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Post by Jae on Feb 4, 2015 19:59:24 GMT -5
I really like this idea!
I also agree that I prefer the honors system. It might not be a big issue early on, but how would the peer review system work if someone chose to write in their native language and it was randomly sent to someone who didn't speak said language? As long as the site and other users don't stand to LOSE anything by allowing idiots to cheat, I don't see why the honor system wouldn't work. That and I also don't like people reading what I'm writing until I'm done with it. .__.
If your friend is worried about people exploiting it, would it be possible for the word counter to flag certain "words" like lorem and ipsum and sqaure brackets (like the citations from wikipedia articles) for example?
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Post by Deleted on Feb 4, 2015 20:09:44 GMT -5
A flagging system might be a good idea--thanks for the suggestion! The entire rewards system would be self-contained, so cheaters in the honor system would not actually be able to unfairly influence the rest of the game, unlike in MMOs. I figure 99% of users would be sincere anyway. It's like a fitness pedometer, or one of those old Pokemon Pikachu toys--yes, you can sit on the couch and watch TV while shaking it, but it doesn't ruin the ability of other people to enjoy using theirs properly. You're only cheating yourself, out of the benefits of using a tool for its intended purpose.
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Post by Stephanie (swordlilly) on Feb 4, 2015 22:25:38 GMT -5
I personally feel like the whole peer review system would be way too much of a hassle for both other users and site staff, but my friend is stuck on the idea and I told him I would at least throw it out there to see what other writers might think. I think an honor system would be fine--after all, it takes at least a bit of effort to insert enough spaces into random gibberish to make a word counter recognize it as more than one word. xD Those who spam the system with gibberish just to level up... would probably be better off playing the plethora of much less tedious RPGs out there. xD The point is to keep writers motivated during the very long and laborious process of putting down words, and provide a fun and inventive way to track one's word count. The RPG is supposed to be nothing more than the reward for getting your writing done. I want people to treat it like a personal, non-competitive experience, so we wouldn't have any leaderboards or anything. I think the problem here is that an RPG is by nature competitive. Any type of game where your character gains experience, levels up, and becomes better equipped to fight ever more powerful monsters, appeals to some... savage instinct in people. When you see somebody higher-level than you and better-equipped to fight more powerful monsters than you, you immediately want to surpass them. What I like about Neopets, personally, is that people don't have "levels." Instead, much of the economy seems to be driven by the activity of collecting, and people collect only what they like. One person might be enthusiastic about stamps, another might collect trophies, another might collect UC pets, another might collect well-named pets, another might be more interested in galleries, etc. etc. There is no direct comparison as to whether somebody is higher-level than you, because each person has such unique interests and tastes. So maybe instead of having a level-system, you could have a collecting-system? Make a huge variety of virtual prizes like stamps, bookmarks, fossils, whatever, for people to collect and display on their accounts. The more points they earn through increasing their word-count, the more stuff they can buy. There should be a ton of options for people, so that it's physically impossible for anyone to have everything, and there isn't this innate feeling of competitiveness.
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Post by Jae on Feb 5, 2015 0:30:28 GMT -5
Stephanie (swordlilly) : I'm not saying your idea is bad, but people DO get really competitive about collecting items on Neopets, which is why you see album items and collectable cards going for tens of millions of Neopoints apiece even when there's no avatar reward. If someone's competitive by nature, they're going to find any outlet they can to compete (and if they're shady, they'll cut whatever corners they can). Plus, a single player RPG really takes the edge off the competitiveness. To use Neopets as an example again, someone else's gold Neoquest trophy doesn't prevent you from playing Neoquest nor does it impact your ability to enjoy the game (or at least it shouldn't). And if there's no way to lord "superiority" over other players, I sincerely doubt most cheaters would stick around and paste random crap into the counter box over and over again. They'd probably get bored and move on after maybe a boss fight or two. I'm not trying to sound harsh here, I just don't think we should let a few hypothetical bad eggs ruin what could be a fun, motivational game. Maybe there could be a treasure system that involves collectables and if you want to keep playing after you've beaten the RPG, there could be a shop where you could buy the items you didn't get as drops or from chests in your playthrough?
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2015 0:45:15 GMT -5
Stephanie (swordlilly), you make some good points. I think competitiveness in RPGs mostly applies to MMORPGs, or at least RPGs that have some sort of multiplayer element. I'm envisioning something more like The Legend of Zelda or Final Fantasy than World of Warcraft or Pokemon--each player's quest is their own, self-contained little world and they never interact on-site with other users in any way. I'm a pretty non-competitive person myself, so I'm more interested in the RPG-quest as a venue for using one's writing to take one on a personal journey, using the quest as a metaphor for one's own writing goals, and monster-fighting as defeating the forces of procrastination and distraction. Also I just really like the name "Word Warrior". xD
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2015 13:08:24 GMT -5
Sooooo... does anyone have any programming skills, or know anyone who does, who wants to help me with the technical aspects of this project? I hate to say it, but the person I first presented it to and asked for his help with is a little unreliable when it comes to following through. That, and I don't like how he's been trying to make things more complicated than they have to be, and criticizes my logical arguments against his complicating suggestions.
Basically, I'd just need help with the whole building a website thing. I'm willing to handle the graphic design aspects, but I have almost no knowledge of programming (and not for lack of trying).
Work would be on a volunteer basis, but I'm willing to look into methods of earning revenue such as banner ads.
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Post by Stephanie (swordlilly) on Feb 5, 2015 13:43:01 GMT -5
Ohhh. If each person's quest is totally separate then it makes sense. And I don't know anything about programming, sorry, Squid. I do hope you manage to get this off the ground, though. It sounds like a promising project.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2015 15:22:20 GMT -5
Thanks, I hope so too. I've been talking about it so much, I don't want to not deliver. And it seems like something that could help a lot of people.
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Post by Breakingchains on Feb 5, 2015 16:25:31 GMT -5
Unfortunately, my programming expertise stops around where I can get a command line to say "Hello, world" so I don't think I'm of any help there. xD
My first thought is, if you can't find anybody, you could kickstarter the crap out of it to hire some help, maybe kick it off around Nano season when the whole internet's already keyed up about wordcount? Good programmers aren't cheap so you'd need to generate a lot of hustle, but it's the first thing coming to mind. On the other hand the core systems don't sound too difficult, and if it's built right, stable and with updates/modification in mind then it'd be a good investment.
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Post by Coaster on Feb 5, 2015 19:42:20 GMT -5
I'm also at the point where it sounds awesome and I might technically be able to help but I'm not sure I'd be able to carry through with the follow-through, especially if I work full-time this summer. xD
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2015 19:54:32 GMT -5
I'm also at the point where it sounds awesome and I might technically be able to help but I'm not sure I'd be able to carry through with the follow-through, especially if I work full-time this summer. xD Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated. Even if all we manage to build is the bare-bones structure, it would still be enough to be a fun and useful tool for writers, I think. Even if you don't have the time, I do appreciate your interest.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 12, 2015 11:30:37 GMT -5
I found a programmer through a friend! He says he's going to be busy for the next few weeks so work might be a little slow, but he's been meaning to brush up on his web programming, so he's interested in the project! I can't guarantee that you'll see anything any time soon, but I've made a huge step forward on this!
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