1487 replies to this topic

[Angeli]

I Scream Clone, on 20 February 2012 - 10:57 PM, said:

(sorry for the delay, but exclusives take time to manufacture   )

No excuses! Drow should rule Nocturnus, obviously!
...but more of that later ;)

[rogueang]

Thanks for pointing out daMaximus's Historica City Guide.  I saw it on my first run through the threads, but I decided to take a break after compiling the MOCs.  It is now included at the top of the MOC index along with NiceMarmot's mapmaking guide and the Albion thread (under Avalonia).

[moorkueken]

signing up

[Flint]

DaMaximus, on 19 February 2012 - 11:05 PM, said:

The points can be found somewhere between the thousands topics of MOC's I think :D
DC has it unpinned accidentally a few days ago, so it went right between the topic with the post just posted before and the one with the post posted after. I guess you will have to go around 40 or more Topic's back :p

Ah... right. I searched for it in the Historica topics (40 pages...), but couldn't find anything of the sort. Could you remember the name so that I might find it for you?

Derfel Cadarn, on 19 February 2012 - 11:29 PM, said:

Oops, didn't notice that one.  I think we are going to redo the scored bored and make it more prominent so it gets updated every month.

Yes, please! Could you include the rules/system mechanics with that too? I still in the dark as to how it works and haven't found an explanation anywhere.  

Angeli, on 20 February 2012 - 08:04 AM, said:

There should not be many things pinned. We already have four topics for four guilds, one introduction thread, one for challenges and one index. That is seven already, and even that is to much. But, all seven are needed

And I was looking at this topic, and it is more then slightly confusing (to me). There should be only one "index" topic, and it should have thumbs (like MOC index

How it will be organized is something we could talk about, but those are finesse.

I hope you agree with the current solution, having it linked in the MOC index. Seems to me that organisation of ideas and topics is the only thing that our guilds are struggling with. Perhaps we should start a discussion/topic with possible organisation frameworks? Share our ideas with the moderators? More than willing to participate and help out...

[Si-MOCs]

Flint, on 23 February 2012 - 01:52 PM, said:

Ah... right. I searched for it in the Historica topics (40 pages...), but couldn't find anything of the sort. Could you remember the name so that I might find it for you?

Try: http://www.eurobrick...showtopic=62242
The problem was that the scoreboard (before right now) was in a picture... hence UNSEARCHABLE  
That has been fixed.

Flint, on 23 February 2012 - 01:52 PM, said:

Yes, please! Could you include the rules/system mechanics with that too? I still in the dark as to how it works and haven't found an explanation anywhere.  

Good point.

Above thread sort of discusses it.

I will add some mechanics text tonight both here and in that thread (or unless someone beats me to it).

Flint, on 23 February 2012 - 01:52 PM, said:

I hope you agree with the current solution, having it linked in the MOC index. Seems to me that organisation of ideas and topics is the only thing that our guilds are struggling with. Perhaps we should start a discussion/topic with possible organisation frameworks? Share our ideas with the moderators? More than willing to participate and help out...

Here is a great place to start :)
We're always open to ideas.

[Flint]

Thanks for your efforts, SI-Mocs.

I'll post any ideas I have here, then.

[Zach Mills]

What is the likelihood that Avalonia will open up for new members again? I really want to get involved in the guilds, but Avalonia is the guild I am keen on, and I have placed an order for a tower I planned to build for the guild (which I did before actually checking that I could sign up for it, as I am a fool.)

[Flint]

Zach Mills, on 25 February 2012 - 08:26 AM, said:

What is the likelihood that Avalonia will open up for new members again? I really want to get involved in the guilds, but Avalonia is the guild I am keen on, and I have placed an order for a tower I planned to build for the guild (which I did before actually checking that I could sign up for it, as I am a fool.)

All I can say (as a foreigner from the Mitgardian mountain ranges) is that they are discussing opening the guild again, perhaps combined with a clean-up of inactive members. Check their guild topic to see what I mean.

And on a sidenote, I also wanted to join Avalonia in the first place, but now I think Mitgardia is way cooler. Just saying.

[Damaximus]

Flint, on 25 February 2012 - 10:53 AM, said:

All I can say (as a foreigner from the Mitgardian mountain ranges) is that they are discussing opening the guild again, perhaps combined with a clean-up of inactive members. Check their guild topic to see what I mean.

And on a sidenote, I also wanted to join Avalonia in the first place, but now I think Mitgardia is way cooler. Just saying.

