature (Please reply in peru) The fevered sound of pen to paper, the quick rattle of typewriters, and the quiet hum of computers fill the air here as people here consume not only the finest in literary works, but create them as well. A rumor has had it that any work penned here will be so spectacular that readers will be ferried off to that world, although such a thing hasn't yet happened. Despite the best efforts of the Senior Librarian, Rose, manuscripts often litter the tables and floor of this part of the library. She frequently requires outside help both in keeping the place tidy and in dealing with the mad ravings of the authors that sometimes occur. Despite everything, Rose is very kind and helpful to the authors, believing that the joy and happiness a good story can provide is worth any effort. Studio of Arts and Design (Please reply in lawngreen) The floor afterwards is dedicated to the Arts, a massive studio dedicated to all kinds of different art forms, including the kinds that can only be found here. Paintings can move on their own, guided into moving canvases by the painters hands, statues can slowly locomote like karakuri puppets, and often the drawings will leap from their pages to frolic with their graphite friends nearby. It is a place of true artistic expression, but also often dangerous, as conflict is quite common here, both between the creations and their creators. The Senior Librarian here, Matthew, is utterly detached from the state of his floor, much to the chagrin of the other three remaining Senior Librarians. Getting him to stop imbibing and taking his job seriously is a constant, especially as some of the art runs rampant through the studio. This said, underneath his uncaring expression belies a deep respect for the arts and a desire for them to run free. Lounge of Tongues and Philosophies (Please reply in tomato) The smell of black tea is the first thing to hit people as they come to this floor. In contrast to the rest of the floors, this floor hardly seems anything like a library, merely having many places to relax and some small stands with books placed decoratively on top of them. The Senior Librarian, Tabitha, explains that this floor is one of the last floors with great power in them, and that it allows for one to experience self-reflection like no other. Falling asleep here can cause one to fall into a dream that can feel like it takes weeks to recover from, and one's circumstances can be painted like magic onto the walls to study and analyze. Tabitha requires that all visitors who wish for these services, however, fill out a form expressing their desire for such a visit, claiming incidents previously involving demon summoning before laughing. Draft of the zone is now live. Please give your feedback and what not |
04-18-2024, 02:48 PM | #9 |
The Uncultured One
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This genuinely reads like a massive improvement. I wouldn't have any objections to this going live as-is, though I'm not overly sure on direction for the Literature area. Might just be me, but I'm struggling to imagine how an adventure there would go.
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04-18-2024, 03:11 PM | #10 |
Known Leafeon Enthusiast
Join Date: May 2016
Location: Ontario, Canada
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Yeah I said in mod chat that I think the literature area is overall the weakest but otherwise I *really* like the rewrite and actually would not hate adventuring/updating here anymore. My only issue is I don't know how I'd even change the literature area.
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04-18-2024, 03:51 PM | #11 |
Naga's Voice
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: somewhere gay idk
Posts: 3,280
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All told, this reads like a place you could go to, but with the tweaking of the Magic Tree House-like mechanics keeping everything inside the physical location of a library, I become really, really uncertain of what you could actually do with the place. You really don't want Pokemon battles or any such things going on in a place chock full of valuable texts, or delicate computer equipment, or what else have you. Not to mention that while a lot of people have raised issues with just how directionless the Zone's current form can feel, the more FFA nature of that iteration has its strengths as well. When I made my intro post to this Zone, there wasn't really a sort of "mostly vanilla forest/nature area" type pf place. If there was one in MR, there was too much preternatural going on for my tastes, and UA's nature area is very much corrupted and sickened, which wasn't going to work well when my objective was to find my Farfetch'd a healthy Leek. DA was the only place I really felt I could get the environment I wanted, because I could just describe myself asking after the sort of book that might contain it. In short, something needs to be there to facilitate the types of journeys that, for one reason or another, don't fit anywhere else-otherwise, the draw of being able to journey how one wishes starts to fizzle out.
