finalfantasyland | [POLL] Rule Changes

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[POLL] Rule Changes

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! :)

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There seems to be a lot of debate about the Game restrictions going on, so even though I voted for "no opinion either way," I guess I'll throw some of my own thoughts in.

I've been trying to read the other comments about this (there are a lot! So I'm sorry if I breezed over some and didn't read key points) but the bottom line is, no one wants to restrict each others creativity. The restriction on fic challenges is a matter of making the challenges fair for all parties involved. But I'm having a problem seeing what the central issue is: is about making it fair to voters so that they can vote fairly and accurately on fic to give credit where credit is due, make it fair to the writer's who worked hard on a fic but might not get the attention because its obscure, or to make it fair to writer's, so they can write whatever they want? Or is a fairness issue between voters vs writers? (The spoiler thing is a fair point and hard to address)

In my opinion, having restrictions on challenges doesn't necessarily mean that we have to restrict creativity. If we have a challenge that says, using only the futuristic-type FF games (6, 7, 8, 10, 13) or the more medieval ones (1-5, 9, 11, 14, the many Tactics, Vagrant Story, etc) than the same rules apply to that challenge like any prompt challenge; if your inspired, write for it, if you aren't, don't. The important thing would be if you make a restriction, that you provide another alternative or challenge for those who weren't inspired (then it might be important to have that extra UA challenge) The point of restrictions would be to keep things fair, so of course it would be important to have enough challenges to inspire everyone.

I believe that

arivess (Not to pick on you specifically, Ari!) made the point that writing for obscure fic comes with the expectation that you probably won't win the contest, but if that's the case, why bother writing for the contest? Posting at

moogle_workshop also garners points. The majority of contest points comes from the voting, and while participation does earn points, its no where near the same as the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners. So while I agree that its important to give writer's free creative license, the voters play a huge role in point distribution. So if voter's choices are skewed towards certain fandoms, the actual point distribution starts to favor teams that write for those fandoms. That to me, is where the real unfairness could lie.

The group here at

ff_land is a pretty tight knit group. The doors of communication are always open, and it is in no one's interest to be unfair to another member. If we keep those doors open and just pilot a test restricted challenge, than we can move this theoretical discussion about fairness to a concrete example. If no one goes into the challenge feeling unheard or treated unfairly and try to keep an open mind, then the results of the challenge will speak for themselves. If at the end, some one still maintains there opinion that it was unfair, that's perfectly fine! Changes can be made or the attempt can be abandoned all together. As a member of ff_land, beyond alliances, we are a team and we work to accommodate each other and have fun at the same time. As the mods have made abundantly clear with evaluations and polls, everything is open to discussion. Maybe doing an actual pilot might cement where the real unfairness lies, so that everyone can work together and find a happy medium.

These are just my thoughts, though, so please don't be offended or feel like I'm trying to impose my opinions on you. :)

Edited 2011-05-23 21:31 (UTC)

People write for the contests because they still get points for participating. They just may not get the big hefty bonus for winning at the end. I think people who write the obscure fanfics are more than happy with this, or at least accepting of the downside of writing for obscure fandoms.

You've had the most thought-out response so far, I think. Doing a test-run is the only sure-fire way of knowing whether restrictions will work or not.

chacusha, what do you think?

Edited 2011-05-23 21:42 (UTC)

but if that's the case, why bother writing for the contest?

Because posting at UA, even if it's just for participation, does sometimes earn you more points than posting at MW. Drabbles, to pull an example off the top of my head, were worth 6 points during the contest and in MW they're worth 4. And a chance of winning is still a chance, if you know what I mean.

This is true, but what I meant when I wrote that was participation points are still nothing compared to the winner points. I also don't mean to imply that writing for an obscure fandom means you won't win, because I'm sure most people base their votes on the writing and not just on the fandom. But not everyone does. It may just come with the territory, but considering voting plays such a big role in point distribution, the point should at least be discussed further. Contests were worth 47% of the points last game, and while not all of those were for fic or even just the winners, that is still a large chunk of points. :)

But I feel if the games are restricted, you'd lose out on more points because you might not be able to participate at all.

This is also true, and there isn't much I can say on it, except that it really depends on the restrictions. Even if there are other challenges that you can participate in, there may be people that can participate in both and then that is not really fair either. But to me, its the same as any of the contests. I can't participate in the icon contests cause I'm not very good at graphics, so I have to sit it out and lose participation points. Monks usually suffer from the icon contests, because the active members are all writers and the one icon maker is generally bombarded with RL. So the writer/icon makers out there have an edge that one or the other doesn't. If we have to sit out participation, its bad luck, but it happens.

