The Chronicle of Apolyton

Jon Shafer · March 10, 2003, 04:50

I was thinking of starting some sort of record-keeping system, to start recording the history of the game as it progresses. Many people wanted to see a 'complete' view of how the Lux situation progressed and changed, and I think that a full history of the game would be a very good idea as well.

One day the game will end, and we'll have a(n) (almost) full recording of the history of the game. If the teams would allow me, to do this I would have to be able to discuss each team's current view as things move along, either by chat, PM or email, and I would write up things based upon different views presented. Teams would also be allowed to submit opinion articles which would be added to the Chronicle.

With my stake in the game gone, I would vow to report things in a neutral manner based upon the information provided to me. I also wouldn't reveal any information to other teams, and would only be allowed to discuss issues of the game dealing with the team I would be talking with.

Would the teams be willing to support this and cooperate to submit information for recording purposes?

[Edit]I can't speel...[/Edit]

Darekill · March 10, 2003, 05:07

Please write a history about the ND vs. Lux history and i tell you if i can consider you as neutral.

It is not that i misstrust you but i doubt that would be realy neutral.

FrustratedPoet · March 10, 2003, 11:29

I find this idea personally interesting, but of course I can't speak for the rest of the team.

I've posted a thread in the GS forum to solicit opinions on this issue.

GhengisFarb™ · March 10, 2003, 12:11

I think that each side of the conflict should submit their "official" version of the history and then there could be listing in one thread, sort of like the the first four books of the New Testament that tell the same story only from different viewpoints.

Then others could read the different sides and come to their own conclusions.

We could then make a thread for each historical incident and make a topped thread that links to each one.

Examples:
The Annoyedus Luxian War w/Lux, GoW, and ND versions and Roleplay/Vox footnotes.

The Meeting of the Legosian and Glorious Warmong Fleets

EXERPT:
"Captain! Look there be ships to the north! Arghhh."

"Ships ye say? That be impossible not even that wash out of an Admiral of the Northern Fleet be dumb enough to be this far south. Wait a minute. Those aren't the Northern Fleet! They be populated by something not human. Look at them Swabs! They be all blocked and pointy in spots. Like they was made out of little stone squares er sumthin..........."

Etc.

ZargonX · March 10, 2003, 12:28

I think that's a great idea, Trip. I'm sure there'll be plenty of points-of-view when all is said and done, and it'll make one great read!

GhengisFarb™ · March 10, 2003, 12:29

View of the Warmong Captain through his Lookie Stick:

FrustratedPoet · March 10, 2003, 12:48

redstar1 · March 10, 2003, 13:28

Have you airbrushed out the 24 40" guns?

fantastic post mate

vondrack · March 10, 2003, 13:31

Togas · March 10, 2003, 14:02

..."Lookie Stick"

ROFL!

Anyhow, I think the Trip-as-Historian thing is fine. This is a game, not some international grudge match or high stakes poker or even a school rivalry. It's something we're all doing for fun. Trip would like to stay involved, and who can blame him? I doubt he can be entirely neutral but I'm sure he'll do his best and if people quibble with his take on history, they can write their own.

For this to happen, of course, we're going to have to agree to give him access to secret game information and trust him to keep it as such until a later time when all can be revealed. I'm willing to do this on behalf of my team. Hopefully the rest of you will too.

--Togas

p.s. As an interesting sidenote, it's it strange that, in this case, history would be written by the vanquished?

vondrack · March 10, 2003, 14:18

I pretty much agree with Togas. Even though not yet officially approved by the whole Lego team, I personally believe that it would be okay. As long as sensitive information is not published too early, I would have no problem with Trip becoming the PtWDG historian.

Beta · March 10, 2003, 15:04

ditto

to GF's post.

to Trip's proposal.

Tiberius · March 10, 2003, 15:42

Where did you get that picture from, Ghengis? ROTFL!

