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How to Make a Good Project; No guarantees or refunds.
Topic Started: Aug 4 2014, 12:47 PM (6,477 Views)
Corecin
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Have you ever been bitch slapped for lack of listening? lack of doing what your told? cuz i'm not far from slapping you
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One thing I've noticed a lot of is that in projects in Evo continuum, Alternate Evo, and Alternate universes is that they're all pretty similar.

In Continuum all projects are similar, humans go extinct adaptable animals take new forms and niches of those extinct.

In Alternate Evo its usually some new landmass or an extinction event didn't happen.

In alternate universes its usually a different world with earth animals from random periods of time living together.

My question is how would you make a project stand out? For instance what if you had that example I have an alternate universes, what would you do to make your project unique?
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Paleo_Specs
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Uh, those are the almost exact meanings of the topics.


And Neogea has post humans.
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a species of canid that's always male because the females are in Hell, that commits blood rituals on unborn souls, and assimilates others into its flesh belongs in a competition meant to foster a sensible and mature discussion of evolution.
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Corecin
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Have you ever been bitch slapped for lack of listening? lack of doing what your told? cuz i'm not far from slapping you
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Paleo_Specs
May 13 2016, 04:45 PM
Uh, those are the almost exact meanings of the topics.


And Neogea has post humans.
What? I'm confused? At least I don't have to go to your funeral.
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Picrodus
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I believe you can make a project stand out if you a have a unique or unusual premise. As long as you make it believable enough. Though it is quite a generalization to say that all projects in those subforums are similar. I mean to post in a certain subforum, you have to adhere to a very general set of rules. Pictures really help a lot but aren't required. Especially if you aren't planning on putting much effort into them. Engaging descriptions of the lifeforms. Don't just list scientific jargon about them, perhaps talk about how they came to posses their present form, and how they use their adaptations in day to day life.

-Future evolution is Earth life in the future.
-Alternate evolution is where the timeline diverges at some point in earths history.
-Habitable zone, you know, aliens.
-Alternate universes seem to be anything else really.

As for that last question, you could do anything from using it as a scenario to bring select species together as some members seem to be doing. You could make a universe with different elements, different physics, or even different dimensions of movement. Such scenarios aren't explored as much possibly for reasons such as either we aren't comfortable with beng able to tackle a plausible outcome, or maybe it doesn't really seem to tickle anyones fancy.

Such things I can only speculate as I am only one individual.
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Sayornis
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Picrodus
May 13 2016, 05:13 PM
Though it is quite a generalization to say that all projects in those subforums are similar.
Definitely, I wouldn't call Umbriel, Settlers From the Deep, and Terra Metropolis (to take a few examples from Continuum) very similar at all; each has very different creatures and settings. Future evolution of Earth life is a very broad concept.
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Dr Nitwhite
Aug 19 2016, 07:42 PM
As I said before, the Library is like spec crack.
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malicious-monkey
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I think what makes the projects seem similar to you is not the premises, since they are very broad and leave lots of room for interpretation. It's the way they're presented. People seem to take a lot of influence from Sheather in that regard - nothing wrong with that, but it does make things look samey to some. Another contributing factor is the choice of species to evolve. We've all seen a gazillion dinosaur projects, and there's only so much you can do with them. For future projects, there is a tendency to make creatures that are basically "looks like X but evolved from Y." These exist in real life, sure (looking at you, marsupials), but it's not the only path a species can take.

If you want to make your project stand out:

Be creative with your presentation. Try narratives, framing devices, formats inspired by books, specific real life field guides, documentaries, etc. Try to make your descriptions less "dry." It can be a chore to read pages and pages of textbook prose. Illustrations are not the only way to make your project interesting.

Think outside the box. Don't be a slave to the agreed upon conventions of plausibility.

Pick species, clades, and eras that haven't been explored.

Edited by malicious-monkey, May 14 2016, 03:57 PM.
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Corecin
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Have you ever been bitch slapped for lack of listening? lack of doing what your told? cuz i'm not far from slapping you
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Sayornis
May 13 2016, 06:20 PM
Picrodus
May 13 2016, 05:13 PM
Though it is quite a generalization to say that all projects in those subforums are similar.
Definitely, I wouldn't call Umbriel, Settlers From the Deep, and Terra Metropolis (to take a few examples from Continuum) very similar at all; each has very different creatures and settings. Future evolution of Earth life is a very broad concept.
I didn't say every project, I just said a some of them are similar.
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Carlos
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Well, those are the basic premises of each forum.

As people have said before, these are some extremely wide premises. Literally anything goes.

That said, virtually every AE project aside from a few tend to unfortunately be about no-KT events, because of a certain unwarranted obsession with a group of archosaurs.
Edited by Carlos, May 14 2016, 04:25 PM.
Lemuria:
http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/topic/5724950/

Terra Alternativa:
http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/forum/460637/

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https://www.patreon.com/Carliro

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Scrublord
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It's not totally unwarranted; as amateur researchers (at least, I'm assuming we're all amateurs, if anyone here has a doctorate in biology let me know) we gravitate toward the groups of organisms about which the most information is available. And that just so happens to include dinosaurs.
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In the end, the best advice I could give you would be to do your project in a way that feels natural to you, rather than trying to imitate some geek with a laptop in Colorado.
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Scrublord
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It's not totally unwarranted; as amateur researchers (at least, I'm assuming we're all amateurs, if anyone here has a doctorate in biology let me know) we gravitate toward the groups of organisms about which the most information is available. And that just so happens to include dinosaurs. For instance, I love notosuchians, but easy-to-access information about them is rather thin on the ground, so I'm not going to do a project about them.
Edited by Scrublord, May 14 2016, 04:57 PM.
My Projects:
The Neozoic Redux
Valhalla--Take Three!
The Big One



Deviantart Account: http://elsqiubbonator.deviantart.com

In the end, the best advice I could give you would be to do your project in a way that feels natural to you, rather than trying to imitate some geek with a laptop in Colorado.
--Heteromorph
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Monster
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Space Oddity

Amateur just means it isn't your paid job, not any real reference to skill level.

As for making a project stand out, it is easy. But also difficult. Just have a solid, interesting premise and well written and varied content. Nice pictures help. Manu of the successful projects here cover a smallish area and a narrow time period so that might be a good place start.





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Corecin
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Have you ever been bitch slapped for lack of listening? lack of doing what your told? cuz i'm not far from slapping you
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Scrublord, you accidental posted this post twice.
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