Community event discussion

[Flintlock]

I realised we didn't have a general thread for discussing community events. I did maintain a "status of all projects"-type thread for the first half of last year, but it felt like a lot of work for something that nobody was probably paying attention to anyway, so I stopped.

This thread can be used to pitch and discuss ideas and organise events. Those events should still get their own threads, of course.

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I'll get us started. For the last couple of Januaries, we've had a community playthrough. I deliberately held off with organising it this year because we just had the music ranking event and the TLS awards, with quite a bit of overlap, which felt pretty heavy. Lex also pointed out that we'll be busy with updating the site, but after some thought, I decided I don't want to put everything else on hold in the interim, since we don't know how long updating the site will take (and it shouldn't be rushed).

Rather than dive straight into nominations, though, I figured it would be a good idea to gauge interest. I also thought I'd float the idea of only running one community playthrough a year, and replacing the other one with a community relay, since that was so much fun last time, and since it's a lot lighter.

So, who wants to do a community playthrough, and who would rather do another relay? If you don't know what that those things are, you can read more about them here: playthrough, relay. In short, in a community playthrough, everyone plays the chosen from start to finish, while in a relay, each player plays only a small chunk of the game before passing it on to another player. If we do a playthrough now we can still do a relay in a few months' time.

 

[Jason Tandro]

I rather like the idea of a community playthrough. If we get to it quick enough we might be able to elect a game and coincide with the TLS Final Fantasy Retrospective Vader, Ryu and I are doing (maybe we can ALL play Final Fantasy V finally).

Relay sounds interesting too.

Site games are always a fun diversion too. While the round robin story kind of flopped, maybe I can get off my ass and try to revive Hang-Man. And hopefully we'll see another genius game from you, even if it is a revival of Mythril Mines. I also wanted to talk to you about possibly collabing on a "Chocobo Racing" betting game in a similar vein to Mythril Mines.

And it's about time for another fanworks contest... that'll be my territory though.

 

[Roger]

I guess my preference goes out to a relay before community playthrough. But I'm fine either way, but let's agree to pick something other then FFVII this time.

 

[Lex]

I vote playthrough.

I had an idea for a (kind of) community event where we nominate random people from TLS to write a one-off piece for us (non-staff members, can be anything from "what I like about this game" to a factual analysis/review/dissertation).

This accomplishes many things. It may bring us more interested writers from people we already have, it's interesting to read what people are thinking when they take the time to write solo, it shows that really anyone can write for us, it gives people a chance to flesh out (or discover) their writing skills, and it keeps our front page from stagnating. I only see benefits, but maybe I'm biased since it's my idea.

 

[Jason Tandro]

^ That's actually a pretty cool idea Lex. It'll also let us scout out new potential writing talent and showcase that we value our community's input. We could maybe do one a month and call it a "Community Article" or "Guest Article" or something like that.

Edit: Perhaps you could make a sign-up article and we can take it in turns like the Member Spotlight.

 

[Channy]

A relay sounds pretty fun but as evidenced by that thread, you run into the problem of drop outs. But I think we have more interested, committed people who might partake.

I wanted to throw something out into the void at one point but wasn't sure when would be an appropriate time but I guess this is the thread for it. Ami and I met on another forum years ago (after I initially left TLS/before she came here). There was a yearly event, usually in the summer if people were in school called Survivor.

Survivor was basically just like the TV show. People are split into tribes, must compete challenges to try and earn immunity for their team otherwise after a week or two they then must vote someone off 'the island'. Challenges usually had a time limit, depending on the challenge, of about 5-7 days for people to get it together, and mini challenges were interspersed to keep people entertained that lasted about 24-48 hours.

Spoiler: How it works (forum technicalities)

A whole sub forum was made for this. Inside that, 2-4 sub-sub forums for each tribe. Depending on number of applications, tribes consisted of about 5-7 people. Tribe members can only view their own tribe sub forum and the main subforum for Survivor. They can't view the rest of the forum at all (unless logged out). You can't PM other people outside of Survivor.