Conversely, if there were constricted game challenges, you could still try. Trying something outside your normal comfort zone may not produce as well-written stuff as what you are used to writing, but it will still garner participation points and hey, someone might like it even if you don't. But that is the exact parallel for your argument against restrictions. >__< I don't know.

I've probably contradicted myself a couple times. Sorry bout that. Bottom line, I don't think it would hurt to try at least once. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work.

AUGH I WROTE SOMETHING HERE AND THEN LJ ATE IT.

Basically, I think what I said was... uh... @_@?

The thing is, I'm going to market my response as being fairly objective, because I can do almost any game. But... that doesn't mean I'd want to do them for a particular challenge, or do a good job with them, is the problem.

I think fic restriction is different from fic vs. icon, though. It's a lot more frustrating knowing I can write well but not being able to because I don't know the world as well. Whereas icons... I enter most of the icon challenges, even though I'm crap at it, for the participation points, anyway! There's also the fact that I might not be good at making icons, but I can enter all of those. Whereas if there was, for example, a fic challenge for FF12, I'd be completely unable to do anything even if I wanted to, because that's the one game I haven't played, and don't have a system to play anyway. (That, and it'd take me, what, 50+ hours to play?)

I was using the fic vs. icon to illustrate that to me there is no difference, but if you feel otherwise that's fine too. I guess I could try to do icons, but really, it feels like just as big a roadblock as not having played the game a challenge is based on. I don't know where to start, and while I could actively look and figure it out how to use the programs and the techniques, it takes plenty of time to do that too. So for me, its not possible to do the icon contests in the scope of their time limit.

But I don't want to get off topic and lead this into a discussion about fic vs icon. I agree, challenges that say only write in this fandom are problamatic. If restrictions were to be used, they'd have to be broad and general.

I do take your point!

And... uh, the point is being discussed further. That's why there are over 100 comments in this post. ^^; I think it's just that we can't come to an agreement.

My issues are - I think I've probably said this, but to put them all in one post:

1) I think the most popular games are not necessarily the games that the writers themselves prefer;

2) Being familiar with a game well enough to vote on it isn't the same as knowing it well enough to write it, which may be part of the reason this debate is so heated;

3) The other problem is that the same people tend to enter contests and place, and that might seem to be skewing the votes in favour of certain games, because everyone has their preferred fandoms for participation. V is an excellent writer and she placed many, many times in fic contests. She also happened to submit FFVII and FFVIII fic, and they're both definitely up there in terms of fandom popularity.

4) It's true that ultimately, who wins is the voters' decision and not the writers'. But I would rather take a small chance of winning than sit out and therefore have no chance of winning at all. I really do understand that there's a lot of voting anxiety going on, I don't want to dismiss it, but I think for the obscure-fic writers, as far as I can tell - the freedom to choose what you want to write comes with the freedom to accept the consequences.

5) I also feel that one thing that

ff_land did succeed in doing, fairly spectacularly, was encourage people to experiment with different types of fanart and maybe dabble in more obscure fandoms? So I feel that restricting games might be counterproductive to this.

Re: 5) But wouldn't contests that restrict the games allowed be MORE conducive to this than contests as they are? I feel like game restrictions would encourage people to write outside their comfort zone. With contests as they are now, someone could write FF8 fic for everything. An occasional game restriction would make it so there is one time where they can't do that. Sure, they might get annoyed and not submit. Or they might be like, "I guess I'll try writing something for FFTA..." Personally, writing comes to me easier with more restrictions, so I at least don't think of this as something that would stifle creativity.

This is why I feel a middle ground would be the most beneficial. Turning restrictions on 100% of the time is deterring to people who want to write for obscure games, whereas turning them off all the time gets people confused. It's wisest to find the middle, both for everyone's happiness (or as happy as we can make it) as well as their furthered participation.

Bad phrasing, sorry.

To clarify: I agree that restricting games might push people outside their comfort zones; on the other hand, it seems that the obscure fandom love is something that's very much prized here? I get this sense of, if I write something that I know is relatively obscure, there'll be someone here that appreciates it anyway. If contest game restrictions were put in, it would be counterproductive to that.

*facepalm*

I don't know. I think there are valid concerns on both sides. I just think, right now, that if you imposed restrictions on contests, you might have a fairly spectacular backfire on your hands. I think if the community was bigger I would have said "go for it", but with the community this size, I don't think it's worthwhile to risk it. I really do understand the voters' concerns but as I said to

freijya - you can choose to not vote for something that's been submitted, but you can't vote for something that doesn't exist in the first place.

