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RE: IFC S2R20: Building Cryptopia
Doh!!! I never got the notification for this on ginabot and missed the window to upvote and resteem. Sorry about that! That's a bummer... Oh well, it is what it is. Thanks for entering! Will read it later when I get a chance and give you a more thorough reponse.
It happens. No worries :)
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I just read your entry and I think you bring up some really good points. Some of it I was sort of thinking about already and I didn't take offense, no worries... I wish the story of exploring space would have been more emphasized as well and I can only blame myself for not being creative enough or having enough time and support.
I want the fictional world to feel like it merges with the real world as much as possible, though I definitely fell short on the fictional aspect, last season wasn't very different but the community was much more engaged and they were picking up the slack and I had numerous people helping me with doing the quests and side quests and they were very good and creative writings at getting into character and roleplaying.
Unfortunately, this season has been much smaller in a lot of ways and those people who helped the story so much in the first season aren't around. Though, as I mentioned it was sort of similar, most of the storyline happened in the very beginning and the very end and in the middle was a lot of quests about politics and conspiracy theories and word games and things that didn't have much to do with the fictional fantasy world.
BUT... I really do like the idea of going more in that direction towards the fantasy/fictional aspects. I think that would be great and positive in a lot of ways, and I don't necessarily think we would lose any players if we do it right and try to frame the quests in a way that it somehow fits into the fantasy world as well.
I just have to figure out how to be more creative and do more role playing and write the quests in a more fun creative way than in the sort of "matter of fact" way I have been doing. Which I once again admit is my fault for being a very logical, prose, monotone type of person.
I'm going to have to think about your entry more and give an even more detailed response, either later tonight or tomorrow probably, but I just wanted to give a sort of quick response and address a few of the things you mentioned right now.
Thanks for the good ideas! I think if we (I) can make it feel more like a gameworld and a fantasy world then that will perhaps bring in more players, but if not it will just be more fun and enjoyable! And that's super important, I want people to have fun. :)
I'm glad you understood what I was trying to convey here. I was slightly worried that you'd think I was criticizing the contest, which I definitly wasn't.
It sounds like it was a bit more challenging this season but you still did a great job. I cant emphasize that enough.
Just to clarify one small thing though. Not all rounds have to be fiction/fantasy. Some rounds could be both fact based and still fall inline with the cryptopia idea. For instance, a round could be something like - "our planet needs a food source to feed its inhabitants, come up with a way to feed the people." In this case some participants might research technological advances in farming (indoor farming or floating island farming if the climate is a desert environment or city on water), or they might research homesteading practices or anything really. They would just have to tie it into the cryptopia world.
I just mean that there are ways to make rounds fact based, especially since the idea is creating a complete world with cities, agriculture, laws, transportation, entertainment...etc. I think in order to create new systems people will have to research existing ones. I would think a lot of research into advanced technology.
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Hey again. I realized I said I was going to give a more detailed sort of response by today, though I'm really tired all of a sudden and about to eat and go to bed so I'm just going to touch on a few more points and perhaps instead of a long response we can do a couple more shorter back and forth ones?
First I wanna say that I just read your entry again and I think you're really onto something important here, and you've provided some very very useful feedback as one of the players who noticed something that you think was a bit confusing and which could be better.
I want this to feel like a fun game which has a unique culture and story and virtual world to it, even if it's mostly imaginary with a little bit of artwork and music and such here and there. I think the storyline and the virtual world aspect is one of the strongest and most appealing aspects and which adds a lot of fun, otherwise it's sort of just a mental competition. The story adds so much more color and life and personality to it.
One of the main things I was thinking of last night when laying in bed was... Maybe we should try to vote on each round as soon as possible after it ends and not start the next round until the previous one has been voted on.
This will screw up the sort of.. Once a week regular schedule people have been used to and make things take considerably longer, BUT... If we were to vote and get the results of each round before the next one starts, then we could work the previous round into each subsequent round in a way that keeps the players more engaged.
