Gaius Marius 10 Year AMA

[Ibn Khaldun 7729]

I am such a slow boomer that I missed the whole 10 year mark for my account and have come fashionably late to entertain any questions folks might have. Ask away!

[ErikAzog 3313]

Good to see you still on, king.

What sold lotc to you when you first started playing. A lot of players have come and gone in the last 10 years, what brings you back?

[Benjikhei 696]

To be on the server as long as yourself, what an accomplishment- especially if you've still been able to maintain consistent interest. I'll ask a few questions.

 

Your most well-developed character, and why?

 

Favourite eventline / event on the server to date?

 

A few of your most incredible moments on the server?

[Ibn Khaldun 7729]

1 hour ago, ErikAzog said:

Good to see you still on, king.

What sold lotc to you when you first started playing. A lot of players have come and gone in the last 10 years, what brings you back?

 

Lord of the Craft seemed like a great place to make a niche for myself as a fiction writer and, in my later years, a means to develop playable content that entertained an audience. I actually first came to LotC from another game that is very similar in that it is a niche source of entertainment (although altogether different genre with LotC being fantasy & Pardus being Sci-Fi): Pardus.at.

 

My recent return has been fully dedicated towards helping the server and the players by providing nice prose to read and nice event-lines and concepts to interact with. My work and home life leaves me on a very irregular schedule where I don't log in for days at a time and may only log in for 1-3 hours so I spend more of my time either writing or fine-tuning events to either be random environmental events to throw interesting arcs for other players to be affected by or with storylines that slowly build up and are malleable to players' input. Any characters that people have encountered that are played by me are in fact event-characters for some storyline.

 

40 minutes ago, BenjiBot_ said:

To be on the server as long as yourself, what an accomplishment- especially if you've still been able to maintain consistent interest. I'll ask a few questions.

 

Your most well-developed character, and why?

 

Favourite eventline / event on the server to date?

 

A few of your most incredible moments on the server?

 

1. I believe my first character, Gaius Marius, who founded the Teutonic Order has to be my most well-developed character. The first reason is because this character had the longest lifespan out of every character I played and the influence of multiple other player-groups including the Kingdom of Oren, the Kingdom of Alras, the Rexdom of Krugmar, the Ascended, & the Undead had an effect on the character development. I intentionally set out to reflect the effects of the Kingdom of Oren title being split between him and Ezekiel Tarus (eventual founder of Renatus), the effects of a continuous war against the Undead, and the pessimism regarding the effectiveness of the Ascended on Gaius.

 

2. This one is really difficult and I feel that I don't exhibit the same degree of excessive criticism as some others do on the server regarding many of the event-lines throughout the time of this server. I am split between the most recent attack on Amathaea [sp?] and the Flays wearing down and eventually defeating the Teutonic Order in the 3.0 [iirc] map.

 

I really have to say that the big-picture overlook of the attack on Amathaea saw an impressive collaboration between the different ST who roleplayed individual antagonistic characters, the world-editing of the dragon, and a good control of ambience and in micromanaging interactions with sets of characters. Bear in mind that I have been in that place where I led a server antagonist and felt that did a better job working together than I managed to orchestrate when I had to manage the Scourge [forgot which map that was].

 

The Flays defeating the Teutonic Order is a more personal favorite because I loved seeing an entity that once rose to be strong militarily slowly, but surely whittled away. For me, it was the full civilizational cycle of rise, plateau, then fall to be replaced and morphed into a different polity. I didn't have any ego attached and actually spent a lot of time chilling with the Flays who I personally liked.

 

3. The way this question is worded, I will go into moments that I personally experienced. With my Gaius Marius character, I absolutely enjoyed the successful raid on Al'Khazaar [Kingdom of Oren capital] where the Teutons & I disguised as Monks of St. Daniel and tricked the Queen [played by GM Ivrae] into letting us pass only to have us come in and absolutely pillage the city. With my Sauros Alanbataar character, I absolutely enjoyed the nomadic roleplay with sheumgal, i_am_Ricky, Sir_Wyvernos, aelvus99, and others that had us brushing shoulders with Orcs, Seventis, Salvus, & Alras. I really enjoyed the Scourge when I managed them for a period of time, mainly because I spent a good deal of time mending fences between the server antagonist and the playerbase. I would say this was my transition from a "consumer/player" to a "developer/writer/producer" and I've been more involved with producing for LotC's playerbase as opposed to playing more for personal entertainment.

 

[ydegirl 1757]

What kept you around for 10 years?

[Johann 1413]

What lorepiece speaks to you the most?

 

What flavour of fantasy do you favour as a means of storytelling?

 

Which fictional universe is/has been the main influence for your works, and why? 

 

 

 

 

[Ibn Khaldun 7729]

2 hours ago, MissAnneDrey said:

What kept you around for 10 years?

 

As a consumer/player, I liked the variety of both story arcs and the fact that Minecraft as a video game allowed for an easy way to shape the environment. As more of a writer/developer, both being able to give back to an audience and the friends that I am able to help through doing what I do including Joel, Heero, & others.

 

1 hour ago, Johann said:

What lorepiece speaks to you the most?

 

What flavour of fantasy do you favour as a means of storytelling?

 

Which fictional universe is/has been the main influence for your works, and why? 

