Lands of Classic Castle - Discussion Thread

[AK_Brickster]

F_L_K, the only reason that I'm initially opposed to your idea is that it doesn't breed very much in the way of competition. I much prefer the idea of competing clans located in different regions with regional characteristics. Then, if you were a "Northerner", for example, but you wanted to build a castle, a trading post, and a chapel, you could do so under the flag of the North, as opposed to having to build for 3 different guilds.
I'm open to discussion though.

[Mark of Falworth]

F_L_K, the only reason that I'm initially opposed to your idea is that it doesn't breed very much in the way of competition. I much prefer the idea of competing clans located in different regions with regional characteristics. Then, if you were a "Northerner", for example, but you wanted to build a castle, a trading post, and a chapel, you could do so under the flag of the North, as opposed to having to build for 3 different guilds.
I'm open to discussion though.

I have to agree with AK Brickster, this idea is based on a more competitive viewpoint.

Btw, anybody have a clue what we're going to name it?? Should we use the term "Guilds"?

[AK_Brickster]

I don't really like the term "Guild" for the major players. I prefer "Faction" or "People of *insert territory name here*"
To me, a guild is more like a select, specific group of people like masons, thieves, heroes, etc.

If people want bandits or "unaligned" groups, they could inhabit the transition areas between regions, ie, live in the mountains that separate north from south or the forests that separate east from west, etc. They probably wouldn't have major cities but more like outposts and hideouts. Also, you could have guild halls in these areas as well, like a heros guild based out of mountain guild hall or a masons guild out in a forest or something.

[Mark of Falworth]

I don't really like the term "Guild" for the major players. I prefer "Faction" or "People of *insert territory name here*"
To me, a guild is more like a select, specific group of people like masons, thieves, heroes, etc.

If people want bandits or "unaligned" groups, they could inhabit the transition areas between regions, ie, live in the mountains that separate north from south or the forests that separate east from west, etc. They probably wouldn't have major cities but more like outposts and hideouts. Also, you could have guild halls in these areas as well, like a heros guild based out of mountain guild hall or a masons guild out in a forest or something.

Yeah, I don't think "Guild" works right in this case either "Faction" or "Kindom of..." seem to work better. Yes, smaller guilds outside of the main factions sounds great! I think there could possibly be a Merchants' guild in a few prosperous cities. Oh, Btw, should there be a few cities?

[AK_Brickster]

We'll decide on cities after we come up with a map and kingdoms. I'm guessing we could assign each kingdom a capital city and designate those on the map, but we have to have a map first, lol.

[Bruce N H]

Hey,

I just wanted to throw in some random thoughts here. These are just me, btw, not a result of any discussion with the other admins.

- The monthly build challenge was intended to do something along these lines (I just posted a new one, btw). Unfortunately some months get a better response than others.

- Back in the day (and it's been many years), we had the Classic-Castle Role Play over in the gaming forum. That was sort of along these lines, though I think it was more story telling and not a lot of actual building (I could be corrected there, I didn't really read those threads much).

- I'm not sure we want to totally copy what another site is doing. Perhaps some sort of interaction between our site and theirs might be good for bridge building. We do have overlapping memberships, as there are people here who are also there. For that matter, I'm a member there, though I very rarely post since I am so tied up with here and with my blogs (not to mention things like family, job, etc).

- This site does not belong to the admins. In one sense it belongs to Troy, as it is his server, but in another very real sense it belongs to all of you. If a group in the forum wants to start some collaborative group project, that's great! I love the idea that new things in this forum should come from all the members, not just be initiated by a few admins.

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

- Totally just throwing out ideas here, but how about something around Middle Earth? Tolkien has a rich world to work with, and there are enough empty spaces to give room for creativity. (E.g. we could fill in places like Rhun, the Iron Hills, Gundabad, etc). Maybe set a world in the early Third Age, so we're not all based around the Lord of the Rings. There you've got the decaying kingdom in the North beset by the Witch King, lots of Elves still running around, a strong Gondor in the South, Dwarves still strong in Moria, etc. Just doing some quick internet searching, sometime like 1700 Third Age might work.
I'm sure with the approaching Tolkien sets, we could build some excitement around this sort of project.

