Game 3 Feedback - Part 1

[arivess.livejournal.com]

First of all, let me say, Tako, you are an amazing person for doing this every game. I didn't realize how much work it was making the end of game poll until I actually started making it. >.>;

To everyone else, please fill this out! It's a bit long because I am even more long-winded than Tako, but it took me some 5-6 hours, so please don't let it go to waste~ *shot for guilting*

More seriously, this is part 1. This one is about FF Land general - ie, what you enjoyed, what you didn't, how the mod team is, how the gil system is, etc. More in-depth questions about the various subcommunities are coming up in a little.

There are likely going to be 2-3 parts because apparently I can only have 15 questions. Oops. But don't worry, it's not as scary as you think! A lot of the questions are textbox entries for "If you didn't like something, can you suggest anything we can improve on" type things. Which brings me up to this point--

One thing we discussed in the mod comm was... no one really knows how to parse the scale question results. What you think a 7 means is different from what I think a 7 means, and both are different from what Mysti might think it means. So I'd like you all to please follow this grading system, just so we're all on the same page:

1 - CHANGE IT NOW CHANGE IT PLEASE
2 - There are some really, really big problems that need fixing like now
3-4 - There are some really big problems, but I'm not going to quit over them
5-6 - I don't really like it, but I can live with it
7-8 - There are some problems, but it's not too bad
9 - There really isn't anything wrong with it
10 - It's perfect, please don't change it!

Sounds good?

As a note, the textbox entry maximum character limit is 255. So if it doesn't fit, and you don't want to say so in the comments, feel free to PM/e-mail/IM me. Also, note that I'm the only one who can see who voted for what, and read textbox answers.

[Poll #1830273]

Comments

[sai_salamander]

Okay, so I marked down some for under-/overpowered, and I just wanted to give you my thought processes;

My main reason for marking UA as overpowered and as underpowered is my dissatisfaction with how poetry and short fic is dealt with (yes I know, I'm still going on about it, and will continue to do so until we can figure out some sort of way to make it fairer). UA is way overpowered if you consider that most of the month-long fic contests get a huge amount of points in comparison. Short fic or poetry is never on a month-long contest - usually on a two-weeks basis, and that's where the big difference starts. As an example: right now, I have two lines of poetry that I wrote at the beginning of last week - I've still not written any more, because it needs to sit and stew and come into its own before I can make any more progress. Poetry takes me a LOT longer to write than, say, your average 500-1000 word fic. I know that this won't be the same for everyone, just as arting isn't the same for everyone, but I think that... poetry and short fic is given a short thrift on the points and time fronts simply because it's shorter and I'm afraid that's just not how it works. I've said it many times about poetry: length =/= quality. Some of my best poems have only been 4 lines long, and I would honestly be incensed if I only received, say, 10 points for posting it somewhere.

An example from the last game: the poetry contest where we had to submit a villanelle. A villanelle is an extremely hard form to work with, which is the entire reason I didn't bother even attempting it - the points I would have received for that amount of work were, quite frankly, insulting.

To look at short fc for a second; I write drabbles more than I write longer fiction these days. And I know that sunflower_mynah writes mostly one-sentence fics, and so on. With the way the communities are skewed at the moment, I can honestly tell you that it feels as if short fic and poetry are simply not welcome, or thought of to be as valid as a longer fic. It's impossible to judge the different forms of writing based on time spent creating them, as it differs from person to person and also from form to form - just because a drabble is precisely 100 words, or a 1-sentence fic is exactly one sentence, it should not be assumed that it only takes ten minutes to write. Drabbles take an awful long time in the editing - word choice is extremely important, and I know that I personally can spend an entire day on one single drabble and still not be happy with it. I've also seen sunflower_mynah anguish over a 1-sentence fic for the same amount of time and again, still not be happy with it.

