As for the wide side margins, that can easily be changed. But it is easier on the eyes to have narrow paragraphs. Less distance for them to move back and forth.

Dominus tecum

I know nothing about Latex and little about the full range of compatible file formats the e-readers will accept. All I care is that whatever reader I eventually get is capable of displaying a good range of formats without having to convert them. .txt, .doc, .rtf, .pdf, .html are a few that I have found online on various story sites. I've also seen .png and .jpg mentioned somewhere, but as far as I'm concerned, those are image files, not text files. Displaying them would be a useful feature though.

http://transform.to/~mattyrat/metamor/C1_S1_WritersGuild.pdf

The only difficulty I had in doing this was in replacing all the " with either “ or ” (opening and closing quotes). I can do more with this if folks are interested in seeing it.

Personally, I love LaTeX and enjoy any excuse to play around with it. :-)

Dominus tecum

Dominus tecum

There's no end in sight for Star Wars references on Metamor Keep, isn't it?

:P

"And I have tried to appeal to her predator instincts, but she remains too close to Artela," Lilith added.

"All quite true," Ba'al agreed, nodding. "Raven has her weaknesses, but none we can use to truly subvert her. She's cautious, and while that has been to our advantage in the past, it's useless for starting a war."

[But that does not mean that she is untouchable,] said the Fallen. [If we wish to neutralize the Metamor Lothanasi, we must do so by attacking them at their weakest link.]

In the center of the conference table, an image appeared: A young feline woman dressed in the white robes of a Lightbringer priestess. The priestess said "Help me Oberon, you're my only hope" then knelt down, reaching toward something out of view. The image reset to the priestess standing saying "Help me Oberon, you're my only hope" then knelt down, reaching toward something out of view. The image reset to the priestess standing saying "Help me Oberon, you're my only hope" then knelt down, reaching toward something out of view…

"CUT!"

In simple: A pole with a cross-arm under which is an inverted black triangle (a general multi-cultural sign for 'bad juju here'). Each curse marker is topped by a mage-lit lamp so it's easy to see even at night.

I'm not that fussed about wholly db-driven sites, although that's pretty much what I do for work. :) You could use a db just for tracking data about stories, like when uploaded, who the authors were, etc. A script could generate zips for download. And I think as is, you could add "print version" links to the story pages without too much trouble.

Yarr!!

I've been considering ways to transition to a totally DB-driven backend, but always thought I'd draw a line and just keep the "old" static HTML stories the "old way", and pull newer stuff through the DB, maintaining it using Wordpress or Drupal or one of those content management things in the background. (All transparent to the reader of course. Just background stuff. Haven't really persued anything yet because honestly making a handful of HTML pages per month isn't that big of a deal.) Throwing it all in the DB would make nifty stuff like full archive downloads possible though.

Quickly skimmed the article and it doesn't look so bad. I have a lot of projects going on at the moment, but think in a few weeks I'll schedule a weekend to do some more archive work. Thanks for the idea, Thae!

If you want, I could probably write a script to do that for you. We just need to figure out what the db schema should be.

I dunno much about e-book formats or exporting to PDF, but standalone HTML downloads shoudn't be that big an issue.

Dominus tecum

Dominus tecum

Dominus tecum

Sure, many people outside of Metamor may be illiterate, but perhaps some pictorial could accompany any text warning.

Once someone determines (I assume years down the line) that the curse border is expanding, such signs should be moved periodically.

Also I do have a location for Kkarrt being roughly in the area where the border between the Sathmore Empire and the Pyralian Kingdoms. There is a river that runs from the Sathmore mountain range to the ocean. The one major city on that map is Silvassa. That river is the MK version of the Nile. the Kkarrt empire spread out on both sides of the river for a good distance. There are bound to be at few pyramids along the river. Especially at Silvassa which was once the capital of Kkarrt.
See also: http://mkworld.wikidot.com/org:kkarrt-empire

Now that I think about it, it probably would be a good idea to put up RTFs of the long stories— Matt's novels in particular— so people don't have to go through and save every part if they want to read them offline. I have LTOY already. Will have to ask about his other novels. *adds to to-do list*

In regard to downloading en-masse, we'd basically need a volunteer to go through and save and convert each story to something readable offline. (Probably wouldn't be too huge of a deal if I added a "print friendly link". Then they could be saved as raw HTML, which would be fine.) Ordering info would be a pain, though. The order of the first 300 stories is pretty much static. But the last 150 stories or so are in a constant state of flux as new stories are added in-between others each update. So basically it would mean a separate list to maintain to keep numbers the same as the online archives.

I don't think it would be totally un-do-able, though. It could just be a bi-annual release or something— basically a static download of the entire archives on a certain date every six months. Any one interested in building/maintaining this? I've a bit too many projects going on at the moment, so maintaining the one archive is enough for me. ;)

For me it's a moot point until ereaders come down. At the rate their prices are going, it may be a few years before I get one.

Maybe something like a mass download from the archives in .txt format in a zip file, taken from the Archive sites database could be done too? *notes to poke Virmir on it later*

Also, any PDA can do the job of an ebook reader (As proven by Virmir, hehe).

Are there any plans to make the story archives downloadable en-masse for such devices instead of manually saving each page of each story one by one?

No, they were descended from from dinosaurs. Jon's amulet is an ancestral form, used for combat.

Ahh, gotcha.

They couldn't have been extinct for millions of years simply because there literally would be no artifacts or ruins left over, everything would be dust. Fifteen thousand years is at the outside of what I'd think that the tougher monuments and artifacts could last, but it's possible.

Don't forget that strong enchantments preserve things against decay. The Journal of Anef the First dates back to the Kingdom of the Nine (ca. -11,000 CR) and Elemacil was forged during the War of the Great Darkness (ca. -5,000 CR), and both are still in excellent condition with no hints at their extreme age.

They couldn't have been extinct for millions of years simply because there literally would be no artifacts or ruins left over, everything would be dust. Fifteen thousand years is at the outside of what I'd think that the tougher monuments and artifacts could last, but it's possible.

I always got the impression that Jon's reptile-folk were supposed to be actual dinosaurs. If that's the case, then the Tened probably lived millions of years ago, and were wiped out before humans were even walking erect.

Dominus tecum

Though I sometimes fear that I might be over-reaching beyond my skills.

For those who don't know (which… would be everyone besides nagolinc), I'm the friend who showed nagolinc this place and told him he should write here. He has a second story actually mostly finished, but he said he wouldn't finish it until I finished Sacrifice (my first story). Well now it's done, so you all have my official permission to go threaten to impale him with swimming noodles until he gets it done.

I'm not sure how, but that mailing list formats stuff weird and now it looks like I sent a txt that wasn't word wrapped. Is that just showing up weird on the mailing list page itself or is it screwed up on the sent e-mails too?

Please share any tomes of whatever dimensions you have with us. I am always eager to see more of this wonderful world we call Metamor. :-)

Dominus tecum

The reason is that I think it's going to take me a while to get through all of this. I've had very little time to write in the last month, and the next couple of weeks aren't that promising either.

This goes for those who've asked for my help on their tales too. I'm really sorry, but I'm not going to get to any of those for a while.

Dominus tecum

PWND! :P

Welcome to MK Toast :)

It's true Vir rakes in a lot of new people though, thankfully I got in through DMFA's Xepher link so he can't hold that over me ^.^

You mean the banner ad I made on the link network I added the MK site to because I though it would help get MK more exposure? ;)