Note: This is the original statement for the wikia, which have partially been discarded with new Admins renaming the wikia back to OpenD6 Wikia. The founder have not been seen in 7 years so it's safe to say it's a past chapter in the wiki's history
Dell999 (talk) 14:23, April 10, 2018 (UTC)
A White Necromancer. The symbol and modo of Open D6 Resurrection.
On January 3rd, 2009 Wraith (Travis Wooten) of the West End Games Fan Forums officially announced the luanch of Open D6 Ressurection. The post is considered an implied Delcaration of Independence from the parent company of Open D6 due to their lack of response, misleading, and overall poor treatment of their player base. Below is the original post in it's entirety.
Old Frontpage message[]
Welcome to Open D6 Resurrection! You can get started by adding all of that material for the D6 System you have collected and created over the years. The project staff would like to thank everyone who is writing this wiki and making it a testament to the greatness of our favorite Role Playing Game, the D6 System. Please be sure to read the terms and conditions before posting anything on the wiki or using any material within the wiki for any game be it personal, or professional. The wiki itself makes no claims to any work published within its pages. You are the master of your own destiny when it comes to how much you want to add to us or take to your friends to play. Thanks again for coming to the wiki and if you like what we offer please contribute. That's how the community grows. - Travis Wooten, Project Founder
What is Open D6 Resurrection?[]
OpenD6 Resurrection is a fan attempt at realizing the goals of OpenD6, a project to create open-source tabletop RPG rules based on the West End Games D6 system. OpenD6 was begun by Eric Gibson, owner of West End, before the company went bankrupt; the effort foundered through subsequent acquisitions of the property. The D6 system began as the rules for the Ghostbusters RPG, but it was the adaptation for the original Star Wars RPG that popularized the system.
Old frontpage links[]
https://twitter.com/traviswooten (Wraith) Open D6 Resurrection, frozen http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=280054601112&ref=mf Open D6 Resurrection, Removed http://www.youtube.com/group/opend6resurrection removed/don't exist http://www.wegfansite.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=67 defunct fansite topic http://twitter.com/opend6 OpenD6 twitter, inactive
Project Open D6 Resurrection[]
I. Introduction[]
The D6 System has been around in one form or another for decades. With the coming of a new decade it seems that the system, the company that owns it, and the hobby surrounding it are either dead or dieing. Project Open D6 Resurrection aims to revive the Open D6 Project started by West End Games owner Eric Gibson. Mr. Gibson has, professionally, gone missing and with the adoption of the Open Gaming License has given unprecedented power to the community to promote the growth of the D6 System through new material, new players, and a new direction. Open D6 originally set out to create an easily editable location on the internet for the community to gather, work on D6 games, and join with others of similar interest in an attempt to save the ailing company of West End Games and the system itself. Ideally everything will be compiled in one place. This, if the developers of the following are willing, will include D6 Radio, The D6 Community Magazine, publishers, fans, sites like D6&D6, and blogs in an archived easily search-able location. While West End Games is in a corporate state of stasis we can at least achieve the mandate of Open D6 for the system itself.
II. Problem[]
With the death of Open D6 and the disappearance of West End Games owner Eric Gibson it has been suggested that the community take the OGL for the D6 System and run with it. This needs to be done with no cost, no heavy coding, and minimal time required by the community since everyone has a life outside the hobby that requires most of their time. The issue at hand is not simply that there is not enough information available but that the information that is available is scattered, unorganized, and poorly coordinated.
III. Solution[]
The solution is this: Google Wave for group design and play combined with a free Wikia website, embedded with the wave itself, for the materials once they are finalized. This combined with proper coordination among the project and essential advertising and updating will save Open D6. Below is more detailed information on Google Wave, Wikia, Advertising, and Project Management.
IV. Google Wave[]
1. Real-time: In most instances, you can see what someone else is typing, character-by-character. This will make play testing and group design easier than ever. Many minds working simultaneously or separately on the same project. Read the rest for additional benefits of this such as the dice roller already coded for the project.
2. Embeddability: Waves can be embedded on any blog or website. If you have a personal or corporate website/blog already you can advertise our projects directly from the wave itself!
3. Applications and Extensions: Just like a Facebook application or an iGoogle gadget, developers can build their own apps within waves. They can be anything from bots to complex real-time games. This means maps, grids, miniatures or anything else can be displayed and used in real time or for later use as uploaded for other waves.
