Greetings traveler,

Welcome to the twenty-third edition of the alcarin.com newsletter.
There is an archive of the previous newsletters in the Townhall and the columns are added to the Town Square, so you can always read it again.
New submissions have been few this month. Two new characters to be exact. But: we have a new forum system, well, actually the latest version of the old system. Since upgrading to the latest version of PHP caused some problems with login and cookie systems, I decided to upgrade right away. The new system has a lot of cool options, for that see this month's Close-Up. Some people seem to have problems reaching the Forums, though. I have no idea what is causing this problem, but I do have a solution that seems to work for most people. If you can't reach the forum through http://www.alcarin.com/forum (can't contact server or something like that), go to http://www.alcarin.com/forum/admin instead and from there, you can go to the forum.
Enjoy reading.

This letter's content:
1. What's New
2. Coming Up Soon
3. Close-Up
4. Column: Men with a Mission

-------
WHAT'S NEW:

28/09/2002 - finished Alcarin Standard style for new forum

26/09/2002 - installed the latest version of the Forums, converted old forum files

12/09/2002 - new character in the School: Aurelio Amaranth

11/09/2002 - new character in the School: Jolten Silveraxe

01/09/2002 - new campaign running at User Online Campaigns forum: Broderas Campaign

Visit http://www.alcarin.com/townhall/updates.htm for the latest updates.

-------
COMING UP:

There is a new campaign, the Broderas Campaign, running on the User Online Campaigns forum. It is still in the party introduction phase, so new characters are still welcome. It is going quite well so far and the mission will probably take off this month.
I've got some cool new submissions and they are going online in the coming month. My D&D party is almost finished with a mission in which they had to battle a clan of teleporting creatures, named Vanishers, who where abducting people from a city. Once they are finished I will put this homemade creature up in the Monsters subsection of the RPG Archives (in the School). Another new item is even more important: a new D&D mission for the RPG Missions section of the Barracks. The mission, named "Burglary in Dobnell" is a D&D third edition mission for third level characters. It has been created by Jan Willem van den Brink, the author of Agmanor's Treasure. It plays in the village of Dobnell, as did Agmanor's Treasure. I'll announce it on the Announcements forum as soon as it is up.
Further items on the agenda, in the coming weeks, are creating a comment option for the rpg missions, getting the forum to work perfectly again, maybe some additions to the forum and expansions in the Elfstone Geography pages.

-------
CLOSE-UP:

The new Forums

I've installed the latest version of the forum software some days ago. A lot of people seem to be unable to reach it through the normal url of http://www.alcarin.com/forum . I have no idea what is causing this, but I do have some solutions that can get you to the forum. One of them is to go to http://www.alcarin.com/forum/admin and from there to the forum itself. Another thing that seems to be working is a direct link to one of the forums. These links can be found in the Wyvern Inn and Town Square. I think I will try to fix it by reinstalling the software someday soon.
Well, so what has the new forum to offer? Most of all, the ease of use is greatly improved.
When posting a reply to a topic, you get a list with some of the smilies next to the form and smilies can be added by a simple click. Board codes for styling and linking (font sizes/colors, italic/bold/underlined text, lists, urls and image tags) can be added with a simple click on one of the buttons and the topic you're replying to can be seen under the reply form, so you won't need to go back all the time to see what you are replying to. Some other interesting posting options are the possibility to add polls that run for a duration specified by the poster, sticky topics and announcements. Announcements can be posted only by the admin and in some cases the moderators. Sticky topics can be posted by registered users on most public forums. Both of these topic types stay on top of the page, which comes in handy with important notes and very popular topics.
Another nice thing for registered users is the new private messaging system. Unlike the old forum, this version has an outbox for private messages and a savebox for the important messages you want to keep at hand. The messaging system also has an option to search for usernames, in case you forgot how to write a name. In your profile you can choose to let the forum send you an email when you've got a new private message.
The forum itself also has a powerful search engine, but I'm not sure if I'm going to continue that thing; takes up a lot of webspace. Other interesting options on the Forums are to look for posts since your last visit or unanswered posts or to watch a topic for new replies (so you'll get an email when there are new replies). The page load time did get bigger, but I might be able to improve this by creating a cache for the style-stuff on the server.
There are some things that need to be noted for current forum users. First of all, the installation has automatically set all "Always show Email Address" to yes. Actually your email address isn't shown, but I've let the board place a form through which you can email users, without ever getting to know the address. Still, you might want to change this. Another thing is that the option "Always notify me of replies" and "Notify on new Private Message" are automatically set to yes. All of these things can be changed in your profile.

The Forums: http://www.alcarin.com/forum
or if this doesn't work: http://www.alcarin.com/forum/admin

-------
COLUMN: MEN WITH A MISSION
A column by Wouter vd Zandschulp; wouter@alcarin.com

"The great escape"

Hounds barking. Guns shooting. People shooting. And you, running as fast as you can, trying to get out of this insane prison, keeping you locked up.
A prison, with bars and guardians and with the big problem that you may not go out of it. Imprisonment is one of the worst things. It can be done in a subtle manner, like being asked to friendly to hold someone's briefcase and than not being able to go where you want until he took it back, out of your own courtesy, or in a more cruel manner, like being at a Tupperware-party where you cannot leave because that is not morally acceptable.
You need a possibility to get out. Even if you'll never use it, the trick is to have the OPTION to leave. It gets real frightening when you cannot. In the biggest way this is when you are totally strapped down to a chair with heavy ropes or so.
That's also why people don't like going to prison, in generally. That probably explains why they will even lie about crimes or pay instead of going to prison. Luckily, in our society, you can do everything if you pay it off. You can destroy nature when you pay for a license. You can smoke, because you pay loads of taxes on it to the government and so on? Does paying make it less harmful to steal, cheat, drive to fast, smoke or pollute environment? No, but the government receives money for it, so it's all right.
But when you cannot pay you will get to jail and that's terrible.
People want to escape more than just this. They want to escape all that keeps them imprisoned. Most of all, their own thoughts. Escape in over-obsession for details, hobbies, learning, reading, watching TV, playing games... a bit more philosophical you can see all humans as pitiful beings, all running away from one distraction to the other from themselves. Until they have had so many distractions they want to escape from the distractions by being themselves for a while.
We role-players have found a real great escape going even further; being a totally other being in a totally different world. It really provides a place where you can really get away in. But when we watch this more closely, like when we taped and analysed our rpg-evening for instance, which we will not do because it looks to much like schoolwork and one of those tapes getting out is enough to get us all locked up, we will see ourselves being exactly ourselves. We will take this change to escape not as such as other people in another world, but as ourselves in another world and body, with other abilities. We will not escape from ourselves at all, but escape from the world that will not let us be ourselves as we want it, but slows us down.
An extreme version of ourselves, in a world where we dare to be it, that is the way we escape. So I think I can conclude from that that we do have the makings to be great inside of us, all of us. And when the real world keeps us unsatisfied about showing this, we turn to a fantasy world.
Well, try and explain this as a reason when your mother asks you why you like to rpg so much. Or maybe better just keep it in mind yourself and accept that your mother does not understand all you interest just as you don't understand all of hers. And preferably do not go to Tupperware-parties.

-------
Well, that's it for this month's newsletter. I hope you enjoyed it.
Lord Gildor
"May the stars guide you on your journeys"
http://www.alcarin.com

Back to the Notice Board

Home | Submit content | Contact | Legal info | Top of page

This website © Copyright 1999-2008, Arjan Wardekker.
All rights reserved.
All trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners.