02-08-2012, 12:07 AM
(This post was last modified: 02-13-2012, 04:34 AM by Sigfried Hunin.)
Vad asked me to help him make a system for his Gundam thing, but what came out of my end more closely resembled something that could be used by any writing community that wants a game aspect to it. It's a system that rewards working with others, collaborating, interacting and giving feedback. It's a simple system with only 3 moving parts, all of which must be updated manually by a staff member.
Skill
This is a basic representation on how "powerful" or "experienced" or "whatever" characters are in the world. It directly ties into an overall score when going into PvP. The hard number starts at 25 and slowly moves upwards as you, the writer, collaborates with other writers for missions or participate in Player Vs. Player scenarios. All in all, you increase your Skill by writing with other writers.
Currency
A player uses currency to purchase items, upgrades, fix things, vehicles, or other items that are ACTUALLY IMPORTANT for the character to use. The way that a character earns more currency is to participate in writing feedback. This feedback follows a standard format (with plenty of space for free-form feedback) and can be applied to a mission, a PvP scenario or any number of other writings. If you are selected by the writer as the best reviewer, you get a bonus!
Missions
Missions are tasks that either moderators or fellow writers create with a DIFFICULTY that determines what their length must be. These missions can be carried out with other writers or alone but the total required word count is cumulative, so writing with others can significantly reduce the workload. Missions allow writers to unlock new material for the writer; eg: New powers, points to BUY powers, new mobile suits, new power crystals, basically new writing material or unlocking something that can make writing more interesting or your character more diverse. The writer's total score from the Review Board determines what rewards the receive from a mission.
A fight can either be part of a mission, a pre-arranged fight or completely random. Any time two characters fight, it is considered PvP and follow these rules.
A fight initiates on the post that the two characters make contact with each other and lasts until the two writers meet a pre-determined stopping point. Both writers must have an equal number of posts, however each post can be as long or short as the writer desires (as long as it coincides with pre-determined standards as listed above).
After a fight is completed, a review board reviews the fight and gives each of the fighters a score on the Universal Review Card. These points are tallied, and each writer receives a total score point. That total is then multiplied by their Pilot Skill/100 (Pilot skill of 25 would be .25). The character with the highest points after the multiplication wins the fight.
Depending on the setting, the victor can usually either choose to kill/destroy the opponent or not.
Regardless of who wins the match, each character receives a bonus to their Skill equal to OPPONENT'S SKILL/YOUR SKILL x 2. That means that is a player with a Pilot Skill of 50 fought a player with a Pilot Skill of 100, the player with 50 would receive 4 Skill and the other would receive 1 Skill.
A Mission's difficulty determines how long must be. There are no grades here, the difficulty is just listed as:
Difficulty: 10,000 words
or whatever the length of the mission is. To encourage characters writing together, a mission should have at LEAST 5000 words required. Each mission must have rewards that can help expand the writer's options with their character, even if those options are small. Each rank for the overall grade that a Review Board can give should have their own reward, or at the very least 5-3 should have a reward, with both 1 and -1 having their own special rewards. Any reward for a Grade -1 should be absolutely awesome (but still related to the mission in some way) because a -1 Grade represents professional grade writing.
A writer earns 1 Skill for every 2000 words per addition writer. So if a writer writes 4000 words for a Mission that was completed with two other writers would get 4 Skill (2[words]x 2[extra writers]). This is one of the fastest ways to earn Skill (and to improve your WRITING skill!)
A Review Board is a collection of fellow writers from the community who must read and provide feedback on any given mission or battle. Each member of the board fills out a standardized form that awards the writers points in certain attributed of writing.
Any number of people can give feedback in a review board.
At the end of the review (after a week of review time) the writer is awarded for the mission or fight based off of the reviews. All reviewers receive a flat amount of money. The writer then chooses from the reviews the post that most helped them grow as a writer. The Best Review is then awarded an additional sum of money.
The writer or any member of the review board may at any time call a "Vote of No Confidence" on any review if they believe that the reviewer in question either did not read the writer's material or did not provide meaningful feedback. That reviewer's scores will not be counted and they will receive a warning.
Description and Clarity:
This section covers how effectively the writer created the world around the reader. Making sure that the reader can understand what is being described, using vivid or appropriate descriptions of items, events and people in the story and having good word choice all go into this section of the review. Note that using “purple prose” is not always effective, nor is consistently using flat, dry description. A writer that gets a good score in this section draws the reader into the world and allows them to see through the eyes of the character/narrator.
Voice:
No two writers write in the same style, nor should they. Even individual stories call for individual writing styles, a mood that creates a tinted lens through which the story is viewed. This is traditionally called the “voice” of the writer and it is a very important part of writing. A writer with a high score in this considers tone, pacing and including/disincluding detail throughout the entire story.
Character:
Character development, the actions and motivation of characters and dialogue are all important in this section. The goal is to create “round” characters as opposed to “flat” ones. Making the people in your writing seem real, not just archetypes following a plot progression is the goal here. The writer should consider who the people they are writing as are as individuals, why they take certain actions, their personal problems and boon, how they interact with the world around themselves and how they approach problems are all considerations for a writer in this section. Note that not all GOOD characters are LIKABLE characters. If you really hate a character who’s well written, this section deserves a high score!
