Winter Meetings (Leaguewide discussion)

[jediPREZ]

So, for anyone that's actually lurking on this forum, first off...as always I thank you very much for wanting to stick around.

The point of this note isn't for anyone to state the obvious, which is that cards have to be done quicker. The point is to figure out the best possible method and atmosphere for NFW to push forward in an entertaining way for everyone involved, while achieving that goal.

We're all looking at the same picture for this game/hobby. The fact is that it's dwindling down as our generation gets older, works longer and has far more real-life responsibilities than ever. Furthermore, the generation younger than us has been primarily brought up on XBOX Live, Facebook, MySpace, etc. The idea of a wrestling game based on text you're constantly spending time to create with your imagination isn't on the radar for an 18 year old. Why not just do a CAW in SVR 2011 and kick Wade Barrett's ass?

Now, I don't think the above is a bad thing. The last thing I want to do is spend 2 hours on AIM after working a 10 hour day, trying to coddle some 18 year old about his first ever RP. I think as the small/seasoned group we are that participate in NFW, we really need to focus on what we have and accentuating it. That being said, if there were an Annual Review of myself in charge, I'd definitely hammer myself on quite a few things. One thing I can't fix for the time being is the ability to pound out 25 pages of cardwriting every month. I'm hoping that by letting go of this notion in my mind, things will get quicker and the motivation/speed I used to have will return in due time. That part will have to start falling on the league as a whole, while I start trying to streamline our forums, keep creatively booking, maintain the website, judge the RP's and other things that keep the ship running.

I think I'm done with my $.02 with the above. By the weekend, I'll be posting a normal note seeing who wants to be on shows, etc.

Going forward, I want to open this up to the members/lurkers to state any ideas, desires or anything they think NFW needs moving into 2011.

Any ideas on recruiting, cardwriting process, RP/booking/forum structure, I want to hear about it. Whatever is on your mind about NFW and what you want to see in NFW or what you think would attract the right people to NFW...that's what I want discussed in this thread. What do you want? What do you think will help us moving forward?

HOLLA!

 

[Macc24]

lol sorry katz for being that youngin' when i first came around that needed som help n direction. didn't realize it bugged ya.

i have no say i've let the fed down a couple of times on important matches. but i think that moving forward we've readded some familiar faces around here (windham, impulse etc.) and personally, i like the direction of the last couple shows. call me crazy but i think the house shows are the foundation of nfw, there's endless possibilities with the random matches/angles beind set up and sometimes the freedom to just ROLEPLAY instead of try to OUTCOMPETE your opponent, makes it no only easier but more enjoyable... from my stand point.

 

[Rook Black]

Well, is it possible for us to review how cards are written?

I get the impression that we're left with two intollerable choices. The card matches are exhausting on the match writer. But stripped down matches, that are not exhausting the writers, are not of the same quality as the existing product, and are undesirable. We seem to want our end product to remain the same while trying to change the resources we put into it.

It also looks like we experience a kind of disconnect as well. When it's desirable for the outcome to be a surprise to the participants, we want to get someone else to write the stuff. But, by doing that, we've excluded the folks with the most motivation to do the writing.

Would creating a hard limit on the match lengths create the means to get more folks to write matches quicker? Would this completely kill the motivations of someone like Russo who can't abide (allegedly, I don't know if this is true) his freedom of expression being tampered with?

Would the roster let Katz delegate match writing with extreme prejudice? Could he write me and say, "Ben, it's your turn in writing rotation, so you are taking this six man. I need it by this time. I need it to be of at least this length, and I need these spots in it, and I need these remarks from the commentary team copy-pasted somewhere in there." Can people abide by this without having to be threatened with dire consequences if they don't deliver?

What say you?

 

[GreggG]

I don't mind shorter cards at all. For instance -- Billy did a great job with the Dorchester/JTP stuff. But what would be the harm in having that as three paragraphs in a summary form? Like: "Dorchester came to the ring and said he wanted to be in a blindfold match. JTP accepted and got the advantage. The HWC then came down and laid a beating on JTP. Dorchester then tried to break his ankle." Obviously not as dull as that but we can write stuff like that and have it work fine.

Save the big matches for when they're really important -- the ends of feuds, PPV's, a title change, etc.

Heck - I'll write an entire tag tournament on this format alone with the guys me, JN and Katz have in reserve to give an example of what I have in mind.

 

[jediPREZ]

lol sorry katz for being that youngin' when i first came around that needed som help n direction. didn't realize it bugged ya.

You were asking for direction, not coddling. BIG DIFFERENCE. And I was on AIM alot more then, which was more of the point.

