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Hi everyone,

As you may or may not know, there's a very popular thing going on in the Historic Themes forums for quite some time, called "The Guilds of Historica".

There are different groups of MOCers (guilds) who compete agains each other in an imaginary world with a great storyline.

I've already had quite a few suggestions from members who'd like to have a similar thing in the Pirate forums.

So I thought, before we start anything, I'd like to get an indication as to how many people would be interested, and I'd also like to get suggestions as to what such a Guilds thing would look like for the Pirate forums.

So if you have ideas and/or of you'd like to participate, post a comment! :pirate:

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I know I don't have the discipline to keep up with such a long term thing,

I signed up for GoH but haven't done much, also entered the Shadows of Nar Eurbrikka thing but abondoned it after the first episode pir_wacko.gif .

A pirate guild may be different though, I'm quite certain that I will build pirate mocs for a long time still and I hang around here quite often and don't think that will change soon so I would definitely sign up pir_laugh2.gif , I think I would devote myself to a big role even.

I like the Idea and the discussion should be interesting pirate_classic.gif .

Edited by Sebeus I

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I remember doing a similar topic several months ago, I think it could function like factions rather than guilds, 'coz there's a lot of sides to belong to in the lego pirate universe, (islanders, redcoats, bluecoats, armada, pirates) and each faction could go even deeper!. Lego pirates have A LOT of potential, both storyside and in the roles we can play, or the MOCs we can build!. Personally I love the idea, and would be more than honored to contribute to the project, just for fun! and to attract more attention to the pirate world pirate_satisfied.gif

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I like the idea, though personally I don't think it should be split amongst the current factions (pirates, armada, islanders, etc).

The reason for this being that it limits the creative flow in my opinion. Someone is going to complain if people start mixing Armada and Imperials in a port city when they are supposed to be separate and distinct.

The best option I believe is to create whole new fantasy "nations" and allow people to mix and mingle existing sets to create a more diverse environment. We could easily still have a nation that is more dark/sinister and thus geared towards pirates, and another more rural for islanders, etc. But if someone wants to build a small trading port for their rural/islander nation they should be able too.

That being said, we could always do the program via fleets where everyone just builds ships for their faction's armada, but that would turn a lot of landlubbers like myself away

Just my thoughts, but either way I would be interested!

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I consider this to be like a role playing game, similar to Dungeons and Dragons, but online! every participant is a player, and there are "war" events, or special events,... in every competition theres always expectations, adrenaline, and interest, everyone wants to shows their best moves and tactics, in this case, MOCs :P ... and like I said before, Lego Pirates is HUGE!! it can easily be just "pirates guilds" and making it a competition between each other pirate armada / fleet / broderhood, to obtain more loot, gain reputation and terrorize the seven seas!... and I am just considering the idea with pirates, when you mix every other faction, the fun really begins!

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There's a good possibility that I'd be interested in this. As long as there's enough people that join up. And maybe it would be a little easier to understand. I'm still conflicted about joining GoH due to it being a little confusing.

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I'm sort of split in my opion.

To begin with, it was actually GoH that lured me away from the pirates into the history forum. Up to that point (November 2012) I had mostly posted and build for this forum. When GoH came, I really lost interest in the pirates forum and also shifted my interest in ship building from the 18th to the 15th century. What I liked especially about GoH, was the immidiate feedback you'd recieve for your mocs there, which hasn't always been the case here. I think it wasn't only me though who shifted his attention then, I think the same goes for DC, Z and a bunch of others.

So on the one hand, the whole team building contest started my interest in pirates again and just yesterday, I ordered pieces so I can make an attempt at building another 18th century vessel. On the other hand though, I'd fear that if the pirate guild thing was too close to GoH, we'd start to loose members there, which is something I wouldn't like, now that I've become history reg. and am currently trying to get some more naval action started in that project.

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I think this makes a lot of sense, especially since we have already a lot of people who prefer to build for certain factions anyway. I would definitely be interested in participating, but I would only be able to do so in the future. I currently dont have access to many of my bricks, or time to build with what I do have.

I like the idea, though personally I don't think it should be split amongst the current factions (pirates, armada, islanders, etc).

The reason for this being that it limits the creative flow in my opinion. Someone is going to complain if people start mixing Armada and Imperials in a port city when they are supposed to be separate and distinct.

