Kai NRG

Thanks guys! Thanks SK. Pretty warmly dressed I suppose, but standing out there in the cold without heating oil would freeze anybody's beard off! Thanks MS! Out of curiosity, did anyone notice the change from blue to purple under the ice? It's definitely more visible from a higher angle but that detracts from the rest of the scene.

I usually find that I build most when there's something else that really needs to be done.

That sounds like a good system, but there are a few problems that I see with it - first of all, it moves the base away from EB, which makes it harder for new members to get involved. That's probably the biggest problem. The second is that it would require a deal of work on your part, and the initial idea was to make this as self-sufficient as possible. The Mitgardians haven't had any complaints about their system so I don't see what's wrong with ours (except that it's less subtle). Maybe if we lowered the passing to three +1s (because it does seem like any MOC that gets that far gets the fourth without much trouble) or two -1 to fail (same reason), that would help MOCs to get through within the normal life of a thread. (The downside of lowering it is that new members could take over the approval process easily, which means required quality could go down - nothing against current new members though!) It's understandable that dG would rather not open an old topic just to read '+1', but the only ways around that take a lot out of the program in other areas. Also, just as a general tip (and maybe this could be edited into the thread), if your MOC has a -1 on an area (or an 'I'm not going to give you credit for this') it's recommended that you retract your claims. That way we don't have a pile of old MOCs that have 1 negative - no one's going to bump an old thread just to say they don't approve. And on the subject, I'd like to claim credit for snow and ice (Landscape Design), shipping by land (Trade and Law), and life in Mitgardia(Anthropology) for my Oil for the Mitgardians build. And missing 1 1/2 for Stranded. Edit: As Gideon brought the topic up in narbilu's thread, I thought I'd mention that IMHO if an MOC is applying for credits for the first time it should be done that way. At least that's how it was initially set up with the Advanced Placement builds (which is basically what NB is doing here) - even though builds could have been as old as June15th, they were still bumped in that way. Now if a build is only missing one credit I can understand it being carried out in this thread. But it's still a lot more complicated (I can't see whether I've already responded, for example). Obviously there's nothing technically wrong with bumping a thread for those reasons, or we would have been told so. Of course we want to be considerate to non-participant GoHers as well, but I think we've struck a pretty close to fair balance. As I said, ideally a MOC would pass within a few weeks, and we could tweak the system to facilitate that, but I don't think we should make any major changes, at least if they're going to influence the rest of the program so decisively.

Oil for the Mitgardians!

“What a beautiful little sled this is,” Ageven exclaimed as he flew along over the ice. “Indeed it is,” his companion agreed. “It’s quite fortunate that we came upon those Mitgardians when we did, they were sorely in need of oil and we needed a good sled!” “Yes, quite a fortunate trade for all… what or who is that?” “If I mistake not it is a pair of fishermen… poor fellows, they’re undoubtedly too cold to bore a hole through this tough ice. But we’ll catch up to them soon.” And the pair continued to glide over the ice until, when within just a few yards of them – for their senses had been dulled by the cold – the two Mitgardians turned around and stepped back in astonishment and fear. “I wonder why they look so scared,” Ageven muttered. “By the beard of my wife!” one exclaimed, “if it isn’t the Kaliphlin pirates!” And with this they both took to their heels, leaving their fishing gear behind. Both Ageven and his companion looked after them in amusement, but it was no wonder the poor Mitgardians ran so fast, for this was what they saw: Recovering himself, Ageven cracked his whip and soon caught up with the unfortunate northerners. And soon they were comfortably seated around a warm oil lamp – all their cold days and dreadful hallucinations at an end! Complete hallucinated vig: Who says the Mitgardians don't need oil? C&C welcome! I'd like to claims UP DoH credit for snow and ice (Landscape Design), shipping by land (Trade and Law), and life in Mitgardia (Anthropology).

I agree that when that's the only comment there's no need to bump a thread as it can be posted here. However, in the case of narbilu, since he's going to want at least 4 +1s, it makes more sense to bump it. Theoretically, a MOC is supposed to either pass or fail within ~3 weeks. If we keep having problems with this we could set a time frame I guess (if it's been three weeks since the last +1 retract your claims please). But that seems kind of tough... The alternative would be that all grading gets done in a specific thread. However, that means graders have to sift through a lot of posts to see how many votes are missing, if they've approved the MOC yet, etc. If you have an idea please mention it!

Fantastic waterfall! The rockwork is superb as well! And the details on the bridge turned out really nicely! +1 for all three!

+1 DoH credit.

You already claimed flowers and dense foliage here. (Since you need three credits for trees that one's fine.) +1 for the other three! The vines especially look great!

+1 for all four! The trees especially are quite unique!

