Welcome to Gaia! ::

You make it sound like a bad thing. Yah, there are times when having someone in place to give a final say and give the grand okay, moderate the guild forums, and ensure that the ball stays rolling (I made a pun. ha). Look around at yourselves-- we're already doing all of that. And with the wiki project it automatically puts things more into your own hands. I know it might sound silly, but, a leader can't make this ball happen. Only you guys can. Its a community project and it builds by the influence of the community. And qualifies as the community? Yep, you guys.

The irony is, if your idea is a good one others will follow and join in.
If an idea is bad or simply lacks general interest it will flop. A guild leader's stamp of approval won't have nearly as much strength as the approval of your peers.


That includes my daily pep talk.. now back to your regularly scheduled program.

(now from my to be continued section..)

I've been giving this a lot of thought.
The main issue with the day by day plot is that it forces people into having to change threads and for those who enjoy a very in depth role play experience this could be seen as a nuisance. Most likely just as large of a nuisance as having to deal with the random spam factor that goes side by side with with a thread in an announcement. I don't know how many of you had to deal with the nubs who did nothing but emote spam or quote the front page-- but I had that a LOT in the library. My assumption is its because it was an announcement thread and that seems to be the latest cool thing to do in those threads. It diminishes the atmosphere and it can be very distracting when trying to have a "Lit" RP going on.


If we're moving through a Labyrinth we naturally want to ENCOURAGE people to move forward. I'd also go as far as to say that we should make it understood that new areas of the labyrinth CAN NOT be opened until the new areas are officially announced. If people want to travel backwards to lands that had been already opened.. let them. Anyone who's been to zOMG can come to appreciate my next example. If you've never traveled through a map before it will appear black (and undiscovered). But as soon as you walk across the new area of map it becomes 'revealed.'. You still see where you've been, but not where you haven't been.

We want to be the ones that direct the revelation of the new areas. We don't want to control everything that these people can find in the areas. We want to be able to allow the guests the opportunity to use just as much of their own creativity as we do. While progressing in the labyrinth we will enter into new distinct areas. The distinction can be like a forest, carnival setting, or it could be that we entered into a china, scotland, etc (that direction seems to be still in discussion so I'm going to leave it be for now and come back to this part later.)

Start day One in a mansion where a Ball is being hosted. Wine and appetizers galore, fancy coats and elaborate dresses, and an orchestra playing music that everyone is dancing to. You know.. paint a picture of the most cliche ball scene you might know with long those spiraling staircases, and butlers and waiters, oh my, etc. By this time gaia users are getting this announcement and filing into our forums and putting on their fancy avatars and realizing "Oh.. the ball is here!" and in a mad rush to create the first threads of the forum and asking their friends who have been on Gaia longer "What's a ball..?" You know, all those things that happen on the first day.

Day Two: We made it past the first zurg rush of the announcement. This is where the fun begins! This is where people soon discover that this ordinary ball is not so ordinary after all. The labyrinth is discovered. Either because there was this Grand Host Figure, having an ulterior motive, directs us to it-- or because a character guest in our story discovers it.

But the idea is if we entered into a new "worlds" like England (or the sun and the moon depending on how we wanted to categorize the themes of the labyrinth) there could be multiple things going on relating to England. i.e a Tea Party (that could be hosted on the forum), a Rave (which could be hosted in the hollywood party room). And maybe even an adventure quest based on a mythical creature notorious found in England's culture.

At this point each day becomes mini-balls. Just like last year where people could chose what book they wanted to enter- we give them various other choices. People like choices and to coin Lectern.. it makes them feel 'important'. And these choices will also not only have slightly differing themes.. they will also appeal to different styled audiences. Each day will always have things going on going in the forum-- but there should also always be something to take place in the live action areas. Being that it would be considered live-action areas and require people to be around people these events would be run at specific times. Like a Rave at 8PM, or even a double feature of the rave to include a more global audience and have the rave at 8PM and 2PM or something. (-- Making sure to at least center these live action events during Gaia Prime times to include a wider audience.)

Now these forum events should have a target audience as well. A RP heavy plot to cater to a Lit audience should not be run in an announcement thread. Not that I love RP'ers any less, but I'd rather avoid subjecting these people to spam happy trolls. Keep the 'Announcement' stickies for just that.. announcements. Use that thread(s) as a portal page to the main happenings going on during the day and Big Plot Develops that can either be done in text and/or an illustrated manga. Set up a Guest Services platform in that thread where people can ask their ball questions and we have people in place to answer those questions. And.. we also just created troll bait. These lil trolls can go as wild with their emote spam and page quoting as they want without littering our "interactive" threads. The typical troll would be too lazy to actually read the announcement, so they will be less likely to click the Links leading to the RPs and thus we've created troll protection.

