✦ s e c o n d s b e f o r e / A NEW RP SECTION ✦

"an idea can still change the world. i've witnessed first hand the power of ideas, i've seen people kill in the name of them, and die defending them... but you cannot kiss an idea, cannot touch it, or hold it... ideas do not bleed, they do not feel pain, they do not love..."
- you know the movie. we missed the 5th of november, but hey, there were reasons for that :eyes:

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2017 has been an explosive year for URPG, and it's full of tons of new members, growth, and creativity that keep us joyous and remind us why we're all here! As we look ahead to the USUM Invitational and all the excitement to unleash, we (Smiles/Nitro/Elysia/Liam) are proud to propose... the Onmyo Region / seconds before / potentially a brand new RP section!?

The short pitch:

Welcome to a world at war.

The medium pitch:

This is a flexible RP that's designed to fit the niche between National Park and After Hours! Featuring some of the following things you know and love from the Pokemon videogames:

• Elemental-themed regions
• Exciting, randomly-rolled encounters
• A ridiculously wide open world for you to explore

And probably some other things that you might've been missing from URPG, such as badge quests, a level system, useful HM's, and more! It's got a ton of lore and love in it from the team and I really, really think you should all give it a read. Hell, even Monbrey said it interested him and it wasn't just because the fire people in this region are the coolest.

The long pitch:

Read it here!

Feel free to ask questions! We've come a long way but this is still clearly a work in progress! There's a lot of explosive growth that went around this idea, and as we know, ideas are flexible and fickle and can really come and go anywhere... so feel free to chime in!

 

While this sounds cool right now, I think that this system is so vast that this, on its own, can constitute an entirely new game. One person wouldn't be able to control all of the various subsections. This involves both rangering, reffing, chronicling, and modding for keeping track of the gym system. Like I this will require an entire team of people for 1 run.

So far from what I've read this is the national park but with gyms and more combat. And the park works quite well at this point and this would complicate the park. The system that you have proposed, while sounds fun, the other sections do it better. If we add this system to URPG I believe that we're better off just merging AH and the Park entirely... I really do think this sort of gameplay has potential, but like so far the complexity presented merits its own game outside URPG. We have simpler aspects of say park and AH at our disposal which, while doesn't offer the depth as this game, they allow us to go in with a specific purpose in mind, say to capture a pokemon in the woods. I can't see that starting over from scratch, putting in the effort of AH for everything including the battles, having to defeat gym leaders of questionable strength is rewarded fairly. Right now at least, the amount of effort that will go in to this is for too little reward for the player.

I'm not convinced to play this new section in its current state than over the park where I can go in rp a little and get my desired pokemon without having to worry if the caterpie I encountered won't get torched by the local gym leader's Charizard, and worry about being stuck in that region unless I write 500 quality RP words and buying an 8k HM from the pokemart, hoping that my pokemon can actually use it, and probably never using again. Why would I want to build an entire team and expect to be competitive against gym leaders if I encounter things at the park level. Also why would I want to limit my character choices much more than what AH can do? hy would I spend my time with one or two mons that I've randomly found there pule one or two mons from my stats, when I can use any pokemon in my stats against a gym leader's line up of 15 choices? Honestly, with the park, normal battling system, and AH in its current state, this new RP section would be redundant.

I'm not saying your idea is hopeless, but I seriously think that major aspects of this section can be scaled back, or completely modified else because right now, at least, they're running into conflict with the other sections of URPG that currently work and this idea hasn't really distinguished itself from a souped-up AH and Park mission.

 

What? I'm sorry if it could have been more clear, but you misunderstood quite a few things. There's no need for a ranger, a ref, a chronicler, and a mod for one run-- it just needs the SB Professional. There's no reffing involved. There's not a fixed gym system in place; i.e. there's not a specific NPC who's the Squall Kua's Gym Leader that owns 6 Lvl 50 Gyarados. If a player goes on a Leader Quest, they meet up with the Leader of the Kua, an NPC of the SB Professional, and if they battle, their Pokémon will be adjusted to an appropriate level of the player's as well as the number of Pokémon the Kua Leader has will be adjusted to the number of Pokémon the player has. That is, of course, assuming you even battle the Leader Kua; you may end up having to carve out a toboggan out of ice your Pokémon made using ice beam and racing down a slope, or saving a town from a nasty fire or something.

Not so sure about that and I don't think this has to nor will complicate the park.

I'm not so sure about that. And nor is anyone else. SB provides a lot of areas that are lacking in other sections, so I don't think that other sections will do it better sense this is sort of a niche idea in of itself.

I don't think a merge of AH and Park would be feasible. Also, I really don't think it's so complex that it should just be its own RPG board. It's vast and it is complex, but URPG isn't naïve enough, nor is URPG weak enough to not be able to have it as a subforum.