Story:
Every body of creative writing, no matter how short or long, follows a storyline. How well the themes, events, messages and twists grab the reader is what makes the difference between a decent story and a great story. The writer must capture the reader’s attention hold it with the actions of characters and the world around them. This isn’t to say that a writing must be packed with action or intrigue, even something as simple as eating breakfast can be made into a great story. The presentation of events and how those events tie into the writer’s voice is what makes it good reading.
Grammar and Spelling:
This is the clerical work of the body of work. Spelling, punctuation, grammar and anything else that can be considered technical goes into this section. If a reviewer does not feel comfortable judging this section, they may simply like a “-“ sign instead of a grade and the average will be adjusted. Generally every major grammatical error per 500 words moves this section down one grade.
Audience:
This section is devoted to how well you, as the reader, liked the story overall. If there is anything that made you love or hate a story that isn’t listed above, or can be expanded upon, it goes here. A writer knowing and catering to their audience can be just as important as anything else when it comes to writing (eg: Twilight).
Grading Scale
- : This section did not receive a grade because the grader did not feel comfortable grading it.
4: This section was below average performance. There is a lot of room for improvement and this section of the story significantly brought down the rest of the story. Generally the reviewer should highlight how the writer could improve this area as well as direct them to outside sources that can give more help.
3: This section was about average. The writer has significant room for improvement but about par with the rest of the site’s writing ability. Reviewer should highlight areas to improve and site specific errors or weak spots.
2: This section is above average. The writer has shown a competency higher than the average writer on the site, but can still notably improve. The reviewer can be more vague with their ideas for improvement but still include specific details and weak spots.
1: This section was fantastic! The writer took the reins and really took the reader on a journey. Few errors or room for improvement can be found by the reviewer but anything that the reviewer feels could be cleaned up should be noted.
-1: This section is one of the best the reviewer has ever seen. This level of writing is on par with professionals with very few errors and the reviewer should have a hard time finding room to improve. This grade should be handed out rarely, and only to the very best writing!
(Each of these sections should have at least 1 short paragraph of review, not just a raw score!)
Description and Clarity:
Review:
Voice:
Review:
Character:
Review:
Story:
Review:
Grammar and Spelling:
SPECIFIC Examples of Errors and Corrected Versions:
Audience:
Review:
Overall Score: (Tally up points, divide by # of sections graded.)
Universal Social Writing System
Skill
This is a basic representation on how "powerful" or "experienced" or "whatever" characters are in the world. It directly ties into an overall score when going into PvP. The hard number starts at 25 and slowly moves upwards as you, the writer, collaborates with other writers for missions or participate in Player Vs. Player scenarios. All in all, you increase your Skill by writing with other writers.
Currency
A player uses currency to purchase items, upgrades, fix things, vehicles, or other items that are ACTUALLY IMPORTANT for the character to use. The way that a character earns more currency is to participate in writing feedback. This feedback follows a standard format (with plenty of space for free-form feedback) and can be applied to a mission, a PvP scenario or any number of other writings. If you are selected by the writer as the best reviewer, you get a bonus!
Missions
Missions are tasks that either moderators or fellow writers create with a DIFFICULTY that determines what their length must be. These missions can be carried out with other writers or alone but the total required word count is cumulative, so writing with others can significantly reduce the workload. Missions allow writers to unlock new material for the writer; eg: New powers, points to BUY powers, new mobile suits, new power crystals, basically new writing material or unlocking something that can make writing more interesting or your character more diverse. The writer's total score from the Review Board determines what rewards the receive from a mission.
Combat and PvP
A fight can either be part of a mission, a pre-arranged fight or completely random. Any time two characters fight, it is considered PvP and follow these rules.
A fight initiates on the post that the two characters make contact with each other and lasts until the two writers meet a pre-determined stopping point. Both writers must have an equal number of posts, however each post can be as long or short as the writer desires (as long as it coincides with pre-determined standards as listed above).
After a fight is completed, a review board reviews the fight and gives each of the fighters a score on the Universal Review Card. These points are tallied, and each writer receives a total score point. That total is then multiplied by their Pilot Skill/100 (Pilot skill of 25 would be .25). The character with the highest points after the multiplication wins the fight.
Depending on the setting, the victor can usually either choose to kill/destroy the opponent or not.
Regardless of who wins the match, each character receives a bonus to their Skill equal to OPPONENT'S SKILL/YOUR SKILL x 2. That means that is a player with a Pilot Skill of 50 fought a player with a Pilot Skill of 100, the player with 50 would receive 4 Skill and the other would receive 1 Skill.
