Encouraging specific lore questions

[Jakers457]

Going to put it plainly, I'm not shitting on the lore team nor am I complaining about their work.

I just want, there to be more depth behind some of the things. I hate it when I ask things such as to what classification Diona go under or anything that goes a little in depth about how things work. Only to be asked, 'is it really necessary?' 'Why do you honestly want to know?' and things like that, and it kind of irritates me.

Why can't we go in depth? I know Frances made a campaign to improve the Wiki's layout but I'm pretty sure they never meant stripping down the depth to a species. And if they did.... well, damn. It kind of kills the splendor for me and a few others who may or may not geek out on the little details.

I enjoy discussing the Skrell homeworld and how it would actually 'work' to justify the adaptations the Skrell have. Even going so into working out how much oxygen would be on the planet to see what size the insects they eat were. Hell, I enjoy figuring out that Unathi is more than likely a Diapsid due to their skull structure. And also, trying to figure out how a walking plant man consisting of plant creatures would become that way via evolution and so forth.

We should encourage.... well, giving a shit about the lore. People want to know about the culture, the science and history. So let them you know? If you don't want to go that deep, then get some people in to go that deep. To build a house, you must have more than supports and walls, you need plumbing, electricity and insulation. Otherwise you just have a... shack.

And to reiterate, I'm not trying to point fingers or to criticize unfairly. Writing lore is hard when it's basically galaxy wide. I just want the curiosity that people have to be... nurtured?

[Frances]

Wait, people actually asked "why do you want to know?" when you asked lore questions? That's kinda dumb.

My intent was never to dumb down the lore, but to separate the complicated and less important background info from the most crucial one every player should know (not saying Diona taxonomy isn't cool, but it's not the most important thing people will need to know if they want to play as one).

However, a problem you might run into is that a lot of this info, well, it's very specific. The more technical the question, the more unlikely it is someone has already answered it, or that someone has the ability to answer it. I know some people are really into certain things (like Rusty with astronomic data for planets, or Erik Tiber for economy), but you might simply run into the problem that there's no one is really sure how to answer your question.

What happens at that point? Do we let users improvise on these minor, unanswered questions, as it doesn't really create much harm? Or do we try to come to a consensus through lore question threads, then canonize whatever comes out of them?

[Jakers457]

I'd think a consensus would be good. Everyone has different ideas about what they deem minor, be it fashion, science or current wars. So it would be good for those who do have an interest, to discuss and come up with something that could be deemed canon.

[SgtSammac]

I as one person, not the whole frickin team, baring in mind I am not a writer either. Asked is it necessary to go full scientific classification.

Why did I do this? Because when the lore team did it without people asking, everyone bitched and moaned how we were trying to control the IC setting and Community, instead of the other way round.

People complained we were "too realistic". They started bitching that we were furry lovers, and I don't want to see that again.

In short, man up buttercup, one person asked you something you didn't like, I did it of my own accord, not as part of the team. I took no action to stop you asking the question.

[Jakers457]

Why make this thread hostile? I thought I was being reasonable enough, and nor was I really referring to you.

[Gollee]

The issue is, the lore team consists of nine people (Eleven if you count Nik and Skull in the chat), spread over half a dozen timezones, with other concerns in real life.

There aren't enough of us to go indepth on every section of the lore, I am personally dubious, with the best hopes in the world, with us being able to cover all the significant areas effectively.

The issues are, from my perspective as the first loremaster, for a period of a year:

-We get conflicting responses from the community (When we get them at all, I will get on to that), specifically in relation to depth; while I was the loremaster, I preferred to have something complete 100% before moving onto the next thing, with your example of the Dionae classification, that is one of the things that I would have preferred to be done. However, need the end of my time, and throughout Table's and Jackboot's, we were being told, quite aggressively, that the depth was unneeded and useless, and we should just go about covering everything lightly. Now you appear to be the first one starting to go back down the other path.

-The lore team is comprised of specialists, which is good in one way, we are all good at the bits we like, such as Rusty and Planets, Sue and cats. The downside of being all specialists is that when we get something that we aren't specialists in, we don't want to touch it, it is out of our comfort zones, so we tend towards giving it to someone else who might be better suited at it.

-We don't receive very much feedback at all, and when we do, most of it is either "This is good! I like this!" or "This is crap"; which are about as useful as each other. Most, if not all of the lore team don't mind negative feedback, provided it is constructive, along the lines of "This isn't that great because... X is like this, it would be better as Y" or "I really like this, but I think Y would be better if it was closer to X"

[Jakers457]

I like to think there's at least a decent hand full of people here who could give a decent critique. Perhaps if we found those people to offer a decent criticism of the lore then perhaps that might make life easier. I mean, since I've returned back to the community I've been wanting to expand things from the station, reading up on the lore and trying explore the SS13 universe if you will. And if I am able to help, or have anyone else help you guys then I'd be more than happy to.