You've already claimed Fortification for this one. And life in Nocty here. Might want to change it?

+1 DoH credit for all four!

I'll definitely give you +1 for the posing. I don't know about the battle scene though. I would think a battle scene would have more figs or at least two people fighting with normal weapons. Excellent job on the landscaping and the guy up in the vines is fantastic!

NM's numbers were I thought based on his map?... which seems to be at a good scale IMO - there certainly is plenty of space for MOCing purposes! Same here. Seasons don't seem really relevant as there isn't really a fixed time schedule either (what constitutes a day? a year?). Actually it would be impossible for a smaller planet to sustain Historica type life... partly because the extremes would be too great. That aside, given your distance calculations, half the US seems quite a feasible size.

Wait... are you trying to say that you Mitgardians don't get hardly any snow? I thought that was your boast! And if you get snow, shouldn't you get freezing weather too? - at least if the snow hangs around for any length of time. I suppose you don't really need -15 degree (Celsius) weather - much less -15 Fahrenheit, but even just freezing (0/32) is way too cold for hanging around without heating. In fact, even just 50 Fahrenheit (or ~12 C), is way too cold for comfort... yeah it's fine when your just out in it a half hour or so, but living with everything - inside, outside - that way is a completely different matter. Try writing, typing, playing an instrument (any activity that requires quick finger movements) after being in a 12 C environment for a couple hours... it really is hard to move your fingers with any speed! Technically I guess the seasons depend a lot on the size of Historica. NM once said it was about the size of Texas, I think... which means that the climates as generally understood (snow in Mitgardia, desert in Kali, swamps in Nocty, and lush forests in Avalonia) are remarkably varied for such a small space. As a matter of fact I don't think seasons have ever really been given a prominent place. Mitgardia is assumed to be always cold (a sort of perpetual winter), Kaliphlin always nice and warm (some might say hot), etc... more like the four different guilds correspond to the seasons!

Actually, I was tempted to give a nice long lecture too. But rogueang's comment stopped me.

Great little MOC! +1 for both credits from me! As far as the snowbank, there are two things I think would improve it - for one thing, I would suggest it not overhang the side if possible. That just looks a little odd - and sort of messes up the nice rectangular vig. (On the same note, I'd suggest that in the future you try to make sure that the side you'll be taking pictures of (particularly the main picture) should be the side with studs, so you can put tiles on it and not be looking down the bottom of a brick, if possible. As a matter of fact, there's a way to get around that altogether - you can stick cheese slopes three quarters in the 2xblank bricks (not every single one, but most kinds), and that way (using the little bit of cheese slope still sticking out), you can attach plates the opposite way... here for example, maybe you can tell that both sides have studs facing outwards (with tiles on top of course). If that was completely unintelligible - which is likely - just say so and I'll try to find the original picture I got it from.) The second thing, I'd suggest you fill in the cracks between the angles (which was probably what was bothering you) with loose slopes and maybe some 1x1 round plates. Also, break up the sides of the mound with other slopes or even just a 1x1 underneath one of the cheese to make it stick out a bit more. Hope that was helpful (and made sense)!

Thanks! Yes, it's a very nice piece! Thanks robuko! I do have several trans-clear plates... you're right that they could probably have been used well there. That's one of the problems with a scene like this... you're never quite sure what angle will turn out best until you've taken the pictures, which makes it hard to visualize exactly what would make the shot better!

Now that you mention it I recall having the same problem when I used IE. Oh well.

And here we thought all Mitgardians were 'rough-and-ready' sort of people... scarves! Guess they're getting tired of the cold. Better bring 'em down here a season!

Nice little carriage! And funny story!

@Narbilu, if you could post on the each of the topics with the specific credits desired for that build it would be appreciated. Don't worry about them being bumped, as you are bringing up something new it's fine.

Like so: You type: Sultan's Gate Then, you select it with your mouse by running the cursor over it and pressing down until the desired text (Sultan's Gate) is highlighted (typically in blue with white letters) Next, click the chain button, this one (please let me know if you can't see the picture): Then, when you get the box pop-up, paste the required URL (in this case, ) into the field that says URL above it Be sure your text (Sultan's Gate) is highlighted! Click okay and you should be ready to go! This is how it should look (even before you post). Color may vary from dark purple to blue, don't worry about that. Sultan's Gate You can double check by right clicking and hitting 'open in new tab', to make sure you have the desired link. Hope that helps you!

All you have to do is highlight/select the picture and then hit the link button. I'd do it below but don't want to repeat the same picture.

There's a little button up top that looks like a chain... select whatever text you want and then click that button. After the square shows up paste the URL of whatever you want to link to in the appropriate box. You probably won't have any trouble with the http, but do make sure there's only one http:// at the beginning of the URL.