ANYWAY. I suppose I should offer some sort of suggestion? Okay, so I think that we should do some sort of month-long contest for shorter fics. Not just one, though - how about having a month-long where you have to write, say, eight drabbles (2 a week) - 800 words in total, and therefore into the longer fic section for point-giving. We could look at ff_fortnightly and how they run things with stitching and keeping to a theme, giving bonus points for that. The same could go for 1-sentence fics - ten 1-sentence fics over a month-long contest would easily equal 1000 words, again well into the longer fic section for point-giving (could also apply the theme bonuses etc.). Two poems over a month-long period (without a form restriction, because that's when things start getting hairy) would, again, be acceptable. If forms are to be included, then I honestly think that when the contest is being decided, someone who actually writes poetry should be consulted - it's like if you know nothing about art and thinking that your contest will be perfect and not insulting. We've seen how well that sort of thing fares.

That got a bit long, didn't it? Oh well. I hope I was at least vaguely helpful! <3

[arivess.livejournal.com]

*nods* Mysti has also said fic contest points in general are uneven.

And augh yeah, the villanelle. Took me. SO LONG. I didn't even realize how little points it was, and then when I did, it was like, ......................................, I DID ALL THAT WORK FOR NOTHING.

But yeah, this would mainly apply to Tako and Xinn. I'll direct them over here if they don't see it.

[chacusha]

Not sure if anyone would agree with me about how the points of MWS should work, but the way I see it:

(1) There will never really be a fair way to assign points to fanworks. I mean, some people are deeply uncomfortable with the very fact that fanworks get assigned points at all. It's just a virtue of trying to assign numerical value to something that is very difficult to assign numerical value to.

and

(2) What is most important to me for deciding on the scales of MWS is their ability to be abused. That's why I fought so hard to make the doodle/sketch amount in the fanart scale so low, because it's possible I could make twenty five-minute sketches on a piece of paper and submit them all to MWS, and unless there's a very low bottom, there is a possibility I could get a huge amount of points for very little effort. It's the same way with short fiction and poetry. It's not that it's assumed that it takes only ten minutes to write, but that an abuser who doesn't care a bit about quality COULD possibly write it in ten minutes. That's what I'm afraid of. It's also why icons are so low too, even though I sometimes spend more than two hours on a single icon. It's just really really hard to tell how much time and effort has been put into something.

Like, at the other comm I'm in, they have Fanworks of the Month bonuses, which is basically extra points awarded to fanworks people think are especially high quality (i.e. an attempt to increase points for good work that clearly had much extra time put into it). It's a good idea but it also has its share of problems and causes a lot of extra work. But still, if we can come up with some kind of auxiliary point system that might work nicely? Just some food for thought.

Regarding your suggestion for a month-long short fiction / poetry contest, I think that's a great idea. It'd be a nice change from previous month-long contests.

[glacialphoenix]

Actually, Sai and I were talking about this before she posted these comments, and I think that's why it needs to be directed to UA (I'm sorry for causing more work, but I'm with her on this).

I actually agree with you on both points, which is precisely why it should be done in UA and not MWS - only I think I made that comment in the UA post instead of here. I know that a good haiku is really hard to write, but if you just wanted to throw something in the 5-7-5 format, it's really not that hard, and so we can't award too many points on the poetry scale, and so on. Even if I trust that nobody will abuse it (and I do), it's kind of a principle thing.

I think what we're asking for (since I'm adding my voice to Sai's) is that, basically, since we recognise that this cannot be acknowledged in MWS, it should be acknowledged in UA, in some form. I accept that my one-sentence fic, no matter how long I spend on it, is not going to be worth that much in MWS, because it's ultimately a participatory thing. In a competitive situation like UA, though, you're running off the quality factor. Anyone can throw in a crappy icon, but it's not likely to place in a UA contest, whereas I would have to give it points in MWS anyway. But if UA is about quality, and in any case - since it's a contest, you have a limited number of submissions. You can't spam entries. One fic is one fic, one set of icons is one set of icons, and that's the maximum - which means the abuse factor that MWS is prone to is significantly reduced.

