User:HMSVictory/Archive V

Fanfiction SpaceEdit

Yeah, my proposal was to leave the General:Fanfiction where it is, in General space, but move the actual stories to User space. So they'd still all be linked from the same place, but this way the authors would have a bit more control over their own works. It is of course one of the hazards of having fiction works on a wiki - you relinquish some of your control over your work simply by posting it. But I suppose that's up to the authors themselves to decide if they're comfortable with that or not. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 11:33, 1 March 2008 (EST)

Makes sense, but as I said, others can check for typos. It also feels more of a "contribution" to have something listed under "General". At least it does to me. --HMSVictory 10:41, 2 March 2008 (EST)

My response to Armour of ContemptEdit

Hey HMSVictory,

First things first: There were a few obvious typos in the story (fare away --> far away, and Crii --> Criid). I hope you don’t mind me correcting them.

Anyway, I read the whole story, and this is what I think of it:

The first thing I didn’t understand is what the armours of contempt, control and discipline actually are. I have a feeling that they’re metaphors, meaning that Soblie is now in command, but it’s a bit unclear. You might want to explain it, or structure it in a way that makes it easier to understand. For example: “No one would cross Sobile, so long as he wielded the armour of control, the armour of discipline, the armour of contempt.” There, because you say that it stops people from annoying him, that these metaphoric armours ensure respect.

Secondly, the idea for the story is sound. It could be evolved a lot further, but it needs a general structure. Criid goes from “the basement” (you might want to explain where this actually is) to a battlefield in K'ethdrac'att Shet Magir, which is also left unexplained. If you added a bit more in the first part (training exercises, smaller expeditions etc.) then we would get to understand Criid better, know how he thinks, and guess what his next move will be. This would add more flavour to the story, making it easier for us to imagine ourselves as a member of the story; that we’re actually there, rather than being an onlooker, and unable to interfere.

Thirdly, the battlefield is a bit, well, chaotic really. One minutes he’s behind a rock, then he’s in a hole, then he’s running with the Androman Champions, then they’re all in a row, being shouted at by Sobile, then it’s the end pretty much. You shouldn’t squeeze to much action into a small time. An example of this is the film “Van Helsing” the fight in the courtyard goes on to long, that it becomes boring, and no one is actually sure what’s going on. A description of the battlefield, (Severed and deformed bodies lay on the ground, like ruins left from a rampage by Satan himself. Although that’s a bit over the top.), would also help us to understand where Criid is.

Fourthly, an introduction. Where is Criid? And where’s the fortress of K'ethdrac'att Shet Magir? It’s never explained. If you have taken the information from books read inside one of the games, then you should still explain it, because the majority of players don’t read the books unless they have to for a quest or something like that, and they won’t know where this is all happening.

Please don’t get the wrong idea and think that I’m simply saying that you’re useless at writing. You’re not. The idea is a good one, the storyline is pretty much there, all it needs is a bit of smoothing over in a few places, and it would be a great read. All I’m doing in these criticisms is trying to tell you how to improve your writing skills to help you in the future.

I hope this helps you, Game Lord^{Talk|Contribs} 08:12, 29 February 2008 (EST)

P.S. A few things which could be better said are:

Part 1, Line 1, “It happened in the basement.” It would be better to say, “It took place in the basement”.

Part 2, Line “Can’t find it now…” “He went flying.” You should say “He was sent flying”. Went flying suggests a voluntary action.

Firstly, I deliberately did not include where the Legion was fighting, nor who they were fighting for two reasons. The first is to make sure the reader uses their imagination, as Criid himself has not even seen the enemy yet, and describing them before he has encountered them himself really guts the perspective. Secondly, I am planning a sequel in which this will be explained.

As for the pace, I tried to achieve a fast-paced scene. In the heat of battle, everything is confusing, and the next moment you could find yourself in a completely different situation. Or you could be dead. Either suits the story in itself. I admit that the fortress (It is a fortress they are storming) needs more description, and I will hopefully be able to add this in soon. As for the basement; again, I understand that more description is required. My original idea was that the RIP were not seen to deserve training in a real barracks, so they were instead dumped in a "Basement."

In terms of scentence structure and grammar, both example you have picked out were chosen by myself for effect. I realise that your suggested replacements are more linguisticly correct, but I write for effect and impact, not quality of infrastructure.