To be exact. I'm not against restrictions per se. I'm worried that if we impose restrictions now, it'll be highly detrimental because only a few people consistently take part and restricting writing might reduce participation?

I mean, I don't intend to dismiss voters' concerns, but the fact is that you can't vote for a fic if it's not there. You CAN choose to not vote for a fic that was submitted, but you can't choose to vote for something that doesn't exist in the first place.

Haha, I don't know how to address any of these concerns, which is largely why I voted "no opinion". But restrictions work both ways. You could say this challenge is purely for the popular games, or this challenge is purely for the obscure games. It's a challenge because your writing may be challenged, you may have to write something you're not used to. As the writer, you can always try, you don't necessarily have to not participate.

But yeah, I see what you are saying.

As the writer, you can always try, you don't necessarily have to not participate.

Well...If we were limited to only obscure games, or spinoffs, or even to the first five games in the series, I literally COULDN'T participate, simply because the only games I have enough experience with to write are VI and onward. It's not a "well, you could try to do this" sort of thing if I don't have the background for the games. As a popular game writer, I'm worried about not being able to write the things I enjoy, as well. And even if the obscure section included VI, as well, I'd really prefer not to be pigeonholed into writing from one game. A little restriction and you encourage more creativity. Too much and you stifle it. That designation lies with the writer alone, so I'm in favor of not bothering with the restrictions at all, just in case.

I would be fine with restrictions only if they were occasional, and content-based, rather than popularity-based. Like, say, I like your setting idea. Also only being able to produce fic for an even or odd-numbered title would be okay. Just as long as there were at least half the games present as options.

I would be fine with restrictions only if they were occasional, and content-based, rather than popularity-based

I personally like this. I haven't played the first five games either, so I'd be stuck. With open-ended challenges, I'd probably stick with my favorite fandoms because I can write them best. But with a bit of restriction, I can say okay, maybe I'll try something new. Even if that means I choose an obscure fandom or a crazy popular one, I'm branching out. With more variety from the individual writers, the voting may in turn also vary, because now people aren't just voting for the fandom or the writer, but the content. Not that I can predict what people will do, but it may help. :)

Edited 2011-05-23 23:29 (UTC)

I would be fine with restrictions only if they were occasional, and content-based, rather than popularity-based.
~I think I would be fine with this too. I just fear basing restrictions solely on popularity will stifle creativity in the end and could pigeon-hole people into writing for only certain games (for example, if we group the older games together and some of the fic writers have only played FFIV out of that category, than all they can really write for is FFIV), but I don't think having loose restrictions occasionally would be too detrimental. It would depend on how the divisions were handled in the long run, I guess. :)

I understand your point, but to answer the question of why bother entering with obscure fanfics to begin with instead of just posting in moogle--

1. It gets more points than moogle, for one. Usually about 1.5x to 2x the points.

2. Even if I know less people will read/vote on mine, it doesn't mean I'm not trying to win, all the same, so I still am trying to enter everything and do a good job.

2. b. I honestly think I have a greater chance of winning with a well-written FF6 fic, for example, rather than a poorly-written FF7 fic, because I'd have no idea what the heck I'm talking about in FF7. I think this kind of confidence shows through.

Edit: Sorry, was also going to mention but forgot, the more obscure fics earned plenty of places throughout the last game, so I don't see entering with them being that big a handicap.

Edited 2011-05-23 21:44 (UTC)

sunflower_mynah pointed out the same thing, so perhaps I should have addressed that. :) I don't mean to say that participation points are worth nothing, or that writing for obscure fandoms means you won't win. Personally, I do write for a fandom that is neither popular nor obscure, and I don't see it as a major handicap. Nor would I if I were to write for the more obscure ones. I'm merely pointing out that contest voting plays a huge role in point distribution and its generally how teams garner the most points in-game.

*nods* But, again, the obscure fics have won plenty. And if we take winning into account, I feel I'd more likely win with my preferred fandoms rather than a more popular one I don't know as well. Plus, I think I have a greater sense of accomplishment when I do win with less mainstream things.

I think one reason I like this comm so much is because everything is so varied. I haven't been in many FF comms, but all the ones I've poked around just feel like majority-7-and-8, and I was really happy people here appreciated the lesser known games. I know the potential restriction wouldn't mean it'd only be 7 and 8, but, still. The more we restrict things, the more we differentiate and separate thing, and the more... I dunno how to put it. I guess it'd feel like less "multicultural" and more "segregated"? Sorta?

I feel people just like being here and participating and truly aren't too focused on actually winning, which is why they continue to write for obscure things they know don't often win.

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