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Oh, the event itself is fairly differentiated from that analogue that I'm thinking of in Solatorobo (backstory, subject it is directed to, and particulars of performance are all different). The pulling bit was more in reference to using re-worked in-game lines. But yeah, I can see where you two are coming from, and I suppose that it wouldn't be a world-ender to be a little more creative than I first planned with regards to the incantations.
I'm mostly OK with the proposed plan, even with the mini-Trio... so long as, as Tagg said, we put our money where our mouths are afterwards. With that meaning not only deamping the threat level but also deciding what and how to do with those mini-Trio so as to keep them off-plots as well. I thought we wanted to downplay Legendaries and stuff and return to more or less "We Are All Pokemon Trainers" instead of "We Are All The Chosen Many"...
EDITing on the subject to expand before I go lunch, one of the biggest problems with a "the world is at stake" finale is that it constrains you to an almost flawless victory. If the situation is not completely defused without bad consequences that can happen offscreen (like, you know, what should be the consequences of increases seismic activity in Hoenn, or increased particulated material on the air that can go over several continents, not to mention the effects a temporary lack of Legendaries will cause), those effects drag out into the plot/world-building for later arcs in manners that are, to say somehow, unwantable. Right now for example I have to keep an eye on exactly what will the consequences of the finale be so that Kanjoh sideline arc is not affected. Luckily it will not be an all-out eruption, right?
Which reminds me... what will such an event as the plotted Hoenn finale do to our reps, considering what we have been doing so far?
edited 27th Jan '12 10:02:58 AM by SilentReverence
Fanfic Recs orwellianretcon'd: cutlocked for committee or for Google?Look, peoplemons.
I know I've been complaining an awful lot about...well, everything recently, but that's mainly because this RP appears to have some incredibly serious issues that barely anyone seems to bothering to try and fix.
Now, I have quite a few issues that I want to bring up here, so I'll go through them in a point by point order. Starting with...
On Arc Plots
Since the beginning of this RP, most arcs that we've done can, with two exceptions, be boiled down to either "Save X" or "Defeat X". The two exceptions to this rule have been the Gold Conference arc, and mostly the Orange Islands arc, which have been the only two so far that have made any attempt to run with something different.
However, due to the underlying problems that these two arcs had (The Gold Conference dragged on for too long and left half the players with nothing to do, and the direction that the Orange Islands arc was supposed to take was not made explicitly clear), some people have come to associate anything any other sort of plot mostly as standing around doing nothing, so we always fall back too the tired Save/Defeat X storyline that's been done already.
Heck, I remember during the early Hoenn planning that we were trying to prevent the same thing form occurring for this arc, and yet somehow we're ending things with a typical finale with exploding volcanoes, Team Magma/Aqua/Ozone/Glacier/Bannana/Shadow, and legendaries, blah blah blah, seen it all before.
Look, I'm not saying that this RP should be a Slice Of Life thing were the most pressing concerns would be accidentally angering a swarm of Beedrill or something, because that's pretty much an opposite extreme. Rather, we should be making efforts to try and come up with plots that don't have to end with some sort of spammy boss fight with everything around us exploding for no reason.
There are loads of other stories we can try, as Silent and Star have both suggested. For instance, why can we not have a story where we go around a region collecting the pieces of a Macguffin? Or spending an arc trying to help Mezzo or Onion establish that Dark type gym of theirs? Or...heck, pretty much anything Silent suggested a few pages ago.
Anyway, onto my next point.
On Arc Structure
Typical structure for most arcs:
- Arrive in starting Region's hometown.
- Travel though regions in game order as a group.
- Climax with boss fight that requires the entire group's participation (As well as being an utter pain to coordinate).
There are several things wrong with this. For a start, why do we have to explore the regions in the order we travel through them in-game? I can understand that you would want to do it if you were taking the local gym challenge, but for everyone else, there's simply no reason why they should.
Remember, this this is an RP, where we can do things that the games otherwise wouldn't or otherwise are not capable of letting us do. Which means we shouldn't be constrained to visit the major places in a region in the order the games dictate.
Taking Hoenn as an example again, at the very beginning, Tagg had Xatu teleport us to Littleroot Town, when there was really no reason why we couldn't have, say, taken the boat from the Orange Islands to Slateport or Lilycove.
Also, remember that most, if not all of us, have a Pokémon that can Fly or Teleport. As such, there really is no reason why you can't visit the towns in any order that you wish.
"But Luke," I hear you say. "How are we supposed to travel as a group if we don't visit the towns in order?"
And to that, I direct you to our next point: We should not be traveling as a group anymore.
Back in the day (The Unova arc), traveling as a group was easy because there were only ten of us, which was easy to keep track of, and we pretty much all shared the same common goal and moved at roughly the same pace.