My overall intentions when suddenly moving Criid (and changing the time; it's meant to be set about a month later) were:

• To achieve a massive contrast, although I realise that the first section needs expanding.
• To retain a subtle similarity between the two situations.
• To immediately change the speed of the scene by comparing a drilling excersise to the heat of battle.

Lastly, battlefields are chaotic. I believe that I have achieved that effect reasonably well. Nonetheless, the Fanfiction could do with improving, yes., and thankyou for bringing this to my attention. --HMSVictory 11:27, 29 February 2008 (EST)

Armour of ContemptEdit

I noticed you said on the community portal that you were going to take the place of Somercy in regards to fanfiction. You also said somewhere else that you were going to write a sequel to the Armour of Contempt. I was wondering if you could include my character Galahad as a scout for the army, although he doesn't have to be as strong as I made him seem on my userpage. --Twentyfists 11:47, 9 March 2008 (EDT)

Acknowledged. I'll certainly give it a go, but at the moment I'm waiting for more requests to come in before I combine them into a fanfiction. --HMSVictory 12:22, 11 March 2008 (EDT)

SignatureEdit

I'm not familiar with signature rules on this site, so is the following signature alright to use? Michaeldsuarez ^{(Talk)/(Contribs)} 00:10, 18 March 2008 (EDT)

Yup, there's nothing wrong with that. I would, however, suggest shortening the code as much as possible, as large amounts of HTML code take up both editing space and loading buffer time. --HMSVictory 13:45, 23 March 2008 (EDT)

Thanks, I've already fixed some problems. --Michaeldsuarez ^{(Talk)/(Contribs)} 18:36, 25 March 2008 (EDT)

Yeah, it looks a lot better on the edit screen now. --HMSVictory

Beta SandboxEdit

I really like it. You made Galahad almost exactly like me. Uncanny. There were some mistakes, but overall it was amazing. --Twentyfists 18:09, 24 March 2008 (EDT)

Hey, it's not finished yet! It's not even half-way through! What do you mean by "some mistakes?" Are you talking about typos, or mistakes about your character himself? --HMSVictory 18:11, 24 March 2008 (EDT)

Typos. Your portrayal of Galahad is exactly the way I wanted it to be. You must be a Telepath or something. --Twentyfists 20:34, 24 March 2008 (EDT)

Oh, well, if you see any typos, please fell free to fix them, but please do not change ANY English spellings to their American equivalents. As you can see above, I've had that problem before. I'll write the rest of it soon. --HMSVictory 12:14, 25 March 2008 (EDT)

Not a problem. --Twentyfists 12:26, 25 March 2008 (EDT)

Good. *Disturbing Insane Laughter* --HMSVictory 12:27, 25 March 2008 (EDT)

'Umm...'Edit

'Sorry to point his out, but in your "weird but true facts about Oblivion," you state that when you kill someone/something, they don't/it doesn't get back up. Actually... this isn't completely true. Using a Re-animate spell or the Staff of Worms, you can cause bodies to rise up and serve you, albeit fro a limited time. Sorry to be so cynical - it just caught my eye.'. . .oh curses ye. . .

Mentor EmailEdit

I just checked, and your email option still is not working. Whenever you change your email address, you need to send a new verification email and use the verification link to re-enable email. You also need to make sure that the "Enable e-mail from other users" is checked in your preferences. Could you please take care of this (assuming you would like to remain in the mentor program)? Thanks. --16:03, 28 March 2008 (EDT)

Well, I've asked it to send the conformation E-mail, but I'm not getting anything. I've also checked my spam folder, but here's nothing there either. I only changed it because Rpeh sent me a test E-mail that didn't reach mme, so I re-entered it without any capital letters. I'll sort this out as soon as I can. --HMSVictory 16:34, 28 March 2008 (EDT)

Email is definitely working on the server. I've been sent multiple emails today by UESP (every time my talk page has been changed); just to be sure I sent myself a test email using the wiki email feature. One other time when a user was sure that the confirmation email system was broken, the problem turned out to be that the user had entered an incorrect email address. I also have to assume that Bartimaeus77's problems with email activation were traced to a cause other than UESP, given that even though Daveh didn't change anything, Bartimaeus77's email feature now works. So past experience tells me it's not a problem at UESP's end. --Nephele^Talk 18:45, 28 March 2008 (EDT)