GhengisFarb™ · March 10, 2003, 15:47

Quote:

Originally posted by Tiberius
Where did you get that picture from, Ghengis? ROTFL!

My wife is an Assistant Manager of a toy store.
It's from Lego's product website.

Jon Shafer · March 10, 2003, 16:10

Quote:

Originally posted by Darekill

Please write a history about the ND vs. Lux history and i tell you if i can consider you as neutral.

It is not that i misstrust you but i doubt that would be realy neutral.

It would depend upon the information that YOU would make available to me...

after all, unless I'm told what every side thought about things, I'd only have my opinion and what happened to me, and that would hurt what I'm trying to do here.

Right now, I would probably start doing a history of the game from this point on, and later I could go back to the start of the game so that people would think I would be less biased.

alva · March 10, 2003, 17:09

Hmm, I don't oppose to this and I think it's a great idea, but ;

How do we know people arn't going to give you false info to influence decisions and or mis(use) even you to setup other teams?

Jon Shafer · March 10, 2003, 17:16

Quote:

Originally posted by alva
Hmm, I don't oppose to this and I think it's a great idea, but ;

How do we know people arn't going to give you false info to influence decisions and or mis(use) even you to setup other teams?

Because information that teams will give me will stay with me until long after the event has passed. It would be like lying to your mom about what you're doing in the game... she just doesn't care and has no intention of letting Legoland know what you're doing.

ZargonX · March 10, 2003, 17:30

Quote:

no intention of letting Legoland know what you're doing

Hmm.... talk about sowing the seeds of mistrust...

Jon Shafer · March 10, 2003, 17:37

Hey, take it up with your mom, not me.

Jon Shafer · March 11, 2003, 01:17

I was talking with Togas, and he presented the idea that the best way for me to do this would be if I had access to all of the teams' forums.

Would the teams be willing to allow this? I would never post in any of them (aside from "hello," maybe), and no content would ever leave myself or the articles I would be writing. This would eliminate the problem of teams giving me tainted "propaganda" that would ultimately hurt the efforts to record history.

vondrack · March 11, 2003, 03:13

Even though the discussion on this idea has been only started in Legoland and the opinion presented here is just mine, I would wholeheartedly support this solution.

IMHO, it solves several issues in a very elegant way:

1) keeps Trip, The Father of PtWDG, part of the game
2) solves the issue of "opening" private forums after the game is over
3) makes it really possible to have an unbiased history account

ad 1) As much as I admit that Luxian early demise might have been their own (or Trip's, for that matter) fault, I still find it quite sad that he, who was at the very birth of the idea, would have to stay completely out of the game. I would really be happy if he could enjoy the rest of it in a position of the historian. I am sure this would be as much fun for him as playing with his own team.

ad 2) Having one person being able to access the private team forums seems acceptable, especially if the person is being trusted by everybody else (yes, I do trust Trip to never influence the game by revealing secret information). Such a person will be able to extract the "top level" discussions, reasons, and decisions, while leaving out the stuff that would stir most emotions (like "last night, chatting with PlayerXYZ, he said that PlayerABC is a real a$$hole, as is PlayerKLM"). With this sort of a "filter", things that are really important/interesting will be made public, while those that are irrelevant, but potentially very harmful, would stay buried forever.

ad 3) with the exception of the war and events that lead to Luxians leaving the game, there is no reason for Trip to be biased. And who knows, maybe after Trip has a chance to read through some of the team forums, his point of view may change even regarding the death of Lux Invicta... possibly actually leading to an unbiased account of this event, too.

That said, I would suggest the following two rules:

1) Trip never posts in the private forums, maybe with the exception of a single dedicated thread used for discussions about what information can be revealed and what must be kept secret.

