Looking for judges for Story Arc contest
By
EarthWyrm,
Posted on: 2009-04-11 15:47 in Mission Architect
I'd love to help Keep, but my son makes teaming nearly impossible by randomly generating AFK's of indeterminate length.
But if you need someone to run arcs solo and give feedback, I'll lend a hoof.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
Well, being able to team isn't a hard requirement, but I did want to run some arcs as teams to get a variation in spawn size/combat mechanics evaluation. If a good percentage of the judges can run arcs as teams we can have a few that are soloists.
And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines
I don't know if I can commit to this (we're coming to the end of the semester, so I'm already going to have a lot of reading on my desktop!), but I'd like to make a recommendation on a judging criterion, in addition to the somewhat obvious things like writing and pacing.
I think that you should try to run the arcs with characters/teams at multiple levels. There are some highly-rated arcs, including some of the Dev's Choice ones, that are an absolute misery for lower-level characters or teams. The custom groups may be all right for 50s to face, but become seriously overpowered against characters in their 20s and 30s. Thinking about how arcs will play across multiple levels is an aspect of design that I think should be rewarded.
My postings to this forum are not to be used as data in any research study without my express written consent.
Seconding Wyrm on the importance of varied team size/level.
IMHO, one arc a day for three or four weeks is an awfully big commitment. One or two arcs a week would be more workable. Could you use a bigger slate of judges to spread out the workload, or do the critiquing in tiers with finalists instead of having all judges crit all arcs?
I can see the importance of having a consistent feedback team, but I agree that I'm not sure I can volunteer for quite that much (it's the end of the semester for me, as well!).
I can volunteer to go through 20 arcs over a period of three weeks solo, under the assumption there will be enough shorter arcs to compensate for the inevitable bloated ones I'm certain will appear. I can probably make at least some of the team events, but those are a bit harder for me to promise for right now.
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There are some highly-rated arcs, including some of the Dev's Choice ones, that are an absolute misery for lower-level characters or teams. The custom groups may be all right for 50s to face, but become seriously overpowered against characters in their 20s and 30s. Thinking about how arcs will play across multiple levels is an aspect of design that I think should be rewarded.
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Personally, I think it's impossible to design a mission series that will play reasonably well across all levels of character. Low level characters are just inherently less powerful than higher level characters even with the auto-sk/auto-exemplar system. IMHO, the author should design the missions for a particular level range and state as much in the mission description.
Of course, properly designating the level range at which a mission arc will be appropriate is one kind of feedback the critiques can generate.
And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines
[ QUOTE ]
IMHO, one arc a day for three or four weeks is an awfully big commitment.
[/ QUOTE ]
That's true, but I don't really see a way to avoid it, other than limiting the number of entries to the point where the contest becomes too exclusionary for my taste.
If there really are no judges that can make that kind of commitment I may have to rethink this.
And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines
OK, rethinking this. How about a commitment of 3 story arcs per week, and I try to find a bigger pool of judges?
The idea is to give 25 entrants 3 separate critiques apiece.
And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines
I'm looking for 2-4 people to help judge in a story arc writing contest I plan to organize within the next few weeks.
Criteria:
- You have to have good writing and critiquing skills. The whole point of the contest is to provide quality feedback to aspiring authors.
- You have to have enough time over the next three to four weeks to critique 20-25 story arcs. That's quite a few arcs - about one a day if we pace it out.
- Preferably you'll have play time slots available for US West Coast evening play, so that we can run some entry arcs as a team.
The way I plan to organize this, the judges will receive payment for participating, the size of which will depend on the number of entries. It probably won't be a huge incentive, but will help compensate for the work put into the project.
Once I have a judging team we can finalize the contest parameters and I'll put together an advert for it.
And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines