Talk:Common ITOD

Initial planning for a merit system

Well, it's time to buckle down and figure out exactly how the merit system is going to work. This is crucial, because it will determine how squadrons compete against each other and try to win.

First, we should identify our goals. A few goals I'd like to see:

• A highly squadron that is almost all people who play only one game should be able to defeat a fairly active squadron that plays multiple games. Activity is key.
• One highly active person should be able to get more points than multiple somewhat active people.

Up till now, we have had two kinds of activities available during an ITOD: flying and writing. I think we're going to need more. Because we need some way for one person to be able to be highly active. They will be giving all their energy to just one squadron, and plus, we often have people who get bored. So, some ways that a person can have a lot to do:

• Get points for flying the ITOD mission multiple times - but that sounds boring, and doesn't make a lot of sense.
• Get points for flying in multiple games - reward this, but not so much that a squadron who plays only one game doesn't have a chance of winning.
• Get points for writing a lot - that makes sense, and should be considered, but we have people with poor English for whom that would take a long time. However, people who take the time and care to write long, good narratives should get as many if not more points than those who fly. Writing is also subjective, so there should be guidelines on how to award points.
• Get points for flying simulator database missions - but that isn't related to the storyline, and thus shouldn't be a big part of ITOD activity. Perhaps award an amount for flying these, but limit it to something low.
• Introduce other kinds of competitions; these could be different for every mission. There are a wide range of possibilities for this. For example, on each mission you could have a competition on the best strategy for attacking an enemy given a similar situation to the mission. We'd need an expert on tactics to grade these, but it's a thought.

We'll also need bonuses for certain accomplishments.

• Participation bonuses, of course. If an entire squadron participates in some way, they'll receive a large bonus. Or, if most do (set the number at some minimum percentage or maximum inactive people), give them a small bonus too.
• A special bonus for having the highest score for any given version of the mission (for a specific game). This will preserve the killboard-type races we have now, and still make it worthwhile to be a good pilot.
• Special bonuses for surpassing a certain amount of text when combining all the squadron's narratives.

With nice rewards for writing, it's certainly possible that Aurora Force members could join the flying unit, just to help out by writing. I like that idea.

With all this in mind, I'm going to try and draft up a points system. It'll be a very rough draft, but at least it's a start :)

":)
Licah

Okay, now that there's a proposal...

I'm going to go in-depth and analyze what would happen in a battle between Red and Dagger. This will require me to predict what each pilot would do, based on what fleets they're in, how often they report, and how they perform. Then, at the end, we can see how much writing would affect the results.

Red Squadron

• Jan-lo: 10 (completed report)
• Rekstar: 10 (completed report)
• Slyder: 10 (completed report)
• Dhruv: 0
• Fed: 10 (completed report)
• Cain: 15 (2 completed reports)
• Shane: 13 (completed report, 3rd place in X-Wing)
• Steve: 14 (completed report, 2nd place in X-Wing)
• Ping: 10 (completed report)
• Alexander: 23 (4 completed reports, 5th place in XWA, 3 simulator database missions)
• Kresa: 15 (2 completed reports)

Flying participation: 10/11 (91%) - 30 additional pts

Flying total: 130

Dagger Squadron

• Kresa: 15 (2 completed reports)
• Castin: 10 (completed report)
• Himm: 12 (completed report, 4th place in XWA)
• Ton: 10 (completed report)
• Spokes: 26 (4 completed reports, 4th place in X-Wing, 4th place in XvT, 3rd place in XWA)
• Ric: 10 (completed report)
• Daron: 0
• Raistlin: 0
• Jon: 15 (2 completed reports)
• Alexander: 23 (4 completed reports, 5th place in XWA, 3 simulator database missions)

Flying participation: 8/10 (80%) - 24 additional pts

Flying total: 121

Is this a good measure? It seems to be pretty close, but not quite perfect. We haven't taken writing into account yet, though; to my knowledge, Red would win that, as I remember that they write a lot of narratives.

Could an AF squad compete? Let's say there's a squadron of 10 AFers who are really active. They average 5 pts for the personal narrative and 10 for the run-on, each.