Almost everybody first wanted to join Avalonia...
Probably due the fact everybody has a lot of grey bricks...

But also here, I am much more happier I joined Kaliphlin. Kaliphlins are way more gentle, smarter and finer than those barbaric Avalonians

The problem Avalonia has now with inactive members is probably because the best builders (most of them were really active in the Pirates forum) started in Avalonia and their excellent MOC's somehow discouraged the other Avalonians. I mean, look at the work of ZCerbus, de Gothia, DC, MikeyB, Captain Beerbeard, and some others ... They set up a really high standard for Avalonia.

[Zach Mills]

Flint, on 25 February 2012 - 10:53 AM, said:

All I can say (as a foreigner from the Mitgardian mountain ranges) is that they are discussing opening the guild again, perhaps combined with a clean-up of inactive members. Check their guild topic to see what I mean.

And on a sidenote, I also wanted to join Avalonia in the first place, but now I think Mitgardia is way cooler. Just saying.

DaMaximus, on 25 February 2012 - 11:12 AM, said:

Almost everybody first wanted to join Avalonia...
Probably due the fact everybody has a lot of grey bricks...

But also here, I am much more happier I joined Kaliphlin. Kaliphlins are way more gentle, smarter and finer than those barbaric Avalonians

The problem Avalonia has now with inactive members is probably because the best builders (most of them were really active in the Pirates forum) started in Avalonia and their excellent MOC's somehow discouraged the other Avalonians. I mean, look at the work of ZCerbus, de Gothia, DC, MikeyB, Captain Beerbeard, and some others ... They set up a really high standard for Avalonia.

Thanks for the help guys, I'll check the guild topic now.

I'm in favor of Avalonia because it is led by Derfel Cadarn, who is my inspiration for building castle. I also think my signature characters story works the best with them.

[Flint]

DaMaximus, on 25 February 2012 - 11:12 AM, said:

Almost everybody first wanted to join Avalonia...
Probably due the fact everybody has a lot of grey bricks...

Isn't it because everyone around here loves trees?  

DaMaximus, on 25 February 2012 - 11:12 AM, said:

The problem Avalonia has now with inactive members is probably because the best builders (most of them were really active in the Pirates forum) started in Avalonia and their excellent MOC's somehow discouraged the other Avalonians. I mean, look at the work of ZCerbus, de Gothia, DC, MikeyB, Captain Beerbeard, and some others ... They set up a really high standard for Avalonia.

That could definitely be it, but it's not really going to change, is it? They couldn't really ask the MOC experts to produce less intimidating builds.

[Angeli]

DaMaximus, on 25 February 2012 - 11:12 AM, said:

Almost everybody first wanted to join Avalonia...

Not us, we hated those greensleevers from the beginning, and their dancing in the sun, picking flowers and writing poetry ;)

The only thing those pesky treehuggers are good are agriculturing, slavery and hunting. And we mean it like a pray.

The only good Avalonians we know are running through the labyrinth or working in the mines ;)

Drow rule supreme! :)

[Damaximus]

Angeli, on 25 February 2012 - 12:04 PM, said:

Not us, we hated those greensleevers from the beginning, and their dancing in the sun, picking flowers and writing poetry ;)

The only thing those pesky treehuggers are good are agriculturing, slavery and hunting. And we mean it like a pray.

The only good Avalonians we know are running through the labyrinth or working in the mines ;)

Drow rule supreme! :)

you mean listening to poetry I guess. Most Avalonians can't write or read

[de Gothia]

Tss, all this envy doesn´t suit you guys... We can read and do our math for sure! And that maze our beloved Drow master is speaking of will never be the faith of our souls!

On a more serious note than all this Avalonia hate, I really hope that people don´t stop building because there are some excellent builders in our guild (and I´m honoured to be mentioned amongst them, but I don´t count my self in that great group of builders. I´m some steps behind them..).

I think we have a great group of people that encourage people to build more and better then their last moc. I think I´ve improved very much since this GoH came up and I really hope that people feel that we try to improve their building technique and not being scared of joining us.

And if Avalonia is still closed, people can always join other guilds as there is green fields and forests in all of the other guilds as well!

[rogueang]

Here is how my thought process worked for guild selection:

Kaliphlin - I like the desert theme, but I would not want to be limited to desert only MOCs, plus I own no PoP sets.
Nocturnus - Swamps and mountains with a labyrinth - again I can think of some cool builds for each of these, but I would not want to be limited to swamp MOCs.  Mountain MOCs would be fine, but the guild just had more of an evil tinge to it, and my character always tend to be lawful good or chaotic good .

