soul_ooc | MODPOST 1/2

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*mod post

MODPOST 1/2

Attention, Soul Campaign!

We’re opening reservations in a little over a week, and the mods would like to make some announcements regarding changes being made to the application and reservation process. These changes have been in planning for a long time, and is one of the reasons why we went for the break.

Reserves Page and Application Cut Off
The reserves page will open on November 1, 2011 as planned. The application cycle will be from December 16 - 23, 2011. Cut-off for next cycle will be December 15, 2011, 11:59pm EST.

Changes to the application form
We made some changes to the application form, which you can see here. The sections remain the same, but the text explaining these changes have been revised to make them clearer and more streamlined. We’ve included a secondary reference page linked in the application, which includes guidelines that will hopefully make the application easier for players to fill and the application cycle/process much faster than what we’ve been doing before.

We changed the weapon section so that weapons will only have one general ability. There will be a separate post to detail how this will affect current weapons (but don’t panic, we’re not going to make you change yours if you don’t want to).

Last, a summary of the events in the game since its beginning up til the Europe event has been posted in this page.

New revision process for the applications
Starting the next cycle, we will no longer entertain revisions for the Character Information section of the application. This section includes the character’s history, personality, abilities, and weaknesses. We feel that players who know their characters well should be able to write their applications in a manner that makes this section understandable to the application team. Any application whose character information section the application team finds lacking will immediately be rejected.

The other sections (SC-only section, meister, weapon, soul description, samples) will go through the usual revision process if necessary, since they are all sections unique to Soul Campaign.

Beta-reading system
However, since we will no longer be allowing revisions for the character information during the application cycle, we will be offsetting this with a beta-reading system to help players make sure that their applications pass the standards of the game.

How will this work? In the reserves page, the applicants commenting on it will have the option of asking for a beta-reader from SC’s pool of current players. You can volunteer to beta-read theirs and help them with their applications by replying to their reserve comment.

We’d also like to minimize the risk of applicants asking for a beta-reader and not getting any -- to do this, the mods will be collecting names of people willing to be included in a pool of beta-readers every cycle, and we will assign them to a lonely applicant.

If you’d like to volunteer, please reply here, and indicate any preferences (or non-preferences, for that matter!) on series or canon that you have. We appreciate it! App team members may also volunteer, but this doesn’t guarantee that the app will pass.

Test drive meme
We will also test something for next cycle. We will put up a Test Drive Meme in Soul Skirmish, to be linked to the reserves page. This will give the prospective applicants and the current players space to tag each other before the application cycle, to give the applicants a taste of the game before they come in.

The meme will include several scenarios that the characters can play out, depending on their choice. Some will be serious, while some will be more light-hearted. Soul Campaign is a plot-heavy game that depends on consistent relations and interactions between characters, as well as emphasis on world news and events; we’d like the applicants to be more aware of this as they app into the game.

Please note that threads in this meme will not be accepted for Activity Check. Sorry. :c

Whew!
So that’s it for changes! Please note that the new revision process, beta-reading system, and test drive meme are all still under testing for now, and we may adjust them depending on how December pans out. We appreciate your patience!

The second mod post will be up soon after this, so make sure to check it out, especially if you have weapon characters.

For questions about this post (and its links), you can ask here or email us at soulcampaign@gmail.com. (Don't worry if some questions take a while to answer, a couple of the mods are going on a short vacation for a couple of days. Thank you for your patience!)

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Sign me up. I'd prefer canons that I'm familiar with (a lot of them, just ask...), but even if I'm not and no one's taking the application, fork it over.

Personally, I'm of the opinion that putting in more quality checks is never a bad thing, and that beta readers really WILL allow everybody to participate while dividing the work more efficiently in the long run. Sure, it may not always be perfect on the get-go, but it's not like we can't fix it later on. Furthermore, I'd also like to believe that if a player really wanted to come in and join us, they'll make the effort to, no matter how "intimidating" it looks. On the end of the beta readers, it gives you all an opportunity to check the apps of future castmates/players out, help them along and get to know them better as well. I really can't see how this could be a problem just yet.