Missions, Rewards and Skill
A Mission's difficulty determines how long must be. There are no grades here, the difficulty is just listed as:
Difficulty: 10,000 words
or whatever the length of the mission is. To encourage characters writing together, a mission should have at LEAST 5000 words required. Each mission must have rewards that can help expand the writer's options with their character, even if those options are small. Each rank for the overall grade that a Review Board can give should have their own reward, or at the very least 5-3 should have a reward, with both 1 and -1 having their own special rewards. Any reward for a Grade -1 should be absolutely awesome (but still related to the mission in some way) because a -1 Grade represents professional grade writing.
A writer earns 1 Skill for every 2000 words per addition writer. So if a writer writes 4000 words for a Mission that was completed with two other writers would get 4 Skill (2[words]x 2[extra writers]). This is one of the fastest ways to earn Skill (and to improve your WRITING skill!)
Review Board
A Review Board is a collection of fellow writers from the community who must read and provide feedback on any given mission or battle. Each member of the board fills out a standardized form that awards the writers points in certain attributed of writing.
Any number of people can give feedback in a review board.
At the end of the review (after a week of review time) the writer is awarded for the mission or fight based off of the reviews. All reviewers receive a flat amount of money. The writer then chooses from the reviews the post that most helped them grow as a writer. The Best Review is then awarded an additional sum of money.
The writer or any member of the review board may at any time call a "Vote of No Confidence" on any review if they believe that the reviewer in question either did not read the writer's material or did not provide meaningful feedback. That reviewer's scores will not be counted and they will receive a warning.
Review Form
Description and Clarity:
This section covers how effectively the writer created the world around the reader. Making sure that the reader can understand what is being described, using vivid or appropriate descriptions of items, events and people in the story and having good word choice all go into this section of the review. Note that using “purple prose” is not always effective, nor is consistently using flat, dry description. A writer that gets a good score in this section draws the reader into the world and allows them to see through the eyes of the character/narrator.
Voice:
No two writers write in the same style, nor should they. Even individual stories call for individual writing styles, a mood that creates a tinted lens through which the story is viewed. This is traditionally called the “voice” of the writer and it is a very important part of writing. A writer with a high score in this considers tone, pacing and including/disincluding detail throughout the entire story.
Character:
Character development, the actions and motivation of characters and dialogue are all important in this section. The goal is to create “round” characters as opposed to “flat” ones. Making the people in your writing seem real, not just archetypes following a plot progression is the goal here. The writer should consider who the people they are writing as are as individuals, why they take certain actions, their personal problems and boon, how they interact with the world around themselves and how they approach problems are all considerations for a writer in this section. Note that not all GOOD characters are LIKABLE characters. If you really hate a character who’s well written, this section deserves a high score!
Story:
Every body of creative writing, no matter how short or long, follows a storyline. How well the themes, events, messages and twists grab the reader is what makes the difference between a decent story and a great story. The writer must capture the reader’s attention hold it with the actions of characters and the world around them. This isn’t to say that a writing must be packed with action or intrigue, even something as simple as eating breakfast can be made into a great story. The presentation of events and how those events tie into the writer’s voice is what makes it good reading.
Grammar and Spelling:
This is the clerical work of the body of work. Spelling, punctuation, grammar and anything else that can be considered technical goes into this section. If a reviewer does not feel comfortable judging this section, they may simply like a “-“ sign instead of a grade and the average will be adjusted. Generally every major grammatical error per 500 words moves this section down one grade.
Audience:
This section is devoted to how well you, as the reader, liked the story overall. If there is anything that made you love or hate a story that isn’t listed above, or can be expanded upon, it goes here. A writer knowing and catering to their audience can be just as important as anything else when it comes to writing (eg: Twilight).
Grading Scale
- : This section did not receive a grade because the grader did not feel comfortable grading it.
4: This section was below average performance. There is a lot of room for improvement and this section of the story significantly brought down the rest of the story. Generally the reviewer should highlight how the writer could improve this area as well as direct them to outside sources that can give more help.
3: This section was about average. The writer has significant room for improvement but about par with the rest of the site’s writing ability. Reviewer should highlight areas to improve and site specific errors or weak spots.
2: This section is above average. The writer has shown a competency higher than the average writer on the site, but can still notably improve. The reviewer can be more vague with their ideas for improvement but still include specific details and weak spots.
1: This section was fantastic! The writer took the reins and really took the reader on a journey. Few errors or room for improvement can be found by the reviewer but anything that the reviewer feels could be cleaned up should be noted.
-1: This section is one of the best the reviewer has ever seen. This level of writing is on par with professionals with very few errors and the reviewer should have a hard time finding room to improve. This grade should be handed out rarely, and only to the very best writing!
(Each of these sections should have at least 1 short paragraph of review, not just a raw score!)
Description and Clarity:
Review:
Voice:
Review:
Character:
Review:
Story:
Review:
Grammar and Spelling:
SPECIFIC Examples of Errors and Corrected Versions:
Audience:
Review:
Overall Score: (Tally up points, divide by # of sections graded.)
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
![[Image: Zhu.jpg]](http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee314/Dirtbag_Bucket_2007/Zhu.jpg)
![[Image: OrionAug11.jpg]](http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b187/captain_civic/OrionAug11.jpg)
