Desven's bid for Deputy Loremaster

[Desven]

Ckey/BYOND Username: Desven

Position Being Applied For: Deputy Loremaster

Have you read the Lore Team Rules and Regulations wiki page?: Yes

Past Experiences/Knowledge: Examples of Past Work: Basically all Vaurca wiki. I've also contributed in team projects by the team.

 

1) What do you believe you can bring to the team as Deputy Loremaster:

When it comes to the broad of lore, I've been mainly concerned with two aspects: consistency and verisimilitude. I'll explain what I mean by each of these points by using the phoron crisis as an example. I know that we, internally, are working on how to fix it, but I still want to make my point clear.

Consistency: The timeline for phoron discovery is not consistent at all, and the tremendous amounts of deposits in some areas of the Orion Spur contradict the idea that phoron deposits are running dry. I really like that lore teams are mostly autonomous, but I do believe that the lore writers, and the community as a whole, would benefit greatly from a "lore Bible"—a written document with core tenets of Aurora lore, the tone, and what we wish to strive. This lore Bible should be workshopped with the lore writers and may receive feedback from the players to ensure everybody is on the same page. This would make us all feel a lot more certain as to where we want to take lore and ensure a mix-up like this doesn't happen again.

Verisimilitude: I risk sounding like a nerd, but the phoron crisis is actually a phoron shortage, which in my opinion doesn't make much sense. In the history of humanity, we haven't ran out of natural resources despite constant exploitation. It's true that some resources are getting harder to find, but consider for a moment we only have one planet whereas in Aurora we have literally hundreds, if not thousands. I believe this happened because many of us are young, and throughout our time writing lore, we have learned plenty about the world and how things work. We've all received feedback from players, saying "this doesn't make sense" and it's something I agree with. It might sound nitpicky, but it can really shatter the illusion of reality, which is critical whenever you're writing something, as Aristotle made it clear over two thousand years ago. For the phoron crisis, I think it would make more sense to be an actual crisis with embargos and private ownership of resources, but this is another conversation. However, this idea of verisimilitude also expands to what are the realistic expectations of your acquisitive power with your wage (economy lore), which is something the community usually worries about.

I'm also highly against the sci-fi topic that one planet equals one monolithic culture. We have tried our best to go against that by having a mosaic of cultures, but some areas still need improvement, in my opinion. I believe verisimilitude can easily be achieved by having a more "dynamic" setting, where lore reacts and reflects on other happenings, and where nuggets of information sprinkled across everywhere can make the places seem genuine. This is something I heavily leaned on my recent Vaurca article, where a reporter goes through menial pieces of information to make sense of a contradicting story. This example might be too "extreme" of a solution, but I think that what the Election Arc, the War in Heaven Arc, and New Blades Old Wounds have shown is that you can run three events simultaneously and throw in references to each other, making it feel like these events are genuinely happening in the world we've built. 

 

2) Do you have any experience managing a Team? The duties of a Deputy Loremaster often revolve around being a Project Lead, not necessarily just writing.

In real life, I lead a team of writers and editors. I also have my experience as Vaurca writer.

 

3) Your thoughts on me as a loremaster, and how best you think you can assist me.

I think you're highly ambitious but really open to feedback, which I really appreciate. I believe we share a similar ambition as wanting to make lore feel more "authentic" and serious, creating a compelling story for players. I'll be honest and admit that I didn't originally approach you for feedback, but I think the times we've sat down and worked on some documents, we've been a great pairing.

 

4) What do you believe are your biggest drawbacks, both as a writer and as an applicant for this position? 

As I told you before, I'm a huge pantser. I have ideas that I pick up from time to time and, if a project suits me because I think it'll end up tying things better later, I pick it up. For this reason, I struggle to make huge proposals or stick to a strict timeline where everything is absolutely planned. This has been highly evident in my recent arc proposal, which I won't go into detail here.

 

5) In a brief summary, explain the direction you'd wish to see the Lore Team take in regards to Aurora Lore.

I believe that we have very solid bases and it's time for us to play with all of our pieces. I don't really plan of going "beyond" the Spur, rather I would like a lot more cooperation and a joint effort by all teams to make things work. However, I would like Aurora lore to be seen as a respectable, well-written community story and not amateurish. 

For that, I have a three points I want to focus on:

1. Accessibility:  I'm a huge believer that the wiki should be easy to read and factual. I know it's hard to update everything, but there are huge lore arcs that as of now you can only understand if you read a million news articles. I would like the wiki to reflect more what happens every year, creating yearly articles (from 2462 til today) that summarize events neatly for new and returning players. I also think wiki formatting still has a long way to go. I've been trying for years to make more REDIRECT TO pages for the Vaurca wiki, but I would like to encourage all teams to do the same with theirs, as there's some information that feels arcane unless you dig deep on an article.