Anyway, long and short of it is that I'm in full support of whatever helps you guys and the app team get things going with minimal stress. I think I've seen just a part of how hard it is on the mods and app team and even the people waiting on their revisions/acceptance notice and such during the application season, and if doing this helps everyone while keeping the quality of the game as is (maybe even improving on it), then I'm good.

Considering the very long window between app cycles, an out and out rejection is a very heavy thing to hand down. This was my particular concern. By outright rejecting an application when you only allow one app per period as well as the two months between apps, most people upon getting a rejection will turn away and never want to app again. Outright rejection is a heavy blow for any game and I would hate to see it turn away potential applicants that are gung-ho about the game that has a reputation of being open, friendly and forgiving on apps.

I HAVE PLAYED OBSCURE CHARACTERS BEFORE! I'VE ALWAYS WANTED TO PLAY AN ALCHEMIST IN A GAME.

SO DO I, BUT I'M KEEPING IT REALISTIC

ALSO

I APOLOGIZE TO MY CAST BUT I AM FINE WITH EITHER CHARACTER

:|a Decisions, decisions...

I would be so conflicted too if I were you.

Just too many amazing options... :c

I could volunteer for editing just as long as whoever was submitting the app attached some kind of link so I could research the series.

More familiar with video games over anime series

Pandora Hearts, you say?

Oh, I wouldn’t call it your bad as long as you and the mods who approved it get what is meant, but as a sample it is… Too well-phrased? You have a wonderful way with words and it might be because English is my second language, but even though I checked out Jade’s Weapon abilities before and thus should know what is being said but I still don’t get it. As far as I can understand the part shown as a sample covers the HOW it works but I keep missing the details that explain WHAT the ability/attack that is being spoken of actually is besides vague terms of manipulating energy that is taken from the environment.
My best guess so far is still that it has to be some kind of Captain Planet Soul Menace, I'm very sorry about that. ^^;

Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t think twice about it and just shrug it off as me failing to translate something in a coherent way and ask you personally should the need for knowing it arise, so this is nothing personal, it really isn’t. I enjoy interacting with you both on an IC and OOC level and I feel bad if it comes off as me trying to call you out because I really don’t. What I want to try to do is to give feedback to the changes and new app form.

My point still stands, though, examples are meant to be understood easily by everybody and – call me the idiot I might be – I don’t feel that the first example does fulfill that requirement. :(

Thinking about it, how about a way that would prevent people from having to wait long enough to possibly lose interest? Two months are an awful lot of time just to try again, so maybe you could, idk... make a 'second try' round for those who failed at the first go after 1-4 weeks?

I've been talking about this on plurk with a couple of people, and I have to say, the idea of not being allowed to make revisions seems to be a bit much. You guys have asked for revisions over phrasing things in a way that the app team didn't understand, or for not having enough information or support in there when maybe the player thinks they have enough. It's a great thing to hope that yeah, if you're apping, you know the character well, but some of us really suck at getting our vision across in an essay format.

Then there's the concern about some of the blame for failed apps falling back on those of us who volunteer to beta. Are you going to have some kind of way to keep us from taking the heat for your rejections? Picaro's suggestion about training, or a checklist for the apps is something I definitely second if you're going to go with this system. None of us want to help out an apper and then get our balls busted because our definition of a good app is different from the app team's definition of a good app.

When can we expect to see a sample up? I'd really like to maybe see you guys highlighting what in the sample apps make them good enough to get in.

Different games expect different levels of detail. If you allow for revisions and you're expecting a lot, it's not so big a deal. I'm really concerned about you guys being able to get across exactly how much is enough and precisely what you're looking for. On the old system, this was a problem for me, and now it just feels like it'll be an even bigger problem. I love you guys, and I appreciate what you do, but I'd really like to see everybody's questions answered with a system that will protect and help the betas and make things crystal clear to prospective appers before I can get behind this.

