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! :)

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Uh, I just submitted it and remembered that Yin hasn't had a chance to look at the poll. O_O; Would it be okay if she just replies with her answers in a comment?

Oh yeah, that's fine. I'll screen the comment when it comes in.

I think this is the least opinions I've had for a long time, haha. >.>;;

Until you raised the point, I've actually been really confused about how much we accept KH characters anyway, because we've already had some KH-only entries for stuff. To clarify my "no opinion" vote more, I don't personally consider KH a FF, but I don't care either way if we allow it.

Great! I'll let her know. XD

Please restrict the game entries, please please please. It's really not balanced to have a UA challenge with about 5 entries for FFX and next to none for others. It's not balanced; I'm supposed to vote fairly for all of them, but it doesn't work if I don't know the game setting or the story.

Sure I could go read synopses, I could go on to ffwikia, but what if I accidentally read spoilers?

What's the point of putting spoiler warnings on fics if you're supposed to read all of them and vote accordingly?

I say restrict on fics. Art/graphics contest is fine, just fics.

Wouldn't it just be fair to vote on creativity or certain parameters on the UA challenges? That way, even if they don't know the game, they can still vote. I noticed that people keep complaining about not knowing the game, like they're voting on the characters, or something. I think voting should consist of writing talent and incorporation, as well as creativity as far as graphics are concerned. I guess if that's difficult for people to differentiate the two, restrictions could be enforced. But I feel badly about people who'd suffer from it.

It's not just writing talent and incorporation and creativity, it's context...

Is it? The main writing challenges were the Valentine's, drabble, fight scenes and epistolary fic. Only the epistolary would you need context to judge, maybe the drabble. But it's so short I question needing context. Whereas with the haiku, limerick, and sequel, there really isn't much you can draw from context. It is what it is. I doubt there are too many challenges in which you earnestly need to have played the game to vote.

That being said, it could work perfectly if major writing challenges, like the epistolary or drabble, that need context to understand and vote, could have the restriction. A half-on, half-off type of thing.

Edited 2011-05-23 00:54 (UTC)

Sorry, Eilia, I'm going to have to disagree with you too... As I've said before, my concern is more that if we restrict games, we're going to get less submissions, and we already don't get many submissions to begin with.

Consider: It might be a bit harder to vote on things from a game you don't know well, but it's next to impossible to write for it. When I vote, I go by technical aspects more, even when I've no idea what's going on. Whereas if I have to write for the ever-so-popular FF7 or 8, for example, no amount of pretty writing is going to help.

Hm... I've run several icon contests, and while icons SHOULD be voted on for technical reasons, from my experience, icons featuring obscure movies or characters tend to be mostly ignored. Not sure if this is just my perception and it's not actually true, but that's the feeling I get.

I would say you could remind people to vote on technical aspects, rather than focusing on characters or games, but I suppose if you think people wouldn't listen, the suggestion I listed above would end up working. If you use the results from the poll (http://ultima-arena.livejournal.com/17828.html) you should be able to find the right games to restrict without lowering entries.

Edited 2011-05-23 01:22 (UTC)

I have to agree with you here. ♥ I do feel bad that people who maybe aren't familiar with a game feel like they have a hard time reading and/or voting on entries associated with it, and I can understand being afraid to read a synopsis of a game for fear of spoilers...but, at the same time, I don't necessarily feel it is fair to tell people they can't write about what they want to write about either. I mean, for submissions (or at least for me, at any rate!), I think people have an easier time writing what comes to mind first for a given challenge and what they're familiar with: to restrict the games they can write for a given challenge almost seems like stifling the creative process in a way.

I know it can be hard to judge fics based off of games one doesn't know, but I think it is possible so long as you focus on how it is written (case in point...I have voted for FFV and FFVI fics, and I haven't played either game yet ~~and I even comment on fics for those games over at MWS~~). I don't think it is simply a matter of context as I've read fics for games I have played where I kind of thought the characters were OOC, but I could still appreciate how the fic was written. I guess I'm strange in that I don't necessarily feel like you need to really associate the original story with a fan fic since it is often up to the fan fic author's interpretation and their own thoughts on the game (for example, a lot of authors like to write about pairings that aren't in the actual game itself or do AU plots, which would take out the context of the original story anyways).

