[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

[arivess.livejournal.com]

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.

[freijya.livejournal.com]

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.

[arivess.livejournal.com]

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?)

[freijya.livejournal.com]

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.