[Erik Tiber]

I as one person, not the whole frickin team, baring in mind I am not a writer either. Asked is it necessary to go full scientific classification.

Why did I do this? Because when the lore team did it without people asking, everyone bitched and moaned how we were trying to control the IC setting and Community, instead of the other way round. "

The only people I saw complain were on the lore team. Primarily tablespoon.

 

They started bitching that we were furry lovers, and I don't want to see that again.

In short, man up buttercup, one person asked you something you didn't like, I did it of my own accord, not as part of the team. I took no action to stop you asking the question.

To be frank, those people can be ignored. I could not give less of a shit about people conflating realism with furry loving or somesuch bullcrap. Those people who complain about that wouldn't know good writing if it slapped them in the face.

 

The issue is, the lore team consists of nine people (Eleven if you count Nik and Skull in the chat), spread over half a dozen timezones, with other concerns in real life.

There aren't enough of us to go indepth on every section of the lore, I am personally dubious, with the best hopes in the world, with us being able to cover all the significant areas effectively.

I remember when I did work for languages. I researched them heavily, then Tablespoon decided to revert my changes because 'realism isn't so important' or somesuch. The primary objections to realism and detail came from within the team itself. Mostly tablespoon, fro what I remember. To be frank, the only complaints I ever saw regarding 'controlling the lore' came from tablespoon.

No offense to Skull, but I object to his design philosophy that detail is an all or nothing game. If some areas have more detail than othwrs, that is fine. It might look awkward, but that problem is trivial really, and far outweighed by the benefits.

The issues are, from my perspective as the first loremaster, for a period of a year:

-We get conflicting responses from the community (When we get them at all, I will get on to that), specifically in relation to depth; while I was the loremaster, I preferred to have something complete 100% before moving onto the next thing, with your example of the Dionae classification, that is one of the things that I would have preferred to be done. However, need the end of my time, and throughout Table's and Jackboot's, we were being told, quite aggressively, that the depth was unneeded and useless, and we should just go about covering everything lightly. Now you appear to be the first one starting to go back down the other path.

Exactly. This was always a problem. It was one of the major reasons I decided to leave.

-The lore team is comprised of specialists, which is good in one way, we are all good at the bits we like, such as Rusty and Planets, Sue and cats. The downside of being all specialists is that when we get something that we aren't specialists in, we don't want to touch it, it is out of our comfort zones, so we tend towards giving it to someone else who might be better suited at it.

The problem us that when I was on the team, specialists were given no extra weight whatsoever.

We were not utilized as specialists. We were discouraged from being specialists. Instead, we have species being treated as exclusive spheres. Which results in silly things. When I was advising Pump on the Unathi, anything involving plausibility was shut out. I tried advising based on my knowledge of climate. Concepts such as 'indirect sunlight means northern areas are cold' were considered 'too complicated' and I tried explaining that getting rid of axial tilt would not make northern areas jungle-y, it would only get rid of seasons. No dice. I tried advising based on my knowledge from my intro to anthropology class. No dice.

As of now, the Unathi apparently have no roads but they have electricity. At least this is what I have heard from players, regarding the Unathi lore they know of.

Now someone please correct me if I'm remembering incorrectly here.

-We don't receive very much feedback at all, and when we do, most of it is either "This is good! I like this!" or "This is crap"; which are about as useful as each other. Most, if not all of the lore team don't mind negative feedback, provided it is constructive, along the lines of "This isn't that great because... X is like this, it would be better as Y" or "I really like this, but I think Y would be better if it was closer to X"

I tried doing this some times. The main feedback came in the form of people wishing for more detail.

I'd say that the issues were top-down in nature.

I like to think there's at least a decent hand full of people here who could give a decent critique. Perhaps if we found those people to offer a decent criticism of the lore then perhaps that might make life easier. I mean, since I've returned back to the community I've been wanting to expand things from the station, reading up on the lore and trying explore the SS13 universe if you will. And if I am able to help, or have anyone else help you guys then I'd be more than happy to.

Look back at my first thread. I did this. Then the idea of consistency was completely misinterpreted by tablespoon to apparently mean unchanging rather than internally consistent. And to be frank, I didn't have a very good idea of what we should do creatively.

Edited April 12, 2015 by Guest

[Rusty Shackleford]

I actually had a google doc at once point with 140 different systems that could possibly be habitable, and then I was going about researching them to see if planets were found, or speculating as to what a habitable planet in those systems would be like off of information already known about them (star type, metallicity, etc).

I was then pretty much told that the depth of the research I was doing was highly unnecessary, and I ended up deleting the doc.

So yeah.

[Erik Tiber]

I actually had a google doc at once point with 140 different systems that could possibly be habitable, and then I was going about researching them to see if planets were found, or speculating as to what a habitable planet in those systems would be like off of information already known about them (star type, metallicity, etc).

I was then pretty much told that the depth of the research I was doing was highly unnecessary, and I ended up deleting the doc.