So that brings it down to Avalonia and Mitgardia.  The Camelot theme of Avalonia did not appeal to me, and I was inches away from declaring for Mitgardia, because I really like the rugged northern climes - forests, snow, glaciers, etc.  As I was putting together my sigfig to post, I realized that I would have a really hard time incorporating yellow and green into my builds.  Yellow = hay/thatching in my book, and I almost never want to use it for my buildings.  Green I have in abundance, but I'm always using it for foliage and landscaping, and I prefer to use different colors for my buildings.  Plus I still think of green as a being a scarce color among standard pieces (even though I know it's pretty common now.)

At this point, I went back through and reviewed the guilds again.  I'll have to admit that I loved Derfel's building guide, and this made me take a harder look at Avalonia (although at this point, I hadn't seen any builds by the other guild leaders.)  Then I saw it: Elves!  Avalonia has Elves!  They are not explicitly mentioned in the other guilds, and I associate Dwarves with Mitgardia and Nocturnus, and Drow with Nocturnus, but Avalonia is home to the Elves.  (I cannot tell you how unbelievably excited I had been when I saw that Lego had an Elf fig in Series 3, and made so many visits to TRU and Bricklink to find Elves.)  This was what pushed me over the edge into Avalonia - I could use my Elves, and I really liked Derfel's building style, so that's where I went.  

I think that the Camelot theme appeals to a lot of people, as do the Elves, Forestmen, and yes the forests. I would expect Nocturnus to be the lowest populated guild, because I would think the Swamp/Dark lands theme would be less popular, but there would be a small core that would love it.  I also think there is a lot of grey area for a Nocturnus building style since it could be more Tim Burton/Sleepy Hollow, or Southern U.S./Bayou or more volcanic/lava/mountainous, or even just villainous lair/fortress. I would expect Kaliphlin and Mitgardia to compete for 2nd, since Mitgardia is still your typical forested - Medieval European landscape - exactly what I would envision for a castle theme, and the desert theme would provide a nice alternative to the greener landscapes.  Additionally, PoP came out recently, and Tan bricks are pretty common.  Also, the building style is very stylized, and I can picture exactly the style I would use if I were building in Kaliphlin.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


In terms of membership participation - (sorry this post just keeps going on forever) - I'm guessing we have a few levels of involvement:
- Members who posted initially, but will never post a MOC again
- Members that will be reading the forums regularly, but only post when there is a roll call (they may rarely post a MOC, but they are still enjoying the forums)
- Members who will consistently create an entry for each challenge, but not much else.
- Active members that post at least a MOC a month, and/or post at least weekly on the forums.

I would not be opposed to some cleaning of house with the guild memberships, since there are a lot of people that posted initially with Avalonia that I have never seen another post from.  Beerbeard just asked for sigfig posts in Avalonia so we know who is still active.  I think this is a great idea, since it lets you know who's still paying attention.  I would say as long as members will still post for a roll call, they should still be included in the guild.  

I for one, would be open to creating a sig-fig for another guild, but I know this would split my time, and there would be numerous reasons to not allow this.(I hope I'm not opening up a can of worms here..  

[Derfel Cadarn]

Can open, worms EVERYWHERE!!!!

In all seriousness, we knew that as time went on, people may fancy building in other guilds, that is why we have made a point of saying that you can build scenes in other lands, just as long as they are rellevent to your guild. I really wanted to build a moc in Kaliphlin, I can just create a scene that explains that some Avalonians are on a mission in Kaliphlin, simple as that. Obviously you cant go building your own cities and towns in another guild, or build there all the time, otherwise you might as well be in that guild.
  I think that the majority of members are now comfortable in their guilds and each guilds building style is starting to fall into place. What I like is that even though we said there were green areas in each realm, people are still mainly sticking to their guilds different landscapes. You can flick through all the mocs from each guild and every land looks really unique. This is great, and shows that every builder here has risen to the challenge.

I've allways thought Nocturnus has a lot of potential for some of the best stylized mocs. I'm thinking classic Horror B-movie style, scarcy twisted gothic goodness!

Still, its early days, and Nocturnus has a devoted membership who are all great builders.

Yes, Avalonia is the easiest guild to build in, its your standard Medieval England style group. Followed by Mitgardia, Kaliphlin and lastly Nocturnus.
   However, if your talking about imaginative stand out style, that list is reversed.