Mods usually didn't participate or if one really wanted to, stripped of momentary mod powers so they couldn't view the other huts, etc.. Usually the whole thing was run by two or so mods to keep things organized, tally points up, oversee that people were behaving (usually rules were cut loose on trolling for Survivor to stir up competition but it all depends on the community) but I'd be happy to assist on the first go if it's explored.

Spoiler: Why it's fun

It really gets people's competitive spirits up but in a fun way. Usually members were split evenly according to time zones so you'd get 2/3 from UK, 2 from US/EST and then one from US/PST if available... that way no one is all in at the same time and your "huts" were usually attended to in case a Challenge was released at an odd time or mini challenges made an appearance. Which, again, stirred competition because all of a sudden a mini challenge worth 50 pts might have gone up and the most of another team slept through it while their other person didn't know the answer/had no camera atm...

This made challenges like Photo Relay (wherein there are 5 items listed and everyone has to post a pick but in a certain order... ball, stuffed animal, FF game, etc... one posts one item, next person posts that item and the next item, next person posts those two items and the next, and so on...) hilariously aggravating as you could have your whole team organized in their private forum discussing what items they have and what order they can go, but one person who might be in another timezone asleep and unaware....

Challenges included Chubby Bunny videos, post coordination threads, photo relay threads, a dare scavenger hunt with photos (in which I stood next to a highway with a sign saying "Honk if I'm Cute" (spoiler alert: nobody honked ) and then mini challenges including Emoticon Selfie threads, Most View Count Thread, and other embarrassing videos and pictures.

And then the final challenge usually involved some elaborate scheme of a dozen riddles that all somehow interconnected with coding riddles to make a final answer.

Spoiler: Other pertinents to try and convince you

Oh look, Kate Upton's boobies... how did those get here....

I think... I think that's about the jist of it? Ami and I discussed pitching this to you guys at some point, waiting until the other events were currently done. This could be done at any time, as years have gone by since and not too many people are in school anymore, usually working or not. Waiting until the forum upgrade/move with forums restablished is perfectly fine too, again, just sorta whenever. Activity has been getting up lately with the news and we've been getting newer and newer members so thought soonish would be a good time for it.

edit: I spent about half hr typing all that up... I also agree to Lex's idea and Jason's revival of Hang-Man

 

[Lex]

^I really like that idea, but given the culture of TLS I think we'd need to go with a more relaxed version of it, namely not restricting access to the rest of the forum (just ensuring said tribes can't see other tribes' subforums) and also not requiring things like videos etc. to be posted because you'd get more participation if said stuff wasn't required. So I'm on board if people can come up with interesting challenges that relate to TLS (maybe timed video game/ entertainment quizzes and other less boring things) that don't require people to post pictures or videos of themselves.

 

[Flintlock]

That sounds like it would be a lot of work, but fun. Kind of a shame that people can get voted out and then won't be able to take part any more, though. Did it eventually come down to just two people competing for victory?

 

[Fangu]

A relay sounds pretty fun but as evidenced by that thread, you run into the problem of drop outs. But I think we have more interested, committed people who might partake.

Yeah. I was sure I was going to drop out on some of my parts, but I ended up playing all of them in the intended order. Streaming them was a lot of fun too.

Anyway if we were to do another relay, we need to up the pranking, like this

I always tend to drop out of the community playthroughs, simply because I don't have time to keep up. The relay isn't as demanding. So I'd probably partake in the latter, not the first.

 

[Channy]

The restricting of access to general forum was part of the atmosphere. And some mini challenges included "who's that member" taking previous member usernames and describing a person. So to compete in that obviously you could t look at people's profiles to try and see who it was. It more or less enlisted participation rather than relying on the honour system.

Picture and video challenges weren't too bad though because done early enough there's enough members in the tribes that if someone doesn't want to participate there's still others to do the challenge. The scavenger hunt was usually just a large list of pictures either finding something or doing something and keeping a little tag with your team or initials in to show you didn't pull it off google. And then usually just at least one person had to take a pic of it to get the points, not everyone. Something like that could be voted on if people were wary about it though.

