Update #1

Hey guys,

I've been putting a significant amount of time into working on this site since my last update, and have made decent headway.

For the sake of my sanity, I plan on releasing an update every week. I will detail what I've worked on and give details/thoughts/explanations if I can.

Feel free to ask any questions and speculate, but understand I may not give you an answer.

I look forward to hearing your responses!

-Matt


The main focus this last week is the actual system of the site. Plenty of thought went into plot and time-frame, and I have a rough idea of where/when I want it.

One of the big things for this (fourth) iteration of Avatar-RPG is that I learn from my mistakes and triumphs in my experience. Take the good and bad of what I know, and try and create a system that will allow for the maximum amount of freedom while preventing significant disruptions in the balance of power. To that end, I have complete redone the concept behind a thread.

I've had this idea for a while, and attempted it in a very loose way in iteration 3. However a comment that I got through the survey gave me a spark of an idea. And that is the idea of a "blueprint" of the thread which is kept up to date by the thread's creator. This blueprint will serve several different functions.

The first and foremost is that it will give the people currently posting any relevant information as to the setting: Time of day, location, specifics of the surrounds, etc. I found that this was one of the major aspects in previous iterations that frustrated people the most, was that in theory one person could "create" an object in a room to serve their purposes. While this is still able to happen, it will only be possible on a much smaller scale (i.e. a doorway can't be created). While this system is only as good as the person who writes the description, it will help.

The second purpose is to provide a list of past/present/future threads that associate with the current thread. For example if my journey took me from Ba Sing Se to Omashu, this would be organized as two separate threads. However I would reference the Ba Sing Se thread inside of the blueprint for the Omashu thread. This just helps tie related stories together.

The third purpose is most helpful for people who wish to join a thread or for someone casually observing. Essentially it is a summary of all the action that has happened in the thread, modified as the thread continues. As of right now, the idea is for each page of posts to have its own paragraph (15 posts to one paragraph). Only completed pages have to be included in the summary. This will make everyone's head hurt a little less if they need to remember what has already happened.

There will be other aspects to the blueprint; posting order, introduction, and a few others.

To complement the blueprint, there will also be a shifting of rights associated with the creator of the thread. The short way of putting it is that they will control their story. I won't get into too many details about that aspect.

That is all of the information I will give out in this particular update, but there are several more things I am working on:

• Profiles
  
• Significant Locations
  
• Political Powers
  
• Overarching plot