2014 Chocobo Races - Intro Post!

[ffexchange_mod]

The 2014 Chocobo Races are about to begin! Whether you’re a new player or a veteran of the Races, please read on as some of the details have changed.

WHAT ARE THE CHOCOBO RACES?
Every year, after DOINK! Final Fantasy Exchange, we release the master list of all the unfilled prompts we've collected over the years – also known as our Chocobo Down list. It also includes prompts from our beta volunteers (marked by a beta summon sprite), whose prompts are included in our database as a thanks for the time they donate to the exchange. Since participants submit 4 prompts and usually only get 1 gift – and DOINK! has 7 years under its belt – this is quite a list!

We like to use this list in the exchange off-season to encourage more fun fanworks. Here's what we do with our Chocobo Down database:

• Anyone is welcome to fill any Chocobo Down prompt at any time. You don't have to be a past or present round participant; you don't have to be a Chocobo Racer; you don't even have to gift it to the person whose prompt it is if you don't want to. Simply fill the prompt and add it to our AO3 Collection for Chocobo Down.


• If you've incurred a Doink penalty – defaulted after the no-penalty date, for example – you pay that penalty in pieces of Chocobo Down. The number of pieces you owe will have been communicated to you by the mod team (and if you're confused, please ask!). You'll need to fill your Chocobo Down Penalty before the start of the 2015 exchange, or you won't be able to play.


• Chocobo Races is a team-based, points-based friendly competition – participants sign up for a team, and then fill prompts every month to win points. Some months have themes ("small fandoms", or "ladies!"), and filling prompts that fit the theme gives your team bonus points. Anyone is welcome to join the Races – you don't have to be an exchange participant to play, and you're welcome to play even if you owe us a Chocobo Down penalty. (Especially if you owe us a penalty – you can fill your requirement and get points!)

Last year we added 44 new works during the 2013 Chocobo Races and had an amazing turnout for the Kiss Battle. That's the target to beat this year!


SADDLE UP YOUR CHOCOBO

• This year, we're going back to two teams: Team Cactuar and Team Tonberry. Each team will be "led" by one of the mods. The winning team gets to be featured on a banner we'll use to advertise next year's exchange – plus bragging rights!


• This is just a friendly competition to encourage off-season fanwork. You don't have to be friends with a mod to be on their team; you don't have to sign up with your friends (or a mod you're friends with) if you don't want to, although you're certainly welcome to do so – or sign up against them deliberately! We encourage all kinds of friendly, silly trash talk (especially if it uses FF macros!) and love to see happy competitive spirit.


• Signing up for a team doesn’t commit you to creating any Chocobo Down and there’s no punishment if you can’t. So if you think you’re interested, definitely err on the side of joining a team now! Last year the outcome would have been quite different if a few people had signed up before the Kiss Battle.

CREATING CHOCOBO DOWN

• Written pieces only need to be 500 words or more for the Chocobo Races. We still encourage you to edit and beta your work, and longer pieces are always welcome!


• Works of art just need to be better quality than the doodles Sev draws in her notepad during monthly meetings — art’s harder to qualify, so whatever you think is comparable effort to a 500-1000-word piece of fiction. Again, we welcome and encourage masterpieces too!

POSTING

• To receive points, you may post your work in any of three places: in the comments of our LJ community posts (ff_exchange), in the comments of our DW community posts (ff_exchange), or directly into our collection on AO3.


• You must post your work directly on the official DOINK! community of your choice first. After that, you can crosspost your work elsewhere.


• Please use appropriate headers (fandom, characters, rating) if posting into the LJ/DW communities and please label appropriately if posting to AO3. Also, please include the CD prompt you started with. We won’t be able to share your work in our round-up post unless you have header information for us! You'll find further directions and copy/paste headers in the post where we announce the monthly theme.


