Community Feedback Part I

[chacusha]

COMMUNITY FEEDBACK PART I
(ff_classchange & ff_land)

Here's how this is going to work:

- There's going to be two phases to this whole community feedback process. During the first phase, I'll have you fill out general polls asking you to rate various aspects of the comm and make suggestions. During the second phase, I will collect all reasonable/feasible ideas that were suggested and put them to a vote.

- This post and the other one are part of the first phase. The polls here are to help give me a general idea of how the comm is going, but mostly they're here to to jog your memory on various aspects of the comm that might need improvement. You're encouraged to make suggestions in the comments as you think of them and to respond to other people's suggestions.

- Comments are unscreened. However, anonymous commenting is allowed in case you're uncomfortable voicing your opinions with your name attached.

- Not all suggestions will go on to be voted on in the second phase. Some suggestions will be rejected without vote and some suggestions will be accepted without vote, at mod discretion.

- The mods have already put some thought into community improvement. Here's a list of things we've come up with so far:

Suggestions that will be voted on in the second phase of feedback

• [GENERAL] New alliances for Game 3 (both whether we'll have them and also which arrangement we should use)
• [SORTING] Either clarify the masculine/feminine dichotomy to ask whether the applicant's personality has more traditionally 'masculine' or 'feminine' traits OR replace this dichotomy with a different one (Stoic/Thinking vs. Emotional/Feeling)
• [SORTING] Remove Ashe from list of Soldiers and add Cecil, Ramza, and Zack
• [SORTING] Either add Knight as a secondary class onto Dragoons, giving them Auron, Basch and Cyan OR add Samurai as a secondary class onto Dragoons, giving them Auron and Cyan (or neither)
• [CONTESTS] Rule change on banner-making points to make it so that a set of mostly variations on the same template is not worth 5-6 times the amount of a smaller set also based on single-template variations (several solutions proposed; we'll most likely vote on one unless a consensus emerges).

Suggestions that will be implemented without vote

• [GENERAL] A section on sigtags will be added to the FAQ. In addition, it will be stated here that max tag banner size is 350 px (width) by 250 px (height). Also, sigtags featuring non-FF characters will be allowed.
• [GENERAL] The mods are working on providing more ways for people to use their gil. We've got some exciting things planned, so if you're worried about having too much gil to spend, next game ought to change that up some!
• [CONTESTS] Cancel the bonus given for de-anoning contest entries (applicable only to Game 3 entries and beyond; Game 2 entries will still get this bonus)

Other suggestions that need to be discussed

• [SORTING] Allowing people to freely ask applicants questions of their own to get a feel of that applicant's personality
• [FANWORKS] Giving sigtag gifts a point value in moogle_workshop

- All suggestions (here and in the comments) are open to debate, so if you want to make an argument for or against an idea, you are encouraged to do so.

Onto the polls!


[Poll #1780158]


Polls/suggestion box will be open until Tuesday September 27
If you need to change your vote, click on the "Poll #______" link at the top of the poll, then [ Fill out Poll ], then change your answers and resubmit.

Comments

[arivess.livejournal.com]

Buh? No comments yet? Ah well. Anyway. XD;

I think I'm the only one with an issue with the garden festival, but I'm still not that happy with how many points it gave. I know that was the whole point, but it's kinda like... if someone missed it, then they missed a huge giant chunk, as opposed to only a little bit if they missed a couple weeks of regular activities. Not entirely sure how to make it fairer, though...

[breyzyyin.livejournal.com]

Actually...I totally agree with you on the Garden Festival, so you're not the only one who had an issue with the points it gave! I sort of felt the same way you did: that if someone missed it, they missed a *huge* amount of points. I'm not entirely sure what would be an ideal solution for that either though. O_O; *comment is unhelpful*

[breyzyyin.livejournal.com]

I kind of agree with that as well, truthfully. The Garden Festival itself was amazingly fun, but the points were a bit odd. If someone missed events or were too busy to really participate in anything...that was quite a bit of points they weren't able to get as opposed to just missing a mini-game or challenge on occasion. 0_0;

...But it's not something that has a really ideal solution either (unless there were MULTIPLE Garden Festivals or something: like two per game in case someone who missed it once could have a chance to try it out later on in the game, but even then that would mean that some points weren't available...or it was similar to airship_lounge and DIDN'T have points but perhaps gill attached to it instead or was just for fun overall *is unsure*). It's a tricky situation, I think. *and that was probably really unhelpful, sorry!*

[arivess.livejournal.com]

I think two per game would be too tiring, and too much work to set up... Just gil and fun overall might work? *ponders* But would people have enough incentive to participate?

