Happy Thanksgiving, Valucre!

Food, Football, and the Looming Threat of Black Friday Shopping...

All things to look forward to in the coming days, ha ha! Welcome to your Thanksgiving edition of the Valucre Blog, a very special addition if I say so myself. Why is it so special you might ask? Because this is the one time of year where I can talk about writing, role-playing, football, and food all in the same blog post! This also kicks off our holiday season, with the long and boisterous weeks ahead, we're all in for a roller-coaster ride of retail hell, awkward family gatherings, and the struggle to survive another run through the month of December. 

Of course, it's not all bad, as there are many wonderful things that come with this time of year as well. As with anything in life, we take the good with the bad, putting up with some things while relishing our moments with the others. Fortunately, there is very little bad to take with all the good that is Valucre, am I right? Alright, alright! I'll stop the senseless gushing and get this show back on the road. :D

What's Happening Valucre?

Gaian Academy is Back- Well, I don't know if you had heard about it, but the Gaian Academy suffered from a terrible tragedy, where a group of Unnaturals came to the campus and unleashed a horde of undead, as well as a taint that created more unnaturals. While the larger majority of the students were safely evacuated, a number of students suffered tragic ends, leading to a temporary closure while the school worked out its problems. Fortunately, the school has gotten back on it's feet, and is now offering classes again. If taking a character from the bare minimum and then working upward is the path of your choice, the academy is a great place to introduce a new character. :) Check it out here.

Gaian Academy: Magi Investigation Team- Speaking of the academy, there are some new quests available, one of which is to help conduct an investigation into the responsible parties for the attack. We have someone who has stepped up and is ready to work on that task, but of course- this needs some more role-players! The quest starter is looking for anyone who wants to play a fellow student, a teacher, staff, or anyone else who might be present at the Academy. Check it out here

Terrenus Artifact of Immortality- Anytime anyone goes after a Terrenus artifact, the thread is open for those who might want to assist the quest taker, or impede their progress and steal the item for themselves. Well, someone has gone after an artifact said to grant immortality, and this just might catch the attention of some other opportunists. Check it out here.

The Daily Weekly is Hiring- Periodically, we throw out reminders of jobs and the like. The daily weekly is an online Valucre based news area, and the reporters are you and your characters. You can either work freelance and get paid as you go, or pay a bit upfront to get a license to work as a press person for the long term. You can look at details here.

Battle for Crescent Knoll- I'm borrowing directly from the thread author, as she put it quite well: "Though the original site for Crescent Knoll was destroyed by the Phaeleros during the Plague Times in what is now called the Betrayal at Crescent Knoll, Ilsabet Melarne and the Sisters of the Pentacle of Eilaria moved the city, which is now a well-hidden, tree-top village. During their period of recovery, the darker skinned Moon Elves made this village their home and serve as the self-proclaimed Guardians of the Forests of E’Kraune. With a bolstered defense of sentries and priestesses, all of whom have spent centuries dedicating their lives to the mystical ways, these powerful elves are the first and last defense of all that may endanger their beloved forest.

However, it seems that their merit will be tested once again. Led by the Lich King known as Locien, the Phaeleros have returned to finish what they started all those years ago, seeking the complete and utter destruction of Crescent Knoll and the assimilation of its powerful inhabitants into their dark legion." If this sounds like something that might interest you, you can go check it out here.

Question of the Week!!!

Well, this week I did not quite get as many as last week, but we still had our fair share of answers. Three people got in touch and let me know what they do in regards to editing their work before dropping a post. While only three, we got some good mileage from their answers, so I am not complaining! So, without further ado, let's look at those answers!

First Response: "If I posted my first response in a thread you guys would just about die. I use hell I don’t know what you call it. Text speak? Butchered words? Like fuk this sux. Glad 2 meet u. Stuff like that. First I do it because its easier on me then I translate it. Then I look it over to see if it makes sense. I post it and when I see something else wrong I change it. Sometimes someone lets me know I screwed it up. I fix it then. I think I put effort into it. It takes me a while to type and post what you see. I don’t think this varies with what I do. I don’t think I understand the second half of this question. I write about my characters using the same way every time."

Second Response: "I try to get every post as perfect as I can before I post it. I always preview it to make sure the BBcode all worked, and I read through it at least once, fixing the inevitable omitted word or redundancy. If a post takes me a long time to write, like if I keep coming back to it over the course of a day to add another sentence, or if I finish really late at night, I'll sometimes save it until the morning and make sure I didn't say something crazy.

I'll also read it again once I've posted it officially. For whatever reason, I can reread a draft six times, and it seems perfect until the second I publish it, at which point I catch a handful of mistakes. I probably edit about half of my IC posts in some minor way after they've been published.

I'm obsessive about it because, when I read, I'm deterred by the slightest grammatical mistake, and I don't want to subject my own readers to the same unfortunate fate. I have genuine difficulty comprehending the sentence if a word is misspelled, misused, or missing altogether. It then takes a lot of concentration for me to go back and decipher the meaning, which disrupts the flow of the post, and then I'm just totally thrown off and have to start all over to get what's going on. If I'm already involved in the thread, I will make the effort…but if I'm not, I tend to lose interest immediately.

…It's a personal problem."

Third Response: "As pathetic as it sounds, usually not. Most of the time I submit it, reread it, and then edit it. I just like seeing all of the formatting codes in effect when I reread. I suppose I could just preview it though. Anyway as I said usually not but lately I have been taking a bit of time to reread before submitting. Normally the things I'm correcting are typographical errors and grammatical errors that immediately stand out. This normally doesn't take me more than five or six minutes.

