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

[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.)