Well!

What an exciting week it’s been. I’m very pleased to announce that our boards are almost ready for posting on—in less than a week, we’ll be fully back in business with boards that work and act much like our old ones did. I loved those boards so, so much, but I think I’m going to love these ones even more. Once the boards are fully operational, we’ll have a “grand opening” of sorts to announce to the world that the WoT RP is back.

But, since I know so many of you are just raring to go… you can now start submitting those join forms! And if you’re even more raring to go, start working on that extended biography and intro post—you’ll be needing them before too long. :)

Cheers,

Joni

Phew. It may not look it from the front end, but lots has been going on behind the scenes here at the WoT RP. Certain essential pages are getting set up and finished off, the Officers have a truly magnificent RP planned to introduce our characters and get the site rolling, and every day our boards are getting closer to being finished. You should see how far they’ve come already.

I also keep hearing from members, past and future, who’re getting excited about creating new characters and getting back into writing. I get pretty excited when I hear about this, because the process of character creation is incredibly fun. I’ve created two new Aes Sedai of my own to write for, and despite a bit more agonizing over names that has to go on, I’m raring to go on writing things for them. Actually, Jeremy (the new Mistress of Novices) and I have already been emailing some posts back and forth to each other—and ten posts and about 15,000 words later, it’s safe to say we’re back in the game. I just wonder where that word count was when I was trying to write essays in university.

It’s also past time that I answer some questions that I keep getting about characters, and whether or not they can be brought back. The long and short of it? Absolutely! If you had beloved characters at the site before it closed in ’07, you are very welcome to reinstate them. Here’s the deal:

– Characters can be brought back by their previous writer, provided that they submit an up-to-date biography with that character for inclusion on the member pages. The character can be brought back at the rank and relative progress that they were before; we have the old lesson progress pages, so if you were halfway being done Acceptedhood, we can transfer that over. Credits are assigned on a case-by-case basis.

– If you were a previous member and wish to create a new character instead of starting again with an old one, we encourage you to start that new character at first rank, so as to benefit from developing that character naturally. But in an effort to get a little more variety in the site, you can also apply for a character at the same rank which you previously left off. For example, if you had a full Aes Sedai last time, you may create another Aes Sedai (but only one). If you had a mid-rank Gaidin in Training (what used to be a Sei’Tar, now a Gaidin in Training with two merit badges), you can create another mid-rank GiT. So on and so forth. This is also subject to approval on a case-by-case basis.

– This invitation does not apply to male channelers in the White Tower, however. This is due to a new back story surrounding how men become a part of the White Tower, which happened only very recently on our timeline. Sorry!

– When you rejoin the site, your relative ‘rank’ is carried over, in terms of numbers of characters and the like. For example, if you had a newly raised Accepted last time and you want to begin with just one novice, you may still have up to three characters, even though other newly joined novices may only create two characters.

– Questions, concerns, requests, suggestions? Email me, we’ll hopefully figure something out. Reinstating old characters will remain on a case-by-case basis, and once the site gets more established again, we probably won’t accept transfers as easily. Better to do it sooner rather than later!

The Join page is finished (though the form itself is secreted away), and despite a bit of drama with it at 2:30 am (namely, the whole thing disappeared on me! grr), it’s a thing of beauty. I’ve always been weirdly proud of my join forms. ;) Ta!

Joni

So far in considering how to remake the site, it’s been an interesting balance between that something old and that something new. In many ways, there’s no point in trying to reinvent the wheel. You might notice in our Rules that a lot has carried over from the last version of the WoT RP (though with some major edits). But, I’ve also had three years to contemplate what we could have done better last time, and The Gathering Storm was a wonderful book for exploring more within the White Tower. Since that’s where the site is starting, it’s shed light on a few facets that will be rather new for the site.

To keep this short and sweet, here are the top points for ‘something new’:

– Increased faithfulness to the books. Kind of. In rereading the Wheel of Time, a lot of things have stuck out to me in ways that seem like they’d make for better role-playing. Maybe they’re just details, but ones that seem kind of important in the long run. One such realization? That the Training Grounds—where men (and the occasional woman)—come to study under Aes Sedai’s Warders, are actually studying under Warders. Gaidin are Warders, and aren’t some rank unto themselves. Those who study under the Warders are expecting to become Warders themselves. Which brings us to the next point.

– Sections that are more integrated together. In a few ways, I hope that characters from each section get to know each other better; novices and Accepted and Trainees have requirements that ask them to write together, for example. While this had better not result in more cheesy romance strings, I hope that this will result in more PC Aes Sedai and Warders who are bonded. If you haven’t noticed already, one of the requirements to become full rank in the Training Grounds is to actually become bonded. Being bonded is great IC and OOC; it gives you someone to write with all the time, and once you’re done developing your character on their own during training, you then get someone dependable to write with once raised.

– A more flexible administration. In some form or another, my hope is that we’ll have more people involved in helping to run the site beyond the traditional IC roles. This includes expanding the IC roles so that Sitters, Ajah Heads, and Blademasters have increased responsibility and visibility. We’ll see how this works over time, but there are so many people so far who’ve indicated interest in various roles at the site that I truly want to find a way to include everyone. It’ll happen, one way or another!

– One website, not five. We used to have a lot of different “section” sites (such as the Amyrlin’s Study, the Gates of the Black Tower, etc.), but with the new fandangled web technologies, it’s now far easier for us to maintain one site all together instead of each section leader taking care of their own part. I hope that this will result in better integrated information and resources for everyone, not just one section or another.

Of course, there’s more to come, but I just wanted to point out those top four things so far. Also, I’ve been getting emails from folks asking about characters and stuff, and keep those coming! I can’t wait for when we can have a grand opening of sorts and the join forms start slewing in. Woohoo!

Joni