And I'll be honest: I don't think collapses are a great idea. If the article gets too long, it should send you to a different page instead. There's a reason why Wikipedia doesn't have collapsable tables in long topics—you can't do ctrl f and if you're redirected to the page, you won't be shown the relevant paragraph immediately, leaving you confused as to where you'll find that information. I also believe we should use more hyperlinks when necessary and always introduce our topics. It's awful to read a page that references an acronym or something but it's not explained there, and then you can't find it anywhere because the acronym is only explained deep in a collapsable table. It's not user friendly at all.

2. Congruity: Out of fear of repeating my answer for question 1, I believe we need to make lore feel a lot more congruent and that it truly goes beyond what we see as the Horizon. With my recent Vaurca arc, I've tried doing this by introducing new ways in which information can be relayed to characters when it doesn't come directly from a news source. I want lore to feel organic, like things are happening the whole time and we get to see bits of it. It helps with the immersion and it also helps the players feel more invested. I know some lore teams have achieved this greatly, but it should be a standard we should all seek.

3. Community: I also believe we should strive for new ways to involve players in lore that don't necessary rely on heavily-planned lore arcs with in-game events. These are serious tasks that require months of preparation, yet I think we should think of new media or ways to participate where players can get involved even in every-day rounds. I think Odyssey can help with this a lot, but I believe that we should also think of ways players can even contribute from Discord or the forums. I want to encourage fan content if possible—the main draw of Aurora is always your own OC, but I truly want to see players be excited about lore characters and think of fan art, fanfics, just fan whatever about them. I want the playerbase to feel the passion some of us feel about these characters that only exist in the wiki or news articles, and I'm open to think of any way we can promote this.

 

6) Where do you think lore is lacking currently?

I still think megacorp lore is lacking, particularly when it comes to Einstein Engines. I also feel like there could be a lot more about the cities in our major planets, like Biesel. We sometimes write a lot about these million places, yet we really don't give much for the players to pick them up and make them theirs. I've noticed that players feel a lot more comfortable when making characters with a steady template that has solid lore bases instead of a free-for-all, you make up all the holes on your own. By this I don't mean we need to dictate everything, but just provide a safety net for players to create their characters at ease.

 

7) Lastly, what timezone are you normally awake during?

CST, I work from 9 to 5, but I always have my laptop with me.

[Caelphon]

Hi there!

Spoiler

1. Would you say that you receive feedback and criticism from the Lore Team and the greater playerbase well? 

2. What strategies do you intend to use to ensure the team meets deadlines?

3. Can you describe a time when you had to pivot from an initial idea to a new direction? 

4. How will you ensure effective communication within the team? 

5. What are your long-term goals? 

6. What excites you about the opportunity to lead the team?

7. How would you handle a situation where a member is under performing? 

8. What would you do if the team is divided on the direction of a major project?

Thanks! 

Edited August 5 by Caelphon

[Desven]

On 05/08/2024 at 03:43, Caelphon said:

Hi there!

  Reveal hidden contents

1. Would you say that you receive feedback and criticism from the Lore Team and the greater playerbase well? 

2. What strategies do you intend to use to ensure the team meets deadlines?

3. Can you describe a time when you had to pivot from an initial idea to a new direction? 

4. How will you ensure effective communication within the team? 

5. What are your long-term goals? 

6. What excites you about the opportunity to lead the team?

7. How would you handle a situation where a member is under performing? 

8. What would you do if the team is divided on the direction of a major project?

Thanks! 

Sorry, this week hasn't been the best for me.

 

1. I've written a lot of lore over the past few years and have received input from a lot of people, including the playerbase. For some more extreme Vaurca changes, I've actually tested the waters with other people outside of the team, just to get an idea of what they think as well. I think we do need to keep ourselves open to receive criticism, even if it's unfounded.

2. I like how constant checkups have been with the latest LTA administrations, and I would like that as well. I think I can also contribute with ideas and help see where teams may be "stuck." This is basically what I do in my dayjob already.

3. A clear example is just all the lore surrounding the War in Heaven, which has even permeated the election arc a bit. One day, I woke up and thought about adding the West Phoenixport Law Center, which is now relevant in the election arc. I have also tested the waters a lot in terms of how the War in Heaven should go.

4. Off the top of my head, regular pings and keeping a calendar. If a team in specific needs more supervision, I would probably take a more hands-on approach to see how I can help.

5. Right now, for the most part, I want to highlight the same points I mentioned in my application (accessibility, congruity, and community). However, I'm also a big believer in setting up pieces to see where we can go from there—we've been doing this is in the Vaurca year for literal years. I would like to see how we can move post-phoron scarcity and think of an idea as to what's the next big step for the setting.

6. I've given my two cents every now and then, but I always feel like an intruder when I do so. I would like to actually provide better articulated feedback as part of the LTA and help the teams with whatever they might need.

7. Messaging individuals has worked wonders. I think helping the underperfoming individual come up with a project or suggestion of their own can also work.

8. Ideally, a consensus. However, there might be situations where that won't be achieveable, and that's ok. I wouldn't like to enforce something without listening to the other parties, but we do have to think about the future of the lore as a whole and try not to divide between two camps or more.

[Desven]

I’ll withdraw my application as I think there’s a lot on my plate as of now. I’ll remain fully committed to Vaurca lore.