Some general information regarding Dragon-Speaker

This role-play was started on

Monday, April 10, 2006

This role-play was finished on

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

    Wow, what a story. I think I’m going to have fond memories of this. 
    Dragon-Speaker taught me a big lesson about roleplaying: Contrary to what I thought, it’s not such a bad thing to plan for the future in a story such as this. However, you must be prepared at all times to give up those plans in case things don’t fall together right… but if this happens, it’s not so bad because things might just turn out ten times better than anything you could have thought of. 
    I decided to join Dragon-Speaker for several reasons, mainly because I wanted to help write a story which my sister (a dragon fan) would be interested in reading. In fact, my main human character Andy was loosely based on her. Halfway through the story, I realized I was enjoying it so much that I decided I would write a revision of the entire thing when it would finish, in order to enhance the story and to expand upon subplots that I felt weren’t taken to their full potential for whatever reason. My favorite part of the story was the depth and intricateness put into all the characters and their relationships with each other, something I wish to expand upon when I write a revision of this roleplay. 
    Another reason I joined Dragon-Speaker was because I wanted to join something just as a player, not as a director. In fact, my least favorite part about Dragon-Speaker was when Ricky vanished and I found myself having to think of some ending in his stead (since I had continually nagged him about the story the entire way). I’m most thankful I didn’t go through with it, as the ending came out many times better than I would have made it. 
    In closing, this was a lot of fun and I’m glad I joined it.

    CtrlAltDestroy was the fourth person to join Dragon-Speaker. He wrote 28.15% of the story, doing so in thirty-eight posts.

    I must say, this roleplay is probably the best I've been in. Not this year, not since RP Haven began... But ever. In short, it was a total blast, even if it wasn't perfect. The story was flexible and fun, but also had a good hook and interesting points of view fleshing everything out. Many of the characters were developed very well, and while that led to some getting overshadowed by others (way to hog the spotlight, ANDY ), overall I can't say it was anything less than the best our forum had to offer. It's a bit of a shame, though, that Ricky pretty much got the proverbial boot at the end, because his direction really helped Dragon-Speaker shine. The ending got a little convoluted due to his absence, but it was still a grand, epic tale with characters I grew to care about. 

    Corey was the ninth person to join the RP. He wrote 16.39% of the story, doing so in forty posts.

    Dragon-Speaker is, in my opinion, my greatest achievement on RP Haven. Inspired by Square's Japan-only SNES game Bahamut Lagoon, this is the roleplay I can look back on and feel nothing but pride and joy. It took me two years, but I finally outdid Mystical Clock.

    I have to give a huge round of applause to all the players involved with the roleplay- thanks to them, the story was given a depth and a feeling that I was incapable of creating. From Trauma Advocate's story with Jasmine, the human raised by dragons; to Corey's story with Elio, the boy who stole and ended up being responsible for a dragon baby; to Secret Agent Man's story with Edmond, one of the few survivors of the Naples attack; to CtrlAltDestroy's story with Andy, the boy who couldn't dragon-speak and became best friends with a dragon... and, of course, everyone's efforts regarding the war (which, due to my own inadequacies in that area, I had been intending to prevent entirely, but, well... things happen).

    Of course, this isn't to say I didn't do anything. I put a lot of effort into making sure the whole thing went as smoothly as possible while being as unrestrictive as possible, which I sometimes couldn't pull off, but oh well. And I put a heck of a lot of work into making Paltane an 'original' villain- something that the roleplays of today seem to lack. Working with him made the reason obvious, though- it is so easy to simply give the villain a maddeningly insane grudge against the world for whatever reason as an excuse to send a group of heroes on their way, but I've used the rule-the-world villain too many times myself, and I wanted something different. This didn't go over too well at first with some of the players, but it leveled out in the end, and, with Matthias' help in some character developments and revelations, Paltane became an awesome villain. Frankly, I actually cried a little when he died in the end...

    So, Dragon-Speaker was great, but it wasn't all a joyride. There were several hiccups along the way- players dropping out or disappearing, player requests being ignored, storylines that caused absolute delays, but it's all standard fare with roleplays. Once again, though, we found ourselves passing that psychological six-month limit, and, once again, the roleplay suffered for it. Drops in posting, a few confusing events, strained emotions, and, worst of all, my own eighteen-day disappearance... There has got to be a way to get roleplays done within six months...

    In closing, if I needed a swan song (and each day that goes by makes it seem like I do), this would be it. Dragon-Speaker was fun to write, fun to read, and I couldn't be happier with how it turned out. Now, how do I go about creating a novel out of it without stealing everyone's contributions...?

    Ricky started Dragon-Speaker, and was thus the first person to join. He wrote 12.43% of the story, doing so in thirty-three posts.

    The story of Dragon-Speaker developed greatly. I had fun role-playing Edmond, and it was great reading the many other characters develop. This lasted a while, being the longest roleplay that I've participated in. There were dull points (when being obligated to post was a problem), but overall I'm glad that I participated. 