If the restrictions do take place, I only feel it would be fair to have challenges devoted to all of the games in the series instead of just the most popular ones. Still, I fear that restricting them will limit not only the number of submissions to given challenges, but will also limit voting as well since most people will not vote on what they're not familiar with (especially if they're separated from the other titles).

Unfortunately, the more obscure titles will probably get overlooked regardless as I've noticed that with graphic comms as well...but, I guess I'm not sure it is fair to tell people they can't write or make graphics for what they like since this is an overall FF comm. I know I've submitted obscure FF game based fan fiction here for challenges (it is actually the majority of what I write, oddly enough!) and I know that I'm probably not going to get that many votes for them partially just because of that, but I write them because that's what first pops into my head for the challenge prompts at that time and I have fun writing them.

Would I have fun writing for, say, a FFVIII-based challenge? Sure! :) I've actually written one for a prompt here and had fun with it, but that's because the idea just came to me naturally. I'm not sure how often that would be the case for every game-specific challenge though (and then there would be the ones I haven't played that I wouldn't be comfortable writing about, because it is nearly impossible to WRITE for a game you don't know...even with a plot synopsis as aid). That would be a problem with the game restrictions too, because it would be impossible to do every single game in a round, so that runs the risk of limiting what someone can submit to.

I apologize if this comes across as me complaining! Truthfully, I can see where everyone is coming from here: both the writer and the voter have very different reasons for why they write or vote for something, and I think there's very sound reasoning behind voting for what you're more familiar with for a few voters...as I know most individuals gravitate towards what is familiar even if they can see that something is well-written because they already have an idea about the characters in their minds. ...I'm just saying my own thoughts as someone who has written a lot for the fan fic challenges and try to explain why I sometimes write for the more obscure games. Perhaps dividing the challenges as

thedrowned suggested would be an ideal solution, although I would definitely leave that decision to the very capable mods here. ♥ XD

I'm very much against restrictions. I can understand how lack of context can be a pain - I flail around a bit whenever I read anything II, III, V, or Dissidia-related - but putting restrictions on writers would really dampen participation, I think. I know that I personally do not write well with limitations - you try to make me write something from IV or X, and I'm going to just fail horribly, simply because I don't have any desire to write anything for those worlds. The only restrictions I could get behind would be eliminating one game from play - like, a fic challenge where you can't write anything from VII, for instance. That would still leave some leeway.

Contests are my favorite form of participation here, fic contests especially, and I know it would really, really frustrate me if I couldn't participate one cycle because I haven't played Dissidia or something. Or if I really, really wanted to write something from VI, but couldn't because only three other people have played the game.

Context is important. One of the main things I vote on in a fic from a game I'm familiar with is if I feel the characterization is solid. But when I run across those that I can't do that with, I pay attention to the crafting - word choice, flow, plot structure. These things transcend game settings.

Sorry if I come off a little strong - this is just one of those things that I feel could really put a damper on participation, which is definitely not what we need.

*nods* I think it's kinda like this, yeah. When I write for obscure games, I'm not expecting people to pick them. I know people won't unless they're spectacular. But I want to write them, y'know? So, it's not like I'm saying anyone has to vote for them if they don't know them. Votes can happen for any reason, so what does it happen what the reason is?

And I was just thinking, the other problem is, if you start restricting fandoms, then you might as well start restricting pairings, too. Because given the same fandom and similar qualities of writing, people are going to go for fandoms they like more. Or characters they like more. Things like that.

People are always going to like something for some reason or other. So, if we're knowingly and willingly creating things we know not many people will appreciate, what's wrong with that?

*nods* About contests, there's also the problem that pointswise, Sai and I are the only thieves that regularly write, and she's much busier, so I'm usually the only one on my team that enters longer writing challenges. And I'm the comm weirdo who knows the obscure games much more than the popular ones. (...Heck, I know all the obscure games better than all the mainstream ones.) So, at the cost of sounding whiny, it's really not fair that I wouldn't be able to enter something, especially since I supply most of my team's writing entries.

I can definitely sympathize! Vanja's been doing some more writing (yay! ^^), but I'm still the bulk of the Black Mages' writing power, especially when it comes to longer stuff.

I dislike the idea that a cleverly-made icon with, say, Luso on it, wouldn't get picked over an unappealing icon with Squall on it. I strongly believe creativity, structure, and good-heartedness speak to the work more than a favourite character. Even an image program the calibre of MS Paint could make an icon worth voting if the user made it creatively and we judge it on its respect to the prompt.

