Discord
12-27-2020, 06:42 AM
There is a lot here, so please PM me if you need clarification.
-how do you use/interact with the zone articles? how useful are they to you in your own worldbuilding endeavors/understanding of morbit/etc
When reading the zone articles: I'm often cross referencing information both on the forums and in other parts of the article, though as of Precipice's article being released the Pinterest boards are being browsed for better understanding of aesthetic.
Generally I use them to get a better understanding of organisation (government/cultural) in the zones, and as a counterbalance to my tendency to visualise simpler, utilitarian aesthetics that fit a broader range of species without need for specialisation. Lack of real understanding and confidence in fashion/design aesthetics is a problem I have.
For my own worldbuilding they are useful for stimulating internal discussion for working out details about government, biomes, and inter-zone relations in particular. They also help get an idea of where I would place characters in the regions of team members.
-how accessible are the zone articles currently
(While writing this I was looking at the Hearth article in particular)
For accessibility, I feel as though there is less issues with info-density and more with the sequencing of information in each segment, as I am used to the style of Wikipedia and the SCP foundation I find some of the content, especially in Origin/History and Climate/Geography to be out of order, such as detailing historical events before development of the zone, and seasons before geography and general features of the zone, etc...
Arrangement of information feels like it is best left to the community though, and I encourage readers to experiment with moving around the paragraphs in local documents to find what feels best for them. I don't know if this is a feature, but bullet points or tables could be used to present some info more cleanly.
I see this issue as being more a consequence of the articles being so young, and the need to get the information out into the open where it can be discussed and refined. If you look at niche vs. general wikipedia.org articles you can see a similar thing happening.
-how can we improve them?
One thing you could do to improve the articles, is possibly using media and captioning more? This would break up the paragraphs and possibly give readers something to focus on while/after reading a section, and also support the article through examples and compressing descriptions to a comment or diagram. I see this as being useful for the Wildlife, Culture, and Aesthetic sections in particular to give ideas of scale and specific items involved.
My main concern with doing this is the extra work, and IP rights, though there would also be increased bandwidth needed. Given Pinterest boards are used for a lot of the visual aesthetics, what would be required to make media for the wiki that is at minimum royalty-free and doesn't require much labour or mechanical skill on the end of the creator?
Molasses' work with Grandma seems applicable to this, as colour and pattern overlays on RL photos and collage could be used to produce something very different in feel from the source images.
-what sections of the zone articles are the most interesting to you? what sections of the zone articles are the ones you want to see expanded on the most?
Locations, Aesthetic, and Culture are the most interesting sections to me, and I often use them the most for cross-referencing when reading other parts of the articles, I think Wildlife could be expanded on by the team, and I'ld be willing to fund bounty boards for this in the second quarter of next year.
History also needs work, but that is due to a desire to re-organise how it is presented, and I feel that most of the work for that should be left to the community as stated earlier.
-what other forms of portrayals of this information (both in-universe and otherwise) would be most interesting to you?
Currently I feel there is a gap between character-focused storytelling and the worldbuilding articles, that results in a lack of practical and evocative description of Morbit.
To a degree this is what motivates my interest in the Winds' and Comorant's projects, and I feel doing descriptions of scenes and daily life that ties into worldbuilding without need for a character focus could help fill that gap. I do not read all the works on here, and in particular avoid quests and RP, so I'm certain there may be things related to this that I am missing.
Of the five things you listed for other formats, I would especially like to see Tour Guides, Cards, and Interviews, though audience participation is a struggle for me.
In-universe material seems like it would combine well with other works, as background elements or further explanation of aesthetics and fashion, but I really like the idea of Cards for doing things on a similar scale to TCP illustration, and as an alternative in terms of work and variety of choice. I don't see the need for any game mechanics, but they could be useful for character generation in a similar way to drawing hands of cards in Tarot (and possibly tie into Como's tarot themes for more abstract cards).
-how do you use/interact with the zone articles? how useful are they to you in your own worldbuilding endeavors/understanding of morbit/etc
When reading the zone articles: I'm often cross referencing information both on the forums and in other parts of the article, though as of Precipice's article being released the Pinterest boards are being browsed for better understanding of aesthetic.
Generally I use them to get a better understanding of organisation (government/cultural) in the zones, and as a counterbalance to my tendency to visualise simpler, utilitarian aesthetics that fit a broader range of species without need for specialisation. Lack of real understanding and confidence in fashion/design aesthetics is a problem I have.
For my own worldbuilding they are useful for stimulating internal discussion for working out details about government, biomes, and inter-zone relations in particular. They also help get an idea of where I would place characters in the regions of team members.
-how accessible are the zone articles currently
(While writing this I was looking at the Hearth article in particular)
For accessibility, I feel as though there is less issues with info-density and more with the sequencing of information in each segment, as I am used to the style of Wikipedia and the SCP foundation I find some of the content, especially in Origin/History and Climate/Geography to be out of order, such as detailing historical events before development of the zone, and seasons before geography and general features of the zone, etc...
Arrangement of information feels like it is best left to the community though, and I encourage readers to experiment with moving around the paragraphs in local documents to find what feels best for them. I don't know if this is a feature, but bullet points or tables could be used to present some info more cleanly.
I see this issue as being more a consequence of the articles being so young, and the need to get the information out into the open where it can be discussed and refined. If you look at niche vs. general wikipedia.org articles you can see a similar thing happening.
-how can we improve them?
One thing you could do to improve the articles, is possibly using media and captioning more? This would break up the paragraphs and possibly give readers something to focus on while/after reading a section, and also support the article through examples and compressing descriptions to a comment or diagram. I see this as being useful for the Wildlife, Culture, and Aesthetic sections in particular to give ideas of scale and specific items involved.
My main concern with doing this is the extra work, and IP rights, though there would also be increased bandwidth needed. Given Pinterest boards are used for a lot of the visual aesthetics, what would be required to make media for the wiki that is at minimum royalty-free and doesn't require much labour or mechanical skill on the end of the creator?
Molasses' work with Grandma seems applicable to this, as colour and pattern overlays on RL photos and collage could be used to produce something very different in feel from the source images.
-what sections of the zone articles are the most interesting to you? what sections of the zone articles are the ones you want to see expanded on the most?
Locations, Aesthetic, and Culture are the most interesting sections to me, and I often use them the most for cross-referencing when reading other parts of the articles, I think Wildlife could be expanded on by the team, and I'ld be willing to fund bounty boards for this in the second quarter of next year.
History also needs work, but that is due to a desire to re-organise how it is presented, and I feel that most of the work for that should be left to the community as stated earlier.
-what other forms of portrayals of this information (both in-universe and otherwise) would be most interesting to you?
Currently I feel there is a gap between character-focused storytelling and the worldbuilding articles, that results in a lack of practical and evocative description of Morbit.
To a degree this is what motivates my interest in the Winds' and Comorant's projects, and I feel doing descriptions of scenes and daily life that ties into worldbuilding without need for a character focus could help fill that gap. I do not read all the works on here, and in particular avoid quests and RP, so I'm certain there may be things related to this that I am missing.
Of the five things you listed for other formats, I would especially like to see Tour Guides, Cards, and Interviews, though audience participation is a struggle for me.
In-universe material seems like it would combine well with other works, as background elements or further explanation of aesthetics and fashion, but I really like the idea of Cards for doing things on a similar scale to TCP illustration, and as an alternative in terms of work and variety of choice. I don't see the need for any game mechanics, but they could be useful for character generation in a similar way to drawing hands of cards in Tarot (and possibly tie into Como's tarot themes for more abstract cards).