Writers' Study Chat and Feedback - Ask all your questions here!

[Dan the Man]

Holy cow, how long have we had one of these!?
Better late than never, I guess:
I've already posted one piece here, a few months ago, but as of last night I started my first large scale project, the link to which can be found in my signature. I recommend it to anybody who is a fan of the Western genre.

[Katsumoto]

Indeed, better late than never. I'll give you the obligatory welcome anyway.

So, err... Welcome Dan!

Western eh? May have to check that bad boy out.

[Dan the Man]

Thanks Katsumoto!
Please note, it's only in its beginning stages at the moment, but I'd like to have another chapter ready every week.

[Katsumoto]

I've changed the topic of the thread a little so we could use it to chat and whatnot too, instead of making a new thread. I figured since we're a pretty small community here of writers and readers we may as well try to learn from each other. If you have any questions, or require any tips or advice, just ask here and someone will hopefully be able to answer them. Thanks.

[Radzeer]

Use this thread for chatting, asking questions and providing feedback for the Writers' Study, including the Lounge, MAARC, BAARC, TotW and the AAR subforums.

[Radzeer]

Reserved for something.

[Juvenal]

A little bit of history on the reason for some Mods having separate AAR forums while others use the main ones.

In the beginning there were Mod forums but no Writers Study. Then in July of 2008 this was all changed by PowerWizard (now known as Aldgarkalaughskel, although he is no longer active on TWC). PowerWizard was the driving force in setting up the MAARC and bringing all the AARs together as a measure to strengthen the writing community. He also started Tale of the Week!

However some Mod teams wanted to keep their AARs (after all they had their own communities to foster), hence the current situation. I believe PowerWizard was correct, because the main AAR forums are still active while many of the mod forums are moribund.

[wowbanger]

I just thought I'd repost here (at the bequest of Radzeer) something I brought up in the Content Staff forums about the state of AARtistry in various Mod subforums. These are all the Mods that have their own AAR subforums, as well as a status report on their level of activity:

Ok let me go find my list again. Like I said some of these are pretty well dead, so I will provide a status report for each:

RTW
Diadochi - Total War Dead - 9 threads, last post July 22, 2010
Extended Greek Mod (XGM) Pretty well dead - 119 threads, last post April 30, 2011 but this was necroposting, other than that no activity since January.
Chivalry Total War (ChivTW) Dead - 42 threads, last post February 10, 2011, only 2 thread starts in the last year and a half at least.

The other 2 RTW ones I mentioned were simply 'libraries' linking people to AARs in the main forums.

M2TW
Broken Crescent Alive (but only just) - 64 threads, last post May 24, 2011. Only 1 on going AAR as far as I can tell.
Call of Warhammer Dying - 31 threads, last post April 18, 2011
Deus Lo Vult Alive (La Coupe's AAR is the only thing keeping it that way though) 55 threads, last post May 24, 2011
Kingdoms Grand Campaign Dead - 11 threads, last post March 24, 2011. Nothing that extends onto a second page.
PRO DEO ET REGE Dead - 8 threads, last post July 10, 2009
THERA Alive - 29 threads, last post May 25, 2011
Third Age: Total War Alive - 136 threads, last post May 24, 2011.The most active of all these forums, mainly because of Fanfics.
Westeros: Total War Not sure how to class this one - 10 threads, last post May 25, 2011. This one's a bit odd. There was no activity since August 2009 until 2 days ago when someone provided a link to an AAR written in Spanish and posted a rough English translation without pictures.

ETW
A Proper Empire: Terra Incognita Dead - 8 threads, last post October 19, 2010

Those are all the ones from my list that I compiled a few weeks ago when I dug through every single released, hosted mod forum, so I doubt there will be any more.

As you can see the state of AARtistry in the Mod forums is pretty dire, many subforums lie dead and those that are still alive are only kept so by a small number of dedicated writers, who keep writing despite receiving few readers and little praise. Many AARs that are started only survive for a few updates at best, there is a far higher mortality rate than in the main forums, most likely due to lack of readers and comments. That was why I wrote my review for Inarus in last month's issue and why I wanted to do the reveiw this month; to give these writers the recognition they deserve.

I'm posting this here in the hope that we can come up with some ideas on what to do about this situation, and therefore help and support the dedicated writers in those nigh on deserted forums.

[Hesus de bodemloze]

You can't do any thing about it because it is up to the mod leaders to request a move of there AAR forums to the writers study. I asked them some time ago (like 2 years ago). Non of them was willing to move there AAR forums to this place. The only thing i am able to do right now is ask again which i just might do in the future. Let's hope this time they will listen and allow there forums to be moved.

[Radzeer]

Since the MTW2 AAR section is quite popular, maybe the argument could be that if they move their mods' respective AARs over here, more traffic could be generated for them too. I understand why people want to stick to such sections that grew out of their own work (and would not want to force them to close), but for pretty much everybody a centralized place where most AARs are here is much better.
When I was an AAR lurker, I never visited the mod forums, simply got my daily AAR from the central subforum. Also, when I'm logged in, I see quite a few names that I can recognize from various mods reading AARs here.

[Abhi_lash]

pls check this link http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...39#post9642239 its my First study pls see that and post your feedbacks.

[SimonGermanicus]

I wonder if you are allowed to post AARs in other languages too?

[Radzeer]

I wonder if you are allowed to post AARs in other languages too?

Good question. TWC's language is English except for the foreign language threads in TD. I would say that even if it is allowed, the feedback you get would be minimal, which can kill motivation really fast.

[Radzeer]

For the sake of simplicity, the CW subsections were merged and brought up one level. This may help in visibility.
In case you have not heard, there is something called the Tale Project. This was initiated by Mega to give more exposure to writers. You may want to consider to open your own thread for your work collection. You can of course still post those in here, as this section will not go away.

[Katsumoto]

You could probably delete all the stickies here, they don't really serve any purpose anymore.

[Radzeer]

Yes, sure. It would be great to leave a general information sticky up there though, and keep this thread too as a specific discussion/feedback forum.

[Katsumoto]

Yeah good idea. The OP is a little outdated though.

[Cuauhtzin]

Greetings to everyone!
I think this is the first time i post in TW center, even i had donwload and read some post before. I have always love the game because the oportunity it gives to re-think the History in "what if", and i was sure i wasn´t the only one who liked that but, now i know where i can share that.
I like to imagine about the all the alternatives that could have take the American people (and i mean the native americans of all the continent and not the United States) in the XV century. So if i share something, probably its goinna be about that.
A second issue, is that (as probably you have already notice) english is not my first language, so its gonna be hard for me express ideas in a proper literaty way, so im gonna make may best.

I salute you everyone!

[Radzeer]

Welcome to TWC! Look around and have fun, and if you have any questions, just ask.

[Maximinus Thrax]

People seem to have forsaken the spirit of competition. This is unprecedented, to my knowledge. MAARC has just entered yet another extension period, TotW is closed for the time being while BAARC is pretty much deceased.

We should encourage the writers to enter the competitions by kindly convincing them to do so.