BZPRPG News and Discussion

[25K Now!]

Prei x Tera shipping go.

[Geardirector]

Well now, this is gonna be fun.

 

[Light]

Prei x Tera shipping go.

I.... Really don't know how to react XD

[Wazdakka]

Do I even need to PM a staff member before I start giving Ga-Koro a nice revision in landscape? Or would that depend on how far I want to go?

[shadow pridak money gang]

Do I even need to PM a staff member before I start giving Ga-Koro a nice revision in landscape? Or would that depend on how far I want to go?

 

It would depend how far you want to go, though if you plan on doing anything more malicious than mow someone's front yard it would take far more than one IC to do it, and in multiple ICs the Marines would probably be on you, so if you're going to do anything about it I'd advise you put some thought into it.

 

-Tyler

[They]

Well, being Vice-Captain of the marines, I'd love a PM too, but definitely talk to staff. Tyler would be a good staff member since he RUNS Ga-koro.

 

EDIT: well, ninja'd by the staff.

Edited November 12, 2013 by Kughii

[shadow pridak money gang]

Well, being Vice-Captain of the marines, I'd love a PM too,

 

When did this happen again?

 

-Tyler

[They]

Iraira, my friend. You are the head of the Marines (with Kotu), and since KNI ain't here to take care of the other vice-captain (Daylaria) I'm holding the puzzle pieces for now.

Edited November 12, 2013 by Kughii

[shadow pridak money gang]

I'm pretty positive that isn't exactly how it works, but this doesn't really belong here in any event, so let's take it somewhere more private.

 

-Tyler

[- JL -]

Unfortunately, I don't have the computer savvy Silvan does, and I have no idea how many profiles are saved.

 

 

From a post before on here...

There is a way to possibly recover your lost data.

 

Go to Google and type in

 

Quote

 

site: bzpower.com "keyword"

 

Replace keyword with whatever you're searching for, but it keep it within the quotation marks. You can use multiple keywords, which allows you to search for individual pages within topics. For example:

 

Quote

 

site: bzpower.com "le-wahi" "62"

 

 

In this case, my search would attempt to return the 62nd page in the Le-Wahi topic.

 

Once you've located the page you're searching for, there should be an option on the Google search page to open the cache instead of the actual topic (a cache is a stored copy of the page, which means it isn't affected by the deletion).

 

This should allow you to recover profiles and any posts that were just so dang good you just had to have them back.

 

 

Though I'm not sure if that would work; new caches were possibly saved.

 

WB Kai!

Edited November 12, 2013 by JL v2

[Light]

Thanks. I have it back now, thanks to the efforts of Nocturne.(for someone who can program, C++ I'm not good at this)Anyway, that opens up the option of bringing all of them back.

[The Lorax]

Question: Do the Dasaka live as long as the other species we're familiar with? Much of the writing in the MRP on their clan-based culture suggests that many generations of Dasaka have been and gone in the past, so that nobody from the earliest points in Dasaka history remains alive.

 

If Dasaka lifespans are on the order of 100,000 years, then that pushes back the beginning of known time for this game waaay back from where it was earlier this year (about 1101 years, when Matoran first awakened on Mata Nui). For there to have been a succession of many Roras, but not a trend for Roras to die young (history surely would have remarked on it of there was), their lives would probably have been significantly shorter, maybe only a hundred years, or a thousand.

 

Nuju?

[Nuju Metru]

Question: Do the Dasaka live as long as the other species we're familiar with? Much of the writing in the MRP on their clan-based culture suggests that many generations of Dasaka have been and gone in the past, so that nobody from the earliest points in Dasaka history remains alive.

 

If Dasaka lifespans are on the order of 100,000 years, then that pushes back the beginning of known time for this game waaay back from where it was earlier this year (about 1101 years, when Matoran first awakened on Mata Nui). For there to have been a succession of many Roras, but not a trend for Roras to die young (history surely would have remarked on it of there was), their lives would probably have been significantly shorter, maybe only a hundred years, or a thousand.

 

Nuju?