Anyway, as I said, just a bunch of unformed thoughts.

Bruce

[AK_Brickster]

Hey,

- The monthly build challenge was intended to do something along these lines (I just posted a new one, btw). Unfortunately some months get a better response than others.
Bruce

The one thing about the monthly build challenge that makes it a little different from GoH is that there is no competition to drive it. Add in a little "us vs. them" and things take on a totally different dynamic, I think.
Not to say I don't enjoy the monthly challenge, but without the extra incentive, I normally won't use my limited building time to put an entry together specifically for that.

[lord_of_orks]

- I'm not sure we want to totally copy what another site is doing. Perhaps some sort of interaction between our site and theirs might be good for bridge building. We do have overlapping memberships, as there are people here who are also there. For that matter, I'm a member there, though I very rarely post since I am so tied up with here and with my blogs (not to mention things like family, job, etc).

I agree that if we do end up doing this it will most likely be similar to what EuroBrick is doing(since we got the idea from them) but I think that it will be different enough that It will not be a problem, after all, it will be our own world with our own kingdoms with our own rules.

- Totally just throwing out ideas here, but how about something around Middle Earth? Tolkien has a rich world to work with, and there are enough empty spaces to give room for creativity. (E.g. we could fill in places like Rhun, the Iron Hills, Gundabad, etc). Maybe set a world in the early Third Age, so we're not all based around the Lord of the Rings. There you've got the decaying kingdom in the North beset by the Witch King, lots of Elves still running around, a strong Gondor in the South, Dwarves still strong in Moria, etc. Just doing some quick internet searching, sometime like 1700 Third Age might work.
I'm sure with the approaching Tolkien sets, we could build some excitement around this sort of project.

It's an interesting idea, but personally I would prefer the complete freedom of our own made up world.

[Mark of Falworth]

Hey,

I just wanted to throw in some random thoughts here. These are just me, btw, not a result of any discussion with the other admins.

- The monthly build challenge was intended to do something along these lines (I just posted a new one, btw). Unfortunately some months get a better response than others.

- Back in the day (and it's been many years), we had the Classic-Castle Role Play over in the gaming forum. That was sort of along these lines, though I think it was more story telling and not a lot of actual building (I could be corrected there, I didn't really read those threads much).

- I'm not sure we want to totally copy what another site is doing. Perhaps some sort of interaction between our site and theirs might be good for bridge building. We do have overlapping memberships, as there are people here who are also there. For that matter, I'm a member there, though I very rarely post since I am so tied up with here and with my blogs (not to mention things like family, job, etc).

- This site does not belong to the admins. In one sense it belongs to Troy, as it is his server, but in another very real sense it belongs to all of you. If a group in the forum wants to start some collaborative group project, that's great! I love the idea that new things in this forum should come from all the members, not just be initiated by a few admins.

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

- Totally just throwing out ideas here, but how about something around Middle Earth? Tolkien has a rich world to work with, and there are enough empty spaces to give room for creativity. (E.g. we could fill in places like Rhun, the Iron Hills, Gundabad, etc). Maybe set a world in the early Third Age, so we're not all based around the Lord of the Rings. There you've got the decaying kingdom in the North beset by the Witch King, lots of Elves still running around, a strong Gondor in the South, Dwarves still strong in Moria, etc. Just doing some quick internet searching, sometime like 1700 Third Age might work.
I'm sure with the approaching Tolkien sets, we could build some excitement around this sort of project.

Anyway, as I said, just a bunch of unformed thoughts.

Bruce

Wow, lots to think about. Well, the monthly challenge is a nice part part of this forum, but we were planning on challenges that fit into the map and story and could help your chosen faction. It's not quite the same thing.

