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Narrative Design Phase - Rules & Advice

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8 years ago
Oct 7, 2016, 10:59:34 AM
  • You are limited to one submission.


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8 years ago
Oct 7, 2016, 3:18:39 AM

Is there a upper limit on the amount of Propositions that an individual can submit? And how dissimilar would any two Propositions an individual submitted need to be? Thanks for all the awesome work your studio puts in. It really is Awesome and Inspiring, Awe-Inspiring truly. Thanks.

Updated 8 years ago.
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8 years ago
Oct 7, 2016, 12:17:49 AM

You may make changes to your story several times, but if you bump it excessively, you're gonna have a bad time. ;)


You may involve the Endless as a whole or individuals, as you please.


You may use "factions" that aren't part of the Endless Universe canon.


Please avoid hinting at a specific existing faction of the Endless Universe.


Hope this helps. :)

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8 years ago
Oct 6, 2016, 8:10:07 PM
Frogsquadron wrote:
Hylus wrote:

We are still not allowed to include relations or meetings with other factions in this story, correct? I know we couldn't in the initial creation process, but I'm wondering if I could, say, use a Vodyani invasion as a catalyst for the story. 

If referring to other factions, you can make references, but only in a faction-agnostic way: Major factions start with a small Minor faction element, which could be factored in.


Same goes for narrating from the point of view of another faction's character. You came up with hilarious prompts, but it would be both odd and unfair to permit "name-dropping" in these circumstances and not others.


Hope this helps!

Sorry i could not understand this post could someone please elaborate it. English is a second language to me so i am a little confused with the reply to the initial question.

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8 years ago
Oct 6, 2016, 8:06:09 PM

So am i allowed to change the story only once?


So could we involve the endless as a whole or could we involve only one endless character( lets say an endless hero) in the story??


Could we use factions or races that are not part of the endless universe in the story?(like another faction made by me)


Are we at least allowed to hint at another major/minor faction without outright stating the name of the faction??


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8 years ago
Oct 5, 2016, 2:44:15 PM

So you want to participate in the last phase of the contest? Here's all you need to know!


We're working on creating the Unfallen. Here is what we know so far:


Phase 1 - Game Design: won by DevildogFF


The Unfallen Faction: Nearly-Immortal, Dual-Natured Sentient Trees that CANNOT DECLARE WAR WHILE PACIFISTS ARE IN CONTROL OF THE SENATE. 
Pacifist Diplomats - "Speak Softly, but Carry a Big Stick."



Faction-Specific Traits:
War and Peace from the Senate: The Unfallen cannot declare war while the Pacifists are in control of the senate. As they're peaceful by nature, they also receive a 20% malus to happiness when they declare war with anyone else in control of the senate, except Militarists. With Militarists in control of the senate, they can declare war freely and receive no malus to their happiness.

Smoking the Trees: The Unfallen can force peace by sacrificing a population unit, as their smoke is intoxicating and has an extreme pacification effect. This truce lasts twice as long as a normal truce as the effect of the smoke is addictive, too. This sacrifice is highly regarded as one of the most noble things an Unfallen can do.

Living Dwellings: The Unfallen use food as their production, as they use their own to construct their infrastructure. Therefore, Industry is not utilized.

From One, Cosmic Power: They use their own to build monstrous  ships, which require populations points to build. As such, some of the larger hulls are available a bit earlier, too. They also regenerate over time, without the need for technology.

They're In The Trees!: As The Unfallen share an affinity with all plant life, plant life on other faction's planets give The Unfallen some non-detailed information once they've become aware of The Unfallen's existence. Build queue, population and stationed ships are known to The Unfallen.

Peace Provides Sentience: Being at peace with the Unfallen provides you with one Unfallen population point at every planet you have with a temperate environment, once each planet has room. As a race achieves peace with the Unfallen, the Unfallen enlighten the native tree population. Each Unfallen population unit receives a bonus to food production. 



Soft spoken, giant beings with a shared consciousness, The Unfallen's oldest are thousands of years old. The oldest of which are selected to live on as sentient battleships when duty calls. Saplings, Unfallen that are less than 500 years old, are generally the work force as they are much smaller and use their tree limbs to manipulate basic machinery and work to establish infrastructure. They are the natural enemies of aggressive species and after losing many planets to their destructiveness, have developed specific defenses to them. Their long history as slaves have led them to raze themselves rather than have one of their planets occupied.

In a time of crisis, The Unfallen use a mixture of seeds and sporelings to...convince a friendly faction to come to arms on their behalf.

Once chosen for the task, the elder trees are molded in to monstrous defensive battleships that are surprisingly more heavily armored than even the most advanced of other's battleships. They exist simply to defend their planets from invasion, however, and don't fare well on the offensive (though enough of them can overcome that weakness).

The Unfallen's ships are a mix of organic material and machinery, so The Unfallen's ships are basically cyborgs. (Thanks to Bluecreeper101 for the help in clarifying this)

They prefer arboreal planets, namely jungle planets, and don't do well on dry, arid planets. 