 

Thinking about time in this game makes my head hurt.

 

Just think of the Dasaka as identical to Toa in biology and lifespan and everything else.

[25K Now!]

Time makes no sense in this game guys.

 

Always remember that.

[The Lorax]

Allrighty then. The Dasaka civilisation is old.

 

Good to know.

[AuRon the champion]

Hey folks. Herupa clan is up.

 

On the clan itself, if any player wants a Herupa Bodyguard/adviser/assistant, please PM me and I'll set something up for you. =D

[Aurora the cat]

Prei x Tera shipping go.

 

Don't ship anyone yet please....

 

 

Hey folks. Herupa clan is up.

 

On the clan itself, if any player wants a Herupa Bodyguard/adviser/assistant, please PM me and I'll set something up for you. =D

 

Interesting.. Very interesting...

 

 

 

Does anyone know the current whereabouts of Thok?

[sunflower]

 

Prei x Tera shipping go.

 

Don't ship anyone yet please....

 

 

LOL

 

 

that's funny

 

Does anyone know the current whereabouts of Thok?

 

 

My guess is that he's in their Sooper Seecret Hideyhut. Could PM The Mask for specifics.

[- JL -]

....What makes a good villain? What makes the best villains?I remember asking, or questioning this, some time ago. I honestly still don't understand the full extent of how you guys think of this, so if a bit of light could be shed on how you think the best evil is, and why.....please?

[Eyru]

....What makes a good villain? What makes the best villains?I remember asking, or questioning this, some time ago. I honestly still don't understand the full extent of how you guys think of this, so if a bit of light could be shed on how you think the best evil is, and why.....please?

 

Different things.

 

A good villain can be someone who does evil simply because she enjoys it (Anthyn), or someone who's incredibly calculating and cruel (Echelon), or someone who takes advantage of people for his own pleasure with no thought for their own well-being (Heuani).

 

There are many things that make a good villain. The one trait in common, though, seems to be a selfish disregard for others. Greed is the root of all evil, really. If you love yourself over anyone else, and you do anything to get ahead without regard for how it might hurt anyone else, you're pretty evil.

[Toatapio Nuva]

Being evil means having a motive that largely conflicts with the motives and general fundamental principles of the majority. Although a differing opinion isn't enough to make one evil... this motive needs actions that the majority also disapproves of.

Edited November 12, 2013 by Toatapio Nuva

[Geardirector]

Say, does anyone know where Friar Tuck went?

[Ghosthands]

Nobody knows for sure; it is believed he was swallowed by a great monster known as Real Life. I believe he's alive somewhere in the belly of the beast, but for now he is missing, presumed Busy.

[- JL -]

I remember some people here saying that the best type of evil is from people who are just 'evil', who don't have backstories explaining it, like Makuta before Teridax. But is there a reason why?

 

 

Say, does anyone know where Friar Tuck went?

Life. The vortexes of limbo. Cod: WaW.

[Aurora the cat]

....What makes a good villain? What makes the best villains?I remember asking, or questioning this, some time ago. I honestly still don't understand the full extent of how you guys think of this, so if a bit of light could be shed on how you think the best evil is, and why.....please?

 

I have found, when writing, that if you can create a villain who's reasoning seems perfectly reasonable, and truly believes that he is correct and has done nothing incorrect, then you have a good villain.

[sunflower]

 

....What makes a good villain? What makes the best villains?I remember asking, or questioning this, some time ago. I honestly still don't understand the full extent of how you guys think of this, so if a bit of light could be shed on how you think the best evil is, and why.....please?

 

I have found, when writing, that if you can create a villain who's reasoning seems perfectly reasonable, and truly believes that he is correct and has done nothing incorrect, then you have a good villain.

 

 

This, so much.

 

Because no one wants to believe that they've done something wrong. A good villain doesn't blow up half the world without cause. And no one said that villians necessarily have to have evil things to justify what they're doing. Cause blowing up half the world may end overpopulation and/or institute world peace.

