Working On The Atlas

[ThatSeanGuy]

Hey!

I'm a little confused with how things are organized here. Hopefully a few questions aren't out of line!

1) How organized is the Atlas project? Are you guys waiting to finish the 3.5 conversion before detailing the setting, or working on it in tandem?
2) Regarding the Atlas; are you intending to have a 'basic' list and more extensive domain secrets, or just do each domain in detail?
3) Are you all starting just in Anure or would, hypothetically, someone interested in laying the groundwork for Rujirk or Bretchur have something to do?
4) How do you get involved in this? Is there a place to say, "Hey, I want to convert the Druid class, or do some setting work.", are assignments handed out, or is it more, "Whoever wants to do X, do it."?

[kgauck]

1) How organized is the Atlas project? Are you guys waiting to finish the 3.5 conversion before detailing the setting, or working on it in tandem?

The Atlas project as such, is asleep, but the wiki draws on whatever material we have at hand so continues the work in a different fashion.

2) Regarding the Atlas; are you intending to have a 'basic' list and more extensive domain secrets, or just do each domain in detail?

I think we've basically just been detailing domains. There have been a few PS type things used, and they tend to have things (like the letters at start, rumors, &c) that other realms don't have.

[/quote]3) Are you all starting just in Anure or would, hypothetically, someone interested in laying the groundwork for Rujirk or Bretchur have something to do?[/quote]

I've done a fair bit in Rjurik. I think Stjordvik is well detailed (though far from complete) and Rjuvik has some stuff done, and Halskapa had stuff added. I know a PS of Dauren was added. Even so work gets done more in Anuire for a variety of reasons. I know the most about the realms of the Tael Firth so that's where I have been working, and I've also worked with people on stuff further to the south of that as well.

4) How do you get involved in this? Is there a place to say, "Hey, I want to convert the Druid class, or do some setting work.", are assignments handed out, or is it more, "Whoever wants to do X, do it."?

On the wiki, post what you like when you like. Edit boldly and expect to be edited boldly. If you have a personal contribution you don't want edited for content put under a personal page (you would have your own page on the wiki with an address like user:ThatSeanGuy, and you can always make sub-pages from that like user:ThatSeanGuy/druids.

the full address for your personal page would be
http://www.birthright.net/brwiki/ind...er:ThatSeanGuy

[ThatSeanGuy]

On the wiki, post what you like when you like. Edit boldly and expect to be edited boldly. If you have a personal contribution you don't want edited for content put under a personal page (you would have your own page on the wiki with an address like user:ThatSeanGuy, and you can always make sub-pages from that like user:ThatSeanGuy/druids.

Okay, so, just to see if I've got this: There's no real final authority for the wiki, it's a matter of, "Well, if people like it, it won't get edited away.", and if you want a draft preserved, you put it on your personal wiki page?

Sorry to be obtuse, I just figure it's better to ask permission than to beg forgiveness.

[kgauck]

yes, and there is a 3rd category, kind of in between. If you label a page as a variant. Say you want to make Darien Avan a higher level character. Make a link, to "high level Darien Avan" and on that page (probably better named "Darien Avan/higher level") give us what your vision is. As a varient, making the content the same as standard is less of an issue. If you give your Darien a feat we might not associate with him, but its late on your list, no one would bother it, because its part of the variation. If you mentioned an Avanese Steward, but gave no name to him in your character description, and someone else detailed Avan's Steward, he might edit that page to add his new NPC's name and link.

See as an example of this, Rhobher Nichaleir, who has a low magic variant linked to his page. The standard character is a Noble 2/ Cleric 13, the variant is a Noble 3/ Canonist 5/Cleric 7.

[AndrewTall]

I tried to set up a banner code for wiki pages so that viewers would get an idea of what sort of page they were looking at - straight expansion, variant, etc. Arjan also designed other banners. The 'wiki 101' has the list, if you have trouble finding it let me know and I'll send it to you.

[MikeIII]

Hi, I`m new to this site. Are there any news on the relase of the atlas? The latest message was from the year 2006, is the project still running?

[Green Knight]

Don't think there is any effort made on the Atlas - everything in that regard is focused on the Wiki. Try it.

[Noquar]

First, I want to say thank you to any and all that have contributed to the new BR manual and Wiki, It has been a great resource for campaign dynamics and filler details. The problem I have with the Wiki setup is that It is difficult resource to access out side of web surfing time. In order to really make the Wiki material work I have to create this custom word file format so I can print it up and have It available for use in a "real" game. I wonder If a Wiki hard copy could be put out each year, in PDF format like the BR manual that was released? This would make it much more convenient and accessible.

Just an idea

[AndrewTall]

The problem there is gathering it into a printable format - although I suppose we could look at the most popular pages and put the top however many into a word doc - the time consuming part would be formatting it.

The top ten (barring the main index page) are currently:
# Anuire ‎(7,255 views)
# Avanil ‎(3,985 views)
# Medoere ‎(3,414 views)
# House rules ‎(2,821 views)
# Stjordvik ‎(2,637 views)
# Ghoere ‎(2,607 views)
# Boeruine ‎(2,604 views)
# Classes (base and prestige) ‎(2,523 views)
# Roesone ‎(2,521 views)
# The Gulf of Coeranys ‎(2,516 views)

This would of course get out of date quickly, have a fair amount of repetition, and not really look at the importance or interest of a page as page clicks have many explanations - I hit the Danigau main page dozens of times while entering the wiki information on it for example and each will count.

Pity however the pages shunned:

# Nalhorske ‎(21 views)
# Terence Gryphon ‎(20 views)
# Carilon Alam ‎(19 views)
# D20:Basics and Ability Scores ‎(19 views)
# Haekholfn ‎(19 views)
# Yvarre ‎(18 views)
# Svarkannek ‎(17 views)
# Leivika ‎(16 views)
# Hoeskal ‎(14 views)
# Dankmaar ‎(13 views)
# Hjarrsmark ‎(12 views)

And as for those pages that seem to miss the 'popular page' function such as my poor random events house rules: http://www.birthright.net/brwiki/ind.../Random_events there is clearly no hope!

A 'best of' the wiki could be done by voting/acclaim I suppose - or looking at comments generated on the forum, but personally I'd rather people looked on the wiki than waited for us to sort out downloads - on the wiki you can add your own comments...

[ThatSeanGuy]

I think the Thale Rjurik colonies are kind of underloved because of their relative isolation, and how extreme the conditions are-no one but other frozen, starving Rjurik to interact with and frozen tundra to survive on makes for poor adventure or domain play.

An easy way to improve this would be to make Thale's climate a little less like the North Pole, and a little more like, say, North America. Give the other major Cerilian nations reasons to colonize the area, and you'd have an interesting political reversal of the Rjurik being dominant and unavoidable, instead of sort of shunted off to the side there.

Maybe throw in a few dwarf and goblin kingdoms for zest(We've covered enough on elves to last the next decade, I daresay.), and suddenly you've got a region that's worth running a campaign in.