Video Game Forums

Rent-a-Judge

So, here I am puttering about through past topics when I realise something- aside from the NLBFT, there are only a very few battles being judged. Now, I understand that most people won't want to be judged and 'graded', as it were, on everything they involve themselves in, even just everything in this part of the Forums.

But judgements like are often passed in the NLBFT, particularly with constructive criticism, commentary, and sometimes praise, seem to me like they'd provide a pretty effective vehicle for helping people to improve their writing. It also would make it easier for people to see their own small errors or failings, so they know to fix them, work around them, or live with them.

So, I'd like to provide an opportunity.

Way back a bit (there's a contradictory one, hm?) Galefore asked me to judge a battle between him and Scarred Wings. I accepted, and, before constructing my judgements, I created my own personal judging scale.

Till this point, that's been mostly wasted, since it was only used in the one battle (though Galefore claims it helped a lot, so it's not really much waste).

Anyways, getting on to the point.... I am offering my services to the Gunjin as a whole as a constructive criticism/judgement engineer. You let me know of your battle you want me to judge, and I'll give you the full works.

What are the works?

A 200-point maximum grading system, with separate commentary on each of twelve important elements of writing a good fight. I have found it to be well worth noting that getting something like 75% is generally a demonstration of a very very good battler. As I noted to Galefore when I first used the system, even the vaunted (and with good reason) Wyborn would likely make only about 185 on the scale. Heck, my guesstimate would put me about 140-150. Most people you'll find doing RP and battling in places like Gaia and whatnot will be running about a 50 or so on this scale, and above 70 is pretty rare.

The elements I plan to use are as follows:

Spelling- 5 points. This shouldn't be hard to get a 4 or 5 in, really.

Length- 10 points. You don't get more points for having a longer post, you get more points for having posts of a suitable length to what happens in them. Though superbrief posts will get less points, it's more from such short blurts being lacking in other elements.....

Writing Suitability- 10 points. How well does the way you're writing suit what's going on? Are you being brief in appropriate places, and verbose in appropriate places? Are you writing in a poetic style for an elegant, dancing battle or in a short, blunt style for a brutal brawl?

Reality- 15 points. Are you maintaining a sense of scene and location? Does your character continually exist? Are you consistent?

Suspension of Disbelief- 15 points. Are you making it easy to pretend that this stuff is happening? Are you giving enough description of what's actually happening to make the effects make sense, or is all energy just generically 'energy'?

Grammar- 20 points. Are you using complete sentences? Do they run on and on and on and on or are they an appropriate length? Do you have hanging prepositions? The order words use you are right in the? Are your phrases and sentences complete thoughts or hacked-off bits of not-quite-comprehensibility?

Description- 20 points. Are you describing what's happening, what things look like, what your character is doing not only believably but well enough to communicate what's going on to the reader? This is *very* important in a battle, because if your opponent misunderstands what your character is holding, or doing, it can utterly destroy the ability to fight and possibly even the fight itself.

Inventiveness- 20 points. Are you original? If you use an idea created by someone else, do you at least use it in an interesting way? Have you created something worth paying attention to, or is it just a chi blast by any other name?

Writing Style- 20 points. Do you have a writing style? Is your writing distinct? Does it carry more meaning than the words? Or perhaps are you so lacking in a unifying theme in your writing that it might as well have been assembled by a computer?

Combat Style- 20 points. Does your character have a definable combat style? There's a big difference between a character who moves swiftly and uses hard strikes, and one who flows slowly around opposition. Can the reader tell what sort of fighting your character is engaging in, or is it all generic slashes and brief interludes in one sentence like 'They swashbuckled for five minutes.'?

Combat Effectiveness- 20 points. Was your character achieving anything, or just treading water and keeping alive? This *is* a fight, you know, you've both got to try and bludgeon (or shiv, or blast, or shock, or whatever) your opponent to unconsciousness/death/forefeit. Nobody's going to make it in these kinds of fights who hasn't at least figured out a little bit about how to hurt their opponent.

Character- 25 points. Was your character distinct? Was there a significant difference between Joe Schlock and Joe Shmuck, or is it impossible to tell which one is a gunmaster and which is some McDonalds clerk dragged off the street? Does your character have a notable personality, habits, slanted perception of something, likes, dislikes, an appearance that means something? If you can't get at least five points out of this, you might as well be having a card-paper cutout fight, you know?

I understand this isn't for everyone, and you know what? If you don't want me to judge your fights, don't bother with this topic again. I won't be offended, you won't have to have something happen you don't like, and we'll all just be happy and skip through fields of daisies. Or something.

So... yeah. If anyone feels inclined, just let me know. Preferably through this here thread I've just created.

Good luck, good fight, good blood, good night!

