Lands of Classic Castle - Discussion Thread

[AK_Brickster]

Great idea, Lord_of_Orcs! Or, alternately, if the magic users are in the minority, we can be relegated to an island or something and leave the majority of the land to the non-magic users.

I also think Cuahchic made some good points, though when you are talking about users in a forum called "Classic-Castle" you're going to get a pretty heavy dose of European-style buildings, I think.
I like the idea of buildings that help to build your character's individual "story", but I also don't want to be handcuffed by it, as others have mentioned. I don't think there's any reason that if your main character lives in a valley, you should feel like you can't build a mountain fortress. And if you want to build a swampy, evil MOC, go for it! Just make up a story to go along with it. Maybe your main Character came across it in his travels or his supplies were hijacked by some raiders. I don't see any reason why someone who inhabits the desert shouldn't be allowed to build a frosty Nordic MOC.

[Teherean]

Okay, to sumarise:

My idea is to cut all ties to GoH and start something completely new and separate here. Here's a couple of my ideas:

> We use five factions, centrerd around the "classic" factions
- These would be Black Falcon (blue/yellow), Crusader (red/yellow), Dragon Masters (red/blue), Forestmen/Wolfpack (Green/red) and the last
Would be a rebel/viking/brigand/whatever themed group for miscelaneous factions. (yellow/green).
- Colors mentioned can vary, I just chose some common colours that would be easily distinctable. Blue could include dark blue, Red could
include dark red, yellow could include gold etc. etc.

> We start a Lore and Map Contest in the stories forum to decide the background we will use for our land, and which geographical shape it will take.
- I have already written lore, so we need other people to judge.
- Rules will be determined when the contest is organised.

> For each clan, we start a building challenge to determine who will lead. The leader of the clan will then elect his other ranks.
- Ranks (from high to low): Clan Leader/Guildmaster/King - Steward - Ambassador - Finance and Commerce minister - General/Field Marshall
- Lower lords (5 to 6 of those).
- NOTE: these are just suggestions. Names for the ranks or their order could be decided per Clan.

> From there on, the Clans organise building challenges about once or twice a month to gain points (similar to what they do at GoH).

Let me know what you think of these.

[Mark of Falworth]

Hey, Cuahchic!

Glad to see you here! Wow, once again that's a lot to take in. I'll see if I can post my thoughts on your thoughts

As for Part 1:
That's a pretty hard subject. I'm not quite sure about that point - I hadn't thought of people joining more than one faction. It's certainly something to consider. Joining more factions than one might work out... we would still want to encourage the competitive aspect of it though.

Part 2:
I heartily agree on this point! I feel that wizards, orcs, trolls, etc, are not realistic and I do not enjoy their presence in medieval lego creations. I personally find them offensive. If we do allow any magic or fantasy... it should be toned down. I understand that others enjoy fantasy and magic but I believe that one faction without magic or fantasy is not going to cut it. I think we can use the real guilds of historica as an example. They do have some magic, but it isn't excessive, I haven't seen any orcs, trolls, or wizards, and I believe the success they have attained is because of the lack of these elements.
What if we had one, or at the most, two, factions that allowed fantasy elements - rather than just one that didn't? I hope we can reach a solution to this problem that suits everyone.

Part 3:
As to the European influence - Guilds of Historica is largely based on this, as you said. I'm not sure if we can part too far from it without it not being applicable to "classic-castle". However, we could try something (once the ball starts rolling on this) like a "new world expansion" with more of a meso-american theme.

About classic factions:
Hmm. This is also a difficult point! Some people have stated that they would rather have most of the main factions based on real LEGO factions. I was suggesting that we use the classic factions with some updates/customizations to make them more appealing and easy to reproduce. This is another point where a few more people voicing their opinions would be helpful!

Thanks for your thoughts, Cuahchic!

I hope to hear what you all think.
~Mark

[lord_of_orks]

I like the idea of buildings that help to build your character's individual "story", but I also don't want to be handcuffed by it, as others have mentioned. I don't think there's any reason that if your main character lives in a valley, you should feel like you can't build a mountain fortress. And if you want to build a swampy, evil MOC, go for it! Just make up a story to go along with it. Maybe your main Character came across it in his travels or his supplies were hijacked by some raiders. I don't see any reason why someone who inhabits the desert shouldn't be allowed to build a frosty Nordic MOC.

