AFW Writing unison

Hi everyone,
Recently its been noticed that the nature of AFW matches (in particular title matches, PPV events and stuff involving main characters), have started to become more competitive and by competitive, I don't mean competitive between characters... I mean competitive between members.

When we RP together, what is happening is two writers are coming together to collaborate on a story.. The only way that the story can work out is if the two writers work together in unison... The better the understanding between the writers to know what each other wants out of the story and the better trust between the two to allow each other to lead the storyline one way or the other... The better the story is going to be.

I, the mods and even some members are getting concerned that the focus on a collaborative storyline is being sacrificed due to one or both of the writers wanting to pull the overall story towards a certain direction.. This often results ironically in friction and tension between the two writers and the story itself suffers.

Cutting to the chase, we feel that we need to make a few changes in order to sway the pendulum back over towards the collaborative nature that we always intended AFW to be.. What I have listed below are ideas currently being considered to help things in the right direction


1. Ranking system removal
At the moment, basically is "win to proceed"... If you fail to win your match you are punished by dropping in the placings and possibly dropping right out of the rankings all together. Losing a match is not a negative in the same way that winning isn't always positive. The idea first and foremost is to have a good match and we are starting to see that the ranking system isn't conveying the right message.. So we are considering removing the ranking system.

2. Collaborative title matches
Title matches are suffering because ultimately, no matter what you say.. everyone wants to win a title. So rather then trying to determine the winner during the match and possibly having problems during the match as a result, it might be a much better idea for ALL title matches to be decided before hand in private between the members involved, having the winner of the match determined before the match even begins... That way, both members can concentrate on having an enjoyable match rather then concentrate on winning or the possibility of losing.

3. Showcase matches and promos
Instead of rewarding wins, we want to reward good RPing, entertaining matches and storyline... And if we are to lose the ranking system, some players will still want something to be able to shoot for. So one suggestion is showcase matches and promos... Basically if you tag the title of a match, RP or promo you make with the word "showcase", it is suppose to be a spotlight for your character and the way you play her or him. Its important to note that in these showcases, we won't neccessarily be looking for characters that are showing off how they are the best... but rather we will be looking at Quality, volume and interest in these showcases. The rewards for good sets of showcases could be inclusion in PPVs and title shots.

4. Wrestler Directory
Also in a bid to replace the ranking system and also to facilitate the "showcase" idea when it comes to the main title belt, we are considering having a non ranked list of characters which members will submit themselves in order to suggest who they would want competing for the Friction main title belt.


So, they are the 4 main suggestions so far to be considered... Feedback on these would be great and feel free to put in any other suggestions that you think will help. But the main focus here should be for us to move towards more collaboration (even in undecided matches) and therefore better matches as a whole

a registry thread would be a perfect idea to track the wins and loses, but who will be the one who tracks and organizes that particular thread/

The wrestling directory's main purpose won't be to track wins and loses... The whole point is to move away from looking too much into win/lose ratios

These idea's are new and good of hearing, Anegge was right about the mess, but these idea's may/may not affect some members new and current, lets just say the change is something we can adapt to here.

I kinda like the idea of the top ten but it could be made to be less about wins and losses, instead how about the top ten is mod picked by them looking through these showcase threads and sorta forming these top ten list which changes whenever the mods feel some have moved up or not. other than that I like this idea of an unranked list of the people going for a title, though id do a list for each title and one wrestler can only go for one at a time.

I am 100% for the idea of pre decided title matches, though perhaps give people the choice of deciding to pick the outcome either at the start or somewhere down the line during the match. It seems all the title matches lately, well most of them, have had trouble so thats a good idea.

Its at least good to see that some people actually are here for the fun, and not the competition. I'm all for a little competitiveness here and there, but I'm a sucker for a good story, and that's what I, and a lot of others I am writing with are here for.

That said, the idea of removing the ranking system seems pretty fair to me. It would definitely help sway people more towards creative writing rather than winning. I like these (possible) changes.

And so the flames begin to crawl! Neeehaahahahahahaahohahahahahaheeeee!


HUNGRY PEOPLE DON'T STAY HUNGRY FOR LONG!

I like it.

In my opinion:

1. Don't remove the ranking system. Modify it if it causes problems with it's win/loss philosophy, maybe in the form of evaluation of matches and activity of the user like you suggested in point 3.
2. Collaborative is fine and dandy. But please don't make match outcomes predictable, it's also one of the reason why real wrestling suffers, nothing is more boring than already knowing who is winning this or that with a high percentage of happening(Cena wins, lol). A title match would be absolutely pointless for me to write if I know from the start that I would win or loose it, and writing would surely suffer. If clash of directions is a problem, decide the outcome by chance(coin flip maybe), or let the mods bok it after an evaluation of the match.
3. I like idea Nr. 3 if it supplements the ranking instead of replacing it. No complains from me here, although that's bound to be work for mods.^^
4. So you would remove the public list and make it an intern list? Even if no real listing is applied, the only way to avoid having a pecking order again is a selection of the contenders by chance, and that's probably bound to be a trainwreck waiting to happen when two people that can't write a good match together are paired.

Adding something not on the list, don't forget the smaller belts like Kawaii and Entropy. I am pretty sure that both are worth fighting for in the perception of many players and have to be featured more often, like the hardcore and the tag team belt.

All 4 Proposals are good ideas and i support them in full