Virtual Femme

It probably seems like I’ve had writer’s block, but in reality, the opposite is true.  I’ve started another extremely serious writing project.  That puts me at three, so I’m pretty swamped.  On the plus side, I’ve got more world building tips to share including character creation.  So, this is just an update for you guys to let you know that this blog is still active.

Almost all writers have experienced writer’s block in some form or fashion, and we’re all very used to the frustration that accompanies this phenomenon.  For those of you lucky enough to have never experienced this, writer’s block is defined as a mental condition that results in a temporary loss of the ability to continue a piece of writing or begin a piece of writing due to a lack of creativity, ideas, or will.  Sometimes writer’s block is a temporary thing that can be resolved by simply waiting for a bit of inspiration.  Other times, it’s much, much more serious and can hamper the development of a creative process.

Defeating writer’s block can be harder than downing a 40-man raid boss, and it definitely takes more creativity.  My first step always is to take a break and not try to force the issue.  I go off and do something that is mind-numbing such as chopping celery or playing a few rounds of Chuzzle.  Repetative action soothes me and allows my brain to rest.  I can usually go back to writing after taking a short break.

If that does not work, I resort to more serious measures.  Try either changing the space in which you write or changing the medium in which you write.  So, if you always write on paper, try typing.  If you type, try getting out the old pen and notebook.  If that doesn’t work, move.  If you always work at home on your computer, pick up and head to a bookstore, a coffee shop, or the library.  If you always work at a bookstore, head to the park or a cemetery.

These are just a few steps I take to keep writing.  I encounter writer’s block fairly frequently probably due to the massive amounts of text I have to create daily.  I’ll post more tips at a later date!

People ask me all the time how I go about writing all the fiction and the details that I do for work.  (I develop virtual worlds for a living.  This includes the geography, the history, the races, and the culture.)  I mostly use basic tools that all writers use, but I’ve written up a few articles to help others.  Some of this all comes down to basically working at my writing constantly and reading fiction whenever I have a spare moment.  Everything else just comes with being receptive to inspiration from basically anywhere.

My latest contribution can be found on Bright Hub.  I’ve been writing about creating cultures in a virtual world.  This process can also be applied to creating races and such, so check it out!

Creating Cultures for Online Virtual Worlds

I also just wanted to show off my wonderful and expansionist Spore creatures.  Aren’t they cute?

For most games and especially text games, writing should be done in the active voice to give players a true sense of events within the game’s history and current happenings.  Many writers fall into the habit of writing in the passive voice which can often create convoluted and confusing sentences.  In the active voice, the subject of the sentence is the one creating the action.  In passive voice, the subject of the sentence is receiving the action.  With just a bit of rewording, a sentence using passive voice can turn into a sentence using active voice.

Passive voice:

The sprig of Serith’s whiskers is being picked by the crafter.

Active voice:

 The crafter picke a sprig of Serith’s whiskers.

The active voice often takes up far less space than passive voice, which is very handy when writing descriptions with a limited number of characters and lines.  With just a bit of concious effort and practice, writing in the active voice will become second nature.

Almost all online roleplaying games require some sort of gems system for their virtual world.  Some games opt to go with real life gem counterparts, and they skip the need to create gems particular to their own world.  The most important decision that these games have to make is which gems to use.  Other games have a mixture of both gems found in the real world and created gems.   These games have to decide which real gems they will use as well as the characteristics of the gems they create, which can be extremely problematic.  Threshold, one of the games on which I work, has real gems as well as created gems.  The created gems are used for specific systems, such as enchanting or giving players specific buffs, and the real gems are simply considered loot.  Other games go with a completely created system.  Primordiax is one of these games, and all of its gems for all of its systems are completely original.

Whenever I create anything from scratch, I still try to make sure that it is grounded in reality.  That way, people who know anything about the gems will not be jarred out of their suspension of disbelief.  One of the best gem resources I have found online is Treasure Hunting: Searching America for Hidden Secrets, a blog written by Kalilea.  There are gorgeous pictures to peruse, and there’s a lot of facts about actually finding gems.  Check it out if you need some good, solid gem facts.

  Coral reefs make extremely exciting areas on games because they can be filled with color, variety, and all sorts of interesting creatures.  In the real world, coral reefs play a very important part of our ecosystem, and the amount of diversity in this biome rivals that of the rain forests.  Thus, a designer can actually go crazy in creating strange beings for a coral reef, and it takes very little suspension of disbelief for a player to be involved in the area or to accept the area no matter how fantastical it may be.  Knowing the basics of how a coral reef exists and the purpose it serves in our ecosystem will allow one to build a better, more believable world.

The children’s book, A Home on the Coral Reef, is a great place to start researching.  It’s simply written, pack with interesting tidbits, and  covers the basics of the biome.

Maxis definitely made it quite easy to create beautiful and interesting items in Spore.  Obviously, it was in their best interest to make it easy since so many of the creatures and buildings end up on other people’s games.  It would be horrid to end up with some pretty blah and bland looking items done by a lazy player.  They obviously spent a ton of time programming their creation interface to be used even by the most inept gamers or people new to the game like me.  I was completely impressed by how easy it was to make something decent.

Obviously, I’m still practicing in my free time, which is a pretty rare commodity.  I’ve added the Spore Widget to my blog so that people can download what they want or just see what I’ve made.  (Again, notice how easy they made it to share my Spores!)

Okay, I recently got Spore, and so I’ve been playing that for 2 days.  Honestly, my husband took me to Wal-Mart at 12:15 am Sunday to get it as soon as we could since I have such limited playing time.  (It’s nice to have someone who understands my gaming obsessions.)  I didn’t actually even know it was coming out because they don’t seem to be advertising much.
So far, I have to say that this game is spectacular and gives me a lot of the gameplay and depth I’d been missing in playing MMOs.  I get more into my Spores than my MMO characters, but I think that’s because I don’t have to deal with any annoying people and can wallow in the growth of my Spore from cell all the way to space explorer.

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Football season has started, so this seemed like a good topic for a blog.  Okay, I really don’t have the perfect advice to make your wife love football because I honestly don’t know anything about you or your wife.  Maybe she knew someone who died in a football game, so she’ll always hate it.  I won’t be able to help you there.  In fact, I’m just going to tell you how I came to love football, much to my husband’s joy.

My husband is a huge college football fan, and we actually used to live in his favorite team’s hometown.  I think that if we hadn’t moved away, I’d probably never come to love his team.  It was just way too in-your-face anywhere we went, and honestly, I didn’t understand the game.  If I’d stayed where I was, I probably never would have wanted to learn the game.   Part of the problem with football, at least for me, was that there was simply so much dead-time, and none of the positions seemed to make sense.  It really looked like the ball got snapped, and everyone ran around until someone got knocked down.  To me, it was just a chaotic mess of men, a ball, and some grass.  How did it all change?

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I’m flexing my story-telling muscles again and giving the world of Primordiax a test run via a Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition campaign.   So, while I should be blogging about world building and storytelling, I’m going to blog about an amazing gaming table - possibly the ultimate gaming table - that was sent to me by one of the other players in my group.  Prepare yourself for the hefty price tag of nearly $10,000 for this table.

My first reaction to the table was probably pretty normal: W-T-F.  WTF!!!  Who would pay $10,000 used for throwing some dice and moving a few figures around?  Someone crazy, that’s who!   Then I took a look at the actual table - dubbed the Sultan- which is brought to us by Geek Chic, and my next reaction was, “Wow! I want one of those.”  Of course, the price tag will prevent me from having one except for in my dreams, but I bet that Geek Chic will sell a few of these.

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