 

[Biron]

I don't necessarily think talking about how to fix cards will do it. In the end, it comes down to the handlers writing the matches. Doesn't matter what length or what detail. We just need to get a group of guys who want to get it done. The better flow we get going as a group, the easier matches will be to write. Long wait times kill motivation. But, sure, why not nail down a solid standard as far as cardwriting goes, but I think a few other topics could get started here.

How about a fed-wide spark? A fun idea or two can easily get more participation from our group of handlers.

Aside from cards, is there anything else we can improve upon as a fed?

I'm doing some brainstorming myself, and hope to actually provide a few ideas here in the upcoming days. Figured I'd just mention that we don't need to totally fixate on the results aspect of NFW.

 

[LQJT86C]

We could talk all day about format changes, lower/higher expectations, recruiting, etc, but the elephant in the room is LAZYNESS. I'm not trying to point fingers either, because anyone from NLW knows I've been lazy at times myself. But that's what it comes down to.

Not just for matchwriting, either. RP threads all over the forums have been beyond dismal. I can understand why people aren't into writing or even reading matches, but RPing? Come on, if you have no motivation to RP what's the point of even doing this? Everybody here gets busy, bored, unmotivated, what have you. That's fine. But this isn't 10 years ago when people just got booked automatically unless they said something. You can tailor your level of involvement to accommodate your schedule. You VOLUNTEER to RP or write matches. What drives me nuts is when people volunteer and then disappear. Being late is one thing. We're all late, all the time. No big deal. But these Reloaded cards we're doing, it's not exactly Leo Tolstoy length work. When two matches and a segment is taking 3 months to put out, it's got nothing to do with lateness. People are straight disappearing into the Bermuda Triangle. It'd be easier if people just handed off their matches, or just didn't volunteer in the first place. The one thing I'll say in their defense, is the whole system of "to get a match you have to write a match" was unfair, because not everybody enjoys writing matches. But people volunteering for matches and then no-showing/not writing has been a problem regardless of that.

How many times has NFW switched formats? The post-Crash 50 changes might be the biggest departure yet, even more radical than the season format. No matter what we do, the problem seems to remain. All over FWC, I don't think the expectations for quantity have ever been LOWER. Fedheads are happy with 1 max RP threads (I'm one of them), RPs themselves are only expected to be half-page TV style promos, and we've pretty much all got it out of our minds that matches need to be 20 pages to be good. To be blunt, this sh*t has never been EASIER. The only answer, to me, is that people are losing their motivation to do this.

When people are motivated, they write. When they're not, they don't. So what motivates you? Are you tired of RPing your character? Maybe you need a character change? Maybe there really is a format that would motivate you more? Hell, maybe you just don't feel like doing this anymore? There's no right or wrong answer, but I think it's important that we're just honest about what it is that keeps us interested/disinterested and spit it out.

I'm motivated by leaguewide activity; title chases; angles that lead somewhere; BIG MATCH buildup whether it involves my characters or not; intense RP threads where both guys are doing their best to one-up each other. F*ck it, make some enemies so you've got some motivation to trash talk. Whatever you need. If you'e not having fun with this, then all you're doing is banging away at the keyboard for the sake of pretending to pretend to be someone else who wears multi-colored underwear and maybe a cape.

Me, Katz, and JN discussed the possibility of merging NLW into NFW and making NLW an NXT style show for new characters (and old ones in need of a reboot) with the seasonal winner getting a shot at an NFW title of their choosing. Is that something the rest of you would be into?

Another thing I'd like to see is the return of SUPERCRASH, or PPVs. This league desperately needs events where storyline/feud climaxes can happen. That can be the show name: THE CLIMAX ZONE: WHERE CLIMAXES HAPPEN!

Anyway, nothing personal was meant by any of my comments. I'm just trying to have an honest convo, which sometimes is hard to do on FWC because everybody likes each other so much.

 

[User Poets]

Every time there was a CSWA delay, I would tell Merritt the same thing - we can't just start up like nothing happened. Momentum is gone and it can't just come back because a card was posted. One card doesn't mean anything in terms of momentum.

Why should anyone care that Impulse is back or that Troy is back when there hasn't been a card scheduled for three months? Of course I do, and most of us do, but from a storyline standpoint... whats going on? This time there was an excuse - the boards were all f'ked up for months so we couldnt' really do anything to keep things heavy, but in an overall standpoint, momentum begets enthusiasm begets momentum.

This is why I've always been a big proponent of having "the next big card" announced after the LAST big card has gone up. While we wait for house shows and Brawls and whatnot, we can see what Devin and Greggulator are doing to hype Joe vs. Dorchester.

