IFC S2R20: Building Cryptopia
Preamble
Well it's the 20th and final round of the regular season of the Information Finding Championship. In this round we were tasked with coming up with ideas for the next season - season 3.
I've given it some thought and rather then offering topic suggestions for individual rounds I have decided to focus on the overall concept of the contest itself. But before I begin I want to mention that this post is not meant to criticize the IFC in any way or the direction that it has taken so far. I had a lot of fun in the contest and I think that the creator (@apolymask), judges, sponsors and moderators of the group have done an excellent job. This post is simply to offer up my observations as a new member of the community along with my personal perspective and suggestions.
Observations
Throughout the contest I've noticed that there are two (seemingly) separate and distinct parts to the IFC:
The first part is just as the name suggests, an information finding activity. It tasks the author with creating a post about a given topic of the week. These topics cover a wide variety of subjects that appear to be mostly random and they allow the author an endless amount of freedom to interpret the topic in a manner that they see fit.
The second part of the contest is a little more obscure but can be seen in the IFC branding imagery and through periodic discussion. It is the backstory of the IFC community, which I understand to be - a group of individuals are traveling through space on their starship in search of information.
I've noticed that this aspect of the competition is rarely discussed in depth and only pops up during the odd challenge. The effect of this is that it sometimes comes across as a bit of an after thought. Similarly, for new community members like myself, the overall point of the backstory can be a bit confusing and at times makes me wonder - what is the purpose of the story, what is it trying to accomplish and what direction do the moderators plan to take it? For instance, the introduction post of the contest discussed the IFC community battling a group of aliens and taking over their ship in order to travel the universe, but then the contest never actually mentioned that storyline again which for me is slightly confusing.
My confusion regarding the matter could be because I did not take part in season one of the IFC, which may have explained this discrepancy and/or discussed and developed the story in more depth. However, for new members like myself the storyline remains slightly obscure.
Suggestion
Again, I hope that this is not coming across like I am criticizing the IFC or the backstory of Cryptopia. To the contrary I actually think that the Cryptopia story is awesome and that it is what makes the IFC contest unique and interesting. It is what sets it apart from other contests on the Steemit platform.
So with that in mind, instead of the story of Cryptopia remaining obscurely in the background I am suggesting that it should be pushed to the forefront of the competition and play a much larger role in the contest itself.
I have not discussed this with @apolymask directly, so I could be wrong in my assumption of him but the impression that I get is that he would like the world we live in to be a better place and that he would also like to build a better world. Therefore my overall suggestion for the IFC is to put the focus of the contest solely onto the idea behind Cryptopia. Instead of generalized topics each week topics should be about building a sci-fi fantasy world, its ideology and everything else that goes along with creating a new world.
Topic Ideas
Ideas for topics are endless but some could include things like:
Worldly concepts related to the home planet of Cryptopia (i.e. geography, plant and animal specie concepts and native inhabitants...etc).
Creating a language, culture, religion or even government structure.
City planning (i.e. developing a city layout and technological innovations within it such as food production, transportation, energy production...etc).
Concepts related to branding such as logos, theme songs....etc.
Short stories about the world and community members.
Basically, each weeks challenge would require individuals to think outside the box and creatively and innovatively come up with ideas to build a sci-fi utopian universe. This would be similar to what @lordless.exile is doing with their world of Manaia (hat tip the them).
Judges could pick post ideas that best fit the objective of building a utopian world which could then be compiled into some sort of catalogue of ideas that build the mythos of Cryptopia, sort of like the universe of J.R.R Tolkiens "Lord of the Rings" or George R. R. Martin's "Game of Thrones universe."
Furthermore, since some of the short word puzzle challenges, random topics and marketplace ideas are also a lot of fun as well, I was thinking that they could be saved for the bonus rounds in the new season. Winners of these rounds could recieve artifacts, bonus points, advantages or special prizes.
Challenges and Considerations
What I am suggesting is no small feat and would not be without its challenges and criticisims. After all, I am effectively suggesting a new direction for the IFC, as "Information Finding" would solely focus on the sci-fi fantasy genre.
As such, some community members may not like this direction (which is completely fair) and may prefer things to stay as they are. The new direction would certainly require a lot of creative and innovative thought in a genre (sci-fi fantasy) that people may not be particularly interested in. With that in mind, though the new direction may attract new members who are interested in science fiction, technology, innovative thinking or utopian ideologies, it could also result in losing some existing members who prefer to write personalized post. As such, a poll of the community may be beneficial before actually implementing any changes.
Conclusion
Overall, I want to reiterate that I had a lot of fun in season 2 of the IFC and will be happy with whatever direction it decides to go in the future. However, I do believe that the collaborative exercise of creating a new and better utopian world would be really cool for our community. I also think that it would give the contest some direction and set it apart as a truly unique community contest.
Please feel free to share your thoughts and criticisims to this idea. Thanks for reading.
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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.
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