• 5 pts * 10 = 50
• 10 pts * 10 = 100
• 4 (for 100%) * 10 = 40
• 1 * 30 pages / 3 = 10

So, the AF squadron I described would get 200 points, easily enough to defeat the flying-only performances of Red and Dagger. But that was an almost ideal squadron. Let's take an almost ideal flying squadron. 10 people averaging 3 completed reports.

• 10 pts * 10 = 100
• 10 pts * 5 = 50
• 10 pts * 2 = 20
• 4 (for 100%) * 10 = 40

At 210 points, they're defeating the writers, and haven't flown any simulator database missions yet.

This system seems to allow active pilots and writers to each do well, but people who do both will do the best. I suppose we then just need to ask ourselves, should we make writing in the RS that important? I think that just might be a good idea. We have an exciting ITOD being designed by Vender, and everyone will be participating in the same storyline for the first time. And there's no better way to get into the storyline than to imagine yourself in there by writing with others.

--Licah Fox

Common ITOD?

First, I think this sounds like something that could be fun. Having a common SL would be nice. But - I have a few things I want to know first. This is: I will want a gurantee that this thing is actually followed up from start to end. The complete SL must be worked out first, the missions must be given a fairly detailed outline for each game, I will want to have gurantees (as far as it is possible in an online club where people might disappear suddenly) that there is competent mission makers signed up for each mission to be made, I will want to have a gurantee that merits and medals are actually awarded. Wuth all this in place, yeah, then go for it.

My main concern is the making of the missions. I can only talk for the IBG, but really, it's hard enough to get the monthly mission made. I've been on the ITOD Team for 2,5 years, longer than anyone else by far. For long periods we've been two or three active members, and that's not because we've tried to keep people away from the work. For the time being, we've got a couple of more active makers, but they're new to making missions, and it will take some time before they can make missions that's any good. Having a series of "we fly in, the imps fly in, we do some dogfighting, we beat the imps and win the day" missions, like for instance the current one (501), well, that's sure to turn off our veterans and the flying aces. I know Ceph can make make more advanced missions, I know I can make them, and I guess there is maybe a couple more in the RS capable of doing so. The difficult thing for XWA missions isn't really to make complex missions, but to make missions that prevent people like me from taking advantage of the (serious) flaws of the game.

Then, are people bored? I doubt it. On several occasions we've had (in the IBG) two parallell missions. The result? both missions get a lower number of reports than what we use to have on one mission per month, and only a very low number (3-4) pilots put much work into both missions. We saw this with 110/201, 111/202, 112/203, and 404/404SE. In the last instance, 3(!) pilots bothered to fly the extra mission, and one of them was me. So I don't buy the bored argument.

Merits - this sounds fun, and it will have to be a merit ranking apart from the standard fleet ranking. I think I would actually treat the common ITOD as I do our own; pilots would get merit on the IBG ranking as if the ITOD was our own. I might even consider doing the same with medals.

I agree on finding a way to even out the odds between the squadrons, by using some kind of formula that will give the squadrons with few reporting pilots an opportunity to really fight with a squadron with lots of reporting pilots.

There is a few details on the merit earning that I'd like to come back to later on, like how to handle multiple reports from a pilot on a mission. Hehe, I tend to fly most missions more than 30 times, often more than 50, and that might earn me too many points :)

Finally, on writing. I see the argument behind making writing more important. But honestly, I can hardly see that it can be said to be competition between a flying unit and a writing unit. I might agree that it could be said to be competition between a PBF squad and an IBG squad, but sorry, writing is something else. Then, writing as an element in the competition between flying units; yeah, ok, but not playing such an important role as suggested. Important, yes, but not that important.

Foregive me if I sound negative; I'm not :) I will be happy to do what I can to make this happen. We must, however, be sure we can handle it before we do it.

Himm

response to Himm

Bored people: I realize that "boredom" applies to only a few people, but those people are our most active ones, and the ones we need to make sure aren't bored, so they won't leave for other clubs where they can do more. I can think of quite a few people that this has happened to. Also, when people come to the RS after being in other clubs, they're surprised at the lack of possibilities for activity in SP. The EH, for example, has a huge Battle Center. Perhaps the Simulator Database will take care of the bored people, though, and we'll only need 1 version of the mission for each game. And that would be a good place to start at the beginning. So I suppose boredom isn't too bad.