 

 

 

 

 

1. I think the Tolkien fan in me would respond 'the many cultures across LotC'. I actually hold availer's cosmology for LotC dear to me in that it is based on Islamic cosmology partly and reminds me of how Frank Herbert (author of Dune) and Robert Jordan (author of Wheel of Time) also derived a number of concepts from that cosmology. I also felt that the simplicity allows for LotC to build lore from a simple foundation rather than a convoluted one, but I know I am very biased in this. In terms of magic lore perhaps, I actually really like the Sorvian lorepiece.

 

2. Interesting question and one which will get a different answer from me than from others. I really like fantasy rooted in a focus of plausibility - in that readers don't have to suspend too much disbelief to buy into a certain fantasy element. I am also a very strong fan of influences from world mythologies.

 

3. Hard question because I don't think any one "fictional universe" influences me as opposed to specific authors and intellectuals. I would go with the Tolkien universe though for reasons I can specify.

[excited 10833]

Yo Gaius

 

1. What advice do you have for aspiring writers?

2. How do you advise people play the game?

3. What do you feel LoTC currently lacks?

4. What is your most nostalgic memory? Apart from giving everyone on Anthos 1 million minas via Radical Wealth Redistribution.

[Abeam 510]

Will you return to RPing, Gaius, or do you prefer to write and create within the LOTC-verse, rather than directly participate yourself?

[Ibn Khaldun 7729]

12 hours ago, EXCITED said:

Yo Gaius

 

1. What advice do you have for aspiring writers?

2. How do you advise people play the game?

3. What do you feel LoTC currently lacks?

4. What is your most nostalgic memory? Apart from giving everyone on Anthos 1 million minas via Radical Wealth Redistribution.

 

1. Engage literature for the sake of improving ones' grammar which is vital for your audience's comprehension of your work, improving one's writing convention in order to keep a consistency from beginning to end of your writing, and improving one's creativity as it pertains to dealing with abstract concepts in a way that is both plausible and meaningful to your reader. Reason with yourself regarding how you balance descriptiveness in your prose, you don't want to write too little that the audience can't conjure up an image in their mind's eye and you don't want to write too much that it becomes too convoluted.

 

2. The server is dynamic, or at least meant to be, in that both players and events can affect both the physical landscape and the development of characters. My first advice would be to maintain an open mind and refrain from shutting yourself off from said dynamism. Whatever the mechanics used to render said effect, whether it is CRP, PvE, or PvP; all mechanics are executable on this game and one shouldn't shy away from taking the effects into consideration for their character.

 

My second advice would be to maintain friendliness out-of-character. We are all humans at the end of the day enjoying a source of entertainment and friendliness and cordiality should be our default in how we treat and speak with one another. You'll often find that maintaining that friendliness rather than being sardonic, sarcastic, or generally unfriendly will wield a lot better results in both your enjoyment of the game and in resolving any impasse between players.

 

3. I may differ from a number of people in that I don't actually think that LotC lacks anything. However, and in order to give an answer, I'll give an aside: I think players on LotC should make an intentional effort to restore some of the dynamism that has been lost. What do I mean by that? I know I may a bit misinformed since I've returned from a long hiatus and I may not have the history right, but war roleplay seems to have been put on ice for a period of time before I returned because the last war ended up being incredibly uncivil between the parties out-of-character. Whether it is people making snide, low-blow comments in the form of "roleplay posts", or PRO or related members not being cooperative regarding the effects of war, or players generally engaging in rude antics OOCly - players have to take themselves into account and realize that much of the dynamism lost is only going to be restored if we become more cooperative and integral in putting together interesting roleplay - participate genuinely instead of play half-assedly.

 

4. I atoned for my sins, you need not remind me of my mina spawning 😅

 

 

Banter aside, I'd say when my character met availer's character and had some interesting conversations. For the server founder, he carried himself well and unpretentiously.

 

 

8 hours ago, Abeam said:

Will you return to RPing, Gaius, or do you prefer to write and create within the LOTC-verse, rather than directly participate yourself?

 

Definitely the latter. I'm happy most when I am writing or doing something for the enjoyment of the players.

 

[Treshure 5581]

What is the OG name of the Cloud Temple?

[TJBMinecraft 821]

Favourite nation that you rped in and why 

[Ibn Khaldun 7729]

7 hours ago, Treshure said:

What is the OG name of the Cloud Temple?

 

I ride or die for the OG Cloud Temple!

 

 

2 hours ago, TJBMinecraft said:

Favourite nation that you rped in and why 

 

I'll give two answers:

 

a. Haense: I find Haense to have been incredibly successful in implementing an altogether different culture, language (and dialect), and set of traditions. For me, it is an almost Tolkien-like dream come true and I am really impressed by the ones responsible for building up that nation.

 

b. Teutonic Order/Kingdom of Hanseti in Aegis: We had a really incredible group of players who I enjoyed immensely and the players came from all over the world. We had a bunch of Americans, a bunch of Eastern Europeans like Orhan0, Syblix, Vanus, and firespirit44 played in the Teutonic Order who became the affable Kai that a number of older players remember. We also had a very interesting dynamic in roleplay, having allied with the Orcs, fought the Undead, worked with the Elves, fought against both Oren and the Dwarves, had a pessimistic relationship with the Ascended.

[UnusualBrit 2054]

Sulla or Marius

[Ibn Khaldun 7729]

7 hours ago, UnusualBrit said:

Sulla or Marius

 

Sulla can go the way of Brooks from Shawshank Redemption.