I agree, I think that you should have a character which you can build a story around, but you should not have to build mocs only centered around that character and that if we surround the Continent with unclaimed islands with a verity of environments it would give every one a chance to build where ever they want

[Teherean]

Anyone online in the chat right now? I'll be there in a minute.

We need to make a decision on this. If you read my post, I think I came up with a pretty good sugestion to solve our faction problem: We create a special faction for anyone not fitting into the classic themes.

[Mark of Falworth]

Okay, to sumarise:

My idea is to cut all ties to GoH and start something completely new and separate here. Here's a couple of my ideas:

> We use five factions, centrerd around the "classic" factions
- These would be Black Falcon (blue/yellow), Crusader (red/yellow), Dragon Masters (red/blue), Forestmen/Wolfpack (Green/red) and the last
Would be a rebel/viking/brigand/whatever themed group for miscelaneous factions. (yellow/green).
- Colors mentioned can vary, I just chose some common colours that would be easily distinctable. Blue could include dark blue, Red could
include dark red, yellow could include gold etc. etc.

> We start a Lore and Map Contest in the stories forum to decide the background we will use for our land, and which geographical shape it will take.
- I have already written lore, so we need other people to judge.
- Rules will be determined when the contest is organised.

> For each clan, we start a building challenge to determine who will lead. The leader of the clan will then elect his other ranks.
- Ranks (from high to low): Clan Leader/Guildmaster/King - Steward - Ambassador - Finance and Commerce minister - General/Field Marshall
- Lower lords (5 to 6 of those).
- NOTE: these are just suggestions. Names for the ranks or their order could be decided per Clan.

> From there on, the Clans organise building challenges about once or twice a month to gain points (similar to what they do at GoH).

Let me know what you think of these.

Yes, I think we'll have to start something completely new!

I think the classic factions have won out! (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about that...) The only problem I would have with classic factions is that I do not own a lot of the classic helmets and weapons. If we were able to use more modern equipment for the classic figs, I'd be very happy with that! Example:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mark-of-falworth/6830491279/in/photostream

Lore and Map "contest" sounds great! I think it should be on a vote basis. I like the monthly challenge idea (Like at GoH). I'm not sure about the leadership thing... but I suppose that might be a good solution to decide who runs what! What is your opinion on the magic/fantasy elements issue?

This is exciting!
~Mark

[Teherean]

On a side note: I see no problem in combining classic elements with new elements and colours, As long as the faction stays distinct. I couldn't care less if a black falcon weilds a new-grey helmet or a blue-and-white viking shield, as long as he can be distincted as a "blue" figure and the banner colours are there, no problem. A problem would be a red army joining a blue faction. We kinda need to regulate that.

[Teherean]

Also: I myself am not a big fan of orcs/skeletons/fantasy stuff, but I understand that other people are and it would be unfair to leave them out. Giving them a separate island seems to be a good solution, or a separate faction. I don't really like fantasy creatures crawling around in my MOCs, but for the people that do like them, there should be space to do what they want and still be a part of the story.

[KyleKreations]

Wow! We have had some great stuff being discussed. Sorry if I dissapoint but I somewhat like the unique things that Fantasy can bring to Lego. I was thinking that perhaps the story for all of this could include things that explain things better. Such as:
Magic is all but gone now. And any who use it are a forgotten people. The many creatures that used to roam this land have now dispersed. Whether hunted down or just vanished it matters not. Any of them that are left are in dark cave,on high mountain tops, or deep underground. Although their trace will never fully leave. Ancient towers on forgotten coasts and secret pools of magic are still there, but no one has yet discovered them...
I don't know. Using the backstory to explain trends in architecture and culture could really help. Let me know how you like this idea!

[Mark of Falworth]

Also: I myself am not a big fan of orcs/skeletons/fantasy stuff, but I understand that other people are and it would be unfair to leave them out. Giving them a separate island seems to be a good solution, or a separate faction. I don't really like fantasy creatures crawling around in my MOCs, but for the people that do like them, there should be space to do what they want and still be a part of the story.