Yeah by the end, it was usually top 3 competing for the final riddle and depending on how team wins went, could be 2 from 1 team working together and tying to outsmart the lonely third...

Again, if interested I'd offer to assist with organizing since I'm familiar with it (participated twice) notwithstanding mod powers off course

Also I typed all this on my phone so please forgive typos.

 

[Flintlock]

Anyway if we were to do another relay, we need to up the pranking, like this

I'd like to remind everyone that Lex was also the author of this post:

I'm more likely to be the opposite and make someone a really easy save file to continue from

So now we know he's a filthy, filthy liar.

But I agree, those pranks were the best part of the experience for me.

 

[Flare]

Channy, I love the Survivor TLS game idea! I enjoy watching that series on tv, so it would be fun to play such a variation of it.

So curious, but it seems like you guys never ended up 'merging' the tribes and then having individual immunity challenges, and rather that you stuck with two teams the entire game? As the tv series goes, the teams eventually merge and then everyone shares the same camp but competes individually in challenges. Though I see where that might get hard for an online one, so teams probably work best for TLS.
Also, they sometimes have 3 teams instead of just two, but maybe two, again, works best. You would know since you've done it before.
Anyway, I'd definitely be up for a game like that, it would be a blast!

 

[Channy]

I don't recall terms eventually merging. It was also at least 3 tribes when I did it to try and stir up competition and revenge across all fronts. But again depends on how many interested parties there are too. Less so and two teams would work just fine.

 

[Ami]

Ah, good old Survivor. I'm glad you've mentioned this, I need to go on a nostalgia trip now.

I'd up for a playthrough/relay, as I'm back to playing games a lot more these days rather than back when we did the playthroughs and I just got left behind on my own fault. Would also be up for helping organise/participating in Survivor, too!

 

[Claymore]

No real input apart from loving all the ideas.

 

[trash panda]

Chubby Bunny videos

The other day when you posted your engagement video, one of the recommended-to-watch videos was your Chubby bunny something-or-other video so I clicked on it and it was one of the best things I've ever seen.

I had a lot of fun with survivor on ACF, but IIRC it was a very big event, as in...sort of a huge undertaking.

 

[Starling]

Are we only discussing community events or site projects too? I'd like to hear more about Lex's idea, which also got me thinking we could use a freestyle poetry thread. As much as the shenanigans of a relay of whatever game is chosen would be, I think it'd be nice if we could finally have a finished LP of FF7 on the youtube channel. Not just for having the LP done but also because the commentary could be really entertaining at times.

Jason, the death of the Hangman thread is partially on me and I would enjoy bringing it back as well but I'm not sure if I could keep things up like I did before at the moment. I'll still do what I can to keep it afloat even if you bring it back before I can really do much on it again though.

 

[Flintlock]

Are we only discussing community events or site projects too?

Just community events, but obviously there's going to be some overlap. It might be a good idea to have a discussion thread for project ideas as well, but that's more Lex's domain than mine.

 

[Channy]

Chubby Bunny videos

The other day when you posted your engagement video, one of the recommended-to-watch videos was your Chubby bunny something-or-other video so I clicked on it and it was one of the best things I've ever seen.

Oh God you saw it?

I had a lot of fun with survivor on ACF, but IIRC it was a very big event, as in...sort of a huge undertaking.

Oh I hadn't realized itd been on ACF too so yeah there's other people familiar with it then.

Yeah like with any project it's going to be work. But it'd love to work with the staff and show them the ropes of what's required if they're down with it. Ami too probably.

 

[Lex]

Are we only discussing community events or site projects too? I'd like to hear more about Lex's idea, which also got me thinking we could use a freestyle poetry thread. As much as the shenanigans of a relay of whatever game is chosen would be, I think it'd be nice if we could finally have a finished LP of FF7 on the youtube channel. Not just for having the LP done but also because the commentary could be really entertaining at times.