Edited 2011-10-23 23:56 (UTC)

Echoing everyone else that the no-revisions change sounds really problematic to me. I can kind of understand the reasoning behind it, but there are plenty of reasons for an app need revisions other than that the player didn't understand their character well, and I feel like this could discourage a lot of good potential players from apping. And other people upthread have already covered this issue better than me, so I won't go into detail on that.

But, what seems like the main problem for me is that different games require different amounts of detail to be accepted, and new players really have very little way of knowing what level of detail SC is looking for until they actually app. Because apps are sent in by email instead of posted publicly, new players can't go through old apps to get a feel for what the app team is looking for. They could go to the Taken list and check current characters' journals for their applications (which is actually what I did when I apped), but those apps wouldn't necessarily be recent, or the whole app might not be included. (I know some people don't include the samples when they post their app on their journal later.) It's also a lot more work for the applicant. With revisions being possible, this isn't a huge deal because if they misunderstand something, they'll have a chance to fix it with hopefully clear instructions from the app team on how to do so. But with no revisions, it becomes a much bigger problem because everyone absolutely has to get it right the first time.

So, with the way things are right now and adding this new rule, what I feel like you're basically saying to applicants is "You have to write an application we approve of, even though we haven't given you a lot of examples or otherwise demonstrated what exactly we're looking for, and also you have to get it right on the very first try or you're rejected, and you'll have to wait two months to try again." That may not be what you're intending to say, but that's how it comes off to me, and I don't think it's at all fair to potential new players.

A beta system would help a lot with this, but it has its own set of problems too. Like a couple people have mentioned, what if the beta thinks the app is fine but the app team rejects it? The beta could take a lot of heat for that, and would probably feel terrible about it to boot, especially if they were the only beta for that applicant. It's a solid idea, but the way it is right now I think it puts a lot more pressure on the betas than it needs to.

To counter all of that, I'd definitely want to see some example applications put up, so applicants can get a better idea what kind of apps the mods are looking for. (Or even just easily accessible links to good, complete applications that people have already posted in their journals.) A checklist of things to definitely include would also be really helpful, and maybe even a list of common things apps have been rejected for in the past, so people know what to avoid. At the very least, I think lists like that should be supplied to the betas, so they know what to check for and have a better idea of what the app team is expecting. The more information the betas have, the better job they'll be able to do as betas.

...And then I ran out of steam and couldn't figure out how to end this, sob. In short, I don't think the change is a terrible idea by itself, but it would need a bit more adjustment before I'd really be comfortable getting behind it.

Just commenting to say that I agree with the concerns already mentioned by other players. While I wouldn't blame the betas if my app got rejected, I understand that those who volunteer might feel bad if the app gets rejected and they thought it was fine.

I also understand why the mod team decided to change the app, but I think it will do more harm than good. I was a new player during this last app cycle and I was very intimidated by the app. I'm still quite intimidated by it, in fact. I wanted to app another char but now I feel very self-conscious again and I might not app at all. I think I am not alone in this, so I thought it couldn't hurt to put my two cents here.

I really love the game and the people here because everyone is really welcoming ad nice, but from an outsider perspective the first thing you see is the app and the rules, and how hard it will be to get it. And this new rule might put people off.

popping in to say that i can understand why everyone seems to be lashing out at the idea of outright rejection. however, i don't think it's all that unreasonable. the personality section has always been about who your character is and what drives them, and i think that most often the problems arise in turning it into a history section instead of a personality section. apps, in recent times, have turned into essays about characters and admittedly not everyone is as good at essay writing as they are at roleplaying. plus, this discrepancy isn't always easy to see, having beta'd an app before that in turn needed revisions to the personality after i'd said it was good for this game. in this respect, i think that the betas could take a lot of flack for it, and though i didn't, i still felt guilt over it. however, i think the only reason this could be a big deal is because the people beta'ing in the apps will have been appointed in-game and therefore could be solely held responsible for the app teams' decision (which is ridiculous, i know, but i'm confident it could happen). i've never been part of an ingame beta system before though so i can't speak to prior experience and draw from that.