What? If you want a pokemon from the park you have to go on a run, encounter it, battle it in posts, and wait an extensive amount of time (generally) until you can receive that mon. The quests here are small enough that the right amount of effort = the reward. If you go on an Encounter Quest, you encounter 5 local mons and can battle/interact with them to capture one of them, once you're good with whatever you caught, you're done with that Quest. If you go on a Leader Quest, you post about defeating/battling/interacting with a Kua Leader to earn their badge which gives the player its own rewards along with opening doors for more and bigger rewards. You make it sound like one needs to put a huge amount of effort in for nothing, which just isn't the case. I hope you aren't going down the line of thought that there should be the minimal amount of work put in for rewards in URPG.

This is over exaggerated and misunderstood. SB as presented here is not currently ready to go into implementation. I addressed the Kua Leader issue above so there's no worries that your Caterpie will get torched by a Leader's Charizard unless you actively brought a weak Caterpie on your team to face the Forge/Vale Kua. And I don't think it crazy to ask players to make a couple posts describing their characters moving through a snowy mountain pass or something to go from one Kua to another. There's a lot to do in one Kua: encounter a lot of distinct mons, challenge a leader, go on dungeon quests and find items, etc. We're designing Kuas so that they have a lot to do in them, so hopefully people won't feel like there's nothing left unexplored after a couple RPs.

And HMs are not necessary to explore/continue on a quest through a Kua. They only provide extra places for you to explore that generally will bring you better rewards, like in the Heaven Kua, there are floating islands that have waterfalls coming off of them, so to reach the top of the islands, one must have a Pokémon that knows Waterfall and you have to have defeated the Heaven Kua Leader. Now on top of that floating island might be a Merciless Pokémon ready for capture, or a pot of gold worth like 25k or something, idk, it's up to the quality of the posts made by the player and the type of Quest they're on and what the SB Professional decides.

Again, referring to my answers from above, a Kua Leader would be challenging, but doesn't have to be a battle as well as it is scaled to the individual RPer. There's more continuity here that AH lacks. So you may think it's limiting to what a character does, but it'd more grounded and something RPers who participate in AH have said has been missing. Using Pokémon you've encountered and caught in SB as well as your starter and others you've pulled from your stats, is hopefully a decent team that you like. I wouldn't imagine someone capturing and continuing to use a Pokémon they dislike. If you want a normal URPG gym battle with mons from your stats, have at it, if you want to creatively battle or earn a badge then this is for you and a normal battle wouldn't suffice.

We are working on ironing out details still. Things are up in the air and subject to change. With this being more concurrent with the games and anime, building a team on site, leveling up, the different types of Quests one can do, and other mechanics in the works, I personally I think it has many distinguishing features that make itself different from a "souped-up" AH and Park mission.

 

That's a lot for one person to keep track of. And park rangers are already overwhelmed as they are. Yeah certianly people like Ely or Smiles who have every profession under their belt, but I really think that either you need to simplify the roles a bit or divvy them up. You just convinced me that theyre even more complicated than what I had anticipated.

What areas are you specifically referring to? that you can't have a combat system in AH and that the park you can't really rp outside of forcing a character on a run? Is there even a need for that.

This basically is a merge between the two especially if you go in and accomplish the same tasks in both sections at the same time. Like this idea in its current state is redundant with what we have right now. Where is the need for an idea like this that dungeons don't cover? Where parks don't cover? How does this actually solve a problem, if there is one in the first place? Is the park too barren, AH getting too route? To be honest, this idea kinda came out of nowhere. Like the battle fronteir is a current solution for more alternative battling experiences.

Describing everything in that detail supports my argument that there would be too much effort for the return.

Obviously the Caterpie was a dramatic example...

Yet again with all of these details, you're basically describing to me an entire game rather than a simple national park structure or the simple ah structure. What is this? A quest system in an uncharted land where you develop your own team with its own gym system? This is its own entirely separate game apart what has been established from the standard park, rp, and battling system. Like so far you have created a self sustaining system that can exist URPG just fine. Like I'm not convinced this will add anything new to URPG specifically, unless this actually becomes URPG.

 

(Quick aside to point out that I actually have just as many professions as you do, and that Smiles actually has fewer. While we appreciate that you think we're so cool, there's no need to toss in the extra promotions for us when other people have actually earned them!)

The Navigator role has, at its very core, the same as any role as any creative profession: to ascertain quality, and I think this understanding is key. Having multiple professions that require the same base skill does not mean that they are all the same -- an accountant, an engineer, and a consultant will all need to know how to use a computer, but they will all use that knowledge in different ways, and you can't really say that any one job is a conglomeration of the others. In URPG, each creative section has their own way of looking for certain elements that are indicative of "good quality" work: Graders look for things like attention to plot, character, details; Curators examine stuff like form, color choice, use of light, composition; Rangers look for creativity in the description of moves, actions, and decisions made by the player in battle.

