Friday, November 1, 2013

Haima RPG | New Semester

Summary: A brief description of Haima
Haima Boarding School for the Athletically & Academically Gifted is a school secluded near the Olympic Mountains region in Washington State, with diverse topography and otherworldly weather compared to rainy Seattle. This is an open world, sandbox plot RPG where no one knows anything about anyone: think of this as detective meets clue meets magic, demons, lore, fantasy, they all had a drunken orgy, and Hogwarts and some anime got thrown in as well. This high school setup combines all sorts of hit combos and provides for an interesting, unique approach to gaming.

Each player has sovereignty over their character, but there are rules involved: for all intents and purposes, you’re a human to the school population and you maintain character at all times. Your identity is a secret, one which you must keep out of game as well: the ultimate game of “Guess who,” you could say.

The RPG will progress as students explore the campus, interact, and are ultimately all thrown into an epic pursuit of finding (and rescuing) the kidnapped school president. Along the way, identities will slowly be exposed, conflicts will arise, and characters are faced with how to confront and either succumb or triumph over these challenges.


A classic among text-based role-play games first introduced in 2009, this long awaited RP has finally been revamped and brought back to life for another run through! If you're into text-based RP-ing, then come by Vividus Connect and check this bad-rp out! 


Haima | A Vividus RPG

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Taking a Look at "Raw" - Featured Poet


Check out this featured content: Raw by Isaiah

Since the breaths of Be Creative, Isaiah has been involved in some form or fashion with the evolution and development of what is now called Vividus Connect. While the forum is a breakaway from Hortorian, the grounding principles of fostering creative individuals is still much the same as its parent. However, what is no longer the same is Isaiah who has come a long way in his development as a writer, but foremost as a poet.

He titled his poetry thread "Raw" in reference to the style of poetry he would being laying bare to his audience: Isaiah writes raw poetry. In his own words, "You'll find few scenery descriptions, sprawling metaphors, complicated schemes, unnecessarily extended ideas, or excessiveness of any kind in it." His style began taking shape back in 2011 when he started writing "in a bare-bones, direct, Bukowski-ish style."

Isaiah's preference for this over traditional poetry styles can be attributed to direct and raw approach to poetry: traditional styles, after all, have a habit of waffling. He aims for "short, comprehensible, and reader-friendly" poetry, which relate back in some fashion to love, alcoholism, and death (in order of frequency).

Isaiah notes his poems are growing in length as he becomes more proficient, yet he tries "to keep it very trimmed down."

While some of his poetry is lengthy (thirty-seven lines), the content remains direct, understandable, and quite user-friendly for the reader (even if they are not well versed in poetic trends/styles). His poetry relates closely to bare human expression; a directness into human nature through poetical means and condensed down into the essence of emotion, action, or feeling.

See the full article at Vividus Connect - Taking a Look at "Raw" by Sk8

Monday, March 4, 2013

Co-Opt Writing Mission


Co-Opt Writing Mission:
Vividus Serialization

This will be a random writer’s adventure into a drafted novella through the creation of a serialization of chapters: plot, theme, symbolism, characters, world, dynamics and more will also be constructed and edited within the creative process within a three to four week period where individuals will be broken down into assigned periods of chapters and more. Not all individuals will be tasked with chapter-writing, and not all will be held responsible for each task within the process, but all individuals will contribute to the project is some form or fashion; so, if you sign up, be prepared to do your part for what you are willing to do.
Consider this as an “RPG – but focused around chapters instead of individual characters,” and consider this a good exercise in creative drafting and organization.
We will need …

Writers (Chapter and Developmental Writers)
Organization, Development and Outlining (The Meticulous; help keep things in line)
World Builders (Creative Minds, Idea Peeps)
Plot, Theme, ect (Extended Creative Minds – Thinkers, Idea Peeps)
Character Drafters (Character Bios)
Editors (Reader/Peer Review and Grammatical)

I would like to limit this to ten people, if more individuals show interest we’ll split the project and have two going (though the probability of that is unlikely).

After I have a few signup, we’ll determine a complete scratch buildup world, or we’ll borrow someone’s (or one of my own) locations for the premise of the story; so, any takers?