4. Wiki functionality: Anything written within a Google Wave can be edited by anyone else, because all conversations within the platform are shared. Thus, you can correct information, append information, or add your own commentary within a developing conversation. Once the conversation is done and everything amended, you can save conversations to return later, this is where the Wikia website will come in. Simply copy and paste all our work for quicker access for a broader community.
5. Playback: You can playback any part of the wave to see what was said. That way the creative process can be examined and the community can see step by step how everything came to be. It's a built in development blog of sorts.
6. Natural language: Google Wave can auto-correct your spelling, even going as far as knowing the difference between similar words, like “been” and “bean.” It can also auto-translate on-the-fly.
7. Drag-and-drop file sharing: No attachments; just drag your file and drop it inside Google Wave and everyone will have access. This will allow us to share artwork, templates, pdf's, or anything else related to the work. This is especially important for the OGL material and working on an SRD. There has already been hard work on these forums by sycarion and work is already at hand for the remaining content. A great deal of information has already been compiled and this will give a place to share it properly and efficiently.
8. Widgets: Google Wave already has widgets that can be placed within the program for added functionality. The project already has a dice roller coded and am currently modifying it. It already works fine but some more modification will make it perfect for our purposes. You can also create wave bots to welcome people, moderate language, etc.
9. Built In Translator: For the non-English speaking fans of Open D6 Google Wave also has a live translator which automatically, as you type or the whole page at once, translates to dozens of languages.
V. Wikia[]
Once the work is finished via Google Wave simply copy and paste, or create a bot to do it automatically, everything that has been worked on for access to the broadest gaming community possible! Wikia has free websites available to communities such as this one. This will provide a means for others through search engines to find our material more easily. Through simple navigation any rule, or optional rule, can be found quickly and by dragging and dropping these features either into a wave or a word, or Open Office, document one can quickly and easily create whole rulebooks in a matter of minutes. With time a Widget for the wave itself can even be developed to quickly automate this function. The wave will be embedded into the Wikia for live access to creation. This allows quick and easy flow of ideas both into gamers hands and from their minds. This will achieve the Open D6 goal of compiling personal rulebooks tailor made for game groups.
VI. Advertisement[]
The key to all of this is advertisement. Given that the gaming community is not what it once was in terms of player base we need to advertise in as many forums and means as possible. If you frequent any other forums please feel free to add this information to your signature or create a thread about it. Let your friends and game shops know about this. Advertisement and information is the fulcrum upon which our success rests.
VII. Project Management/Organization[]
A major key in the success of any project is management. This is especially true in a fan driven project such as this. There are currently four positions that should be filled in order to achieve the goals of Open D6 Resurrection. These are a Project Head, an Advertiser, a Creative Head, and a Compiler.
A. Project Head 1. The Project Head will coordinate and provide goals for the Advertiser, Creative Head, and Compiler. 2. The Project Head will also access how best to obtain the goals of Open D6 Resurrection. 3. The Project Head will organize times for the project staff to meet on waves and provide status reports. B. Advertiser 1. The Advertiser will find the best means to advertise the project, the system, and the community. 2. The Advertiser will summarize information created and obtained by the compiler for said advertisements. 3. The Advertiser will also work with the Creative Head on the best use of artwork and new ideas as it pertains to advertisement. C. Creative Head 1. The Creative Head will be in charge of finding or creating artwork, conceptualizing new ideas and optional rules for the system, and leading community members in the reimagining of the system. 2. The Creative Head will work closely with the compiler so that no information (rules, settings, etc) that is created is not lost and is chronicled in the wave and wikia. 3. The Creative Head will assist the compiler with ideas for form and function of the System Reference Document. D. Compiler 1. The Compiler has the responsibility of bringing information over to the Wikia and making sure information is chronicled correctly and in an organized fashion. 2. The Compiler needs to be a person of expert organizational skills both for time and for material. 3. The Compiler will lead the fans that wish to piece the information available together such as an SRD.
These positions will be filled initially by volunteers from the community with discussion over any contested position.
VIII. Conclusions[]
This is the future of Open D6. This is our call to arms. This is what can be done to resurrect Open D6. We will work together. The realization of the dream is at hand and we'll be the ones to do it. The project is currently using the development version of the closed beta for Google Wave and it is due for final release in a couple of months. You are welcome to join in this endeavor.
Together we can finally bring D6 into the new decade. With the OGL as it stands we can legally do almost anything we want at this point. Thanks and if you're interested in helping with anything from widgets, to artwork, to material please post via this thread so everything can be kept organized and put as much information out there as possible during this alpha phase.
Regards,
Travis Wooten (Wraith) Open D6 Resurrection Project Founder