I want to see what motivates people to work on their worlds? I have two currently in progress with at least one superhero world bouncing around in my head as well as an urban fantasy world up there too.
My drive seems to go in spurts on both worlds. I will spend days or weeks working on the details, then drop it for weeks or months at a time. And then pick it back up again. I believe part of this question also is how do you organize your works? For Marit I have about 4 different projects to work on, and I can't ever seem to pick which one to focus on because I'm not real organized when it comes to my notes. Do you use Word, Wiki, Excel, some other program?
I would like to know what keeps those of us that have built some fantastic, detailed world motivated to finish.
Organization was always an issue for me, because I tended to have so many expansive things I wanted to detail, from people (in general), to specific to people, to countries, to specific cities. That's how I moved to the website format. I find that a good way to keep everything organized since you can just link to everything, rather than presenting it in the more linear fashion required by Word. I could see a Wiki-layout being similar, though I don't know I'd normal want open editing on my setting.
As for what motivates me...I don't know, an obsession with the world I suppose. I mostly work on what I feel like at the time. If I really don't feel like working, I take a break. But since I've been trying to use the setting for publishing fiction, it serves as a good motivation to keep detailing away.
As for organization, right now what I'm doing with mine is pretty linear - I'll take a sourcebook, go over it for pertinence to my world, then add it to the Ferakoss thread over on the WotC site. I use the discussion thread on this site for nailing down certain questions that seem like judgement calls, or when I'm just out of ideas.
As for when I work on Ferakoss, it seems to be cyclic - I will roleplay for a while, then do some actual writing, then add a few things to Ferakoss, then back to gaming. There are interruptions to the cycle, but one thing seems to lead to another.
As for when I'm going to put the Ferakoss setting up on this site, I think soon, but then I've been thinking that for years. I think when I'm done with the Complete series and the Environmental books the material for the world will be complete enough for one final huge polish, then I'll post it here.
But then, I've been told that sometimes you just have to freeze a design and implement, so it might actually be soon. I mean, as long as I don't get banned, I can always modify the results.
I'm alot like Ravenspath in that I wander from project to project. RIght now I think I'm about ready to switch back to Dilandri for a while.
I know I could use some advice on this same thing.
Well... you can see what I'm doing with science fiction theater already. I'm posting chunks at a time in campaign elements and design, with neat little spoilers for info. Later, I'll go into an in-depth discussion of naming conventions (things like titans, goblins, host, horde, first moon... really only stand ins). Then I post a consolidated 2.0 setting. There's more after this, including revisions, a ruleset, and maybe a PbP.
When I feel it's really ready, I'll take it down from the boards and publish a PDF.