Merits: Multiple reports from a pilot would just be like the current system: only the highest score would be counted. So, only 10 points for a mission complete, no matter how many reports were submitted. I think this makes the best sense.

Writing: Taking the possible points for writing down a notch is fine with me. How about simply removing the squadron bonus for writing? That'll spare us from people writing tons of filler just to get pages. I'll go ahead and do that. *done* And don't worry, the writing squadron thing was just in theory. I'm sure the Aurora Force won't want to merge with us.

Missionmaking: Well, this is your main concern, no? I agree, but Vender is actually planning this out carefully. I hope he'll write something on this page soon. With making the actual missions, I think if the XWA makers can hold up their end, the rest will be pretty easy (XW, TIE, and XvT are all much less complicated). I'll have to let Vender show his ITOD planning skills, though.

Conclusion: As far as I can tell, I answered your concerns, and now we just need a plan for the storyline :) let me know if you still have any questions or concerns.

--Licah Fox

Some of My Ideas.

Ok, let me start off by saying that a common ITOD like this would have to be somewhat more detailed than what you're used to seeing out of a Normal ITOD. Let me take you through the steps I'm going through. I'm also writing a website to explain my ideas better, and I'm roughly halfway done. I'm pretty much creating the steps I need to go through to complete such a large project.

Right now, I'm just giving you some examples of what I'm working on. It sounds complicated at first, but it all has its place and purpose to make such a large ITOD work in conjunction with a unified story line.

There are 3 main areas of detail that have to be worked on, before I even begin to make the actual story. Besides plot anyways, I have that.

1. Location 2. Our own Forces 3. The Enemy

1. Location

Detail is very important to me when I get into talking about ITODs. Just like we saw in the Outer Rim Wars, they had a gigantic map of the area we were fighting for. This shows us where we are, and what we're fighting over/for.

When you talk about locations in a story, you want the reader to have a good picture of where these places are. What better to do that than a simple Map? Easy to do, and it helps everyone understand the story so much more.

For this common ITOD, we'll be in some of our own Sectors, and one new one. So it will actually spread across 2 to 3 Sectors really.. But anyways, yeah. Location, very important detail that I will use constantly within the Story and Mission Outlines.

2. Our own Forces. These need to be defined a little better for a common ITOD. Wings or "Task Forces" as I see it, need actual purposes. As it stands, everyone pretty much does the same thing. There is no one specific job.. That makes planning a larger ITOD very hard, if you're going to add perspective to it.

So I've come up with "Task Force Functions". Functions are attached to a Task Force. There are 3 MAIN functions of a Task Force.

1. Recon 2. Assault 3. Defense

Within those functions there are of course many different options of how to utilize those functions (which I explain on my webpage) and this further defines every single Wing's purpose in this ITOD. This also gives people a sense of Identity in a way, they won't be some random fighter among the stars. Squadrons and Wings will be mentioned in story, as specific Wings and Squadrons will be talked about being attacked, or the ones attacking.

3. The Enemy

I feel it is important to make the Enemy as real as our club is, at least concerning who commands them, what kind of firepower they have, and what drives them. Their own specific locations as well. They need goals like us, they need resources, they need a strategy to utilize their own forces.

This also makes an ITOD actually easier to put together. When the Enemy has these things:

1. An actual Force (Not 'unlimited' forces.) When a ship is blown up, it's gone. If they steal a ship, it's theirs. Realism. 2. Their own Specific Goals 3. Resources they have to work with. 4. The first 3 combined makes it easy to create a strategy, especially looking at the RS's forces where they will clash somehow. (which I have some great ideas on)

So there are just many simple ideas that create the whole, every part has its own details. Of course, this takes a little bit of time to do, especially since I'm only one person. Though since I've layed out most of the steps now, I've figured out the hard part. Now I'm at the fun part. Making the Story and the Outlines.