[breyzyyin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I kind of realized that about an hour after I posted this comment. XD two games probably would be too much work in one game round. The gil and for fun idea might be a good alternative, but I'm not entirely sure if that would bring people in as much in terms of incentive. *ponders more too*

[breyzyyin.livejournal.com]

Hmm...two festivals per game would be pretty exhausting though. I think everyone worked really hard on it, so they'd probably want a break at some point. ♥ But, at least you offered a suggestion (unlike my unhelpful comment, lolz). XD

[breyzyyin.livejournal.com]

Hehe, I'm pretty sure I responded to your earlier comment on this. XD Now that I think about it...it probably would be more exhausting giving the hard work that is put into the festival to have it more than once. XD Hehe, I suppose at least I did try even if it fell flat? XD But I think there have been some really good possible ideas in that regard too (like maybe having the Festival cover a longer amount of time and so on). :D

[cowturtle.livejournal.com]

I think that, while this is true, that was the first event of its kind, so it's totally something that can be worked on.

Also, although I know Eilia is super busy now, the plan was initially to have a number of events like this throughout the year, so in the event that you missed one whole event (although, I thought GF was long enough for most people who wanted to be involved to be involved...) you could probably catch another one in a couple of months... I'm not sure what's going on with that now, but if some of those events are still taking place then hopefully they would help balance the points?

In fact, the way Eilia was talking about it before, she was trying to balance out those events (so it wasn't like 5 in one month and then none for 4 months after that). I'm not sure how many events would've happened per Game, but maybe there *is* a possibility of holding more frequent, potentially smaller events/festivals?

/er... is also likely not helpful ^_^;

[arivess.livejournal.com]

*nods* I'm not saying I didn't like the festival, and I know it was a bit of a prototype since it was the first thing of its kind. But--

I think it's feasible to run it every game or every two games, but it definitely can't run more than once each game, I think. It takes too much work, and is too intensive and exhausting. Which is the problem I've listed, I mean. The fact that it happens once a game, for only two weeks, means that it can be a complete game maker or breaker, as this one sort-of was. The gap between the teams went WOOSH in a way that can't be made up again after. Not that the black mages didn't deserve all their points, I mean. But I think because they got so much in so short a while, and everyone was on edge already because of LJ going down, and participating in so many things at once made people more tired and cranky too, so there was a lot of silent resentment building up, I think.

*not being helpful again*

Although. Well. *points to comment on other post* It might help if we make it last longer (say a month instead of 2 weeks?) and host less intensive games with less points, instead of piling on high-point booths...? That way we can still have regular events running, and it'd be an optional diversion instead of a must-do.

[glacialphoenix]

As a Black Mage, I must say ... it's like, I am proud of my team? But I kind of felt a bit bad, because the luck games... are luck. And I mean, I tallied the points and everything, and I know that because I got really lucky, I actually - as one person - forget the team - scored more points than entire teams. And you can't do anything about one person being lucky.

Maybe fewer luck games might help? I think this has already been said, though.

[breyzyyin.livejournal.com]

Although. Well. *points to comment on other post* It might help if we make it last longer (say a month instead of 2 weeks?) and host less intensive games with less points, instead of piling on high-point booths...? That way we can still have regular events running, and it'd be an optional diversion instead of a must-do.
~I like this idea too. It might also be a way to make it less tiring on the people running the booths too. /I am starting to feel like my comments are really unhelpful, lolz.

[breyzyyin.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure how many events would've happened per Game, but maybe there *is* a possibility of holding more frequent, potentially smaller events/festivals?
~Actually...I kind of like that idea! I think one of the main things with the GF was that it was a lot of high points for a short amount of time and it happened so quickly that people kind of got tired/cranky/stressed out with it? I think a lot of people started feeling like they had to participate because of the points and short time frame instead of for the fun...so, if there was a way to kind of balance that somehow that might be more ideal?