Yes, I agree that we don't need to leave them out. I also agree that giving them their own fantasy/magical faction or their own island would be a good idea. The problem is that a few have been saying that we should make only one faction that does not allow or outlaws fantasy/magic. I belive that the classic castle factions/people, regular castle knights, kings, should markedly outnumber any orcs, trolls, or magic/fantasy elements in this project.

On a side note: I see no problem in combining classic elements with new elements and colours, As long as the faction stays distinct. I couldn't care less if a black falcon weilds a new-grey helmet or a blue-and-white viking shield, as long as he can be distincted as a "blue" figure and the banner colours are there, no problem. A problem would be a red army joining a blue faction. We kinda need to regulate that.

Thanks! I was wondering what would be acceptable. We can define the rules later on if problems arise.

Wow! We have had some great stuff being discussed. Sorry if I dissapoint but I somewhat like the unique things that Fantasy can bring to Lego. I was thinking that perhaps the story for all of this could include things that explain things better. Such as:<br sab="626">Magic is all but gone now. And any who use it are a forgotten people. The many creatures that used to roam this land have now dispersed. Whether hunted down or just vanished it matters not. Any of them that are left are in dark cave,on high mountain tops, or deep underground. Although their trace will never fully leave. Ancient towers on forgotten coasts and secret pools of magic are still there, but no one has yet discovered them...<br sab="627">I don't know. Using the backstory to explain trends in architecture and culture could really help. Let me know how you like this idea!

That sounds much better than making this 'mostly' magical! I wouldn't want to crimp anyone's creativity, but moderation in all things.

~Mark

[Teherean]

[quote="KyleKreations"]Wow! We have had some great stuff being discussed. Sorry if I dissapoint but I somewhat like the unique things that Fantasy can bring to Lego. I was thinking that perhaps the story for all of this could include things that explain things better. Such as:
[i]Magic is all but gone now. And any who use it are a forgotten people. The many creatures that used to roam this land have now dispersed. Whether hunted down or just vanished it matters not. Any of them that are left are in dark cave,on high mountain tops, or deep underground. Although their trace will never fully leave. Ancient towers on forgotten coasts and secret pools of magic are still there, but no one has yet discovered them...[/i]
I don't know. Using the backstory to explain trends in architecture and culture could really help. Let me know how you like this idea![/quote]

I actually love that! Great thinking! What I would do however, is include some sort of an "exodus" of fantasy creatures, like so.

[i]Centuries of hunting have left the lands of [yet-to-be-named-clan-project] almost completely void of the magical creatures that once used to live in harmony with eachother. The progress of man has scared them from their forrests, caves and towers. Hundreds of years ago, A massive flotilla of whatever crafts they could muster set sail from the coasts of [yet-to-be-named-continent] to [yet-to-be-defined-location]. Those that chose to, or were forced to stay behind were destroyed by the inevitable rise of man.[/i]

Something like that.

Also, AK_Brickster and I are discussing how to organise what will be a beast of a project. Looks like we will be the independent judges for the upcoming Lore and Map contest (which I think will be vote-based). Also, we're setting up some rules for faction colors etc.

To not-anger the admins and mods, all further threads relating to this project will be in the "Stories" forum.

[soccerkid6]

Just wanted to say that this is a great idea and I would be happy to participate! I am in the Mitgardia Guild, though I haven't been real active in the building challenges(only having made a watchtower so far). You guys seem to be doing great at getting all the details nailed down, keep up the good work

[theboywarrior]

This should prove to be quite fun! If it gets off the ground, I'll definitely get involved.

[Mark of Falworth]

Just wanted to say that this is a great idea and I would be happy to participate! I am in the Mitgardia Guild, though I haven't been real active in the building challenges(only having made a watchtower so far). You guys seem to be doing great at getting all the details nailed down, keep up the good work

Cool! Glad to have you in!

This should prove to be quite fun! If it gets off the ground, I'll definitely get involved.

Great! the more the merrier!

Teherean, I understand we shouldn't post here. But I don't see the other thread. could you post it?

[wobnam]

- I'd love to know more about Wobnam's project.

I've been busy moving this last week, but I've read this thread now and noticed that I've been mentioned a couple of times, so for what it's worth, here's a few words about my project.