There's a lot more to this than I've put down here, again most of these are basic examples of my ideas. You'll just need to see the Outlines and the Story when I'm done. May take a few weeks, maybe a month. But I'm pumped and on this shit.

--Vender

ITOD details

Right, Vender, realism. I agree. And it makes things fun. It demands a lot of the mission makers, though. The IBG just ended it's Tour 4. I wrote the SL, and hammered out the details for every mission, with the ship setup, fighters available, location, background details like random space stations and freighters coming and going. I had Ent read the whole thing through, and give his comments and advices. And - I ended up having to make most of the missions myself. Now, that was actually fun, but it was not what I'd intended. But it proved difficult to have different makers with different levels of understanding of AlliEd. So even a couple of those missions others made, had to go through (heavy) editing by myself before they were released. And quite a few of the missions we made could've been much better if we'd had time enough. I welcome your SL, and I hope to get a chance to make a mission :) One of the things I like with having a realistic ITOD is the chance to loose ships and win new ones. We lost one DREAD and two Corellian Gunships, and won a VSDII and a small group of Gunboats. Nice way to change the OOB.

The backside is that the less experienced mission makers will have small chances of taking part in the making. But then, they can make missions for the mission database. As for that, by making the IBG pack of missions, Licah has already provided us with a nice collection of missions easily available.

SL note: I expect the fleet CO's to be consulted when it comes to the setup of each fleet, ships we can loose etc. Also, I expect the SL itself to be in a way presented to us, with the option to give feedback on the story. This to see if we can make it have some continuation of what we've been doing over the last year or so.

Himm

New Perspective

This was originally something I was working on for the DB, but since that position was dissolved and there wasn't ever really any interest to support it, I thought I might be able to make use for it here. At the very least, it might offer a different perspective on the whole "Common TOD" thing.

I had developed this idea off talking with Vender about possible story arcs. In my mind, this was going to be like, crazy-awesome huge; a real epic event for the whole club. It would be a rather ambitious undertaking if it was executed like I envision it.

Tours will be divided into "seasons" of 5-7 missions each. Missions will be released once every 2-3 weeks. Since under the super fleet proposal, there are multiple platform to work with, the mission for each platform would probably be staggered by a week. So week 1 tie missions, week 2 xwa mission, etc.

Now one of the cool things I thought about trying to build into the tour is that it'll have variant story lines of a sort. If you've ever played a game like Starfox, you might have an idea of what I'm talking about.

Basically each mission will branch the storyline into different directions. Some of the major events will occur regardless, but the outcome of each individual mission will determine what order and which secondary events (like characters dying in the fiction) occur. The outcome will be determined by certain mission or bonus goals that will be viewed as an averaged from all submissions for that mission.

This ties well into idea that vender tossed out of having both sides of the story going on. Someone had mentioned having only one tod mission (per platform) at a time, and then having the others on side stories. Combining the ideas, you could have half missions (for a period) centered on the main story then have others playing the mission as the "bad" guys. Depending on which side does better, depends on which way the story goes. Don't have an exact system in mind, but it would add something different to the whole experience. Plus you get both sides of the story, like in a book.

Fictional was another strong component to this. There will be fiction written in between missions, to help present a seamless storyline of events. Also there will be mission narratives with each mission. The winning submission is the perspective that the mission is recorded as or something. I expect some alternations to this as it develops, but it's a good way to encourage some writing among a joystick jockey crowd or vice versa.

And then medals, merits and all that noise.

Since I do a lot of ranting, I offer a little summary of ideas:

• TODs would become more involved, having side-stories as the larger plot progresses.
• TOD story arcs would be divided into "seasons" of 5-7 missions each.
• Missions will be released once every 2-3 weeks.
• To accommodate the Super Fleet reorganization, missions for different platforms would have a staggered releases.
• There would be a variable storyline progression (think Starfox), with some missions featuring the main or sub-story line, and the others playing the "other side."
• Units would be divided into objectives and the progression of the story would depending on the outcome of those objectives.
• There will be a strong fiction component (including narratives and intermediate fiction) to help present a seamless storyline of events. Winning submissions would be recorded as the mission perspective.

--Rekio 05:45, 26 February 2006 (EST)