Its snowing and most people didnt show up for work so I'm here to post a few things today (please forgive me!)

So....first post is simple...

Is there an 'Area Writing Faq' for CF? If not...why not?

Secondly...

I tried a looooong time ago to write an area (all I really wanted was a little small casino! at most a few rooms!) but the requirement if I remember was ALOT more than a few rooms...why is that?

A few months ago I forget which IMM, had people email descriptions for stuff to put into that new arial city. I sent a few. Didn't take much of my time. Why can't that be a more typical process for area writing for at least the descritive parts of areas? Offload the fairly easy stuff over to one team of willing players and the coding parts to another team instead of (once again if I remember correctly) having one solo HeroImm trying to do one area by themselves? Probably be faster and less stressfulfor everyone...but maybe there something im missing here which serves as the reason you do it the way you do...

Dunno...just a thouyght...more thoughts and ideas to come!!

There is no player FAQ on the subject. That's probably because contributing to CF by writing areas is something only Immortals may do for a variety of reasons.

Thanks for the reply :)

I think perhaps putting just a wee little bit out there would be good for both sides....I can write descriptions all day long, I can probably do an entire room or three on my own. Im just saying...if you gave out the tools, I think quite a few pplayers given a few directions could contribute alot of content in their offtime if not for that writing an entire area by themselves thing. For example if you were to tell me, Moli - I need you to write a room in a bar, stat. I could do that easily if I had the tools and your email to send you the finished product.

You have to go through the process of earning it as an immortal. The new guys nowadays have to do it in simplified terms before even getting the area faqs. I, for one, wouldn't want to see that changed because the whole process is about learning and earning. Any of the really neat gear, area progs etc. have a series of approvals before it is accepted or rejected. With the amount of heroimms we have working on this step in the progression and sometimes having to wait for a senior imm to give the stamp of approval, I wouldn't think overseeing a non-imms area as really cool when they could be looking at said heroimms area. Writing an area takes a lot more than just adding a few rooms most of the time. But, the reasons for that is in the faq, and you have to earn the right to look at that. :P

For example if you were to tell me,
>Moli - I need you to write a room in a bar, stat. I could do
>that easily if I had the tools and your email to send you the
>finished product.
>

That's the thing... what's the end-to-end turnaround time on that?

I can write one room (both the descriptions and all the other area file "stuff") in a few minutes. It would literally take me longer to have you do it than it would to do it myself, and that doesn't address things like having you formally renounce your copyrights to it, the consistency of writing styles, any particular requirements I might have, possibly getting it reviewed by an IMP for balance issues, communicating all the relevant info (what connects to the bar, etc.), and probably a handful of factors I can't think of off the cuff.

And not only does this require you to jump when I say jump, but I'm actually wasting time if you either don't pull through for me or deliver a product I can't or won't use.

It's not that we don't want contributions from players where it makes sense, but it does have to make sense and be practical. This kind of thing just isn't practical.

And like Lyristeon said, part of having your own work stare back at you from the screen is earning it. Anyone can, at their leisure, write a mob or a room. We don't really have a need for that. What we do have is a need for people willing to contribute some very serious hours to Carrion Fields in order to make it a better game and in doing so, earn the ability to contribute in even more (and sometimes more fun) ways.

EDIT: I don't spell well.

The Arial City thing was fun but it was a lot of work. I'd do it again because I think it was a worthwhile experience for everyone involved but I wouldn't call it something that made things simpler.

The most challenging part of being one of CF's Area Guys/Gals is dealing with submissions that require heavy editing (or flat-out rewriting) to get up to standard.

Finding people who have the full area author skill set is hard. Ideally, we describe a need in rough terms, take a few questions, hand that off, and have them turn in a finished product that's close to ready. That requires the creative skill set, game knowledge (for continuity, mood, etc.), technical writing skills, etc. And even then, we spend a lot of time reviewing, editing, etc.

It doesn't scale well to a few descriptions, potentially with a new person each time. It takes too much time to describe the need, train them up on formatting (or just take text and format it myself), communicate the content, edit the small stuff, then swap it onto the live copy and test. If I spend time working on training the person, that's gone when I have to work with someone else the next time I need something. Then consider that there's a reasonable chance that the work never gets done, or that the submission isn't usable.

Now, all of this goes away if we arrange to regularly work with people who we pre-screen for strong writing skills, have them commit to larger projects, and work out time for training, Q&A, etc. We call these people "heroimms", and at the end they can ideally handle projects by themselves.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com