I dont think this will be an issue. Port cities have always been diverse, and so have mocs. I know that people include lots of figs from other guilds over in the GoH forum without issue, so I doubt it would be different here.

Edited by 2maxwell

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This sounds exciting! I would be interested in joining the Pirate Guilds. I've often wished to build in GoH but couldn't pull my attention away from my pirate era MOCs and so never started.

I think the guild breakdown would be Red Coats, Blue Coats, and Pirates. These groups could have sub-themes like the Dark Blue Coats under the Reds, Armada with Blue, and of course Islanders with Pirates for Sebeus. Limiting the number of factions would keep more participants working together, and I believe these three factions have sufficient fan bases.

Edited by Mr. Townsend

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I like the idea. Not just like GoH, but something similar, rooted in pirate lore. Count me in!

The best option I believe is to create whole new fantasy "nations" and allow people to mix and mingle existing sets to create a more diverse environment. We could easily still have a nation that is more dark/sinister and thus geared towards pirates, and another more rural for islanders, etc. But if someone wants to build a small trading port for their rural/islander nation they should be able too.

I think this is a start on the right track. Maybe even actual nations of the time, just create different histories.

There's a good possibility that I'd be interested in this. As long as there's enough people that join up. And maybe it would be a little easier to understand. I'm still conflicted about joining GoH due to it being a little confusing.

I too found GoH to be a little confusing. I don't think it started that way. As it went along the stories got deeper and more intertwined and a history started to emerge. If you didn't keep up with it for a while, you could easily get lost.

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I agree that GoH is a good idea, but not having been involved from the start I feel lost.

Perhaps to counter that we do something to what yawgmoth suggested when he said that he considers everyone their own player.

What I mean by this is that we consider each participating player as their own entity, but group them under 1 of 4 (or some other number) over arching groups.

So like a participant could consider themselves as a pirate captain leading a fleet of ships working for the Pirate Council, a business man managing ports for the Royal Trading Corp, a native looking to grow his tribe under the Ubatang Nation, or pilgrams trying to settle the new world for The Le'Efant.

The bottom line is that their is some background/structure for people to work from, but ultimately they are in control of their own history. Then, from time to time their leaders will call on them to meet certain goals (settle an island, battle an enemy, etc) on behalf of the greater cause. This allows comraderie, competition, and challenge.

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Quite a lot of replies already, that's promising! I think we can continue with the development.

I'll try to make a new "secret" forum for everyone who wants to help with this, and then we can decide on other things, like how many/what factions we want.

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I think it'd be fun to participate. Factions could include soldiers, Spaniards, Islanders, and pirates. Or maybe factions from four different seas...pirate_look.gif

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I would be interested, but I agree that simplicity is needed--I too considered joining GoH but lost my way when I tried to understand it all. There should be some story behind the conflict, but not so complex that it discourages newcomers.

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Since the POTC is actually the theme that brought me from the dark age I consider pirates my favourite theme. Saddly I lost interest due to the lack of new LEGO sets ...

But this is some good news and I have some sugestions for this game. Let me say I have little experince with GoH (but followed it quite much) and that I'm an active SoNE participant and I'd like to point a few things that I think are neccessary for success:

- First, a great storyline is a big plus for such game, which I think GoH has and SoNE lacks a lot. Also going with the movie canon was in my opinion a bad idea for SoNE for making the game a bit limited.

- On the other hand I find GoH a bit too free for everything - Star Wars characters finding place and so on makes it a bit messy.

- So I think it should be made very clear what all is allowd in the game - for example is the game going the pure realistic pirates, are beasts and monstrums like Davy Jones from POTC acceptable or is the game going to a more steampunkish version, which might also be interesting. For example I remember someone using canons in GoH and was politely told that GoH is not about that ... The game should be a bit limited to what is allowed so it doesn't become everyone's mashup! In the end of the day everyone can build ordinary pirate ships / ports / ... with humans if he does not have any other introduced races. Things that should be discussed prior to launch: Are dwarfs and orcs allowed too? And what about magic? I think this could work for an interesting universe making a step further from "classic pirates"!

- About the title, I'd suggest Pirates of brick waters - a cool reference to pirates of dark waters and avoiding the word "seas" which is a bit too common for pirates and "guilds" to avoid the similarity with GoH.