Plus, when the card is announced, and the marquee matches are set up right away (since we can always guarantee at least one), the participants can hype things on the Brawls themselves. It would create a sense of unity that I think has been lacking. Plus, it can ensure that the big events are properly prepared for. If I knew I had three months to write a match it would be amazing.

Katz was on the right track with people who were 'set' to write the short forms, and people who were 'set' to write the long forms. It's not his fault people didn't follow through. And I'm not blaming anyone for that, things come up.

For the short term, I would suggest the following:

1) Ongoing RP threads. Start up an RP thread with one RP minimum and, based on who talks what where, we have a weekly house show. One paragraph is all that's needed per match but it would allow people to build episodically from show to show. Announce the card a day or two in advance so people can submit segments or mic spots or whatever to address their opponent.

2) Mid - range event with a few paragraphs per match, bi - weekly or monthly. Should build from the weekly shows.

3) Major event, every 3-4 months. Should be a mix of 1 and 2, and matches should be announced early and often.

Just my .02

 

[jediPREZ]

Just so everyone knows, I've read everything in this thread and there's some great ideas that will definitely be implemented. Keep the discussion going, I'm not going to respond in full until the new lineups/roll call goes up. And don't feel limited to discussing the shows/lateness...there's other facets of the fed that can be discussed or missing facets I don't know about that are in your brains.

 

[EpyonMarx]

I agree with the idea of the short-formed (e.g., paragraph or two) matches to get things moving if that's what it takes, but I also think it'd be an idea to set firm deadlines for segments. It's something I've seen in a few places, FWC and non-FWC, where fed heads say a card's going to be posted on a certain date, but then it transpires that the card is going to be late because a segment hasn't been turned in. I know segments and angles are parts of the cards, but a deadline should be in place, and if you miss it the segment isn't going to be put up with the show (though it can be posted as a DVD-style "extra" later or on the forums).

Just my tuppence.

 

[Macc24]

In my personal opinion, I think it'd be nice if we could all communicate more. Besides a once a month chat with Billy, Katz or Biron... I don't know or talk to any of you. I'm the type of writer that needs to feed off of others creativity and enthusiasm to come up with some material. It would be nice if a couple ppl hit me up on AIM sometime because there's a very short cieling when you're only working with a few different characters. A group chat or something would be pretty cool, reminder of the like 2002 days lol. But I think it would be cool, from my stand ponit at least.

 

[Biron]

"Fan Vote" for Match of the Week, which could possibly be the only fully written match of a card? Don't know, just a random idea that zipped through me ol' noggin'.

 

[Biron]

Can't edit, weird.

By fans, I mean handlers, staff, or any outside followers.

 

[Rook Black]

Well motivation is one of those things like "morale" and "attitude" that management types have been trying to control for some time now.

I kinda feel that it's just too unpredictable. You can't enforce motivation (beatings will continue until morale improves), but you can try to eliminate things that don't help it.

It's why I'm curious to try a kind of a bit more of a rigid structure with a rotation of the roster for writing responsibilities. I don't know if it's necessarily the solution, but I can't recall a situation where it's been tried in any fed I've belonged in, so I'd like to see if it might surprise us.

In general, if I'm going to be writing something, it would help me to know the following:

What's expected of me. A sense that what I'm writing matters, both in that people would read it and that what happens during it will affect the general state of things. Recognition for writing it, and not just being flagged as a guy that folks can get to write stuff (it's the death of motivation to find out that your only reward for hard work is to be given more of it), but with a genuine sense of return on the time and energy that's been invested.

Even without knowing the full details, being assured that what I'm writing is part of a greater plan and is of some importance would definitely help me find a way to get it done. Finding out that what I'm writing is basically filler, and doesn't matter in the least, would basically mean that I'd rather be doing anything else.

 

[User Poets]

Finding out that what I'm writing is basically filler, and doesn't matter in the least, would basically mean that I'd rather be doing anything else.

The number 1 (and 2 and 3) problem with angle feds.

 

[Rook Black]

The number 1 (and 2 and 3) problem with angle feds.

But not just angle feds. Any fed where folks' efforts are quietly marginalized.

 

[Biron]

You can probably throw in that the handlers (of the characters you are writing) could at least give you an idea what they are looking for and what they might want included. Writing a character that you have no clue what they're motivations/goal is or are is a bummer.

 

[jediPREZ]

Question from the peanut gallery:

What does everyone think about a "blind" RP format for a show?

1-RP MAX, your RP is a submitted as a segment on the show, but you'll know your opponent ahead of time.

 

[User Poets]

I say go for it.

 

[jediPREZ]

I say go for it.

What if it were a title/important match?