[Kayne]

Well said DC!  When I first signed up, I wanted to go to Avalonia.  The entire reason for that was that it would have been the most comfortable for me to build in based on what I have done in the past.  Avalonia was full, so I just went with Kaliphlin, because the idea of it seemed pretty cool.  Now, I am very happy to have joined that guild for the challenges that it has presented to me as a newer builder.  The great guild-members that are with me help a ton too!

So anyway, I would encourage anyone looking to join to not just go with what is comfortable, but instead push yourself outside of your 'comfort-zone' and try something different.  In the end that may be the best for your growth as a MOC'er

[NiceMarmot]

You could certainly build in Derfel Cadarn's style in any of the other guilds.  Mitgardia is close enough in style that DC-style buildings would fit right in, maybe with a bit more grey stone and snow. Kaliphlin has extensive forests in the west, near the Avalonian border, so DC-style MOCs fit in fine there. And in Nocturnus, a DC-style building with some bizarro touches would fit right in; there have been several examples already in the embassy challenge.

When I originally signed up, I went for Kaliphlin because I have a lot of tan bricks and a bunch of PoP sets I bought on clearance. But now I realize that I could have easily gone into any guild. The bricks you have don't matter as much as the type of stories you want to represent.  Go for Nocturnus if you want dark, bizarre, and somewhat evil, Mitgardians are more solid, practical, and tough Scandinavians, and Kaliphlins are sunny, trade-happy, anything-goes southerners who enjoy the good life.  

If you're still set on Avalonia, you can either wait, or join another guild and develop a creative backstory that involves getting exiled from Avalonia and your lifelong quest to prove your innocence and return to the land of trees and flowers...  If you went that route, you could even build vignette MOCs based in Avalonia depicting the events that led to your exile!

[RPGer]

If we are going to have all of this planned out like this, we should have a RPG, because it's a nice and detailed world.  Feel free to share  your thoughts.  

[Flipz]

RPGer, on 29 February 2012 - 11:51 PM, said:

If we are going to have all of this planned out like this, we should have a RPG, because it's a nice and detailed world.  Feel free to share  your thoughts.  

I disagree.  We already have a medieval/fantasy RPG, that's Heroica.  We don't need another one, ESPECIALLY one with such a similar name to Heroica.  (Now a sci-fi RPG would be fun--but I'm already working on that. )

What I WOULD like to see is some kind of story link between the Heroica RPG world and this one.  Are they two separate worlds, linked by mystic portals?  Are they two separate continents on opposite sides of the world, completely cut off from each other under ordinary conditions?  Is one set in the distant future/past of the other?  These sort of links are ones I'd like to explore.  I'd rather link to what we already have rather than attempting to replace something that already works.

[Brickdoctor]

Flipz, on 29 February 2012 - 11:58 PM, said:

What I WOULD like to see is some kind of story link between the Heroica RPG world and this one.  Are they two separate worlds, linked by mystic portals?  Are they two separate continents on opposite sides of the world, completely cut off from each other under ordinary conditions?  Is one set in the distant future/past of the other?  These sort of links are ones I'd like to explore.  I'd rather link to what we already have rather than attempting to replace something that already works.

I don't know about other people's characters, but I've pretty much decided that the Bartholomew Docken of Historica and the Bartholomew Docken of Heroica RPG are the same character.

Spoiler

The rough timeline I have is that Baldwin Brickdocton colonizes the island, Barnard Brickdocton becomes an Avalonian knight, Benedict Brickdocton builds Brickdocton Manor (and it's no coincidence that he happens to have the same face as Lord Keveak), Bryan Brickdocton builds Brickdocton Castle, Barnaby Docken explores the world and encounters Heroica (I don't really care whether that becomes the official first interaction between the two or not, I just want him to be the reason the family knows of Heroica), and Bernard Docken marries a Forestwomen and fathers Bartholomew. Then Bartholomew goes to Heroica, does his hero thing (exact occurrences unknown, obviously), and returns to the island when he gets to old for heroics. (à la Obi-Wan Kenobi) Brickdocton Castle eventually becomes the castle I plan to include in a mid-1900s train layout I want to build, and a descendant of Bartholomew is Barty-Bart Docken XVII, the character I created for Alopex's Post-Apoc LDD RCB.

[ZCerberus]

My journey went like this...

Slaving away in the pirates forum making "half-timber" style houses for a village/port there.  I stumble across the guilds posts and my interest wass piqued.  Looked at Avalonia last and notice the guild specifically had that style of building and my pirate friend DC was the leader.  Begin working on my army- then declared for Avalonia!