to circumvent this i think, perhaps, it should be shown that applications are quality over quantity. it's entirely possible to write a decent application without going into eight pages of 12point font over it. when apping into this game for the first time, i too, eyeballed the other apps to see what was acceptable. i know we used to have examples up, but in checking the application page i didn't see any. i think this would be a good thing to toss up, so people will have something to work off of instead of hunting around.

however, i think i am in the minority when i say i don't find this update to be unreasonable and overtly intimdating, not after actually looking at it, and reading over the application a second time. soul campaign has always prided itself on having a group of players that are thoughtful and dedicated, and unlike other games, is more about how your character grows in this verse, which is what you seem to be focusing on. any of us who have really wanted to get in, and wanted to stick around, have stuck it to the man and managed well enough. but then again, i've always loved a challenge. that, and i imagine you all put quite a bit of thought into this before handing it out for us all to look at.

in short, you have my support, but some examples would be a good idea.

Oh yes, I'll beta so hard for PH because it's one of my favorite series! I'm even up to date with it.

This is something that I can second. I think it'll be less intimidating overall to players if there are samples to show what to look for, divided into categories of good apps for say, major characters, important (But less important) characters and minor characters. I think a sample of each type would be good so that people don't think that they have to write too much for a minor character as long as they have the personality down.

Well, if you do want the truth...the actual mechanics of how it works is actually that complicated in the canon itself. The most I can translate it to in understandable standards would be traditional magic, but magic is a) The sole domain of Witches in-game and b) Not what I was going for. I thought of finding someone else's sample to use for this but if I'm not mistaken, Jade may be the sole pure elemental weapon.

I may do a more proper write-up if it's needed but that will have to wait as I'm on a technical hiatus now for rather odd reasons. Apologies!

But the thing is, failure rates were already pretty low as is and as SC is a plot-heavy game, new arrivals would only disrupt the plot. It may be difficult to appreciate on this end, but when you look back at the storyline thus far the arrival of new people does tend to change things up and it's also part of why app cycles had to be changed to two months at a time as it's just mood-killing to go through events and welcome new people. At least, I'm saying this from the perspective of a reader.

Tl;dr Too many arrival cycles wouldn't be conducive to the game's environment and it brings nothing positive. Since this beta system is only a trial run and the applicants will be judged less, I would think the kinks can be worked out well enough so that this will be less of a concern.

oh, this works out since I'm apping in Leo :3

Thanks for your consideration, but I think you are still misunderstanding me a bit. My problem with it as example is not as much about the explanation of the ability being too complicated (I can understand and fully respect you for wanting to keep things close to canon!), but rather that it comes off as an expert explaining the confusing inner mechanics of a very complicated machine while forgetting to ever mention what he is actually talking about. It could be a hair-dryer, a racing car or a missile! The explanation is good, but because an important detail is missing it is still difficult to understand what is being talked about to anybody who isn’t an expert as well.

TL;Dr: What is Jade's ability in Weapon form? What can the Meister do by wearing the demon glasses? That - the most important - part is not mentioned in the example and is what I’d really love to know if I were to turn to it for help as a player wanting to app. Without this information, it is hard to tell whether it is an example for a 'normal' or an 'elemental' Weapon,too - I still wouldn’t know if you hadn't told me. If you can add a line that says that it is meant as an example for a Weapon with elemental powers (as opposed to the second example) and another one that says what his Weapon form can actually do the example would be good in my opinion!