​Please note all individuals can partake in a variety, if not all, of the above positions; however, for the designated chapter writers I do need definite "yes, I can," kay?

Interested in taking place? Check it out at Vividus Connect today!

Monday, November 12, 2012

Long Time No Post

It has been awhile, indeed! I have fallen behind with the riggers of life, college, work and more- thought that is not to insinuate I have much of a social life! Just been a busy duck of late (not that I am a duck, either).

Vividus is still trucking along, but as the benchmark to one year inches closer, so does my desire to start crafting Vividus into the golden community which I envision it to be.

The overall focus of our forum is to create a connective community for members to branch out and connect with others, share their creative works, inspire others and in turn get inspiration from others, too.

This blog post won't be long because what I am really aiming to do is start generating the name of Vividus on the web once more.

I'm not interested in creating a forum with masses of people, I am interested in creating a community of people with like interests.

So the question is, do you want to be part of our creative community?

Regards,
Sk8

Check us out at Vividus Connect,
http://vividusconnect.com/

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Short Stories Are Coming!

Introducing the Inagural Vividus Short Story Contest!


Posted ImageMany of us have been members of forums which have had a short story contest. Vividus has not had one yet. Until now.

As the man who has died over 25 times said, short stories are coming! In this month of September, we are going to be holding our very first short story contest over a five week period! Interested? Then keep reading!

Who can participate? All members of Vividus are eligible! So get writing! Oh, and did we mention writing isn't the only way you'll be participating? *foreshadowing*


When is it? A thread titled September Short Story Contest Submissions will be provided in the short story section starting September 2nd. This thread will be open until 11:59pm Central Time in the US on September 23rd, after which the thread will be closed and no more submissions will be taken.


How will the winner be selected? This is where you are able to participate in addition to writing. You, the Vividus Community, are going to play a big role in helping us determine our winner!

When submissions end, a discussion thread will appear with a poll listing all of the submitted stories. You guys will then be given an entire week to discuss and vote on the stories you like and dislike. Keep in mind people can see who you voted for :P .

After a week, the polls will then close. The three stories with the most votes will move on to the fifth and final week of the short story contest, where the staff will discuss behind the scenes not only who they think has the winning story, but break down the things they think work in these three displays of literary art. At a later date, an announcement will be made saying the order of our top three, along with a breakdown of their stories in which other members can learn from as well!

If the staff determines the winner between the final three, can they write stories too? For this contest, the Vividus staff can submit stories. However, if they make the final three, they will not be included in the deliberation process.

What is the prize? Here at Vividus, we have to work on college budgets.

1st: Story featured in the winner's announcement, custom title, story linked into select staff's signatures.
2nd+3rd: Story featured in the winner's announcement.

If I do not place, will I get feedback on my work? Due to our limited time, we will only be doing a breakdown of our top three. This is why when we are doing our examination of the top three stories, we will do our best to look for things which can apply not just to our winners, but to everyone. But you are more than welcome to post your story in the short story section after the contest so that you can get more feedback on it. In addition, FTAK has been kind enough to offer to give feedback on your stories if you ask him nicely. :)

Alright, I want to get going! What are the rules? What is the theme?! Hey now, where did I say there was going to be a theme?! There is none. You can write about love, life, death, zombies, any theme you want, so long as your follow these two rules.

1. Your story does not exceed 3000 words.
2. Your story must have one of your characters commit an action that leads to their death. This moment can be a huge event or small event in the story, or even just explained and be off screen. Just make sure it's in there! If you need inspiration, I heard Sean Bean's mastered this art quite well :P .

If you have any questions or have one that wasn't answered, feel free to ask in this thread. Otherwise, get writing! Good luck and have fun! :)

Friday, June 15, 2012

Seeking RP-ers!