2) Trip never even indirectly touches whatever he may learn in private forums. No jokes, no funny quotes, no double-meaning notes, no nothing. A historian that can watch, but is forbidden to speak until authorized by all teams (I would not even mind if the "History" was made public only after the game ends - it might perhaps be less controversial and easier to do than getting authorizations for individual "chapters"... OTOH, we would have to wait for quite some time...).

Jon Miller · March 11, 2003, 04:15

Quote:

Originally posted by Trip
I was talking with Togas, and he presented the idea that the best way for me to do this would be if I had access to all of the teams' forums.

Would the teams be willing to allow this? I would never post in any of them (aside from "hello," maybe), and no content would ever leave myself or the articles I would be writing. This would eliminate the problem of teams giving me tainted "propaganda" that would ultimately hurt the efforts to record history.

Vox would be willing to consider it

trust is a vocal point of the game anyway

Jon Miller

UnOrthOdOx · March 11, 2003, 10:00

Let Trip in and look around. At the very least, he will have a decent chuckle over it, I am sure.

Trip, I trust you to use great discression on what you actually release to the public, and what you keep hidden like all those nasty things I may have said about you in our forum...

I once was heavily questioned on my ability to be unbiassed as well by those DIA 'passivists' in the SPDG...

Thrumble · March 11, 2003, 10:16

Quote:

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
Trip, I trust you to use great discression on what you actually release to the public, and what you keep hidden like all those nasty things I may have said about you in our forum...

I'm sure you will now go and edit all your nasty comments.

FrustratedPoet · March 11, 2003, 11:23

Maybe he'll just write some more about you

Beta · March 11, 2003, 11:49

I fully support this idea. it will bring some of the elements of the SPDG to the PTWDG forum - which IMHO, would be a good thing.

Jon Shafer · March 11, 2003, 15:03

Quote:

Originally posted by Thrumble

I'm sure you will now go and edit all your nasty comments.

Quick... It's time for everyone to throw all the papers into the fire.

DeepO · March 11, 2003, 15:53

Trip, you really want to wade through all that information? I doubt that you've got enough time to catch up on our forum alone, not even mentioning the other 5 of them. We gathered massive amounts of text over the past months. And no, there is no such thing as a quick summary in GS, we're still poking Alva to become our historian

Plus, I'm not sure If I want to let you enter our forum, no offense, but I think I'm going to polish my black ball for this...

DeepO

Togas · March 11, 2003, 17:14

As I told Trip last night in chat, I like the idea of having one person who could observe our history as it happens, from all sides, especially around key moments in our history, and prepare for us a chronicle of what occured as it is occuring. Those chronicles would be saved and released either at the end of the game or a long time after the events occured.

It serves us little good if Trip merely "interviews" us after events happen (before an event, no one is going to want to tip Trip off) because he may not get the full story and he will only get our filtered version of the events. It serves our history better to allow him to read and review the events as they take place, and to do that we're going to have to allow him to do so from our own forums.

I agree with Vondrack. Trip should not be posting in our forums with the exception of a single thread where he asks questions, clarifications, and perhaps asks if we want certain, perhaps unflattering, information to be made public.

Trip must swear to us that he will be a neutral journalist, not a critic or someone doing an editorial/opinion piece. He should not crack jokes, make comments, or involve himself in any way in our discussions.

We would be putting a great deal of trust and responsibility in his hands. I think that he understands this. I believe that his attachment to the game will be a strong motive to research and read up on all of the events and decisions that shape our history, and I think that his pride will help ensure that the finished product we get will be something we all will be extremely grateful to have.

I am willing to allow Trip access to my team's forum solely for this purpose. I hope that the other teams will also agree to do the same.

--Togas

astrologix · March 11, 2003, 17:43

I think that this work of Trip could be more significant than it now is thought.

To make the history of the first Civilization III Multiplayer by teams game in the world could be largely appreciated by readers not implied in this game.

If the such a report is well made, that could even give place to a book on the capacity of such a game to reproduce "historical" events.

I think that Trip is likely great to become an actor of first order in such a realization!