-Selene

Judgement 1: Wyborn Vs. Galefore Title: Anybody. Give me a challenge worth facing. - Commenced: 4/28/07 Concluded: Incomplete/dropped. Awwww.
Judgement 2: Valigarmander Vs. T3hDarkness Title: I challenge Dahkness! (that means you, T3hdarkness) - Commenced: 12/8/06 Concluded: 1/30/07 Judgement: t3h Darkness: 62/200 Valigarmander: 63/200 Overall Judgement: Tie. Biggest Comment: Dull. Spice this up a bit.
Judgement 3: Galefore Vs. Asnabel (AKA Orchis) Title: A challenge to Galefore. - Commenced: 11/28/06 Concluded: 3/11/07 Judgement:/ Galefore: 129/200 Asnabel (Orchis): 135/200 Overall Judgement: Asnabel Wins (barely). Biggest Comment: You have terrain. Use it.
Judgement 4: Galefore Vs. Repster Title: Open Challenge (Advanced.) - Commenced: 10/10/06 Concluded: 11/24/06 Judgement: Galefore: 92/200 Repster: 100/200 Overall Judgement: Repster wins (barely). Biggest Comment: Style may not be everything, but it's pretty damn important.
Judgement 5: Abbadon Vs. KirbyBoy2000 Title; Dark Challenge...This is being judged! - Commenced: 6/28/07 Concluded: 7/9/07 Judgement: Kirby Boy 2000: 122/200 ::Abbadon:: 111/200 Overall Judgement: Kirby Boy wins (Congratulations- first definitive win by my judgement!) but dies from explosive snake. Biggest comment: Shifting tenses, shifting formats... someone hold this screen still!
Judgement 6: Spritedude vs. Speed [strike]vs. Mushi[/strike] vs. Inferno vs. KirbyBoy vs. VGAddict vs. Tazy vs. Link456 (ohhh, mai brane hurtz arledy) Title; Sprite has returned (Open free-for-all) - Commenced: 1/20/08 Concluded: 2/28/08 Judgement: Pending.
Judgement 7: Vapor vs. Metal Man Title; A Possibly Temporary Return, and an open battle. - Commenced: 3/18/08 Concluded: 4/3/08 Judgement: Pending.

For any who need a witness, this form really works. You know how I battle today? I'd be nowhere near that if Selene hadn't come along and jackslapped me with the humongous judgement based on the above fields. It seriously will improve you drastically if you are actually listening to it and are willing to accept the cold, hard truth.

I will likely sticky this, because it would be good to have a topic where you can continually enlist a good judge. If Rep also approve, then up it goes.

It would be nice if more battles were judged. Despite being here on and off for 7 years, the lack of any criticism or such has made 99% of the battles I'm in end without a finish, and those that did were often not-so-good. It's the lack of any way to measure progress which made me lose interest originally.

Judge my fight with Galefore?

Okie-beday!

Happy to. I shall eagerly watch you two brawl.

And teleport dead people around for no reason?

Ooh, are you going to do stuff like penalize various weapons and spells depending on which day it is, and then give judge points for those who follow oddly-chosen recommended moves?

Just to see how your system works, I would like you to look over an earlier match.
forums/gunjin-battlefield/25836-i-chall ... kness.html
A fun little learning match all around, there are so many errors, but that is more for you to decide.

Ace: No. Sorry, but... no.

I will happily do so, t3h. Also, if you want another example, do a search of the Gunjin for the fight between Scarred Wings and Galefore- it's still in the backlogs and has a complete set of judgement in it.

Even though I was not doing this under the impression that I would be judged, and it was a while back when it was started so my score would probably not be as high as it would be now, I would like you to judge this: forums/gunjin-battlefield/25524-challenge-galefore.html

EDIT: Looking back on this, I realize I'm in for it. My first post was freaking awkward. However, I still liked my last post quite a bit.

Well,

Should Asnabel soon be around, I'd like to see agreement that the fight will be judged from him as well, before agreeing to judge.

Sure, go for it.

That's your confirmation right there.

I'll be working on it. ^_^

We never did get this judged...

forums/gunjin-battlefield/24164-open-ch ... anced.html

7 posts total. Just a little something for when your done with what you have on your plate at the moment.

^That one will be disastrous for me... That giga-post sucked so hard... Oh well, it might as well be judged. It'll be interesting, as the score for this one will be lower than the score for the Asnabel battle.

Alrighty.

Guess that's another one on the list.

I am a bit dismayed, actually, to see how many of these are back-battles- the criticism will be much more relevant if it's on a very recent or current battle, rather than one in years or even months gone by. People can improve surprisingly quickly, after all.

We have been rather slow of late, most of the players are involved in the tournament or have dissapeared entirely.

Well, see...

The reason I wanted the first one judged was because a clear winner was never decided, and that was a battle I wanted to see finished.

The Rep battle was supposed to be judged a long time ago, as originally it was an old-fashioned way to decide who would be mod, but in the end the only people I asked to judge would not do so as they weren't up for reading five-page mammoth posts from each combatant.

I would like my recent battles to be judged too, but as of yet, I have not completed any recently. Until I do, these back-battles are being asked for as to complete some old promoises. I have another I need judged, but see, that one can wait as well. I'll just let you complete the two you're working on now.

Alright, if you want a mod-ren battle, I'll challenge my brother. That fool still hasn't shown up proper in this forum, so I'll drag him and tell him its being judged to add on some pressure.

Expect to see to opening post sometime in the next week or so.
Bloody Library and their bloody half hour restriction.

*feels t3h Darkness' pain*

Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.

So long as you both agree to be judged, I shall judge.

Will it Automerge?

Sorry about the delay in judgements, everyone, life has been hectic. But I'm finally finding a bit of time, so I'll hop right on this. Also- Galefore and Wyborn, have you finished with your battle?