[Constructelf]

Something that I'm wondering: do more people like a villain who's wretched to the core (black and white morality) with straightfoward motivations and goals, a villain who is so alien to the point where even their aims are incomprehensible to the point that it would be incorrect to call them "evil" as they don't even subscribe to the same moral axis as the heroes (blue and orange morality), or is a sympathetic villain that the audience can relate to with with human virtues and vices and a goal that would be good if they weren't so extreme about it preferrable (grey and gray morality) (tragic backstory optional)? Which type seems to be more well developed in general: the card carrying villains, the eldritch abominations, or the well intentioned extremists/tragic villains?

[sunflower]

It really all boils down to how each is written. No one type is superior to another, it's all in how they're played.

[Geardirector]

And here's my first attempt at tying a song into one of my posts. I was aiming for a very happy and joyous spirit, so if you felt that, I'll consider it a success.

 

Here you go: A Leisurey stroll

[Toatapio Nuva]

I admit that you managed to tie the feeling of the post very well with the song. Very good match.

[Wazdakka]

Okey dokey.

 

If anybody has any characters, stores, shops, and/or homes which they don't like, don't use, or would simply like to be wiped off of the face of Mata Nui in a beautiful explosion, PM me.

[Lara White]

....What makes a good villain? What makes the best villains?I remember asking, or questioning this, some time ago. I honestly still don't understand the full extent of how you guys think of this, so if a bit of light could be shed on how you think the best evil is, and why.....please?

There's a lot of subjectivity to this, but I think the bottom line is that A good villain is fun to watch.

 

[Mr. House]

Expanding on what Lloyd said, make villians interesting. In character, and in concept.

Edited November 12, 2013 by Mr. House

[They]

Edit: I had no idea I'd spend my morning writing the following.

 

....What makes a good villain? What makes the best villains?I remember asking, or questioning this, some time ago. I honestly still don't understand the full extent of how you guys think of this, so if a bit of light could be shed on how you think the best evil is, and why.....please?

 

Hm, this is an excellent question. First, I will say this: anything I would write is entirely a matter of opinion based on real life examples in history. And, if you want to be a really good villain, you should probably give everyone in your dominion a free laptop and wifi.

 

What Is a Villain?

 

Villains are the embassy of plot, the drivers of disaster, and the capable planners who forget the nuclear launch combination on Judgement Day. Those who rise above the rest of a cast of characters in literature are our pinnacles of competition and motivation. A villain who can steal the scene without leaving their lair, or one who will rise again in an unexpected way, or even those who shock the readers on the revelation that the character is, in truth, a villain – these are the best villains. They grab our attention, shake it vigorously, and refuse to let us go long after they've left the immediate scene. When making a villain worthy of the title great remember their past, personality, and purpose.

 

The dictionary describes a villain as someone who's, "evil actions or motives are important to the plot," evil being a term for anything profoundly immoral or malevolent decided upon by the grounds of a society. Villains, according to this definition, are everywhere and anyone: jaywalkers and psychopathic serial killers, politicians and mailmen feeding your gluten allergic dog Milkbones®. Villains are necessary in literature. They serve as the cornerstone for defining a protagonist. It is usually the protagonist who must wrestle with the consequences of a villain's scheme. Villains set the tension, the rising dramatic plot, the climax. It is because villains exist protagonists may do anything. Villains are essential to plot.

 

Every being has a past, and villains are no exception. Psychologists have devoted decades of research into studying the lives of convicted criminals and serial killers, learning how their past –most important their early childhood– molded and formed into the villain behind bars or set for death row. Fear is a predominant cause for criminal affinities. Fear of parents, close relatives, and influential adults or children in the youth's life. Abuse is usually apparent in looking at their pasts; abuse takes many forms and often simultaneously inflicted in tandem with each other, a sort of fear-inducing cocktail of horrors on several levels of severity. At heart, a villain has suffered greatly in their past and looks for coping mechanisms. Many murderers do not kill because they enjoy the act: it is an escape from their fears. They have suffered to a point where killing becomes the only viable option they can imagine for escape. Even serial killers often see their acts as cleansing themselves, or enacting the same abuse which they received for a fundamentally moral reason.