~I actually enjoyed GF a lot though, so I can't really say I disliked anything about it. XD It was kind of a test run too (and happened right after LJ having that big downtime O_O;), so maybe next time things will run a little smoother. ♥

[arivess.livejournal.com]

*nodnod* I liked it too, honestly! (EILIA DON'T THINK I DIDN'T LIKE IT. ;_;) I just found it really tiring towards the end, I think.

[chacusha]

I agree that the points for GF were a bit high and also that there was burnout (not mentioned in this post but on the other one), but it was an experimental activity and we're still learning, and as far as experimental activities go, I think it was pretty successful, all things considered.

I'm thinking the next special event could probably take place over a month and have fewer activities. Hopefully that keeps the scope down.

And hopefully have fewer luck games -- I think people just had ideas for cool luck and interactive games, but maybe the next one can be more well-rounded and include things like trivia or completion-based tasks.

Oh yeah, and LJ was being so poopy around that time, I think everyone wanted to pull out their hair.

Also, not related, but would people be willing to have mini-contests too? In The Other Comm (i.e. westerosorting) they actually have an activity quite like the Garden Festival (so it kind of amuses me that you guys came up with a similar idea completely independently), but they also have small-scale contests for it too. We could pause UA during that time, maybe. I don't know if people would like that. XD

[breyzyyin.livejournal.com]

I think the Garden Festival was quite successful especially given the first-time nature of the event. I do think there were some small problems with the time frame (and LJ being down certainly didn't help), and possibly having not as many of the luck-based games might be a way to help with the point discrepancy at times (as I kind of think that was probably largely where some of the point issues people had are coming from: if you were really lucky you got a ton of points...but if you weren't, you maybe didn't get hardly any and there were a few instances where that kind of seemed to be a really big gap).

But I don't think anyone is saying the event wasn't fun or didn't go well: it's just a few things to probably consider for the next festival event and I think the ideas of having a longer festival event and perhaps less luck-based games would help out a lot on all fronts--not as much of a rush for people to finish everything and people would have more of an equal opportunity to earn points instead of it being based more on just how lucky they happened to be in a certain game. :)

Trivia and completion-based tasks could be really fun. Trivia games based off of different games or just certain things in the series (such as Moogle trivia or something) might be pretty fun! :D

Mini-contests would be fun too: I guess they would be sort of like UA but smaller scale then? Neat! :)

[arivess.livejournal.com]

I like the mini-contests idea! But... hopefully very mini? XD Maybe along the lines of drabble, sketch, and only a few icons? (Or just one icon?) Instead of actual full fics and such...

[the-404-error.livejournal.com]

You're definitely not alone. As I mentioned in the other feedback post, the GF really burned me out. At the very beginning, I had 100+ e-mails in just one night so it was a bit of a pain to keep up with (which is my fault, as I probably should've had some type of timing measure to space it out more-- I wasn't expecting so many participants). After that I felt the need to participate in everything (as, well, I always try to do that since I feel bad for posting reminders asking others to if I don't D:), and so many activities in what was about 10 days for me... As I said there, I was wishing it would end and minigames would just open up again instead. Quite a few of the activities were fun, and I guess it's mostly my fault for having that mentality in the first place, but... ugh, yes, more variety over a longer time frame might be best?

I like Tako's idea of having mini-contests as well-- Much like Mysti, I was both extremely proud of my team and slightly ashamed of how we'll look because of it. Minigames are what we traditionally have high participation in, so if contests are added, it would hopefully make the points a bit more... even? There could also be booths that don't even have points involved to emphasize the "just for fun" aspect of it? (It would depend on how many people are actually interested in that, however. You could still get things perhaps, like an "icon/fic/art/etc exchange"? Someone makes you something-- make them something in return and such.)

[arivess.livejournal.com]

*nods* I think mine was actually slower than most, at least, and I was still going AUGH I DON'T WANNA REPLY. XD;;

Yeah, I like the idea too. More variety is always better...? Maybe? Since that'd even things out more, too.