...I...am not sure if I'm explaining this very well, actually. What I mean is that yes, long fics do take time, but because they get all the one-month fic contests, which are correspondingly heavier-weighted in both participation and placing points, it feels that they get more weight than drabbles, short fic, etc. even in a situation where it should be quality > quantity. I feel like drabbles are weighted fairly in terms of half-month contests, but the very fact that they've been limited to half-month contests so far is kind of why Sai and I feel kind of iffy about it. It's also difficult to justify more than a half-month contest for one drabble, I agree, which is why I'm seconding her suggestion.

I'd like to give an example, if it helps: take the Zodiac icontest. I feel like something like that could've worked for fic as well: after all, we had people justifying their icon choices in writing. Another example of a month-long contest that did do something similar to this was the 5+1 fic contest, which I dearly wanted to take part in but couldn't due to RL business (and which eventually got cut to a sentence each anyway. /cough)

ETA: Also, to continue my point about UA and MWS - this is why I feel there should be... a greater division between MWS and UA in terms of fic points. As it stands fic points tend to follow MWS points exactly. I'm not sure about art, because the last art contest we had was kind of a big question mark as to what people would draw and the medium they'd do it in, and that's hard to estimate a good amount of participation points for. (It's also why the MWS fallback exists, anyway.) Icons, however, tend to get 5 points per in UA contests, compared to 2 points per in MWS. The villanelle got more or less what it would have done in MWS, though, and so did the drabble; there was no bonus there despite the fact that it's also adhering to a theme and format, and so it does feel a bit like when it comes to fic contests, UA is too close to MWS despite the fact that they're rewarding different things.

Long fic's trickier, of course, which is why I'm talking mostly about the set fics, and I know you did note it ^^; I'm just using it to illustrate a point, I guess.

...okay. This got long. I'M SORRY TAKO. I'M WILLING TO CLARIFY ON AIM IF NECESSARY and all that.

[chacusha]

Ah, yeah, don't worry, that makes sense to me. It's about allowing quality short fiction & poetry to earn a large amount of points like other forms of fanworks are regularly allowed to do, by being properly represented in UA (since it gets capped in MWS). That makes total sense to me. I'll keep that in mind for future UA contests.

And yeah, same with boosting the point values as well.

[glacialphoenix]

Yes! I'm sorry I took so long to explain it. ^^; Thank you so much. I really do appreciate it.

[naliarenegade.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure how the Avatar system would work (maybe I should look into that), but I think it's awfully cool. We could set it up as an actual bazaar community or something. The mods having a few shops that specialize in certain weapon, armor, and accessory types (in order to keep the threads from getting unbearably long). Community members use that to purchase items for their avatar that they would have already seen in the games: Sephiroth's sword, the Sagittarius bow, Mythril armor, ect...

I'm not sure how we'd display that, but it would be cool.

(I can see how most of it would work, already.)

[arivess.livejournal.com]

The avatar system would be chibi avatars thus far drawn by me. I was going to do it, but then didn't end up having time to work on it beyond the bases. There's a tonberry and a moogle! And you can choose which one you want. Most clothing/accessories/etc would fit on either/both, with some species-exclusive ones, like different wings and pompoms for the moogle, different knives and lanterns for the tonberry, etc. Mods (and past mods) would also get rewarded with a special accessory specific to their position that can't be gotten otherwise. Display would be... uh. Essentially I'd give them to you on transparent background pngs, and you can put them together yourself and use them on banners, icons, etc. If people are interested, I'll start drawing them again when I have time, and make a post once I actually have something for people to buy.

[glacialphoenix]

IIRC, if enough people were interested, we were going to have a 'show off your avatar' post, and one for the banners as well, come endgame.

[arivess.livejournal.com]

I totally don't remember anything like that, but sounds fun.

[glacialphoenix]

...as far as I recall it was meant to be an airship_lounge activity, if the avatar booth had actually taken place, since we were anticipating that people might want an alternative method of showing off the avatars they spent so much cash on, especially if they were considering banners as well. I also remember someone suggesting just... a nice spot to show off the banners, like trophies or something.