I also didn't particularly have trouble devising Blu's adventure for my part, just seeing how Elijah and Ion bounced off each other in the intro, combined with the chosen section, gave me an idea of what I wanted to do quickly enough, though I recognize we won't all be that lucky. With that in mind, I think the main flaw of the original draft is that while it kind of has directions on where to go for certain kinds of adventures, those directions can be kind of vague and unhelpful. Like, the "Tongues and Philosophies" section indicates that its for journeys of self-discovery, but not only is that very non-specific, there's no reason that an objective like that can't be accomplished in any of the other sections. Being thrust into a historical event, or the world of a long-lost legend, can just as if not more easily draw you into a situation that helps break open what makes an adventurer tick just as much as a philosophy text. As such, I think it would be prudent to have some kind of system in place that accounts for this, some means of being able to freely yet clearly and systematically direct both the setting genre and themes of an adventure. Like, if I wanted to put Catharine's moral thought processes to the test in a "chips are down, no real right answers" scenario, specifically in a historical setting that doesn't actually interact with the Pokemon universe's canon historical events (eg AZ's war), I would have some way to indicateva genre of "Historical Fiction" and themes of "Difficult choices, introspection, heavy subjects," or something similar. It does look at first blush to be difficult to square with how Zones are traditionally written up, but to be honest if the goal is to maintain the sort of Zone that serves do do "everything the others can't," maybe that traditional writeup format just won't cut it per se. I don't know, I don't have all the answers. I just worry about what the effect of so drastically constraining the physical setting will do for the purpose the Zone has historically fulfilled.
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04-18-2024, 05:17 PM | #12 | |||||
Insanity
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Hi yes here I go with my thoughts on the zone yes:
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My suggestion is to sort of wrap the writing part into that and have this be more focused on fairy tales and folk stories. Something that can reflect the fun and whimsy that fantasy worlds often have. With, or without, the dark undertones that often accompany them. With MR moving away from a general high fantasy and more focusing on ancient ruins and the supernatural, I feel there is room for that aesthetic to exist. Quote:
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Overall I will say this is a massive improvement for DA! I do like the idea of the books being projected into the library itself. The grounded presence is very much a good approach to making it still feel like it's a magical library zone. The sub-areas also are a lot more suggestive in terms of what you can do there as an updater and what types of adventures you may expect to have there. But. I really only feel like three sub-areas properly tackle the issues I have with the zone. World History very much has the same problems I have as I do with the rest of DA, where if an update comes at you with nothing and you can't get a solid plan down, you're SOL. It is less of a concern when we have more updaters actively updating, as that's a higher chance of someone picking up something for the adventure. But when it's down to a one-to-two-man show it's very shitty. As for lit, I pretty much tackled that in my breakdown review. Furthermore, I feel like it's still missing the feeling of being a library. Independent Libraries often have a kid's section, for example. It also feels like a lot of the books that a library may carry, like guides, cookbooks, etc, are sort of lost here. I sort of can understand Heather's concern about this affecting Pokemon Battles, but this is a magic library created by Hoopa. Let's be real here, this place is so magically cracked out that the shelves and books are almost definitely heavily warded. I feel having a more condensed, limited environment adds a sense of tactical difficulty to battles that may occur here. I do understand getting lost in a book or a world is a very much real thing, been there, but it's sort of hard to role-play that. And frankly, it is quite exhausting having to create entire worlds for a single adventure. Zones should be able to serve as the whole setting themselves. If they aren't... then there are massive problems.
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I fill my lungs with everything You want someone that I can't be You say it's insanity, but I say that's my life Fizzy Bubbles |
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04-18-2024, 08:19 PM | #13 | ||
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I do think that the initial idea, while a generally nice idea, probably went too far. I wanted to reign it in somewhat, while still having the option open in order to have some similar styles of adventure. That's why World History is still the most open of the areas, because while that is not everyone's cup of tea, it is some people's cup of tea. Some people are going to want to still have the kind of open ended adventures they were having before, but I think it is important to give options that will fit other people as well. I'm not fully ripping it out. Second, Djinn's Archive is not a normal library. I'm not basing it off of libraries you would see in real life. It's much closer to the kind of library you might find in a magical castle or something along those lines. I don't want to include a kid's area or to simply have an entire section of the library devoted to cookbooks or whatever. In addition, I don't want to this zone to have too many zones to explore it, but I will consider adding in one more I definitely could add that to the Literature Parlor though. I'll think about how I want to draft that up and come up with something soon. |
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