- Factions should be well thought of and there should be at least 3. The more the better and also at least 1 member per guild / fraction should be a leader (maybe also a moderator of that particular subforum) to pull the strings and push things forward when it's needed. Being active and actually building something from time to time is a big plus and a must for such person in my opinion. That is one thing that is very well impplemented in GoH and is very shaky in SoNE. BUT! If there's not enough (active!) participants, then more fractions means only a few participants from each side :(

- Another thing is that the game should have a very clear goal and a system that makes sense!

* GoH has some good storyline, but the gold collecting is not very clear to me. Also I find their forums a bit confusing with updating old posts and I find it hard to find certain information - it's not beginner friendly since there's a lot of content. I do understand thet people following it from the start know where to search for information.

* SoNE has an interesting idea of RPG system but is not executet too well and lacks something more. One of the very original ideas of SoNE was episode II, where your bricks were limited to 3 sets. Also the winning fraction from previous episode had an extra small set available!

- A separate forum is a must! GoH has it, but SoNE lacks it big time!

- if it's a competition, there should be some prizes! I know it's hard to acquire those, but still a small set or pack of bricks is still better than nothing. Tags and titles might also work but nothing beats some new bricks :) I think that rewards are just something that attracts some more participants! Also judging of MOCs should be done by "Experts" like in SoNE rather than by public vote. GoH has some mixture of both which is also a bit confusing.

Some more notes:

- bare in mind that GoH was there first, meaning there are some players there that might be interested in this game but will not switch for being there for a long time. So, do not give up too early if the game is not a big success right after the launch! The worse the response from the participants is, the more effort needs to be put in at least from the beginning!

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Excellent.

I've seen some very good points already:

  • There should be a storyline. A good story, but also easy to understand.
  • In spite of the storyline, there should be a lot of freedom to develop different characters with their own sub-stories.
  • We should start with about 3 factions, each consisting of different "themes" like pirates/privateers, navy, land based, islanders, etc.
  • It should be easy for new members to participate.
  • Further development with a few dedicated members in a new sub-forum can be serviceable (and will be created).

Now, unfortunately I don't have time to visit the forum this weekend, so the sub-forum will probably be created sometime next week. In the meantime, don't hesitate to continue the discussion here.

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I'm really interested! I've never joined GOH but played LCC before. I'm inactive at that moment because I feel strict rules and factions forced me to build the same stuffs again and again and I needed some break.

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This sounds like a good idea. I do have some questions we need to ask.

Points system - We should decide if there are "winners" during the RPG or are we just acting out a story for fun as we go along? Do players have stats tables like in DnD and other similar games? How does ranking up work? How will these points be rewarded? Do we have to roll dice to determine outcomes of conflicts?

Storyline - I think it would be cool to use a real map of the oceans. There should also be a game master that helps move the story along. I personally think it would be cool if the story lines last a relatively short time (months maybe) and when that storyline ends a completely new one (within the same universe) can be created for us to follow. This may help with new followers joining later. With the new storyline the game master can introduce a NPC faction (Islanders as an example, maybe a single pirate shoip crew) that we can incorporate into our builds of the story.

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As with Kabel, my posts before Nov 2011 were 99% in this forum. My pirate collection is huge, but I have not touched it since GoH started.

Although I did offer to help run a guilds clone in the pirates forum back in early 2012, I believe. I am pretty sure there was a pretty vivid debate that went on then, I bet there is a bunch of good ideas in that thread...

Anyway, after being one of the early players in GoH, a guild leader there, helping kick around ideas for LCC before it started (i went inactive fairly early in LCC), a board game designer, and a pirate historian, I have a lot of thoughts on how to launch a new system. I would gladly help, although I am not sure how much I would participate in the project after it gets running, at least until summer. Although, I suppose it might be a good way to persuade me to finally build the imperial city I had planned for ten years...

So a few basic points:

1) I think that a real life map is not the way to go, other than if there were new nations. This is an international forum, there are going to be people who are upset when the French or British win a victory for out of character reasons. With that in mind , I think four colonial nations should exist. Pirates would be a wildcard, but not necessarily a faction. They would be more like free agents that would sign on to a nation for a set duration of a challenge(s). Some people would stay loyal to their nation throughout the project, and others may end up going "pirate" at times. This would leave some nations to offer "pardons" for pirates to rejoin a faction. This would keep the system dynamic, and more true to life.