 

Personality is a building process of past experiences and cultural morals. Individual insights into one's life are also key, these insights usually instigated by outside events. A villain creates and molds their personality just like any other person primarily in the subconscious, though with a conscious disregard for the cultural morals and laws generally present in a society's population. In example, someone who parks in a spot reserved for handicapped drivers without the proper licensing. They do not believe they are causing harm, but rather, their actions are justified since there is another handicapped spot available and they will be in and out with what they need in only five minutes. Villains have a self-centered way of viewing the world.

 

A great villain always has a goal or purpose for existence. Without one, their tragic past would tear apart their personality to leave them as shambling and gibbering remains of what was once a conscious being. Villains shape their personality around their past and purpose, focusing on the concepts of their salvation. Shoplifters enter a store with the purpose of walking out with an item: they have molded their personality to believe this is acceptable due to the background of their past, even if that past is a single dare by joking friends. The person will take the dare to appear fearless, saving themselves from their fear of social rejection. A Great Villain holds their focus on the purpose for their existence, and questions their reasons for doing so. They are devoted to their purpose, and dispose of any who attempt to stop them.

 

Villains always have a moment when their past, personality, and purpose collide and are put into question. This is most often called the climax in literature, instigated by the protagonist arriving at the crucial moment before the villain can wipe New York City off the map with some infernal contraption, or call forth an evil deity from an alternate plane of existence. This is the moment when a villain goes from ordinary to exceptional. Great Villains will rise above their opposition and see themselves as they truly are, prompting a need for rationalization in their actions, and acceptance of their self worth from the protagonist. In making a Great Villain, writers must remember the keys lie in their past, personality, and purpose.

 

Can You Show Examples From Our Game?

Here are five "Great Villains" in varying forms from the 2012/2013 arcs, briefly analyzing their Past, Personality, and Purpose.

 

1) Dorian Shaddix: The Misled

• Past: Family was destroyed, leaving him an orphan raised by a jealous uncle. He suffered greatly at the hands of his peers in more recent years, and developed a sense of self-preservation through vice.
• Personality: playboy and narcissistic derived from his need to be self-sufficient and his deep childhood desire to be loved.
• Purpose: At first it was to survive. Now his purpose is beginning to mold and alter do to exterior influences (Tuara, Cael, Agni, Joske).

2) Echelon: The Cleric

• Past: Not well known, yet his curiously scientific interaction with the macabre of this world perhaps show early childhood trauma and isolation from norms of society.
• Personality: Power-hungry use of faith and fear as a means of achieving his purpose hints at a past of repression and inferiority complex.
• Purpose: to keep Makuta's faith alive. His need for power and shadows goes back to his mysterious past, perhaps requiring and outside approval for his selfish ways.

3) Kohra: The Addict

• Past: Forgotten in amnesia.
• Personality: Heavily altered by The Makuta during his habitation of her mind. She is an addict, requiring contact with the shadows to support her existence in absence of memory. Performing sabotage and terrorism are ways of honoring the higher power she needs to survive, a form of ritual cleansing herself of unnecessary objects.
• Purpose: Appeasement of The Makuta. Her life is centered around the whispers in her mind, having a void in her past before they arrived.

4) Makuta: The God

• Past: Put his brother to 'sleep' in order to gain power. Perhaps Makuta was undervalued and wanted to show his true strength.
• Personality: Fearful. His arrogance and planning all spawn from his fear of Mata-Nui awakening. Makuta is like King John from the Robin Hood legends: an usurper who fears the return of the rightful leader.
• Purpose: to keep Mata-Nui asleep by controlling the matoran race.

5) Heuani: The Tricked

• Past: Gali as a subject of lust and jealousy, lack of leadership in the Mata, overpowering greed for his desire.
• Personality: Once cold and discerning, his jealousy and lust for happiness (or what he believed was happiness) removed his thoughts of consequence for society.
• Purpose: Self preservation. Tricked by Makuta, his final days were spent serving the power he loathed to survive, and as penance for his deceit.