Navigators look for quality in roleplay by seeing how the player interacts with the event in the Navigator's posts, how the player makes those events their own by responding to them, and how the player incorporates those events into character growth. It's soft, and it's fuzzy, and there's no friendly number system like there might be in Park/Battles/Contests, but I think that gives us more flexibility -- this is closer to the numberless system of Art/Stories than it is to the calc system of Park/Battles.

Some people think so! Not every section is for everyone; I acknowledge that I'm pretty bad at Art and I haven't done a single Contest in my entire life -- but just because they don't appeal to me personally doesn't mean that the section doesn't exist?

Park, to me, is an RPG that focuses on the segment of the videogame where the wild encounter sound plays and you battle the Pokemon and catch it. The items in the shop focus on increasing the rate of desirable encounters, decreasing the rate of undesirable encounters, and leaving undesirable encounters with less penalty. And that's fine! That appeals to people, even if those people aren't me, and that gives the section value.

SB, to me, is an RPG that focuses on most of the things outside of the part where the wild encounter sound plays. You still catch Pokemon, of course (that's what these games are about), but you're inextricably involved in a wider world that has its own locations and struggles that will, at some point, fall on you. This is the RPG that incorporates the sidequests and endgames that aren't about catching Pokemon, and that allow you to remain immersed in the world even after you've caught the 3 Pokemon you wanted from that particular run.

Dungeons does not yet exist and doesn't seem any closer to existing than it has when I first joined. This is for many reasons, all of which I understand and sympathize with (building new sections is hard, as we can all see here), but to say that one idea is flawed because another undeveloped idea could maybe do similar things when it eventually gets implemented seems like an unfair criticism.

I touched on what this offers that Park does not above, but if you insist, let's go deeper into details:
Since I joined URPG in spring of 2013, there have been 7 runs that started and completed ("completed" is defined as having encountered enough Pokemon that you capture 3 that you actually like and leave willingly, but if that definition seems unfair to the integrity of Park, please feel free to pose another. There were a bunch of beginner runs that finished, too, but I don't know if using the intro level of a section is fair as a rough indicator of its overall activity on all levels).
Axion
Synthesis
Mlouden
Axion (again)
Bee
Elysia
Winter
Liam

I may have miscounted/missed a few; there were a lot of threads to go through and I probably missed something along the way. Apologies if that is the case. And again, there are changes in Park and things that may make these numbers different in the future! Which is good, and should also be encouraged.

But, hey, I'm on that list. I was drawn in to the Gen VI event because it seemed exciting (only three of those event runs ever finished, even using the broader definition of "player leaves Park"). I actually went through Park, got some ghost/dark types, and left. I never really had the inclination to return; looking at other people's runs, it felt like I had already experienced a broader portion of what the Park offers. And that came in two parts. One, I didn't think that exploring the Ruined Manor vs Mount Deckbi vs the Botanical Gardens would change much more than which adjectives I used to describe the environment and which Pokemon I ran away from. And two, I'd come into the Park wanting to write things about my trainer, but when I actually tried to incorporate backstory, it felt shoehorned and awkward next to the plot of my run, which was the battle at hand. Part of this is probably on me, but I again point to the above list of completed runs -- I think there are people who are looking for more than Park has to offer.

This, again, comes down to a matter of taste and what people like. The Park isn't my cup of tea, but that doesn't mean it can't be a good section. Some people love that the Park lets you explore the wilderness and battle things and leave and come back to explore the wilderness and battle things and leave and come back. And some don't. SB is for those who don't -- much in the same way that Stories lets people write about the plot of "boy walks into woods, sees Pokemon, catches Pokemon," or whatever else they want, SB is for those who want to do whatever else they want.

I'm sorry, could you elaborate on this? That's the equivalent of me saying that you writing this post makes you wrong. Discussions happen when we give reasons for why we disagree, not when we say that people saying things actually makes me right.

Fair! Tone and intent are hard to interpret on the internet. But the point Liam was trying to make is that the Navigators will make things challenging but not impossible. There's no calculator like Park/Battles; a player making high quality posts will have a lot more flexibility than what you've envisioned.

Your starter in this region is from your URPG roster. You can import Pokemon from your URPG roster into SB. Like Stories/Park/Art/AH, the Pokemon you obtain here are added to your URPG roster. Your Pokemon's SB movesets are defined by their movesets in URPG, so EM'ing your Pokemon in URPG EM's them in SB. You buy items with URPG $. You interact with URPG players. I find this to be much more heavily integrated into URPG than Stories, Art, or AH, and I think this game would fail as a standalone.

Stories is fanfiction. Art is fanart. These are self-sustaining entities older than URPG, with external self-sustaining venues other than URPG, and yet their integration into URPG was never called into doubt. They exist here because people want to do them, and because we found a way to tie them back to this game that we all love. I think SB falls under the same umbrella.