People who actually like to RP (which we would be catering to).. generally know how to read. So linking them to a sub-topic that interests them most would not be a challenging feat if we organize the information neatly.


Day 3- 6 we rinse and repeat the format of Day 2. Even encompassing a daily comic that depicts our main plot evolution. Day 2-6 (or fewer days depending on if we want to be shorter than a week) should all have differing themes that share something in common. Real time and RP time is not always linear, so it would be more than fine if the RP that was started on day 2 of the tea party was still going on, but it is assumed in real time that the plot has evolved and that we are really in a new area of the labyrinth. What this means is-- you as an individual (a role player) could still contribute to this RP, but you as a ball host/coordinator/insert fancy title would have your attention towards the present events.

As for the issue of flourishing plots and the Day 2 having the upper hand of the Day 5 or 6-- I don't think so because MOST guests will follow our direction on moving on to the new day-- those who really found themselves inspired by Day 6 are just as likely to continue their individual RP as much as those of Day 2, if not more so because its the subject more fresh on their minds if they were going to continue their RP over in Barton Town when the ball was over.

Day 7 -- Closure, plot resolves, and the moral of the story revealed, etc. Back to parting and dancing and all the cliche ball stuff of Day 1 with a Happily Ever After/Annual Ball Ends.


*Please note: Time line can be shortened if we feel that 7 Days is too long or extended if we feel it is too short. But, as you can see, just like in Gaia Events we create a loose plot for the guests to follow. We have even created our major plot updates long in advance and have set up Mini-Events to interest Gainas of all styles and interests.


Highly recommend if someone could help me to shorten my wall of text to create a tl:dr version

Yes, I apologize for the length, but I had a lot I wanted to address. He likes apples and she likes oranges.. why give you guys bananas? The bulk of this format concept is inspired by a huge big city convention that I have been to that I really like. I've been there as a guest and I've been there as a volunteer, and it just so happened my friend had this year's program laying around. I'm so jealous that he got one in the mail, but I didn't. ;( It covers a hugely diverse fan base from trekies to anime freaks, indi film makers to comic books. Gamers of every variety from table top, console gaming, to live action role play. In short, there is so much going on at the convention at any given time that its just impossible to experience even a fraction of it. There is something for everyone and enough freedom you could dress up as Darth Vader one day and Michael Jackson the next.

And when you volunteer for the con they encourage you to pick an area that interests you most as well as a preference on times you want to work. You don't always get exactly what you want-- but it helps to prevent missing things that are going on that you want to go to. i.e. maybe you don't want to host and run the rave but you'd rather be able to go there as just a guest so that you don't miss out on some activities.

Cus that was another issue that soured me-- some of you guys had some really cool contests going on and I felt unable to participate.

Envy, I think I love you. You took the ideas from my head, wrote them down, and made them better. *lots of bowing and scraping* I totally made a diagram with some of those elements, and then it disappeared (yes, you infected me with diagram making razz ).

I think the Big Plot manga idea is inspired. With the plotters and artists we have here, I'm sure it'd be a success. Well, as sure as I can be at the moment. ^_^

I think having a PR team in place will help cut out a lot of those problems. Keeping morale up via social events throughout the year, meet & greeting new members, and direction new members to where they can help the ball the most can solve a lot of things. I know for a fact a lot of potential helpers were lost because they didn't know where to begin.

That same PR team can use their socialistic talents to answer the questions of the guests and direct them to ball threads that may interest them most even during the ball. Unfortunately, I think these people will be forced into an over usage of smiley faces even when they want to slap someone over the head for asking a question that could have been found in the FAQ. ^^

phew. I havent read the long posts yer, but I'll get to it when I come back on <_<

As for the video bit, I can make one I suppose =D although, if you're looking for a vid using real people, I'm not for the job cause I suck at those xD but I think (lol) I do specialize in making vids from animated vids already...err like AMV's sort of.

Um, suppose I can send you the Narcotics video I made for my health class? It used Final Fantasy and KH videos to translate the idea of narcotics lol the teacher decided to play it at assembly @_@;

I agree with Angel. For example, what's gonna happen to the room that opens last? I'm totally in favor of the idea that even the hosts can RP in other rooms, but we should have all the rooms open at once.

Besides, no offense to them, but I really don't think we should rely on the mods to open up a thread each day.