Project Pokemon - **The Return To Greatness**

[mac122]

Sorry for the double post, I just wanted this to be a seperate thought.

Voting guidelines (proposal)
Once a vote is called for:
-Members have 24 hours to cast their vote.
-Votes should be by open ballot. Each member should "quote" the post with the proposal and vote yes or no.
-A minimum of 10 members must cast ballots for any vote to be official.
-Simple majority carries the vote.
-A 70% majority of voting members must agree to any changes to previously agreed upon proposals.

Simple majority protects progress. Here's my scenario: a vote is called on a proposal. The voting window opens and 10 members get their votes in. The other 4 were inexplicably detained, National Security issues or something. 7 members vote yes, 3 vote no. If we require 8 positive votes, we're stuck. If we require a simple majority, the measure passes handily and we can move on.

As far as the other numbers, 24 hour voting window, 70% to overturn a previous decision, those are just suggestions and I am completely open to changes in those.

[NightSwipe]

Alright, I've had some time to mull it over, so here are my views on everything:

Evolution:

No, not unless we are going to do some incredibly extensive campaign that would take a player through Kanto/Hoenn/Johto/Fiore/Almia/Sinnoh league.

Trainers:

Maybe. I like the idea of what someone said about having certain trainers give certain ablilities (Bug Catcher-Bug bonus, Hiker-Rock bonus, Black Belt- Fighting Bonus). (Sorry I cannot give proper credit to whoever came up with the idea, I'm kind of in a rush. )

Voting:

Seems good to me.

Designing/Playtesting Cards:

Also seems good.


Not sure if I missed anything, but I think that about covers it...

Oh, and by the way, I would like to be a Trainer.

--NightSwipe--

[Warlord Alpha]

Originally Posted by NightSwipe

Evolution:

...

Trainers:

...

Oh, that's right. About these. In my opinion, we should pretend that neither of them exist for right now. It is too much to worry about. Once we perfect our methods for making cards and such, then we can start to worry about stuff like this. But for right now, it just doesn't make sense to even bother with these.

[Creationist]

I can be a trainer. And so far the guidelines look good. Definitely count me in.

[Carakki]

Let's go through things one at a time.

Goals for the Project Pokemon
1)The making, refining, and posting of decent quality, usable HS Pokemon cards. We are not aiming for perfection here, but they should be usable with any official Heroscape game.
2)To capture the feel of the Pokemon video games in a Heroscape environment. That means using any and all available references to the Pokemon in question to create as close to accurate a Pokemon in a Heroscape game.
3)To have any and all members of the Heroscapers.com community provide comments, suggestions and general assistance to the creation of Pokemon Heroscape cards.
4)To maintain a core group of Heroscapers.com community members as a basis for the deciding factors of these cards.

My only problem with this section is its de-emphasis on high quality. Let's make something awesome, shall we?

Rules of Project Pokemon
The rules are pretty simple. The core group has the final say on what is and what is not Project Pokemon approved. Anyone may make a suggestion, but it is up you, the core group, to vote yes or no. That applies to everything from rules changes to card creation.
Do to space limitations, only one card will be in development at a time, and one card in playtesting at a time. However, if in time we appear to be able to handle it, that may change to two and two in the future. As cards begin to get finalized, new cards can be submitted, and the "Book Of" for the finalized card should be written. New cards may only be submitted by core group members, but anyone is welcome to comment and make suggestions for a card. It is the core group, and specifically the card designer who has final say on what is and what is not appropriate for their card.
The most important rule to remember is that this is a game, nothing more, nothing less. Please try to remember that when posting. The core group of Project Pokemon are not the Overmasters Of Pokemon Heroscape Law, but a group of like-minded community members who want to mix two games they love into one. Please just keep things polite.

It seems that a little too much priority is being given to the 'creator' of each individual card here. I'd rather have a unified look and feel to our Pokescape, and the amount of power given to an individual 'designer' is something I think would upset that end.

Member Status
There will be 3 Member Statuses - Trainer, Junior Trainer and Ally. Trainers are the folks who are 100% participation all the time. It will be your job to create new Pokemon, comment on other cards, create the actual card, and promote the best interests of the thread. Junior Trainers and Allies are expected to comment on cards and promote the best interests of the thread. Only Trainers and Junior Trainers may vote on a matter in the thread. Currently, the members on the list on the first page need to decide their own Status. If you feel like you can be 100% about this, posting daily, keeping up with other's comments and providing excellent suggestions and recommendations, then consider yourself a Trainer. If you know that you want to help, but may not be able to respond and reply daily, then consider yourself a Junior Trainer. Anyone who to join and is willing to provide commentary, or does not want to be a full member will be an Ally.

I can most definitely be signed on as a Trainer - I already spend at least an hour on this website daily, not something that's likely to change.