Jason, the death of the Hangman thread is partially on me and I would enjoy bringing it back as well but I'm not sure if I could keep things up like I did before at the moment. I'll still do what I can to keep it afloat even if you bring it back before I can really do much on it again though.

I don't want to derail the thread but progress is already being made on the LP front behind the scenes, stay tuned.

 

[Claymore]

Are we only discussing community events or site projects too?

Just community events, but obviously there's going to be some overlap. It might be a good idea to have a discussion thread for project ideas as well, but that's more Lex's domain than mine.

This might be a bit of an overlap, but a concept spurned on by Lex's post - with the ultimate aim of getting regular articles, content or authors up - could be to have a 'battle debate' feature.

Two writers are given a random subject and are provided with a random side to debate from (whether they would have chosen that side or not - though it's more fun if they wouldn't normally have picked that side). Then they write two short pieces for or against that subject. It could be done in a serious, or humourous style (or both). Then a community vote is made to determine the actual winner which is announced in a follow-up article with a short blurb from the winner.

Strict word count would be implemented so that they have to be short and sweet. It shouldn't be about who wrote the best, or whether you would naturally have chosen that side, but about who makes the most compelling / outrageous argument - whether that be in a serious or in a completely silly way.

Spoiler: chewbacca defense

It could be an ongoing feature series for the site and attract some attention. Not sure whether it would be best for two constant writers (so that we get a feel for what they love and hate, so that it's more fun when they get a side and topic they wouldn't normally go for) or two random writers.

Obviously, we could start out with VII topics but could quickly and easily branch out from there.


Again, with the above aim of more articles and content, the other idea I had was a kind of ongoing Community Redo A ... Character / Storyline / Location / Battle etc... event. Everyone would plough in on how to modernize and do a new take on a specific subject matter. It could be done in relation to the VII Remake or not (though the former might garner more hits). At the end of the allotted time, we'd collate the comments and discussions into an article and post the results.

Looking at some of the really great suggestions and discussions going on the various threads in the Remake subforum, a lot of stuff could easily be turned into an engaging article, and this could be a way to help facilitate that.


Hhm. Will try and think of some more. I did have a Chocobo Racing and Battle Royale forum games bouncing in my head, but I always overcomplicate stuff by attempting to add loads of stats and attributes.

 

[Starling]

I see problems with that kind of debate format. It would limit the subject someone could write about, how many words they can write their article in and then put the whole thing up to a popularity vote. I don't think it'd be fun if someone was stuck writing against something they really like, for example. It'd be better to just keep the guidelines simple and let anyone willing to participate write about a wider variety of subjects.

 

[Claymore]

I see problems with that kind of debate format. It would limit the subject someone could write about, how many words they can write their article in and then put the whole thing up to a popularity vote. I don't think it'd be fun if someone was stuck writing against something they really like, for example. It'd be better to just keep the guidelines simple and let anyone willing to participate write about a wider variety of subjects.

But that's half the fun. If there is a side on a certain subject matter that you really love, and then you find yourself on the opposing side - it forces you to look at it from the other perspective and attempt to write a counter argument against what would be your own thoughts. If it's just people writing about what they would love anyway, then that's not as much fun, and besides, anyone can do that anyway - there's nothing stopping people doing that now really (and that's already what Lex has got in mind).

Anyway, just a suggestion.

 

[Lex]

I like the idea, and if we go ahead with the writing idea I had, there's no reason we can't organise something like your suggestion as a kind of "special feature" event since it's a little bit more effort/ synergy required from the two opposing parties. I can already think of a fair few split debates in VII-related forum topics that would make good fodder for such a thing.

 

[Starling]

I already try to look at things from both sides, so I still find the suggested format limiting and potentially unpleasant. I'd rather just let people write what they feel like writing without being restricted to a particular side. I had to do something like that for class once and didn't enjoy it at all.