Edited November 12, 2013 by Kughii

[Ghosthands]

 

2) Echelon: The Cleric

• Past: Not well known, yet his curiously scientific interaction with the macabre of this world perhaps show early childhood trauma and isolation from norms of society.
• Personality: Power-hungry use of faith and fear as a means of achieving his purpose hints at a past of repression and inferiority complex.
• Purpose: to keep Makuta's faith alive. His need for power and shadows goes back to his mysterious past, perhaps requiring and outside approval for his selfish ways.

 

ahahahahahaha

 

This makes me happy. You think you understand Echelon...and you're wrong

[They]

FABULOUS! I LOOK FORWARD TO HAVING MY MIND BLOWN.

[BULiK]

 

 

....What makes a good villain? What makes the best villains?I remember asking, or questioning this, some time ago. I honestly still don't understand the full extent of how you guys think of this, so if a bit of light could be shed on how you think the best evil is, and why.....please?

 

I have found, when writing, that if you can create a villain who's reasoning seems perfectly reasonable, and truly believes that he is correct and has done nothing incorrect, then you have a good villain.

 

 

This, so much.

 

Because no one wants to believe that they've done something wrong. A good villain doesn't blow up half the world without cause. And no one said that villians necessarily have to have evil things to justify what they're doing. Cause blowing up half the world may end overpopulation and/or institute world peace.

 

I wholeheartedly agree with both of these and kughii's essay up there: a good villain is one who has justification for why he does things, and especially those with a sense of honour, who play by all the rules, and thus seem to have beaten most heroes in some moral sense by giving them a fair chance.

 

Yeah, you guys get the idea. I'm rambling after a single sentence XD

[25K Now!]

 

 

Prei x Tera shipping go.

 

Don't ship anyone yet please....

 

 

LOL

 

 

that's funny

Nobody can stop the inevitable march of shipping.

[a goose]

<p>

2) Echelon: The Cleric

• [*]Past: Not well known, yet his curiously scientific interaction with the macabre of this world perhaps show early childhood trauma and isolation from norms of society.[*]Personality: Power-hungry use of faith and fear as a means of achieving his purpose hints at a past of repression and inferiority complex.[*]Purpose: to keep Makuta's faith alive. His need for power and shadows goes back to his mysterious past, perhaps requiring and outside approval for his selfish ways.

ahahahahahaha This makes me happy. You think you understand Echelon...and you're wrong

I'm just going to chime in here, as a self-professed Echelon expert (although obviously not one as knowledgeable as Ghosty).I had a fairly long response to this written out, Kughii, but I honestly don't think it's worthwhile. Because your basic assumptions regarding Echelon's motives and personality are wrong. You have based that whole section on a thing that is wrong.Echelon does not have faith. Echelon does not strive to keep faith alive. Echelon does not care a jot about the opinions or approval of others. Echelon wants power. People are tools to help him get it. Makuta was a tool, Makuta's followers are tools.Everything is a tool.(also not everything relates to childhood trauma)- Indigo Individual

[They]

 

Everything is a tool.(also not everything relates to childhood trauma)- Indigo Individual

 

True and true.

 

I'm only one reader in regards to Echelon, and, as I said way up at the beginning, it was all written as a matter of opinion. My "dissection" of Echelon was from how I've seen the character through reading. Readers find different ways of looking at the same character. That's what makes great characters complex, in my opinion. Perhaps I'm seeing the illusion Echelon wants me to see, rather than what's really going on.

 

In regards to the mention of childhood trauma: absolutely. What I said was a blanket statement, and I will nod my head toward the correction. There are innumerable ways in which trauma may be injected into one's life, and often times there is no obvious trauma: it's too subtle to pick up on in a casual glance. Wysp also brought up similar mentions, as well as other points I made. Again, what I wrote was a matter of opinion, and opinions can change. Please, please, please PM me with links or book titles to information about villains. I'd love to learn more, and I'm no expert on any subject.