For example, we're still voting on rounds and are way back at lie round 7 even though the regular season is over already, so... Opportunities for people to level up and use their relics or artifacts will have to wait until next season! And that's not good. There's a bit disconnect there in my opinion and we were so busy trying to maintain the schedule that the continuity was lost and I think that's a problem.
Also if we judged the round and got the results before we start a new round it would allow us to have a much more interactive and fun storyline where we could build off the previous round and incorporate it into the next one in a way where we couldn't before that would be much more interactive and fluid.
Thanks for appreciating the effort I put into this, it's definitely been a task. But I thoroughly enjoy it! And I think there's a ton of potential here, so I'm happy to try to do my best. Also no worries in regards to the skepticism, I want people to tell me what they think and not keep in it because they think I might not like it. I do admit I felt a lil unpleasant at some points reading what you said, but that was just my ego feeling like I didn't do as good of a job as I should have, and in all reality.. I didn't do as good as a job as I should have. I wish I would have done better. I'm just swamped and had very little help this season and I tried my best, though it wasn't as good as I would have hoped and feedback like yours is critical in regards to making sure the future is different and better and hopefully I can improve on this stuff and not make the same mistakes again.
I am a lil hesitant in regards to making all or most of the quests focused on the virtual world, I like to have the topics be broad in that people are able to submit whatever they want as long as it is connected to the given topic.
However, I clearly could be doing a LOT more in regards to the storyline and writing up stuff to make people feel like each quest is building on the story and virtual world as opposed to the more mechanical way I've been doing it of just "here's the task"... During season 1 I had a guy named @iexplore help with some of the rounds and he was a wonderful writer who really did a great job of making the quests he did each feel like we were immersed in the fantasy world the way he typed them up, and I feel like if I could just do that it would be major, though I've been struggling to just keep the contest running and am like 3-4 months behind on messages and it's hard to put that kind of attention to detail into each quest when I'm not as much of a fantasy/fiction based writer and do most of my writing as prose or sort of matter of fact kind of stuff.
However... I really do like your suggestion of focusing MUCH MUCH more on the virtual world, and bringing that to the forefront and helping people to feel like they're on a fantastical mythical sort of adventure and not just robotically completing tasks.
I think I'll have to figure out some new quests to do that are in line with that, and also work on my creative writing as well to set the mood and atmosphere. Perhaps during the off season I can spend time writing and typing up some of the quests and getting more in depth in a fictional/fantasy sense so I don't feel so rushed when the season is active.
Lemme know if any of that resonates with you and we can keep discussing this in more detail if you're up for it, also I'm going to continue thinking about it when I have time and see if I can come up with some more ideas as well. Thanks for the insight leaky20! I feel like this has been very helpful for me and the IFC!
PS... I noticed you didn't add any sources to the images you included, are they non copyright images you have the rights to use?
I think what you are saying here regarding continuity in the story, using both fantasy and fact based quests, and judging each round before moving on are all really good ideas. Would limiting the word count on rounds help out with the judging? Like 1000 word max or something reasonable to read in like 5 minutes or something? I know that I tend to be long winded in many of my post lol. I'm sure that can make it challenging for judges, especially if there are a lot of players.
Regarding the images. Other then the IFC spaceship (which is credited) all of the images are from Pixabay. I posted from my phone and for whatever reason the links weren't working. They kept screwing up formatting of the post as well so I put a footer at the end of the post stating that "all images are from Pixabay."
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Glad to know you think those are good ideas!
Yes. And I didn't want to put word limits on entries, BUT... That may end up being a route we should consider.
Good to know in regards to the images you used, I didn't see the footer at the end where you mentioned all images were from Pixabay for some reason, oops!
Another thing about all this is you mentioned @lordless.exile and his efforts with Manaia and I've been talking with him about working together and perhaps having our IFC world inhabit his world of Manaia, so maybe next season we can have our people land their and start our own colony/community and delve much more deeper in that aspect in regards to the storyline and we can sort of create a new main city and work on history and language and develop a storyline that has the visual artwork of his attached to it. I think that could be pretty cool!
I'd love to make this feel more and more like an RPG and having a world like his to work within would be pretty neat I think. And through doing that maybe we can each help each other to give life to each others virtual worlds and projects.