The Million Worlds - Promo - Sharing My Vision Of the Game

[RobMuadib]

Hey Guys

I am back into a heavy work cycle again on my game, and am considering throwing out some more promoage on the net for it. To that end, I have come up with a new Promo blurb/press release deal, pointing out the game as I see it now. I would appreciate any recommendations, comments you might have on how to focus it better.

The game's concept summary (thanks Emily:) )-
The players collaborate to create all the settings, guises, props & FX of a
world and then stage their own Chronicles within the worlds they create. The worlds the players create all share a common universe, called The Million Worlds, that follows an eternal cycle of creation and destruction, called the Turning, during which the worlds, called Spheres, move into proximity to each other, with travel possible between them.

Then the new promo blurb deal is this.......
[Here is the newly edited version, incorporating Eugene Zee's comments.]

The Million Worlds: Chronicles Of The Eternal Cycle (TM)
A new universe waiting to be shared, created and explored
by you...

The Million Worlds...

The spirits of the ancient Omyrii awaken, long since scattered amongst The Million Worlds in a time long forgotten. They find themselves reincarnated among the manifold worlds of Man, the dreams of their primordial civilization haunting them.  Driving them always is the yearning to return from whence they came, the great city of Midian.  Their goal, to gather tribute for the Ubiqnomen, that they might rebuild the Endless Temple, sacred to Alphain, the creator and all-god.

Chronicles...

With The Million Worlds: Chronicles of the Eternal Cycle (TM), the players come together to form a Company, much like a small theatre company. Working together the players all collaborate, sharing duties and roles, in staging a Production. The players use the Design Architectures of the game system to create the settings, props, guises, and special FX of the worlds in which their Chronicles are set.  The players also take part in the performance of their Production, serving as actor, director, stage hand, & audience to their enacted Chronicle. The players can also use the rules to stage set-pieces of their own design, perhaps enacting a great battle scene

The Eternal Cycle...

The Million Worlds: Chronicles of the Eternal Cycle offers a multi-faceted game experience to it's players, providing them with the means to not only explore a game setting, in a wider variety of roles, but to come together as a group and create the worlds they will explore. Not only that, but all of the player's Companies world-wide will be able to share their creations online, adding to the games shared universe, The Million Worlds. They can do this by contributing to the Ubiqnomen, the online database of items, creatures, vehicles, weapons, powers and Spheres created by the players.

The Million Worlds: Chronicles Of The Eternal Cycle (TM), currently in
development, is the flagship product of Wild Muse Games. It is currently slated for a Janurary 2003 release. To learn more about The Million Worlds: Chronicles Of The Eternal Cycle (tm) you can visit the Wild Muse Games website, at http://www.wildmuse.com/games/

Rob Muadib
Kwisatz Haderach of Wild Muse Games
robmuadib@wildmuse.com
Wild Muse Games
(C) 2002 Wild Muse Games, Robert A Mosley

[Nathan]

I would say the whole first paragraph has strange words and stuff, and might be a little daunting.

Remember -- your point is to create interest. You want to state somethings that would make gamers explore it a bit further. You might switch the first and second paragraphs, or write some other "color" piece that invites the reader in. Sometimes, a semi-humorous blurb line for the title can be great too..

BTW, your game title evoked images of some strange Vampire chronicle to me.... I immediately was a little turned off.

Other than that, good start.

Thanks,
Nathan Hill
nathan@mysticages.com

[J B Bell]

Hm, interesting study in contrasts here--I found the blurb pretty evocative.  I'm kind of a sucker for any toying around with Greek and Latin roots to make new words--"ubiqnomen" is quite nice.  I think a "frenzied variety fantasy" toolkit is a real natural.  Games such as Maelstrom that give you pre-built frenzied variety just fall flat for me--someone else's wildly cool invention is my unfinished-looking mess, if you see what I mean.

Probably it's just because I've been reading Story Engine lately, but I like the explicit use of stage terminology.

--JB

[RobMuadib]

I would say the whole first paragraph has strange words and stuff, and might be a little daunting.

Remember -- your point is to create interest. You want to state somethings that would make gamers explore it a bit further. You might switch the first and second paragraphs, or write some other "color" piece that invites the reader in. Sometimes, a semi-humorous blurb line for the title can be great too..

BTW, your game title evoked images of some strange Vampire chronicle to me.... I immediately was a little turned off.

Other than that, good start.

Thanks,
Nathan Hill
nathan@mysticages.com

Nathan, thanks for your Comments, perhaps adding a subtitle to the intro, such as that below, would help.


The Million Worlds: Chronicles Of The Eternal Cycle (TM):
A new universe waiting to be shared, created and explored
by you..........

(With the rest being largely the same, I have edited in the original just so you can see how that changes the feel.)

As can bee seen by JB's post, I thought, and believe others might find, the first color paragraph something that would make the gamers want to explore it a bit further. In any case, I will keep working on it. Again, thanks for your comments. And anyone else who might like to weigh in please do so.

Rob

[Eugene Zee]

Rob,

The new terminology you developed is really fresh and interesting.

I find that the use of totally new concepts and words are best used gradually.  In other words you might want to gradually introduce those names and ideas, as opposed to stuff them all into the opening paragraph of your game.  I think that most of your readers will really enjoy the concepts and the creativity that went into the ideas but when they are all thrust upon you it looks more like this:

The history of the #@$#% is at stake with a million #*%%))# waiting to be freed.  A #*%*%( of huge proportions is preparing to #(%(#$($(@ and ultimately rule the #%(@$**).

Simply because the concepts are alien to people, their brains will still be working on one concept when you throw the next one in.

[RobMuadib]

Rob,

The new terminology you developed is really fresh and interesting.

Thanks, it is something that has been developing over the years, kind of
the backstory of my RPG imagination. As you might guess, it is inspired by Moorcock's Million Spheres, lovecraft's cosmic universe deal, and all kinds of creations myth's and such. I have a bit of inspired writing that I did, called the Myth Of The Sundering, which is the creation/apocalypse myth of the aforementioned Omyrae peoples that has informed the promoage and the shape of the game. I will probably throw it up on the website soon. (Working on the gosh-wow cool bits is so much more fun and so distracting from the grunt-work of actually writing the how-to-roll-the-dice cook-book stuff of the rules:) )

I find that the use of totally new concepts and words are best used gradually.  In other words you might want to gradually introduce those names and ideas, as opposed to stuff them all into the opening paragraph of your game.  I think that most of your readers will really enjoy the concepts and the creativity that went into the ideas but when they are all thrust upon you it looks more like this:

The history of the #@$#% is at stake with a million #*%%))# waiting to be freed.  A #*%*%( of huge proportions is preparing to #(%(#$($(@ and ultimately rule the #%(@$**).

Simply because the concepts are alien to people, their brains will still be working on one concept when you throw the next one in.

Aha, very good point, I guess that is what nathan was getting at too, but your *(&# comments made it much more clear to me. I have thusly revised the promo blurb to adress this fact, I have edited the original post to include this updated blurbage.

Again, thanks for your cogent and helpful comments everyone.

Rob

[Eugene Zee]

Rob,

I am looking forward to reading about it.