Now with that being said there have been three posts to date that I have spent hours rereading and editing. This is because of the near professional nature that is required of them. 

So tl:dr I'm a lazy f**k who normally doesn't put any real effort into editing my posts."

Thank you everyone who took the time to drop an answer!

Alright, because this is Thanksgiving, I have to go with a bit of a cliche sort of question:

What about Valucre are you thankful for?

Straightforward enough, right? What about Valucre do you feel thankful for having. Do you like that we have Storytellers? Do you like the type of members we have? How the site is managed? Anything at all, because it's all about what you feel thankful for. Answering with "The Blog" will certainly earn Kudos, but it will nbot improve your chances of winning the drawing next month. :P

Speaking of which...

This is the last update of the month. Each month, we shall take the last Thursday off, meaning you will not have another update until December 6th. However, this does mean you have two weeks to get your blog answers in!

Say Hello to Our New Members and Returns!

I'll tell you, one thing I'm thankful for our those new members who come aboard. What is a role-play site without brand new role-players to get involved in all the fun? How else can we meet new people, replenish the ranks, and expand the variety of RP we offer without first recruiting the new bloods? And of course, you must appreciate the moments where someone who left has returned to the family!

Hello, New Members:

Welcome, Bakalover

Welcome, Splinteredsanity

Welcome, Niall

Welcome, Linova A

Welcome, PrinceKaito

Welcome, Ravishing

Welcome, Mezua

Welcome, Rourke

Welcome, Frosted

Now, let us give a big welcome back to our one return for the week!

Happy to have you back, Zedkiel

Not a bad list rounding out our new folks. I expect the first list of next week should have a pretty good count, since it will entail two weeks of newcomers. Look forward to greeting all of you. :)

Other Highlights?

Alright. Just because this is a day of giving thanks for all the good things, I am just going to drop down a couple more highlights, complaint free. No griping, moaning or anything else. Just straight up good bits to help supplement your Valucre experience. 

Open Thread Listing- So, do you sometimes feel like the watercooler might just be a little too overwhelming for you to dig through? Do you really just want to find an open thread somewhere, just about anywhere, that you can jump into and get straight to the role-playing? Well, we have a solution for you fine folks, called the Open Thread Listing. Periodically, members of staff add threads with the [OPEN] tag to this thread, located in the watercooler itself, to make it easier to find the open threads if you are searching for nothing too specific. Just another way Valucre tries to help make your life easier. ;)

Code of Conduct- Hey, are you wondering what are the general rules for your interactions on the site? Ever wonder if perhaps there might be something to help guide you on the etiquette we use on the site? Or, if you feel you are doing okay, but have an issue with someone else, are you wondering how you get that problem person worked with? Well, we do have a Code of Conduct page, which also lists the complaint process. So, if you are unsure if your interactions are quite up to snuff, or if you are having a lot of trouble with someone and want to file a complaint, this is the place for you. You find it in the General Tab, but you can also click here.

Closing Thoughts?

I think it would only figure that a Turkey's main thoughts at this time of the year is for you to find some alternative meat (or even non-meat) dish to serve as the centerpiece of your Thanksgiving meal. Unfortunately for the turkey, many of us enjoy our roasted turkey, and look forward to this day of the year with a special gleam in our eyes and just a shining hint of saliva forming at the corner of our mouth's (okay, maybe that is just me). Turkey is great, and while I enjoy having it every now and then, Thanksgiving is the one time of year where they make buying an entire Turkey economically feasible. So, let's hear it for the turkey.

Now, the little bit on the Turkey is just an aside, and is not the parting thought for this week. Once again, I turn to the holiday cliche, and have decided that this week, I'd like for all of us to reflect on what we are thankful for- that is, what we are thankful for in our lives, and not just Valucre in general, which our question of the week reflects. 

Sometimes, I think it is all too easy for us to forget the good things we have going for us in our lives. Often, we grow frustrated and angry with issue and kinks that come up in our daily lives, and we forget that these are the things we jokingly refer to as “First World Problems”. Yes, it is inconvenient when the line at Dutch Brothers is unbelievably long. It can be frustrating when your internet is acting up, your text takes too long to send, or you cannot yet afford that new accessory for your Iphone. I’m pretty sure we’re all guilty of this to an extent- myself included- because it is easy to become so acclimated to our lifestyles, that we forget about how much worse it could be.

Today is the one day of the year where we stop and give thanks for the things we have (Well, for us in the United States, our Canadian friends already had their day, but just bear with us folks :P ) in our lives. Chances are, if you are reading this blog, you have a roof over your head, food to eat, and internet to watch all the cat videos on. This is a lot more than what some other people have, and so even if you sometimes go without- remember, there is much worse than where you are now.

I’m thankful for the fact that I have a job, even if I am frequently frustrated by it. I’m thankful that I have family to visit, even if a few of them are folks that are challenging to spend several hours with. I’m thankful that I’m not picking up the pieces after a major hurricane, even if the weather out here has become really unpleasant as of late. There are good things and there are bad things, but what thing we sometimes forget, is that there is almost always worse things.

So, today, reflect on the good things in your life, and be thankful for what you have.

If what you have is someone else- then give thanks to them too.

And on that note, I’m signing off with a big thank you to all of you at Valucre, who helps feed my passion for writing, and making me want to come back for more. And a second slice of pie to all of you regular readers- you make me feel pretty damn good.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, see you all in December!

 -          Acies

The most beautiful things are those that madness prompts and reason writes.  ~André Gide