Phase 2 - Visual Design: won by Digitalhawk96



Ships: The vast Unfallen ships, with their twisted and gnarled appearance incorporate inorganic materials such as stone, metal and built structures throughout the living wood superstructure. Powered by large solar sails rather than conventional engines that serve both to sustain the living ship and push it through the void of space.

Civilian: "Unfallen posses 5 glowing eyes, a unifying feature among them. Their growth is limitless to some extent, while some prefer to remain small, tens of metres high; others will swell into immense beings hundreds of metres high with as many appendages, leg(s) and limbs as they see fit."

Military: "Many older and certainly larger Unfallen cloak themselves in a “mane of leaves” and develop natural clothing, serving as a symbol of status, appeal and role. They tend to fuse gems, ores, metals and parts of Endless ruins into their frame which lends both to aesthetic value and protective purposes."



OK SO WHAT DO WE DO?


Have you read the previous phases? Yes! Good! Now for the hard part: you're going to create a short story based on these elements. Inspiration will be drawn from the winning story for hero biographies and the faction-related quest.


Here are the rules:

  • The story is based on the elements from phases 1 & 2.
  • The story is 500 (or fewer) words long.
  • The story introduces at least one Hero character.
  • The story introduces, sets up or references the faction quest.
  • The story does not have to have an end, and can be just the introduction of the story. But it has to clearly be a story, not a descriptive text!
  • You are limited to one submission. Please note that we will only accept submissions posted in English.
  • If you want to modify your submission, please edit your post (don't repost your submission). You can post in your submission's thread to say you've updated it, but only once. 
  • Excessive bumping in any form will result in the team taking action with extreme prejudice, up to exclusion from the contest.


NECESSARY DISCLAIMER

  • We reserve the right to alter submissions or work with their author to fit our design and specifications. Full rules for the contest are available here.


DEADLINE

  • Submit your ideas before Wednesday 19th. We’ll be closing submissions at 6:00PM CEST. Voting will then open for a week, and the top three most popular submissions will be drawn into a final vote, provided they meet our criteria.



OK I READ THE RULES, BUT THAT SEEMS HARD. CAN YOU GIVE ME SOME ADVICE?


Here are some of the subjects our writers ask themselves when they go about creating a faction's story. The answers to some of these questions can form the basic elements on which you base your story.

  •  Main quest:
    • It is not the RPG-type story of a sole hero, but the story of a leader; challenges and surprises have to be on a galactic, not personal scale
    • What are the people's biggest fears and challenges? What resources (internal or external) do they have that will help them conquer these?
    • Do they have a nemesis? 
    • How is their society structured and what are the internal conflicts and dissension?
  • Background (government, society, traditions, religion)
  • Ideas for main quest reward


For example, for the Lumeris we went through this process:


Faction inspirations:

  • Hanseatic League, British East India Company Mafia families in popular media, esp. "The Godfather"
  • Lovers of opera, theater

Biggest fears / challenges:

  • Losing power, getting tricked/robbed
  • Getting their operations shut down by law enforcement or legislated out of business
  • How to loot the galaxy -- legally -- while keeping a grip on power
  • Stay a step ahead of the other families

So the main quest developed from that idea -- travel in the galaxy is suddenly possible, so how do you manage to get everybody going so that you can make a ton of money, but do that without losing power or getting an unpleasant surprise?



Now, once you get a better feel for who and what you think the Unfallen are, you just have to make it into a short story. Make it something that inspires you, something that asks questions and opens up other stories... Make it interesting to you.



Any questions? Comments? Let us know! In the meantime, good luck, and have fun!




Updated 8 years ago.
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8 years ago
Oct 6, 2016, 4:15:07 PM

Spaces do not count as a word, no. :)

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8 years ago
Oct 6, 2016, 3:38:41 PM
RobbyTitan wrote:

So if the submissions are greater then the 500 words are we only supposed to read the first 500 and stop?  I guess I'm just trying to make sure I don't compare a 1,000 word or 1,500 word submission to a 500 word submission

If your submission is over 500 words (and we'll check), it won't qualify. Harsh, but fair. :)


@Sarin: if in doubt, use https://wordcounter.net/

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8 years ago
Oct 6, 2016, 3:32:19 PM

Umm another question. I think I read somewhere that the 'space' isn't court as one word?

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8 years ago
Oct 6, 2016, 3:16:25 PM

So if the submissions are greater then the 500 words are we only supposed to read the first 500 and stop?  I guess I'm just trying to make sure I don't compare a 1,000 word or 1,500 word submission to a 500 word submission

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8 years ago
Oct 6, 2016, 1:34:40 PM

No, no and -- you guessed it: no.

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8 years ago
Oct 6, 2016, 12:37:40 PM

What about Major and Minor Factions from EL.

What about Auriga itself.


Same case?

Updated 8 years ago.
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