Also the CC role-play is not what we are going for either, what we will be doing is more like a collaborative theme with challenges including lots of opportunity to create.

Well, it will probably look similar to what the other site is doing. The main reason (I believe) for this is because I and others really didn't want to have more than one forum to keep up with. We wanted to create our own story\collaborative theme based on the Guilds of historica and after all "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery".

Lord of the Rings is not what I had in mind, I'm not a big fan of it, building a scene from any Book or movie is not the same thing as making your own LEGO castle inspired theme.
And I hope it does not turn out that way.

Thanks for you thoughts!
Mark

[AK_Brickster]

Someone who is a member of Eurobricks could always contact the leader of GoH and see if we'd be stepping on any toes by doing our own thing here. We certainly don't want to seem like we're competing with them for members, so let's come up with a list of reasons why we need our own over here.
I'll start:

1. Membership for those under 18 (I think this is probably reason enough, personally - even though I'm 26, lol)
2. A way for those who don't have time to keep track of two forums to be involved in an enjoyable storyline.
3. A new world that better enables us to integrate "classic factions" into the realm. (We don't necessarily need to focus on Classic factions, but it gives us a reason to stay here at "Classic" castle instead of migrating.
4. ...??... Open to suggestion.

We probably don't need a long list, just something that shows that we have taken their site into consideration when designing our own.

I'll also second (or third, whatever) that I'd rather not base it on Tolkien. I also want it to be distinctly different from what they have going on over there, though it may be tough as there are only so many general "climates" around which to base the kingdoms from.

[Mark of Falworth]

Someone who is a member of Eurobricks could always contact the leader of GoH and see if we'd be stepping on any toes by doing our own thing here. We certainly don't want to seem like we're competing with them for members, so let's come up with a list of reasons why we need our own over here.
I'll start:

1. Membership for those under 18 (I think this is probably reason enough, personally - even though I'm 26, lol)
2. A way for those who don't have time to keep track of two forums to be involved in an enjoyable storyline.
3. A new world that better enables us to integrate "classic factions" into the realm. (We don't necessarily need to focus on Classic factions, but it gives us a reason to stay here at "Classic" castle instead of migrating.
4. ...??... Open to suggestion.

We probably don't need a long list, just something that shows that we have taken their site into consideration when designing our own.

I'll also second (or third, whatever) that I'd rather not base it on Tolkien. I also want it to be distinctly different from what they have going on over there, though it may be tough as there are only so many general "climates" around which to base the kingdoms from.

We could say we just wanted to design our own, It's half the fun anyway! I count in the under 18 part, even though I'll be 18 in eleven days! Seriously though, we should be respectful. We could even offer to be an extention, in a way(depends if everyone here is ok with it)

[AK_Brickster]

Yeah I thought of trying to integrate the two, but I don't know how well that would work.
Kind of a similar idea would be to have a head-to-head contest with them once a year or something. That might be fun

There are a TON of terrific builders out there who are < 18, so we should be able to put together some pretty cool stuff, I think.

[Frank_Lloyd_Knight]

F_L_K, the only reason that I'm initially opposed to your idea is that it doesn't breed very much in the way of competition. I much prefer the idea of competing clans located in different regions with regional characteristics. Then, if you were a "Northerner", for example, but you wanted to build a castle, a trading post, and a chapel, you could do so under the flag of the North, as opposed to having to build for 3 different guilds.
I'm open to discussion though.

I have to agree with AK Brickster, this idea is based on a more competitive viewpoint.

Btw, anybody have a clue what we're going to name it?? Should we use the term "Guilds"?

I was just throwing out some ideas. I think this could be fun, and I particularly like the idea of making a map. Though, if it comes down to someone picking a few of their favorite Lego factions (or custom factions), and relegating everyone else to "miscellaneous" who don't happen to have those specific factions/pieces in their brick collection, then I think I'll pass on the idea.