If I could write a lovely Valentine's story with characters no one knew about, I would hope they'd vote on the way I'd written it, rather than skipping over it because it's got people like Sherlotta or Delita in it.

*nods*

...Although, um, technically, I think I can write from any game if I have to, except for like... 8, 12, FFT, and FFCC. XD; But Mysti says that might make my argument a little more relevant? The fact that I can, but... mou. It's like... I can, but it won't be any good? I can, but I'd rather not? I guess kinda like that.

Yeah, I know the worlds of IV, X, XII, and Tactics well enough to read them easily, and supposedly well enough to write them, but there is literally no inspiration whatsoever for those. And if there's no inspiration and no desire, then there is no fic. Simple as that.

I try to diversify my writing, though! So people don't get tired of constantly reading VII-fic from me, lol. But my happy writing zone is pretty firmly VI-IX, with a little XIII thrown in.

Mine is... uh. I think mine's been whatever-I-felt-like, thinking back. XD; But I think that's kind of the whole point. I didn't particularly stick with one fandom, whether obscure or mainstream. I just picked whatever I wanted to write, period...

Alright, what about spoilers then? What if I'm currently playing FFVI, and there are two fics containing some spoilers? So if I am supposed to be voting fairly, am I being forced to read those two fics as well? Of course I could just not vote; something I am probably going to do if games are not restricted and I find myself in no position to vote unbiasedly (and this is totally my problem lol).

I'm probably going to have to concede regarding the matter of game restrictions, but something should be done about spoilers maybe?

_{LJ ate my comment =.=}

I dunno. I think Tako does usually mention when a fic has spoilers, at least? I won't speak for anyone else, but when I write a spoiler, I know it means people who don't want to see the spoiler potentially won't read the fic, so I'm okay with it...

The thing with spoilers is kinda the same with restrictions, though. Say the restriction is for FF7 and 8, since that's the most likely. What if I don't want to see spoilers for one/both of those games? And if most of the fics contain spoilers, would I just not be able to vote, period? Even though I was already unable to enter, even, and I don't mind reading what I don't know? Or, heck, what if the restriction is for something like "SNES era games" and there are FF6 fics? Then your point would kinda still be unresolved.

I think you're right something should be done about spoilers. Not sure what, though... Tako already puts spoiler warnings, I think. Maybe we can do something like, just put a warning for minor spoilers, and put fics with heavy spoilers into a separate post altogether? But I dunno if that kind of singling out might have too detrimental an effect. ~~You're the psych major.~~

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

Yes, exactly...I like writing what I want to write at a given moment, so regardless if it is for an obscure game or for a more popular one--if I have an idea, I'm going to give it a shot and enjoy myself! Since votes can happen for any reason, I'm okay with that. :D

...I can understand that concern too. Pairing and character restrictions could easily start happening as well if games are restricted (and people will probably gravitate more towards the characters or pairings they themselves personally like and perhaps not pay attention to other entries as much).

People are always going to like something for some reason or other. So, if we're knowingly and willingly creating things we know not many people will appreciate, what's wrong with that?
~I think that's a very good point! :D

I agree in a way...I do feel bad that favoritism towards certain games or characters can sometimes sway votes or cause certain comments (I do know that if someone does graphics in an icon comm for a lesser-known game, they are less likely to receive as much comments as a more popular title would)--though I definitely hope that most would vote purely on the creative intent of the maker either in regards to a fan fic or an icon. I know that a lot of people like icons with Photoshop filters and the like...but I have been JUST as impressed (if not more) by some of the more simple icons that weren't made in fancy programs and just have a neat crop or an interesting color scheme (Breyzy uses FastStone and Gimp for her icons, and considering how I have hardly any graphics-skills...I'm always surprised by how well her icons can turn out despite the fact that she's using "simpler" programs). I think judging an entry in respect to the prompt that it is being created for is the best way to handle voting for any challenge be it a writing or graphics one: it shouldn't matter the game or character.

If I could write a lovely Valentine's story with characters no one knew about, I would hope they'd vote on the way I'd written it, rather than skipping over it because it's got people like Sherlotta or Delita in it.
~I would hope so too! ♥ And there have been a few occasions here at ff_land where I have been pleasantly surprised in that regard. It really just depends on how people interpret an entry. :)

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

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[POLL] Rule Changes

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