Dracorex, on 07 June 2012 - 07:01 PM, said:
As everyone has no doubt noticed, the Role-Playing Games section is becoming extremely lively, with seven games in the running, old faces showing up once more, and people waiting on inspiration for their character sheets (myself included). 
This is all very well and good, but we wouldn’t want to bite off more than we can chew, do we? It would be quite sad if anyone had a shiny new idea they wanted to share, but it doesn’t take off due to other RPers being busy with already established RPGS. 
So, Ever and I would like to ask all budding game masters not to start any new RPGs for now .
We will notify everyone when we think the danger of over-saturation is past, which will probably be when the current RPGs have stabilised, and new members make their presence known in the section. 
Keep having fun, people ^__^.
Now allow me to add to what Rinn has stated. I will not lie, I am always a proud and boisterous proponent of the RPG Section, I was on Be Creative and Hortorian and I still am for Vivi. I’ve text-based role played for the past seven years, its what got me into foruming and its what kept my interest in the net. Its also, vicariously, the reason why I’m now the owner and admin of this forum. You see, I originally joined Be Creative because I wanted to better my writing, but in actuality I had been eye balling their RPG Section.

 The poor thing was so dead and pathetic and … Sad. So before I knew it I caught myself writing up a guide, then helping, then I was promoted to RPG Moderator and totally energized the section.

 I’m proud of the forumers that have come out of that project, and I’m proud of the strong unit of RPG Community BC, HF and VC have maintained. I’d like to see it continue to grow. I’m 100% behind this initiative, I know how RPGs cycle, how they work, how they can lose steam so quickly, and one of the causes is lost interest when something else, something new comes about.  We have AWEsome games in the work at present, let’s focus on continuing to build the section, promote the close-knit community we have, and continue having fun.

Let’s either bring in our fellow rp-ing pals, or perhaps I can persuade some of you non rp-ers to take up the art. I’d gladly make the argument for taking it up, I’d love to talk to anyone one-on-one or in this thread to persuade you to join an RPG, so just ask.

Rambling aside, this initiative to prevent further saturation is actively in place, so if you’ve any questions feel free to ask. As you’ll note, I’m actively spreading the word.

 Check out Vividus Connect today!

Monday, June 11, 2012

AFB Is Back!


AFB What?

All Forum Battle, that's what

For the scant few of us who hail from Be Creative will remember this tricky battle of creativity well, and for those of you who are second generation from Hortorian will likely remember the version of the AFB we use now. But, for those of you who are new to our community all me to explain. This forum, relatively speaking, has a long history. Originally Be Creative was created by Fiachra (DarkRaven) and ran a good little stint until it unfortunately died, however rallying his spirits and a new troop Fiachra opened another forum, one most of you are familiar with, Hortorian. Now Hortorian lasted for over a year, it built a strong establishment for its particular niche, but unfortunately was laid to rest last summer.

However, what both of these forums had in common was the AFB. What this was comprised of, originally, two major teams: Homer's Legion (led by Angelic Night) and the Opposition (led by Matty Lee). Through their efforts the AFB was formed, yet it died with Be Creative. With Hortorian's creation many members continued to inquire of the staff if they would be bringing the AFB back, and through the efforts, and contributions, of Jsquared, Kari and myself it was retooled and reintroduced.


Now, of course, there are surely those of you that are new to our community and never had the pleasure of participating on the former sites, Be Creative or Hortorian. AFB stands for All Forum Battle and initially was a forum wide contest between the two teams - Homer’s Legion and the Opposition. However, this division of rank was restrictive because it prevented members from challenging their own teammates, and ultimately prevented them from truly testing their creative ability.

The goal of the AFB is to provide a productive and encouraging environment of what some call an ultimate Creative Contest - participants are able to join up in the AFB and choose their own battle rank which decides what contests they can participate in. You have the following Ranks to choose from:

Artillery (The artists)
Infantry (The writers)
Magicians (The poets and lyrical sorts)
Commanders (Those who dabble in the arts, writing, and poetry/lyrical works)


Members choose their rank and then issue challenges to participating members, its quite fun. The AFB will be coming out shortly, and because many maybe unfamiliar with the AFB registration and the rules will be opened before the official launch of the contest to allow for members to browse though the rules and guidelines and ask questions beforehand.

The AFB will officially launch June 25th to July 25th, registration shall open June 22. Questions? Feel free to ask, comment or the like!


Soon the creative battles shall begin, and the stakes will be raised.

So come check us out at Vividus Connect today, [Coming Soon] - The AFB