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!)

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Thank you!

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.

Hey everybody! I know I'm late, but here's what I think.

From reading this, it sounds like many of you were asked to make very minor revisions on your Personality sections and now fear that such minor edits will now instead earn you a rejection. I do not believe this to be the case. Because there is now so much weight placed on the personality section, an application reader is more likely to ignore those minor edits and wave you through unless there are glaring problems with the section. Have faith that a comprehensive list of what is expected of an applicant will appear, but in the meanwhile, you may find the short blurb on the application very telling.

Character Personality:
Be thorough; we consider this the backbone of your app, and we will not be accepting revisions for this section if the application team finds it lacking. Focus on an analysis of character personality and motivations and use specific examples as evidence. We want to see how well your grasp is of the character’s psychology, so don’t turn this into a History section.

From this, you can pretty much tell that the readers want:

1) A firm idea of what motivates your character. Outline what drives the character and how that character may react to certain situations.

2) The major focus to be on the personality of the character, not the history. Keep the historical examples short and to the point and always discuss what they say about the character instead of using the history to launch into more history. Avoid long story-telling narrations and stick to the analysis. If you're really that worried about it, just read: if you spend more time talking about what happened and not enough going into how your character reacted and why, you probably need more analysis.

My own additions would be:

3) If pertinent, discuss your character's strengths, weaknesses, and quirks within the Personality section. If you don't, be certain that these facets of the character are dealt with thoroughly in the following Abilities and Weaknesses sections.

4) Make sure what you write in the Personality is reflected in the later sections, especially in the samples. People sometimes forget how important the Samples can be in tipping the scale, but I would place Samples up on the same level of importance as Personality.

I do not mention grammar because, really, we've accepted applications with less than impeccable English. To those who are worried about this being an English exam--it isn't.

Also realize that a new application system works both ways and that a new process also means a new, more consistent method of evaluation for the readers, which will then likely be shared with the community as a whole, especially since player participation is being relied upon via the new beta system to ensure everyone gets a fair chance. Speaking as someone who does read all of your apps, I can tell you directly that this new system is in place to affect a new streamlined, less fussy application process that will hopefully bring all successful applicants into the game within the same week, removing the awkward panic and frustration of multiple revisions and very, very late induction characters. Besides, the betas will be there to help, and they will be given all the tools necessary to do so effectively... otherwise, what’s the point?

So my real advice to everyone is to be patient. It's coming.

Question!

If say, I put in an app at the beginning of the app period and it was rejected in a timely fashion, could I either resubmit the app before the end of the period or submit another, different app before the clock stops?

Then instead of the app team working with someone to clean up their app, betas could help, or the person could still get into the game with a character that they can app better. Might seem a little less intimidating.

Late but some thoughts…

I think having the test drive meme on a regular basis is a good idea. I just joined in August but I’ve noticed that quite a few characters got dropped within several weeks, something which kind of surprised me considering the work it takes to write an application and set up a character journal. That would probably help people figure out if this game is right for their characters before they actually send in an application. Having the summary of what happened since the game started is good, too, so new people can easily see what to expect in terms of plots. I had browsed through the timeline pages before I applied but this explains much more clearly.

Could we possibly also have a post where people can bounce around preliminary character ideas OOC? Since it can be quite a bit of work to canon review and set up a character journal with icons if you’re not completely sure about playing someone yet. (Before this game, I hadn’t really roleplayed in years and not on LJ before so I don’t have any character journals set up besides this one.) I’ve had a few ideas but the one I’m leaning towards at the moment is really obscure and it would be nice to see if there’s interest in a character like that before I reread novels, take a lot of notes, and make a journal.

I’m a new player who joined in August and I wasn’t asked for any revisions. (But then I was trying to be super thorough, reviewed a lot, and wrote a 10 page application, including doing my own history.) So, I didn’t have any idea about how acceptance rates were or how often revisions were asked for. But if the new policy is meant to reduce nitpicking and make it easier to pass the character info section, it should be better explained on the application page. Because new people who are considering applying wouldn’t know that and 2 months is a long time. The idea of having to wait 2 months to try again if you mess up on the character section would likely seem very discouraging for some. Part of why I spent so long fussing with my application for Shuurei (I worked on it over a few weeks and was rather tired of writing it by the time I was done) was that I’d heard applications would be closed until December and I’m not sure if I would have waited that long if I hadn’t gotten in. I actually stumbled on this game completely by chance when I did a LJ search for Saiunkoku and found that someone had just joined from that series. And decided to give it a try after finding that there were a few other characters here from obscure fandoms I liked.

Personally, though I'm wary on the idea, I trust you guys to be able to work it out and make it work and okay and all.

I do think, though, that implementing it after such a long app hiatus is a terrible idea. Some people have been waiting a long time to get in, and if someone gets rejected because everyone's still working out the kinks in this new system, they'd have to wait yet another couple of months in order to get in. And that to me just seems a little...cruel?

Like I said, while I initially don't like this idea at all, I trust you guys to make it work somehow and I'll reserve any actual judgement until then, but. Yeah.

Also, I put up the test-driving meme in Soul Skirmish and it worked out pretty awesomely, so I'm behind a recurring Test Drive 100%.

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VOLUNTEERS for beta reading!

QUESTIONS!