Designing Cards
Each member of the core group will be responsible for creating an least one card about every 2 months or so, starting with the first R/B/Y 151 Pokemon. In keeping with the best interest of the project, no card may be made for an evolved form of Pokemon until the base Pokemon has been created, ie, don't try to make Charizard without making Charmander and Charmeleon first, in that order.

Couple of issues with this bit: one, we again come to the issue of individual design (see note re: Rules of Project Pokemon). Two, this dips into evolution, which is still an undecided topic, and as such placing a rule concerning it in our overarching law seems to undermine the group creation concept.

Voting
On any matter that has nothing to do with a card in creation or playtesting, only the Group Moderator may call for a vote. Only Trainers may call for a vote in the Design Phase. All members may call for a vote in the Playtest Phase.
When a card receives 5 positive votes in the Design Phase, then the card moves on to Playtest Phase. If in playtesting, the card fails to meet the requirements necessary, then the card goes back to the design phase. If the card receives a minimum of 5 successful playtests and 5 positive votes, then the card goes to the Finalization Phase and is ready for the final carding , Book Of and Release.
We are all working toward the same goal here, and I think, once we have this all hammered out and know what direction we're headed, it will be easy to get there. Bear in mind, you will not agree with everything someone says all the time. I know that, you know that. Just be polite about it though. If you don't like an idea and you cannot express it nicely, either PM the person directly or don't comment at all.

Just any 5 positive votes? I can see that for the Playtest Phase, where playtesters are hard to come by, but a majority (3/4 or 2/3) vote seems more appropriate while the card is still being designed. Also, as previously stated, the last paragraph of this section doesn't really belong in our 'constitution' of sorts, but rather as a general message.

Design Order
Design order will go right down the list after we have the Trainers and Junior Trainers separated. If a Trainer misses 2 consecutive turns to design, he drops to Junior Trainer status and we promote a Junior Trainer to Trainer. This is not to show favoritism towards anyone, or punish anyone for the circumstances of there life, but rather to keep the thread going with people we can depend on to give 100% all of the time.

Once again we come to the issue of individual design. We are a democracy, not a monarchy passing from person to person. If 'designing' refers to actually rendering the card; anyone can do that so long as it's in the pre-approved format for ALL cards and includes the previously agreed-upon abilities, etc. If 'designing' refers to inventing abilities and stats, then I have some serious issues with this section.

Playtesting Cards
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. C3G has set the standard for playtesting, so, use the format they use when playtesting found here...
http://www.heroscapers.com/community...730#post990730
The Pokemon needs to have a minimum of 3 successful playtests before moving to the finalization phase.

I'm fine with using C3G's method, but this is contradictory to the requirement of 5 successful playtests in the Voting section.

Finalizing Cards
All cards must receive final comments, critiques and error checks before being ready for release.
Book Of ______
It is the duty of any and all core group members to create a Book Of for released Pokemon cards.

As previously stated, a Book for each Pokemon created is impractical, as it would just clog up the customs forum and irk the administrators (as well as other users).


Final notes: As stated somewhere above, this document as a whole could use some cleaning up (grammar, organization, tone) to make it more official.

[chief]

I will set my status as junior trainer, is it possible to bump it up in the future though when im more available?

[Sup3rS0n1c]

Put me down as Trainer, I can be trusted to vote in most occasions (unless, like today, my schedule is extremely busy :P). I can also help with any technical stuff, i.e. card making and book setting-ups (for lack of a better word).

I have probably missed a few things. I'll read up tommorow morning.

Quick note, however; Due to spring break, I won't be here from tomorrow afternoon until sometime Wednesday. I'll be back and posting by then, though.

[wulfhunter667]

Thanks for all the great commentary.
Now, the hard part... I realize that the rules and guidelines kinda suck right now and they look amateurish at best. There is a simple reason for that. They are a work in progress. Not one inch of text is set in stone yet. They will be by just as soon as possible.
Now, the easy part... All of the text will be cleaned up and more professional by the time we're done here. Try to think of the design, playtest and finalization parts as a placeholder for now, until we get to those sections.
Insofar as the Books Of, the idea here is to have a single Pokescape Display thread with all of the cards and Books of listed and linked there, not 151 individual posts. That's just insane.
And yes, there will be opportunities for Junior Trainers to advance.
Try to remember guys, this is a work in progress. Butat least we are making headway and that's a good thing.

[Warlord Alpha]

Originally Posted by wulfhunter667

Insofar as the Books Of, the idea here is to have a single Pokescape Display thread with all of the cards and Books of listed and linked there, not 151 individual posts. That's just insane.

Even that is a little bit overboard. Don't think of it as Books Of. Get that whole thing out of your head. This is going to be nothing like the Books. The whole concept of "every single unit gets a thread" is so integral to the Books of Heroscape that it just doesn't make sense to associate our (eventual) display thread with the (idea of the) Books. Really

What it needs to be is a thread where the whole first page is reserved by somebody so that it can be organized and then all of the cards are just on display there, with any clarifications listed below. Literally, that is all it needs to be. Just a list of cards in 3 or 4 posts. Really it should be almost exactly like the BoV one - the only difference is that there would be several cards per post and people would be able to post there.

