MA Creators, Reviewers, Users, etc...

So I have been thinking about this subject for a while:

What can we as players do that -
1) Can make AE more fun
2) encourage more players to use it
3) Reward those talented individuals that are producing some great stuff in AE.

So the premise of my idea revolves around the concept of having a group that more or less seeks out the quality and/or fun. This is the details how I thought it might work.

Who Can Join?
The group is open to anyone on Protector, whether you construct story arcs, want to learn or just plain enjoy playing the missions. Farmers are to be shunned, lol.

Selecting Leaders
A chat channel would be created and all members are encouraged to join the channel. Anyone who has 3 live story arcs automatically becomes "eligible" to become a moderator/leader and several should be selected based on their expressing genuine desire to improve AE arcs, reward creative designers, enjoy playing non-farming AE arcs, or even just great as organizing. I see no reason to make this a one-man leadership show, the more people pulling in the same direction the better.

When and Where?
I would vote for Saturday, 1pm Central time as it makes it 11am Pacific and 2pm Eastern. This seems to be a decent compromise for a Saturday lunch time activity. The group would meet on Protector server, obviously. That being said, I see no reason why players on other servers should be excluded, if they have someone as a leader on their server and the players to run missions, they certainly should share in our endeavor.

Leader Responsibility
On Saturday, a channel mod/leader would group the players together and at least 2 story arcs should be chosen. One arc should be either long or very long and the other should be anything less than long. How the two arcs are selected is up to the leader of the group, whether he takes suggestions or randomly picks arcs, it really shouldn't matter.
Although members should be committed to two missions, of course that not the limit. If players want to continue after that they can, but at least having a commitment to be in for two isn't asking alot. Of course, if more than 8 show up another mod/leader should start another team and divide up the members between the teams.
A thread should be created on the the first Saturday run and the first post should be a numerical list of all arcs run and the author. After that has been completed, once the Saturday arcs are done for the day, team leader(s) should post a message on the thread with a quick one or two sentence (minimum) of the arcs played, the author, and the arc numbers. This way anyone following the thread on the forums can always find decent missions to play. The numerical list in the original post would be there so the leaders aren't un-intentionally repeating arcs.

Mission Criteria
The criteria of the missions selected should be 1) absolutely no farms, 2) anything less that a certain vote total. Just to pick a number for no real reason let's just say it's less than 500 votes.

Member Responsibility
The responsibility of individual members of the group should be

1) If you show up on Saturday to play, you need to agree to do 2 arcs,
2) to vote honestly on every arc completed during group play and,
3) comments are a requirement for completed arcs.

If we want to encourage players to get better, add something they overlooked or reward great architects, then comments are important. Remember, the arc creators spent alot of time on arcs and they enjoy getting feedback. You aren't writing a manifesto so it's not going to be any more than a line or two to give some honest critique - how you felt, constructive criticism, ideas for tweak, bugs caught, etc... All meant in a positive manner.

Community
Another benefit of the chat channel is that players will be able to converse/question others who are actually interested in making great missions or just enjoy playing them. Who knows you may find great ideas you never thought of, or someone knows a trick that you did not. Need advice or love mentoring? Here's your chance.

Personal Arcs
I am in favor of members submitting their own arcs for critique oon Saturdays, but there needs to be a system where players subjected to doing the same guys missions over and over, it rather defeats the purpose of seeking out the good stuff in AE if we are stuck on one arc. All in all, I see no reason why players couldn't test or help others in the community to tweak their arcs, spot bugs, or just plain help others get better. And that can happen at any time during the week.

This sounds like a really good idea, but I think it should be a global thing, not just Protector. But even if you make it global you could still organize stuff on protector like you suggested, and have others who run things on their own respective servers, that way any arcs that generate buzz on the chat channel would find a larger audience.

Even better if you have a full on committee attached to it, kinda like the PVP committee and I think a base building committee is starting now. Except you'd have a specific dev you could contact, unlike PVP and bases. Maybe you could even work out a deal with Dr. Aeon where the committee could make dev choice recommendations to him. Unless there is already a MA committee I don't know about, if so disregard this whole paragraph.

I'm not big on being in charge (since I have enough on my plate already). But I do like some of the MA stories, and do have questions about it sometimes, so a channel would be fun.

There are already some global resources for AE architects to benefit from, such as http://cohmissionreview.com/, and a global channel whose-name-I-forget-right-now-but-have-on-a-tab-so-I'll-update-it-here-later. (MA?)

If we're doing this only for Protector, then you may want to check out Protector Fiction to see if your project might not benefit from an already established base.

Is this group only for Protector. Then you shouldn't merge.

There's a global channel called 'MA Arc Finder' that's very welcoming and supportive to MA authors and those playing arcs. Please come join us to chat about great arcvs you've played or to advertise your own arcs, ask for and share advice on arc writing, or just to chew the fat.



Eco.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."

Thanks for catching this Cap. The MA Arc Finder channel was founded by me the week before MA went live on the servers. It is intended as a cross server MA channel for MA related help, arc promotion and just a place for MA authors/players to hang out. We have last time I checked over 400 members in the channel. So, please join up, we'd love to have you!


WN

Thanks MrCaptainMan and Wrong_Number for jogging my memory.