I first started working on a lego medieval/fantasy world in 2008. At first it was just a backstory for my own creations, but I soon began to see the potential of a community project. I've never launched anything very official though, mainly for two reasons:

1) Though I'm creative, english is not my primary language and my english skills (as I'm sure this post will demonstrate) aren't as good as I feel they should be to do this on my own - and, while many people have been positive and expressed interest, I haven't really found anyone willing to commit a lot of time to "co-create".

2) Something like this is very, very time consuming. A lot more than I thought, and probably more than you think.


Anyway, this is the basic shape of my project right now:

The setting is a fictional medieval/fantasy world; a continent surrounded by sea and some islands. I have a backstory for it (or rather, page after page of drafts, scraps and revisions) that describe history, language, religion, geography and so on. I want the world to acommodate as many different styles and themes as possible, so different parts of the continent are influenced by a variety of historical cultures and span all of our world's climates. I like more realistic fantasy, but also see the need for some magic in order to allow more diversity, so in this world magic exists but it's not "common"; to most people in this world it's mythical, a thing from stories, and not everyone believes in it. I won't get into the details of the backstory in this post, but of course it all amounts to a number of conflicts between various factions. One of the things I've put a lot of thought into is making it builder-friendly; it should be possible to build in this world with a fairly new or limited collection.

My factions are arranged into a sort of hierarchy, or a "faction/conflict pyramid". On the top level is the main conflict between "civilized men" (including all the official factions) and "outlaws/barbarians/bandits(/rebels)" (ragtag warriors with little or no specific heraldry). This allows anyone who has at least one official Castle faction and some random castle-ish figures to build a battle. On the second level of the pyramid are the different "civilized" factions (like Kingdoms Lions and Dragons, Fantasy Era Crownies, Black Falcons, Wolf Pack and so on), as well as the different outlaw/barbarian clans. They all occupy different regions (more or less), and have different relationships to each other (allies, at war, at peace but with a grudge etc). The third level would include conflicts inside these factions, like some lower Lord rebelling, a fight for power when a leader dies etc.


My world depends on stories. MOCs should have some sort of story attached to them; it doesn't have to be long or fancy, but there should be some explanation of what is going on and how it fits into the world. I've always imagined it all presented as a non-linear story: Basically I've set it up much like a Wiki. For those of you unfamiliar with Wikis (like Wikipedia or BrickWiki), they are websites where the content is organized into interlinking articles. The idea is that it should be possible to start reading pretty much anywhere, and the links to other articles will take the reader through the site.


I think a world/setting like this would be suited for a variety of different activities and user contributions:

- Standalone MOCs. Simply building something that fits into the story somewhere - anything from a blacksmith shop with a short, new backstory to an epic battle that already has a detailed article (and possibly other MOCs).

- Standalone article or story. There are many talented writers here on CC, and seeing a new article or story that hasn't been MOCed yet could be a good challenge, or inspiration.

- Personal character or faction. This is where I think things start to get really interesting. People can build and "own" a character or group, it being their own personal element in the world. This can be a House/Family (inside a faction, or using custom heraldry, or some other solution), trading ship crew, ranger division, barbarian clan... Note: The idea is not to set up a roleplaying game or anything like that, but to give builders a way to belong in the world and possibly create their own sub-stories and -plots that go on for more than one MOC. (Some rules about what can and can't be done with/to these personal characters/groups and how they interact with others have to be established.) This touches on what this thread seems to be focused on, with guilds, and I think the two ideas can be integrated quite easily and nicely.

- Collaborative stories/builds. People can come together to co-write/build anything from short subplots to drastic main plot events.

- RPGs. While it's not a main focus and not really something I want to do myself, this world could be a great backdrop for different kinds of roleplaying.

- Contests/challenges. Will technically result in one of the other forms of contributions, but the way I see it contests are ideal and a key element for a project like this.


If you're still with me, thanks for reading I realize what I've written might be confusing as it's really hard to make a short version of all my thoughts and source material, so please feel free to ask if something is unclear, and I'll be more than happy to try to explain better. None of my ideas are set in stone, and I'm very interested in joining a project like the one you have all discussed so far, possibly merging it with my own.