So yeah.

 

By tablespoon. I remember. I also remember when you were nearly fired over creative differences. I also remember when Tablespoon used his authority to enforce his own opinions as law. If he liked something, he'd argue that it's plausible or realistic. If someone then successfully disproved that argument, he'd refrain to 'realism isn't so important'.

At least, that's what I remember. Such basic concepts as 'suspension of disbelief is a thing that exists' and 'you need to convince your audience that something is plausible' were questioned and treated as alien concepts. The massive limitations imposed on the team are why others at my old forum, sufficientvelocity, told me that I should quit way back in december of 2014, when I went to them for help with brainstorming for the Skrell.

I am not the least bit surprised that this thread was created.

[Guest]

Opinion, here.

Suspension of disbelief when it's fun is okay. On the flip side, when realism detracts from the RP experience and fun (not just one person who was butthurt because something didn't turn out the way they wanted it to, mind you), for no other reason besides realism/practicality, is bad.

I'm not really surprised the thread was made either. Not like it had a long time coming, but it's clear to me that the lore isn't as important as some of us try to make it, apparently.

[Erik Tiber]

Opinion, here.

Suspension of disbelief when it's fun is okay. On the flip side, when realism detracts from the RP experience and fun (not just one person who was butthurt because something didn't turn out the way they wanted it to, mind you), for no other reason besides realism/practicality, is bad.

Yes, I completely get that. However, there is nothing inherently bad in realism. There's no slider of realism versus quality of RP.

It's not like there was ever much realism. And it's not like we ever had a good framework for even thinking about realism. And it's not like we ever tried to have realism, really.

I'm not really surprised the thread was made either. Not like it had a long time coming, but it's clear to me that the lore isn't as important as some of us try to make it, apparently.

 

The lore could be more important if it were, well, a good story. If it had strong themes and kept with them. If we could let people come and review it and tear it apart.

I'd say that the previous problems were primarily top-down mismanagement and lack of communication and lack of an ability to criticize or change things.

[Dea Tacita]

I think the main concern should be y'know...getting the basics of the lore done. Once that's done, I think going into every little inkling of detail of how Skrell reproduce, what Tajara babies are call, and if welder fuel can melt plasteel beams is perfectly fine to do. Just give the lore-team time to work, and they'll give ya' what you want eventually.

[Erik Tiber]

I think the main concern should be y'know...getting the basics of the lore done. Once that's done, I think going into every little inkling of detail of how Skrell reproduce, what Tajara babies are call, and if welder fuel can melt plasteel beams is perfectly fine to do. Just give the lore-team time to work, and they'll give ya' what you want eventually.

Basics of what each species does would include biological information and all that. You'd just build them from the ground up. Look at what I did for the Skrell. I took how they reproduced, other basic biological information, and then asked "What sort of society would they have?" and went from there. Then Delta took that basis and fleshed it out. From what people say, apparently the result is good. I think the moral of the story is that if you think things out from the base up, then the result is normally better. Something like a species should have that level of thought put into it; if someone doesn't put that much thought into an entire species, they are doing a bad job. Since individual species are very important. What a tajaran baby is called isn't so important. But what a tajaran baby is like, is important. You need to determine their biology, consider the impact of their environment, determine their psychology, their diet, that sort of thing. Then determine what their basic social structure is, a vague overview of their history, then you can determine what they're like now. Then you can determine details like "What are these things actually called?" and other little bits.

If you actually take those base factors into account, their history pretty much writes itself. It did for the Skrell. I just had to get into a brainstorming session with some regulars from Sufficient Velocity over IRC.

EDIT: In fact, for many things, finding out base factors gives you an awful lot of nice details later on and causes a bunch of stuff to basically write itself. Simply trying to be logically consistent on some basic things can give interesting depth to societies and species.

[Jakers457]

It's why I went through the trouble of doing a taxonomy for the Unathi. I thought it'd be a nice touch.

[Conservatron]

so is there going to be a thread where we can request lore explanations?

because there are a few things I'd like to know eg..

Current Pope

travel time from Sol to Biesel

i guess those are the two biggest

[Rusty Shackleford]

Sol, Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani are similar distances from each other, so I imagine with bluespace a commute would take at most an hour or two.

[SierraKomodo]

so is there going to be a thread where we can request lore explanations?

because there are a few things I'd like to know eg..

Current Pope

travel time from Sol to Biesel

i guess those are the two biggest

 

There's a forum subsection for posting questions about the lore

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Ughhh. I'm trying really hard to have the community be the guiding force in lore development but ya'll are making it really hard changing your minds every week. 9_6

My policy has been KISS. Keep It Simple, Stupid. I've gutted some wiki page and reorganized them to help information be easier to parse (unthim bluespace), and to compromise between the desire for universe simulator and casual lore-skimmer, I've been having 'overview' sections in pages as well as reorganizing information to have the basics easier to found but the immense fluff still available.