    Secret Agent Man was the fifth person to join Dragon-Speaker. He wrote 7.64% of the story, doing so in eighteen posts.

    This one was a great story, and not just a great story, but a great roleplay as well. It was fun to post to, fun to read, and a pleasure to be a part of. Though I got pretty steamed a few times when some members blatantly disregarded my requests, Ricky kept it organized and handled it well. As usual, participation dropped off later in the roleplay, but it stayed good despite slowing down. The story was good, and became much more epic thanks to CtrlAltDestroy's direction. I really liked my character along with the others, because they developed much more than you usually see in these roleplays. It's a fantastic story, and the dragon aspect was very smooth and not at all gimmicky. Great job, guys.

    Trauma Advocate was the third person to join the RP. He wrote 5.93% of the story, doing so in twenty-eight posts.

    Well, I was the latecomer this time around, and it sure was daunting at first. There was a lot going on in Dragon-Speaker at the time. It's definitely one of the meatiest roleplays I've seen in a while; for those of you keeping score, that's a good thing.
    I initially wasn't sure how to get myself involved, but being allowed to use Alice's teacher made it a pretty good transition. I was allowed to do quite a bit in the story, such as have my character duel the antagonist, and be directly involved in the revelation of the antagonist's motives. By the way, I really liked Paltane. It was clearly apparent that a lot of effort went into him, so as to avoid him being cliché. That's very appreciated. 
    I also thought it was unique that there was no ONE lead protagonist. Think about it: the story seems to have Jasmine as the protagonist at the beginning, Alice as the protagonist in the middle, Andy as the protagonist at the end. It was cool to have that. It seemed that quite a good number of the cast was developed, the three "mains" and Edmond especially. 
    I only had a few caveats: the fact that there were still a few "straggler" characters (a few who I used in the Lavender fight at the end so they'd have something to do), and in general, I felt the final fight could have used much more fleshing out. 
    It's hard to pick favorite parts, a few come to mind. Edmond's flashbacks were well-written, in my opinion, and I loved the discussion about the skull Jasmine wears between Andy and Jasmine. Battles were paced well enough that most of them had some impact, and the reveal of Gilgamesh was a great "O.o OMG!" moment. Favorite moments to write were the scene where Richard shows Alice and Patrick Delia, and the scene where Patrick speaks to, and then duels Paltane. 
    Wish I had been on this from the start, but the part I was on for was pretty darn fun.

    Matthias was the twelfth, and last, person to join Dragon-Speaker. He wrote 5.15% of the story, doing so in seventeen posts.

    As a reader, I enjoyed Dragon-Speaker quite a bit. 
    As a roleplayer, I did not. 
    I won't go into detail, but my experience can be summarized as 
    1: I join at random (as always). 
    2: I find my posts stale, forced and pointless. 
    3: I decide to drop out. 
    4: Ricky makes me change my mind. 
    5: I make a few posts that I find worthwhile before reverting to forcing out half-arsed posts.
    6: I lose interest entirely. 
    7: I post an epilogue for a character I barely used. 
    As you can see, very little to enjoy or be proud of.

    MG was the second person to join the RP. He wrote 5.08% of the story, doing so in eighteen posts.

    Dragon-Speaker... well, I won't pretend it went very well for me. Discouragement from the more sane members, added to me losing track of the characters and the story, combined with my loss of all interest in the entire thing about halfway through... a recipe for disaster if I ever saw one. It's not as if it didn't have a great beginning- I just found that it started to drag on a bit around the time that the main villain made his first, albeit unnamed, appearance. I don't regret killing off my characters- staying in the roleplay would have only hurt both myself and the story. Anyway, congrats to Ricky on yet another successful roleplay! 

    Trilroy was the seventh person to join Dragon-Speaker. He wrote 4.83% of the story, doing so in twenty-two posts.

    Dragon-Speaker has proved to be a unique experience for me. Magic, dragons, combat, and other stuff such as that could be expected... what wasn't to like? I liked the concept, and so I joined. What I didn't expect was an incredibly involving storyline. The author thought out every facet of the world, adjusting every detail, while also allowing a bit of outside influence on the part of the roleplayers. On top of that, one of my favorite parts was that the dragons were not simply "beasts of burden," but rather fully-developed characters, as much as the riders themselves, making for a vastly engaging storyline. This is one of the finest quality roleplays I've attended in a long time, and I appreciate my time taking part. Kudos. 

    Lagi was the tenth person to join the RP. He wrote 2.79% of the story, doing so in eleven posts.

    I enjoyed Dragon-Speaker. Although it moved slow at times, it was never for very long. I believe that the main problem I had with it was the same thing I had with other roleplays I was in at the same time- I was overloaded. Due to that, I was unable to participate in the final battle, but I did read it and thought it was well-done. I hope to see more roleplays like this in the future.

    Elec was the eighth person to join Dragon-Speaker. She wrote 2.55% of the story, doing so in eighteen posts.

    Armadox was unavailable for comment. He was the eleventh person to join the RP, and wrote 0.23% of the story, doing so in one post.

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