2) speaking of true to life, perhaps the fantasy should be left to GoH... this may be the historian in me, or the old pirate builder in me, but I think mysteries of the deep are cool (maybe some sea monsters) but zombie ships are not my cup of tea. LCC took care of this by basically making a magic zone. I suppose that beyond the line there may be a place that is mysterious, but I don't think the whole world should be effected by the supernatural. However, if it is a totally make-believe map and nations, i don't see why some other "humanoid" species couldn't be involved.

3) The challenges should all have in-game story consequences. The first challenge may be a "rush to colonization" building challenge. The winning nation should be able to carve out a piece of the "new world" map to join their territory. The nation in last place should get none! Also, perhaps winning "gold" could have some sort of benefit. In book I of GoH, the gold just showed which guild was the overall winner. I think if the nation adds gold to its treasury, it should be able to do something with it. Perhaps initiate a vote of its membership to purchase a new colony, or build a city, etc... or perhaps players themselves collect gold, and can use it to buy their way into a new guild, pay off a ransom, etc...

4) Do you want game mechanics? GoH does not have a system like this (::Spoiler alert:: although we have talked about one for Book 3) and LCC opted not to go with a game mechanic. Both are basically judged building competitions, with some plot consequence. I know many war-gamers would have liked to have been able to actually take an enemy's land, or in this case maybe their ship(theoretically)? Some ways that this could be done: A mini-iron builder competition (three builds, judged by a panel) or even something non-building related such as dice rolls by a third party. IF a game mechanic comes in, those with smaller collections / less building time need to be considered for fairness.

Ok... enough of that for now. How about some practical knowledge -- here are some ideas for how to proceed from this point:

A) Find people willing to dedicate a lot of their free time to be nation/faction leaders. Have a vice leader for each faction. I think the lack of this really hurt GoH. It is one of the reasons we lost all four original guild leaders.

B) Decide the factions -- I strongly suggest the four different nations with an free agent pirate presence... I think that would be super cool and make the project more different than the other projects that are out there.

Bi) Decide if a game mechanic will exist.

Bii) Decide how challenges will be presented and judged

Biii) Decide on how guilds will compete (IE: are they competing for Gold, land, resources [who can gather the most bananas by the 5th challenge wins! haha], population, etc...)

C) Open up a map competition. LCC did this, and it was pretty well received.

D) Open up a history competition after the map is finalized. Each person can enter a separate history for each of the Nation (1000 words max)

E) After lore and a map are chosen, start a Wiki site. Use the Wiki site. We have a great tool at GoH, but only 25% use it. This would have alleviated a lot of the stress of trying to join GoH, if the site was comprehensive.

F) Hype this sucker to the max. Make sure the first challenge is something stellar with prizes.

G) Do it quickly, before the competition does. Doesn't CC have a pirates arm that is becoming quite popular? LCC benefited from GoH's weaknesses... but in this case, I don't think you can afford to be second.

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Well as someone who has some experience in GoH...

1) The one thing it WILL certainly do is raise the skill level of builders. We had builders who started out on the very bottom level who have become absolute power MOCers. I think the big draw there is you can see what other people are doing and you can quickly learn a whole TON of new techniques.

Some examples?

soccerkid 6

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Legonardo

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8618675930_a896b0f760_n.jpg

10936501594_8f148d895c_n.jpg

11287117133_6255b2748e_n.jpg

ZCerberus

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11226760594_70bebf7b9f_n.jpg

2) The organizers will have to work A LOT. We burned out ALL four of the original guild leaders, 1 moderator and 1 regualtor in the first "Book" of GoH.

3) You are going to want some way to keep people interested. I would suggest a way to change leadership or lands/areas in the process.

4) I do worry it will poach some members of GoH, but at the same time, maybe that just menas GoH needs to step it up to keep people interested.

5) I am concerned it will become lots of ships, not so much on the ground. That is one nice side of GoH. Lots of terrains and flora to explore. Something to think about.

6) The concerns about GoH being overwhelming are a bad sign for you. GoH isn't that hard to get into, especially the new second Book, so if there is diffuculty from members here, then there will be difficulty here as well.

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I'd like to express my support of this idea.

I will probably be just as shy as I am in GoH (MOC-wise), but I've been hankering to get me some pirate MOCs going!

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