Somebody already mentioned the possibility of dividing groups by geographic regions -- like mountain, forest, and desert, which I think is a really good idea. Or another option could be to divide all the existing factions among a good-evil-lawful-chaotic matrix.

If this is going to be competitive, is it like a game where we compete for areas on the map until one clan/guild/faction dominates, and then we start over?

FLK

(Other thoughts: I like Bruce's suggestion about starting a tangent off of Tolkien's middle earth. I'd also like to see any map ideas other folks are coming up with. Terry Pratchett's guilds of Ankh-Morpork keep coming back to mind, but I think everyone nixed that sort of idea with my earlier post. I'd also like to learn more about Wobnam's project. AND my final idea (for the moment) -- If we go back to the idea of Heraldry, as opposed to factions, we could elect an official Grand High Herald to keep track of all the various coats of arms, which players are using them, how everyone is aligned, etc. etc. [End of random babbling])

[Mark of Falworth]

Yeah I thought of trying to integrate the two, but I don't know how well that would work.
Kind of a similar idea would be to have a head-to-head contest with them once a year or something. That might be fun

There are a TON of terrific builders out there who are < 18, so we should be able to put together some pretty cool stuff, I think.

Head-to-Head! with GoH!?! That would be Incredible!!I wonder if they would be willing to accept our challenge! Oh, yes! If we can set it up this could be really awesome! Once we get some maps up and factions laid out we should start to spread the word. I've got a little pull in the Flickr world, I think I could enlist some good TFOLs from there.

F_L_K, the only reason that I'm initially opposed to your idea is that it doesn't breed very much in the way of competition. I much prefer the idea of competing clans located in different regions with regional characteristics. Then, if you were a "Northerner", for example, but you wanted to build a castle, a trading post, and a chapel, you could do so under the flag of the North, as opposed to having to build for 3 different guilds.<br sab="660">I'm open to discussion though.

<br sab="661">I have to agree with AK Brickster, this idea is based on a more competitive viewpoint. <br sab="662"><br sab="663">Btw, anybody have a clue what we're going to name it?? Should we use the term "Guilds"?

<br sab="664">I was just throwing out some ideas. I think this could be fun, and I particularly like the idea of making a map. Though, if it comes down to someone picking a few of their favorite Lego factions (or custom factions), and relegating everyone else to "miscellaneous" who don't happen to have those specific factions/pieces in their brick collection, then I think I'll pass on the idea.<br sab="665"><br sab="666">Somebody already mentioned the possibility of dividing groups by geographic regions -- like mountain, forest, and desert, which I think is a really good idea. Or another option could be to divide all the existing factions among a good-evil-lawful-chaotic matrix.<br sab="667"><br sab="668">If this is going to be competitive, is it like a game where we compete for areas on the map until one clan/guild/faction dominates, and then we start over?<br sab="669"><br sab="670">FLK<br sab="671"><br sab="672">(Other thoughts: I like Bruce's suggestion about starting a tangent off of Tolkien's middle earth. I'd also like to see any map ideas other folks are coming up with. Terry Pratchett's guilds of Ankh-Morpork keep coming back to mind, but I think everyone nixed that sort of idea with my earlier post. I'd also like to learn more about Wobnam's project. AND my final idea (for the moment) -- If we go back to the idea of Heraldry, as opposed to factions, we could elect an official Grand High Herald to keep track of all the various coats of arms, which players are using them, how everyone is aligned, etc. etc. [End of random babbling])

Thanks for your input, new ideas are appreciated! however I'm pretty sure we will be doing 4 or 5 custom factions, but a heraldry system sounds very interesting! Also, we are probably not going to base this on Tolkien\LOTR or any other Movie\Book. but rather, make our own story, of which you can be a part.

[AK_Brickster]

I think a lot can be learned from the way they set it up over at Eurobricks. Instead of "Heraldry" they use kingdom colors, which is much easier to do, and would automatically place certain factions into where they belong, ie, whichever region has blue as a primary color could easily incorporate Black Falcons and Crownies into their ranks.