Now, however, we are twenty something people who are all working towards different things, while some of us simply cannot move as fast as others. It really is unreasonable to expect all of us to have to share the same goals.
That, and this way of doing things will make it easier for those who don't move at the same pace at the rest of us and/or have real life commitments eating up most of their time. Heck, Silent has been left behind quite a few times simply because he has trouble keeping pace with most of us, and is that really fair on him?
"But Luke," you say again. "How will we be able to interact with a group if we're never together?"
Well, to be honest, at this point, we're less one whole group and more of several smaller ones.
It's quite easy to see that most R Pers only interact with one or two other people that they're comfortable with. I'm guilty of this myself (When was the last time I interacted with anyone that isn't Tracer or Silent?). So, would it really do you any harm to go off with only those people? If you really want to bring some other people into your plot, then just get them to fly to where you are (Or you fly to them) and RP with them there.
Of course, that brings up another issue: We really should be making more of an effort to interact with people we wouldn't normally. By doing that, we're artificially constraining ourselves to what sort of plots or interactions we can run with each other, which would be quite a few missed opportunities. For example, what would DS' Pokémon say to Mezzo's? How would Every's Pokémon interact with Tagg's? These are thing I'm sure a lot of people would like to see, and it would go a long way to keep things interesting.
And now onto my final point...
On Why I complain so much
Look, I know I complain a lot. This whole post was pretty much me complaining. But there is a very good reason why I'm doing it. And that's because there is simply no other place I can RP the way I want to than WAAPT.
The Pokémon R Ps on other forums focus far too much on the Pokémon Trainers, which I'm not really comfortable with. And the R Ps that DO focus on Pokémon are either based on PMD, or the rare "Wildlife" RP. Which is a shame, as my favorite Pokémon dynamics are that of a trainer's team.
Alongside that, if I left this RP, then I would no longer be able to RP with my friends Tracer and Silent, amongst others. And I really REALLY don't want that to happen.
Lastly, soppy as this may be, I'm REALLY attached to my Pokémon, and I'd hate to leave this RP and leave Lake, Comet, Stratus, Woolly, Sol, Treeo and Dusty without anyone to write for them full-time. And even though most of you probably hate my guts right now...I'm sure most of you wouldn't want to see that happen, either.
Okay, that's everything. If you got through all that, thanks for reading it. If you have any thoughts or issues, please reply.
edited 29th Jan '12 7:39:38 AM by Luke924
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- Applauds. - I would especially like to see more of people interacting with others outside of their mold, and not necessarily moving in game order. Though I don't mind Save the X plots as much as some of the other guys (you, Silent, Tracer) do.
Now, for some proposals of mine...
Chrome's Backstory
Okay, so I established that my upcoming NPC Lina has a Metagross starter named Chrome. Now, since Metagross in this RP live a VERY long time, and if Tracer's proposal is anything to go by we're OK with the precursor thing, I was wondering if it would be possible for Chrome to be composed of Beldum that survived the Legendary-induced wipeout of his civilization. It would give some depth to his character and tie in to what I have planned already for his ties to Umbra and Lina's backstories, but I wanted to run it by you guys first.
Science Fiction and Fantasy Universes
OK, so in my universe post I listed two proposals for a sci-fi universe and a fantasy universe. Recently however, I had an idea: why not use the two halves of the split AU timeline?
The half of the timeline where the AU J-team won against the dragons could lead to a highly futuristic universe, filled with all sorts of lasers and starships and such. Pokemon would be equals due to people gaining an understanding of Monese, and they would fill the roles of alien races.
The other half where the dragons won is already determined to be PMDB, but who says we can't give that some high-fantasy vibes? It would probably be quite different from PMDA, due to the different origins, and some elements from Tolkien/D&D/Elder Scrolls/etc. could help make it its own distinct universe with its own flavor.
Which dovetails nicely into my third proposal...
Help the Dragons! Subplot
OK, this one might be controversial due to what Luke just said, but that's why it's a SUBPLOT.
OK, it's being assumed that Dragons have a bad rap in PMDB because their ancestors took over the world (Which actually helps add to any fantasy flavor... anyway, moving on). Now, my idea was that this Beartic (or some other appropriately vicious Ice-type) wants to wipe out all dragons, and Umbra and Lina's dragons try to stop him. However, since many would count that as a "save the X" plot, it's only a subplot, and participation is optional. If no one wants to do it but me, I could easily work out a more peaceful way to bring the dragons back on people's good sides.
Questions/comments/concerns on any of these (as well as Luke's post) are appreciated.
edited 29th Jan '12 2:17:45 PM by Umbramatic
Contact Me!
It's fine, Crewe. PMDA is the PMD from the games. The other half of the AU is the result of the eventual Return To AU arc.
My, a lot of things to answer to.
