Clearing the troubled waters: Spheres of Oblogga Roadmap
The Spheres of Oblogga is my main world, and as such it is the one I have the most plans with. I really love working on this exotic world ocean. Its uniqueness is something I thrive to preserve, but doing that requires a lot of work. Be it in style, subjects and tones. As the core concepts of the world have, for all but two, been written down, it is time to move on to more specific things. To set clear goals and inform you of what I am planning to do, I made this roadmap... or should I say seamap?
Top priority: what will be done first
Contrary to most of my other worlds, the main issue I have with the Spheres of Oblogga is not the lack of content. Sure, there are many subjects I have yet to cover, but I feel there are some more pressing matters. And the most important of all is:
Organisation
This part is so messy and I'm getting tired of it. I first tried a kind of lore-related categories, where the articles got classified regarding how common knowledge it was. It was supposed to be coupled with linear navigation to link together articles that were in different categories.
...Yeah, that was a bad idea.
So I've scrapped it off and started to think about a new system. It is still in development, but the first thing I want is to finish it. Basically, I want this new system to check at least those boxes:
Allow anyone to travel the world instinctively
Category names must be clear even without knowledge of the lore. This means that the top-level categories will be very classic: species, factions, and so on and so forth. Sub-categories may be more specific, especially in the deeper layers.
Make it easy to find a specific article
The location of every article has to be so obvious it wouldn't fit anywhere else. Basically, if anyone has to go back when looking for a specific article, then this goal is a failure.
Expand with as much depth as needed
Never have too many articles in a category without being able to regroup some of them into sub-categories. As a rule of thumb, I'd say that if more than 10 articles are grouped together, they must be separated into at least two categories.
Once I have the above foundation, the next goal will be to check the rest, without hurting the existing system:
Add flavor to the category names as possible. Reinstanciate the ancient system through the use of tags. Make category hubs articles, which would serve as both category primers and ergonomic directories.
Style
Right now, I don't feel like I achieved what I wanted to do with the tones and overall style of the Spheres of Oblogga. While it remains unique in concepts, the writing of the latest articles feels bland to me. And most of all, I don't feel like this world is an ocean of secrets that yearns to be discovered. Elite lineages are supposed to withhold a lot of information from the general people, and the Revealer's quest to unravel them all is threatening the brittle balance of forces.
An ocean of secrets
Not all knowledge has been lost. What little remained was hidden under the seal of secrecy. Forbidden lore, technical knowledge, and philosophy are kept behind barnacle doors, shunned from lesser minds.
On the brink of extinction
The ocean is not as it used to be. You may sail for cycles without seeing anything but plain and endless water. Starvation is common, and death is not sacred anymore.
Battle for knowledge
Knowledge is power, and it has never been more than now. Everybody keeps secrets from each other, the slightest discovery may turn the tables of a conflict, and a small bit of lore is more valuable than a cycle's worth of food to the leaders.
Content
As I said above, there are still two core concepts that still haven't been written. They are quite important, but also very complex and I really don't want to mess them up.
Communication underwater is a far cry from what we use as humans. Underwater species use all manners of techniques and astonishing strategies to convey information. From waves and light to electricity, the sound is only a fraction of their speech. The subject is so vast and pushes conlanging to a whole different level, so it's taking a while.
Hopefully, my upcoming internship in a bioacoustic lab will allow me to learn more about this subject so that I can deliver something up to my own expectations. Although it is very important, this article will probably not see the light of day until mid-2023 at the earliest.
Many Spheres harbor ancient warmongering species, and fighting is an integral part of life in the Expanse. Only the strongest may survive, and even in this time of peace, war is anchored in the very beings of the inhabitants of this world. War has its own dialect and takes various shapes depending on the opponents.
This article will be a long one, but I may write it during WorldEmber 2022, if time finds a way into my schedule.
Medium priority: what will happen then
By then, the world should be in a cleaner shape. Next will be much broader content. For now, I will only focus on the current era, even if there is one article about the far past. Be prepared to see more Spheres and species, as well as various visions of the Expanse. The Seekers will also be completed sooner than later, especially the original crew of Anhvall. The to-do list is ever-expanding, but I hope to be able to write faster someday.
Low priority: what will happen... eventually
Massive CSS overhaul
I have to say, the Saltmarsh theme is a boon for me. It has the vibe I want to and even a fine default background. The things that bugged me most are now fixed (thanks again Nnie!), so the current CSS can go for quite a while. However, it is not just right. Eventually, I want to redo some, if not most of it, to better fit the Spheres of Oblogga.
The thing is, I don't know if I'll find the time to polish my CSS skills to accomplish what I want. So, perhaps I will hire someone to make a whole new theme. I guess it will boils down to whichever comes first between time and money.
The Accessibility Update
You probably noticed it, names in the Expanse are hard for us to pronounce, if even possible. Though this is on purpose, I figured it might be annoying to some people. The Accessibility Update will be a rework of most articles and add the option to see the names displayed in a way that uses human sounds.
But that's not all there is to it! There will also be minor quality-of-life improvements that will slowly come into place as part of this update:
The Song of the Sea
I like composing music, although I am mediocre at it. And I feel like Oblogga would benefit greatly from background songs, but not any song. They need to convey the atmosphere and feelings of the world. And I want to do them myself. Currently, there is only one music across the world, that goes with The Anomaly. However, this song is not a great fit for this mysterious individual, but not so bad for Oblogga as a whole.
One of the ambitions I have is to create themes for the various characters and places underwater. Doing so will definitely improve my music-making skills, until I become decent somehow. I wouldn't dare say I want a song for each article, but I kind of hope to reach it eventually.
The Novel
The ultimate goal of Oblogga! I set it as low priority as I believe I don't have the writing skills needed for such a project. I set my expectations very high and will need to work on them for a long long time. By then, the world will probably have the word count of several novels and near finished.
It will tell the story of the Revealer, from the gathering of their faithful crewmates and their desperate quest for knowledge and truth.
Anyway, that is how I see things as of now. It is subject to change as I am quite bad at following my own plans. If you want to see what I want to do with my other projects, feel free to check them out:
Comments