[fiddlerjones]

I agree with the above post. All we need is a post with the following: Approved cards, cards in playtesting, cards submitted in design. Maybe later down the road we put a link to the optional Pokemon-specific rules. The Books Of seem a little overboard.

[mac122]

by Carikki

Couple of issues with this bit: one, we again come to the issue of individual design (see note re: Rules of Project Pokemon). Two, this dips into evolution, which is still an undecided topic, and as such placing a rule concerning it in our overarching law seems to undermine the group creation concept.

First, I don't think this means the emphasis will be on the individual designer. My understanding is, in turn, each Trainer will pick a Pokemon to do the initial design work - stats & abilities. These will be presented to the group for one or more rounds of discussion and revisions. Then playtesting and, if needed, tweaks to reach the final set of stats. Each custom will truly become a group design. The Trainer just gets the fun of coming up with the first draft. We should have one Trainer do all the artwork and card production to assure a uniform appearance.
Also, Evolution doesn't really come into play, only the different stages of evolved Pokemon. I'd like to have some lower point lower stage Pokemon to play with. If we only go for the fully evolved pokemon as some have suggested, we would never have Pikachu, Squirtle, Bulbasaur, and Charmader roaming around. To me, it makes sense to start with the lower forms and work up. This way you are building up instead of trying to reverse engineer down to a lower level. I also think each Trainer should get to do the initial design work on each of the stages as their next turn comes around (if you create Charmander, you get to do Charmeleon the next time and then Charizard your turn after that.) OK, OK, we can skip Magikarp and go straight to Gyrados.
Having each stage of the Pokemon with cards will also make it possible to do campaigns later on. Imagine having your trainer go into the wild to catch a Pokemon and then raise them through campaigns. It would be like playing the Gameboy games (ok, showing my age) in miniatures.

[wulfhunter667]

Originally Posted by Warlord Alpha

First, the "5 positive votes in the design phase" is a totally random value. What if there are 40 members? 5 people is nothing. This needs to be a percentage, like 60% or something.

Currently there are 14 members in this group, all of whom have votes. Not all of them are always going to use those votes. We can change it to 50% or currently 7, and I would be find with that. The value might go up later.

Originally Posted by Warlord Alpha

Why do we have to have turns to design? What if you just want to playtest and contribute ideas but don't/can't design? Is that less valuable than someone who is going into photoshop and making cards?

If that's the case, then you should be a Junior Trainer. Trainers are expected to make cards, plain and simple. If you don't feel you have the ability and experience to do this just yet, Take Junior Trainer status for now and work your way up.
See the bottom of this post for further commentary on this.

Originally Posted by Warlord Alpha

Thanks for linking to those, there is a lot of good stuff in that post. However, what does "3 successful playtests" even mean?

Also, this part of the post is poorly formatted. Replace all of that with this:


[b]Playtesting Cards[/b]
C3G has set the standard for playtesting, so try to follow [url="http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=990730#post990730"]their guidelines[/url] when playtesting.

Originally Posted by Warlord Alpha

This seems totally unnecessary. If a card passes design and playtesting, I don't think this is necessary. I guarantee this step would just end up getting skipped, there is no reason for it to exist.

We'll fix the design and playtest sections next.

Originally Posted by Warlord Alpha

Definitely not. I don't think the moderators/admins would appreciate us spamming the Custom Units forum with threads for individual cards that only a very small portion of the community will actually use or care about. This is just unnecessary.

A display thread is probably the best option. Like, just like the BoV display thread, except ours would be open to comments and stuff.

Again, one display thread for all cards and Books Of.

Originally Posted by Warlord Alpha

I have two major issues with the post as a whole.

1. Formatting. Put some spaces in between the various sections. Right now it looks incredibly unprofessional and is almost difficult to read.

2. Organization. I feel like there needs to be a section for the procedure. Like:

1. A unit is proposed (ex. TrainerA suggests that we work on a Bellsprout card)
2. If less than # of members find issue with this in a XX-hour period, that will be the new card.
3. brainstorm
4. mock-up of card
5. revise
6. vote for preliminary playtesting
....etc.

A list like that would make everything MUCH easier.

These are excellent ideas for the design process and I'll probably reference them when we get to the design discussion.

The main thing I want of all you to remember is that this is a community effort. I didn't want to just throw some stuff together and throw it out there, that just does not seem to work. Also, I am not an uber Pokemon or Heroscape geek. I cannot recite all 151 Pokemon in order from start to finish not more than I can quote the attack stats for all of the Wave 4 figures. I like Pokemon. I like Heroscape. I want to merge the two. It's that simple. And having help from like-minded people helps, hence, this thread. We will have the rules for the thread done by middle of week, we will start carding Pokemon by next weekend and we will have a Master Set's worth or more of cards by year's end. We have the drive and desire, now let's get this thing done.