On Arc Plots
My comments about this issue are a couple of pages behind, essentially they amount to "there's much we can do, check TV Tropes", reminders for all of us to reread the Sliding Scale of Villain Threat, and stuff like that.
Luke has a good point in that sometimes the RP seems to be heading in the directions that reads like a Michael Bay movie. Like, "just put up an Absol there. I don't care how or why. Just put it there, and then let's make it explode" (yes, jerkass Anja is jerkass). (Also not saying that Anja is just a prop for explosions, I'm just showing an example) Heck, someone made our Laconic "EXPLOSIONS!". And when combined with the usual attitudes of "let's run the game towns exactly in the order of the game, pretty much forgetting that there are routes in bewteen with wild mons and landmarks and stuff", well, such things say a lot about who wants/not to worlddevelop and why.
For the record, failure to try a new style in two different arcs does not really mean much when don't see the same degree of internal development and coordination as what we see with arcs we're familiarized to - there is such thing as an entire school of fishes minus one or two perhaps out of water.
On Arc Structure
Already voiced my opinion several times as well - we don't need to be one solid group that moves together. I favour a logistical split of players, kinda like what is being done with IK / Kanjoh, but for that to work we need to make it work in a way that the distinct groups are more or less well defined and not "fuzzy". Quoting NCIS Director Jenny Shepard, "this [Agency] is not a fitness club that you can leave and come back whenever you want". Mind, she tells this to friggin' Gibbs, but I think the point is understood.
On Wolf's Clefairy
Sorry but I could not have sent it to you. Don't really play my SS copy anylonger. Yeah. I'm an evil person....
Chrome's Backstory
There's no real issue about pretty much any long-lived Metagross be composed of civvie-era Beldums, all that is needed is the plot guarantee that the Beldums proper survived long enough.
Though there is one thing that leaves me a bit unclear about the what for:
Are Beldum/Metagross supposed to have as such a good memory as Alakazam (theoretically never forget)? Because I really can't see a Metagross remembering indivigrupal pieces of civvie-era memories as anything past "oh, those were good times, we had beacon and eggs" (or the inorganic equivalent). Partly because of the sheer amount of time, and partly because the civvie is supposed to be at the worst an old shame for monkind in general.
Sci-Fantasy Verses
I'm like the idea of either a highly futuristic verse for AU or a non-Tolkien / Elder Scrolls fantasy verse for the second AU... but it has to be in a long term. Key issue I still don't understand well how far down the timeline will we appear in our visits to AU 2, and regardless of how the draconic revolution is won in the first AU I don't see things changing to such a futuristic degree until at least a couple of centuries down the line.
Still, the idea is very luring, because it can give the futuristic verse a sense of human being closer to what eg..: prequel Star Wars was, except as usual the problem is that such "futuristic" civilizations tend to be too focused on humanshape mons/creatures, forgetting in terms of design or setting that other creatures exist. But if we can head it towards Crystal Spires and Togas, it'd be a surprising scenario to go eventually play in.
Help the Dragons! Subplot
...This I'm definitively not keen in. After the whole world-redefining disaster that PMD-B ends up being, and taking into consideration it has the AU story and part of the original verse's story as a background, I really don't see why a random mon would even try that. ¿Personal / family op to take cruel vengeance on a few? Sure. Embark on yet Another Genocide? Uhm... weren't we trying to deviate from that? For one, the Legendaries wouldn't allow that, it was already enough problem. For two, with all the time it is supposed to have been since the draconic war down the timeline, the perception about Dragons should be less "villains" bad rap and more "scum"/"laundry worker class" bad rap.
Of course would like to eventually discuss further the why and how.
Overall
Would welcome comments on Luke's, Wolf's, Umbra's, Crewe's, Tangent's Straw's, Tagg's, mine's posts, etc etc, blah blah woof woof.
Fanfic Recs orwellianretcon'd: cutlocked for committee or for Google?PMD-A is the PMD game verse. PMD-B is the AU branch where the AU!J-Team fails to stop the dragons.
Hugging a Vanillite will give you frostbite.No, PMD-A is separate and has nothing to do with the OU or AU WAAPT verses. The Sci-Fi verse is the one that follows the AU!J-Team's defeat of the dragons.
edited 29th Jan '12 4:37:05 PM by rmctagg09
Hugging a Vanillite will give you frostbite.Sci-Fi verse follows the defeat of the dragons. PMD-B/High fantasy verse follows their victory.
Hugging a Vanillite will give you frostbite.

Yeah, I was about to say the same thing. I don't mind when the blatant video game homages/ripoffs happen in a comedic context (or, in the case of the Orange Islands, when everyone else is doing it :P), but I'm not so sure that it's the best idea to use them in a dramatic context.
Which is to say, I don't mind the idea, as long as it's not blatantly Solatorobo. Taking inspiration = a-ok! Using directly = eh, save it for something funny.