I always collected castle, but to a large extent, I didn’t really build much.  My ONLY castle MOC EVER before joining the GoH was this one…



though I would agree there is some cross-over with pirates.

I know I have improved my building skills since beginning GoH.  I had NEVER even tried t landscape before the watchtower challenge.  I would encourage everyone in any guild to just learn and grow at your own pace.  I think we collectively have done a good job of encouraging people here, and I hope we continue to encourage growth in all guilds as many of Avalonia's best builders are relatively new castle builders and have become a strong core.

I plan to do a few MOCs in a few of the other lands soon, so I hope others will do the same!

[kabel]

Yeah, GOH is definetely the greatest thing that has happened on EB to this date. I too, originally started to moc in the Pirate realm, but didn't really get that far. With Mayday's great landscape and the beginning of GOH I have started a building frenzy that I hope will last for a little while. So I'm really glad we have this thing going.
I actually joined Mitgardia, as I am very fascnianted with the old Hanseatic port cities that can be found around the North- and Baltic Sea. Mitgardia seemed to be the right place to moc in this style! I do however admit, that the difference between Mitgardia and Avalonia can't be really that big in comparison to the other guilds.

[NiceMarmot]

kabel, on 01 March 2012 - 07:04 PM, said:

I do however admit, that the difference between Mitgardia and Avalonia can't be really that big in comparison to the other guilds.

I thought so too, but your most recent build (the Thinghall and the merchant's houses) really represents a serious divergence in style from Avalonia.  That MOC, and others like Ecclesiastes' Gyhnran stave church (and his Elymas embassy), Rolli's Moria embassy, and perhaps the top half of my embassy, really set out a unique style for Mitgardia, and would look very much out of place in Avalonia. I think that there might be some potential overlap in style, but Mitgardia can definitely develop its style in a direction that diverges from Avalonia.

[RPGer]

RPGer, on 29 February 2012 - 11:51 PM, said:

If we are going to have all of this planned out like this, we should have a RPG, because it's a nice and detailed world.  Feel free to share  your thoughts.  

Flipz, on 29 February 2012 - 11:58 PM, said:

I disagree.  We already have a medieval/fantasy RPG, that's Heroica.  We don't need another one, ESPECIALLY one with such a similar name to Heroica.  (Now a sci-fi RPG would be fun--but I'm already working on that. )













What I WOULD like to see is some kind of story link between the Heroica RPG world and this one.  Are they two separate worlds, linked by mystic portals?  Are they two separate continents on opposite sides of the world, completely cut off from each other under ordinary conditions?  Is one set in the distant future/past of the other?  These sort of links are ones I'd like to explore.  I'd rather link to what we already have rather than attempting to replace something that already works.

1. I like the idea, and a Sci-Fi RPG would be very fun.
2. This is not something that sounds too great because Doc's and VP's characters are in Historia.  

Brickdoctor, on 01 March 2012 - 12:12 AM, said:

I don't know about other people's characters, but I've pretty much decided that the Bartholomew Docken of Historica and the Bartholomew Docken of Heroica RPG are the same character.



Now, I do like the idea of this, but it would be very complicated.

Spoiler

The rough timeline I have is that Baldwin Brickdocton colonizes the island, Barnard Brickdocton becomes an Avalonian knight, Benedict Brickdocton builds Brickdocton Manor (and it's no coincidence that he happens to have the same face as Lord Keveak), Bryan Brickdocton builds Brickdocton Castle, Barnaby Docken explores the world and encounters Heroica (I don't really care whether that becomes the official first interaction between the two or not, I just want him to be the reason the family knows of Heroica), and Bernard Docken marries a Forestwomen and fathers Bartholomew. Then Bartholomew goes to Heroica, does his hero thing (exact occurrences unknown, obviously), and returns to the island when he gets to old for heroics. (à la Obi-Wan Kenobi) Brickdocton Castle eventually becomes the castle I plan to include in a mid-1900s train layout I want to build, and a descendant of Bartholomew is Barty-Bart Docken XVII, the character I created for Alopex's Post-Apoc LDD RCB.

This is well thought out, Doc, but it is as I said before very complicated.  If we're going to do this it would either get a side-forum in Historic or both it and Heroica get side-forums in Mafia and RPG's.  I would like a Mod to speak on the matter before any decisions are made, however.  I don't want someone working their tail off, only to have their work ruined by a Mod.  

Edited by RPGer, 02 March 2012 - 12:34 AM.