[POLL] Rule Changes

[chacusha]

Please take this poll to determine rule changes for Game 2.


[PROPOSAL 1] Alliances in Game 2
A reminder of the alliance system -- The six teams here at ff_land get divided into pairs (alliances). The point values of allied teams are added together and the alliance with the highest total is declared the winner. Last game it was the Thief/Monk alliance.

For the next game, the new alliances would be Soldier & Thief, Monk & White Mage, and Black Mage & Dragoon. The individual team comms would all be combined as well, meaning that Thieves would be invited to the Soldier comm as members without posting access and vice versa. Of course, individual members can still choose whether or not they actually want to join/interact with their allied team but it seemed to help team morale overall last game.

• Rationale: Creates larger "teams" and allows uneven teams to be balanced.
• Arguments Against: I'm not sure if anyone brought up arguments but I can see it being more motivating to compete if you don't have to worry about the performance of your allied team. It also may interfere with building up individual team identity.


[PROPOSAL 2] Vagrant Story
While not a Final Fantasy game in name, Vagrant Story is officially part of the Ivalice Alliance along with games like Final Fantasy XII and Tactics (Advance (A2)). Originally intended to be separate from the Final Fantasy series, it was later purposely connected back to FF by references to it in later Ivalice Alliance games.

For more information see the FF Wikia.


[PROPOSAL 3] Kingdom Hearts original characters
Currently ff_land allows any KH fanworks that prominently feature the FF characters. However, things featuring ONLY KH original characters (I'm talking Sora, Riku, Namine, Organization XIII, Hayner, Aqua, Ventus, Eraqus, Ansem, etc. here, NOT Disney or imported FF characters) have always been a vague grey area.

I can see arguments both ways. While KH and FF are strongly linked and many people are fans of both, to me it's always seemed like a separate fandom. And while I love the KH games something fierce and even my mod icon and tag banner feature Aqua, I can see how allowing fanworks that only feature KH characters could be a slippery slope. So yes, please let me know your opinion on this one!


[PROPOSAL 4] Raising stamping and referral points
For this, I'm proposing to raise the points given for sorting an applicant from 5 to 10, and the points for referring someone from 50 to 60.

• Rationale: About 1/3 of the voters in the polls said 5 points was too low, and only 12% of last game's points were earned in FF Classchange (this includes referral points). FF Minigames and some scales in Moogle Workshop are getting a boost, so it might be good to inflate the sorting points to match. 60 is also a more easily divisible number than 50.
• Arguments Against: A majority said they were okay with 5 points per application, and 10 points might be a tad high for voting on an app... (but I don't want to use a non-round number, so it's got to be either 5 or 10). roax brought up concerns about too-high referral points here


[PROPOSAL 5] Occasional restrictions on games in contests in ultima_arena
For this proposal, there would be occasional restrictions on games allowed for contests, particularly fic contests. Currently, nearly all challenges in ultima_arena allow you to submit an entry featuring any FF game. The proposal here is to have challenges where the games you can choose from are limited in order to even the playing field, as not everyone is familiar with every game.

For example, a fic written for a highly obscure game might not get the same amount of attention as one with very recognizable characters. To solve this, there could be challenges where only obscure game fic is allowed, and other challenges that are focused on a particular popular game such as Final Fantasy X. See this thread for arguments for/against.


[PROPOSAL 6] One fewer short contest in the second half of the month
Currently, the contest schedule is: one month-long challenge, two half-month challenges in the first half of the month, and two half-month challenges in the second half of the month. The proposal here is to have only ONE half-month challenge during the second half of the month instead of two, for a total of 4 contests in a month rather than 5.

• Rationale: At most two challenges would be due at a time. Right now the max is three, with one of them being the big month-long challenge. It would also tone down the end-of-the-month point bonanza that happens in ultima_arena.
• Arguments Against: Not as many contests in the second half of the month to keep people occupied.



[Poll #1744111]



Thank you! :)

Comments

[breyzyyin.livejournal.com]

Ah, that I can definitely understand too! ♥ Everyone has different comfort levels with spoilers: I personally don't really mind them (for most games I tend to actively seek spoilers out in order to see if I'll really enjoy playing a game...as I usually tend to view knowing what happens and actually experiencing it for myself as being something different thus why I probably know far too much about most of the FF games, lolz), but I know that is definitely is not the case with everyone and there are quite a few people who WOULDN'T want to have a plot point revealed to them before they see it. And that is perfectly understandable and something that should be respected.

...Personally, whenever I submit a fic myself and I know there's going to be some pretty big plot spoilers in it--I'll make a point of warning about that right after the title even in the cases where it isn't MWS where they have that option (I actually did it for my FFVII: DoC letter fic because I knew I was spoiling part of the ending in it). I'm well-aware that might get people to avoid reading it, but I totally accept and understand that as I wouldn't want to inadvertently spoil something for someone who didn't want to know a plot point beforehand--I was actually quite happy that spoiler warning remained on the entry when all of the challenge submissions were posted. :)

I kind of wish there was a requirement for listing possible spoilers when submitting for challenges similar to the system set up in MWS for that very reason...so that people who don't want to see spoilers for a certain game's plot can avoid them. I think in those cases, it is completely understandable in my book to perhaps avoid voting on fics that you feel would have spoilers in them and only read the fics that you're more comfortable with (as there would hopefully be other entries that would either not have the spoilers or would be from games that you would already be familiar with)--you could even mention that in your vote to the mods as I am sure they would understand even if you weren't able to vote for the number of entries they were asking people to vote on (such as if it were five entries submitted, two were required for placement, and four or something had massive spoilers so you only felt comfortable voting on one). That way hopefully you could still participate and get voting points for your team without feeling like you couldn't vote entirely because of that. I think writers understand that when they do enter fics that are either spoiler-heavy or are from games that aren't too well-known (that's why there are such things as spoiler warnings in fic writing, fan fic writers know that they're giving people a head's up not to read a story if they don't want to be spoiled)...so even without the game restrictions, I think people wouldn't have a problem with you picking and choosing fics in that regard at all (it is your vote, after all! ♥).

So yes, I do agree with you that at least there should some of sort of form/guide-line for warning potential readers about spoilers in the challenge fics similar to the one in MWS. :D