…Of course this is only my two cents on the matter. I don't mean to blame or lecture you about how to fill a part of your app, my only concern is with its use as an example that is officially used. I think that a lot of make or break of what this new changes bring will depend on how good things are being explained and easily understood examples are core points for that. Sorry for nagging!

That is a fair, good point. The reason I asked is that two months are more than most players are willing to wait and that somebody on anoncomm raised the same idea, so I felt confident that it's not only me who thought that it might be a good way to take the sting out of the rejection issue. It seemed like something that's worth the try to ask about, so I tried. You have good reason why it might not be that good a solution, point taken.

However, I'd like to draw your attention to a few things:

failure rates were already pretty low as is... - Disregarding the use of the past tense (“were already pretty low”, meaning with revisions of all parts allowed) this is something you as a member of the app team can know, but the rest of us can't. The apps are being emailed and judged in private; only those directly involved can know how many rejections, passes and revisions happen each round and what is evaluated by what criteria. You and the others of the app team and the mods can see behind the scenes, you know what is happening backstage each app round rolls in. What you need to consider is that me and most others can’t. We may get a few glimpses through plurks and others, but yeah, our way of seeing and appreciating things is going to be different for sure. And that won’t change unless you explain and deal with us, what is all most people commenting in the questions thread here are hoping and asking for. :(

You can speak of past rates and how applications are going to be judged less strictly now, but please understand – while you know exactly what that means all we get is vague terms that can mean pretty much anything. I don’t think we can be blamed for being unwilling to just nod and be fine with that, as much as we trust and love you guys on a personal level. What you want to do are some big changes so it’s logical for people to be concerned about it, especially if they like and care about the game enough to speak up about those points, most doing it way better than I could. Reading some comments I can’t help but feel that the main argument of the changes making things easier for everybody actually means that they will make things easier for those having to approve or reject the apps. I am really sorry for feeling this way since I still think you guys are awesome and I really love you, too, so I’m sincerely hoping that steps to clear this up will be taken soon.

…This comment ended up being more towards the mod and app team in general than to you, sorry.

Tossing my two cents in -

Betas! Great idea!

Not allowing revisions on the most subjective part of an app is an absolutely terrible idea. Especially with two-month wait between apps.

Honestly, I'm not even sure what purpose it's supposed to serve. I doubt most revisions come about not because people are lazy or do not know their character. It comes because they don't know what the mods want to see. And quite frankly, I would not be comfortable betaing for the game, because I don't know what those standards are. To do this, there would have to be lots of examples of what was considered good enough, and an appeals process so that mods disagreeing with interpretation doesn't automatically bar someone from the game or force them to wait two months to app again and hope that this time they know what the mods are thinking.

Dear mods,

While I understand that you are already dealing with a number of people stating their feelings about the revisions you are doing here I feel that even if I am just another voice saying the same thing it will help to support how wide spread any similar feelings are.

For me, my biggest issue and fear is the outright rejection of applications based off the personality section. The reason this worries me is twice now I have had my character apps sent back because my personality section is 'too much like a history'. When I write the personality section of my app I do so with canon points past, present and near future, to support my perception of said character, since it is easy for two people to see the same character differently. (For example, Luke fon Fabre, some people consider him an outright brat and feel he has no standing for how he acts, I see him as a brat with an understandable reason for acting the way he does, in order to at least make this feeling acceptable to some one reading my app I feel I should point out the factors in his history that make him an understandable brat.)

My other worry is related to the one I just mentioned in that I become very nervous or unsure of myself or my character if the app has been rejected or sent back before, even though I've taken some time to fix it up. To have an app rejected because of my personality section would kill my motivation, not only to try again for the same character, but also to even try apping into the game again.

I will say now that while I was thinking of apping for my fourth character this next round I now do not feel up to dealing with the difficulty that would come along with it. I can tell you right now that if I did and my app got rejected it could easily affect my drive to even be a part of roleplay.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

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an afterthought!

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