Well, I've sent myslef E-mails, but not from the UESP. I haven't recieved any E-mails which were supposed to have been sent to me, so either they haven't been sent, or it is a problem at this end. I'm recieving E-mails from other websites or people, just not from the UESP. What is going on? I'm still not recieveing those conformation E-mails I requested, and I've checked my address as it is listed on my preferences and, as far as I can see, it is completely correct. There are no spaces before or after it, so I have no idea. --HMSVictory 05:53, 30 March 2008 (EDT)

If you're using Hotmail, they'll probably turn up in your Junk email folder. If you're not using Hotmail, you might try setting up an account purely for UESP. That's what I use and I know it works. Nephele and I checked that the email was working yesterday so it's definitely not a problem with that. –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 06:24, 30 March 2008 (EDT)

I'm not using hotmail, and frankly I can't see how a new account is going to solve this problem. I'm on AOL, if that helps at all. --HMSVictory 09:16, 30 March 2008 (EDT)

It might help because it seems AOL is blocking UESP emails as spam. Hotmail won't have that problem. –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 09:55, 30 March 2008 (EDT)

Nope. I've checked my spam folder and there's nothing from the UESP. --HMSVictory 11:58, 30 March 2008 (EDT)

It's possible that AOL does blocking at a higher level too - I don't know. If you can't find an account that works, I'm afraid you'll need to come off the list of Mentors; having an email that doesn't reach you is even worse than not having one at all. –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 12:07, 30 March 2008 (EDT)

HMSVictory, you're overlooking one critical fact here: you have successfully received email from UESP. Just a few days ago, the "email this user" option on your account was functional, and the only way that was possible is if you had successfully received a confirmation email from UESP, and you then clicked on the confirmation code contained in that email. The email function was disabled after you changed the email address provided in your preferences. Over the last week there has only been one minor (non-email-related) change in UESP's configuration. So everything says that UESP is fundamentally able to deliver email to your email provider. Not to mention the fact that UESP is able to email the hundreds (thousands?) of other editors who have email functions enabled; why would UESP single out your one email address for different treatment?

Your argument that you've checked your spam folder doesn't give me too much confidence. Every email I receive goes through at least three different spam checks, each of which will quarantine spam in a different location; given that I also have multiple email addresses, there are about five different places (only two which are on my computer; the other three are at various web sites) where I have to check to find diverted spam email. Furthermore, depending upon your configuration, some "spam" email could be immediately deleted instead of being delivered to a spam folder. Basically, there are far more possibilities for problems with your configuration than with UESP's configuration.

It seems to me that if you want to get your email work you should:

• Change your email address back to the value that once worked for a confirmation email
• Whitelist uesp.net. Either manually in your email settings, or by finding the confirmation email that you did receive and flagging whatever options you can related to that email

In any case, more than just idle curiosity has caused me to be interested in your email. There is something that I would like to discuss you with you via email, and I'm not sure that I can continue to wait until you've figured out how to confirm your UESP account. Would it be possible for you to email me at nephele at skyhighway.com, and provide me with an email address where I can contact you? Thanks. --Nephele^Talk 12:35, 30 March 2008 (EDT)

Yes, I have recieved E-mail, I had forgotten that. The point is that I cannot see any flaw in the way my E-mail appears on the preferences screen, and I can still recieve E-mail from elsewhere under that exact address. There seems to be nothing wrong, yet the E-mail is not appering anywhere on AOL. Could someone try E-mailing me outside of the UESP? Try that if you wish to speak with me privately, Nephele. --HMSVictory 10:53, 31 March 2008 (EDT)

Except we don't know your email address! –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 10:59, 31 March 2008 (EDT)

Doesn't the UESP tell you when you try to send an E-mail? Oh well, I guess I can't actually mention it here; who knows what kind of people could pick up on it. How I can I give it to you securely? --HMSVictory 11:03, 31 March 2008 (EDT)

Nope - it just says it's sending to HMSVictory. Try emailing me at rpe_herbert at hotmail.com –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 11:14, 31 March 2008 (EDT)

I have just E-mailed Nephele, so I'll try your address now. --HMSVictory 11:20, 31 March 2008 (EDT)