• It is your choice whether or not you want to 'gift' your CD to the participant whose prompt you’re using or not (you can assign them a gift on AO3 or include their name in your LJ/DW comment). We really just ask that participants remember their 'recipient' may not be around to comment, and that 'recipients' remember that CD prompts don’t come with any personal preference information.


• Because the CD prompts don’t come with Content Preferences attached, PLEASE use appropriate warnings if necessary!


• At the end of the Races, we will begin linking your works on our Tumblr (doink-finalfantasyexchange) as we did with the 2014 round’s works. We will also give you the opportunity to send us links to your own Tumblr posts so we can reblog, if you wish.

OFF TO THE RACES

• We’re starting a bit later than usual, and the mod team as a whole is also working behind the scenes on improving some of the details of the Exchange. Therefore, we are simplifying things a bit.


• We’ll open the races on September 1st with our usual free-for-all. This will last for 1 month.


• After that, we will run 2 themes consecutively for 2 months at a time. We began to do this during last year’s Chocobo Races as a test and have decided to make it official. With 2 bonus themes to work with, we hope everyone always has a bonus theme going on that’s relevant to their interests. And for those who like to create more complex works, you’ll now have 2 months to get them done for bonus points!


• Then we’ll wrap up the Races in February with the month-long Kiss Battle.


• As always, all work you post during the Races will earn you points if you’ve signed up for a team, even if it doesn’t fit the theme of the period.


• You can create as much CD for your team as you’d like! So if a particular theme really inspires you, keep the fanworks coming!


• We also encourage teammates to comment on each other’s work, to encourage more CD and more points!

SCORING

• The Team Captains will keep track of scores during each round. At the end of the theme period, we’ll compile all the work and announce each team’s point total. We’ll also post a compilation of all of the work submitted to Chocobo Races, as long as it has header information for us to use.


• Points are awarded as follows:
  
  • 10 points for works that fit the current theme
  
  
  • 5 points for any other piece of Chocobo Down outside of the theme


• Last year we introduced additional bonus point incentives, which we are happy to continue to award! In addition to the base points as outlined above, you can earn even more points for works that meet the following requirements:
  
  • +5 points for every 5000 words of a single fic
  
  
  • +5 points for extensive coloring or shading in a picture
  
  
  • +5 points for complexity within a single picture; i.e. backgrounds or multiple characters
  
  
  • +5 points for multi-paneled comics


• We are aware, again, that interpreting art is subjective, but rest assured that your Team Captains wish to be generous when awarding points! ;)

If you have any questions, please comment and we'll try to answer them as soon as possible! The sign up post will be available shortly!

Comments

[taichara]

Is it considered a good, bad or indifferent idea to avoid one's own prompts? :o

[ffexchange_mod]

Good question! There isn't a specific rule about this, because first and foremost we just want people to be inspired to create new fanworks. If you have a great idea for what happens to be your own prompt - go for it! We'll be happy to give you points for that. Just keep in mind that this community is based around a gift exchange, so use your own judgement in the end - if you want to fill one of your own prompts for Chocobo Races, maybe then make a point to fill a couple prompts from other people too in the coming months :) Thanks for asking!

[taichara]

Sounds good, thank you! :3

[ffexchange_mod]

**We will also caveat this answer by noting that if someone owes pieces of Chocobo Down to make up for a penalty during the Exchange, they will have to fill another person's prompts for it to count towards putting their account back in good standing.

[wallwalker]

Quick question! I'd like to draw art this year, but the only ways I have to host it online are tumblr and Deviantart. Is it okay if I post them to one of those sites and then post a link to them immediately afterwards? I don't want to break the no-crossposting rule, but I really don't have another way to do it.

[ffexchange_mod]

Yes, that is fine! We should amend the wording of that rule, since AO3 & DW aren't image hosting sites. Thanks for bringing this to our attention!

[raskol]

Not that this is likely to occur given how many prompts are out there(!!!), but if you're writing something for a prompt, but then someone else posts their fill first, will your own fill still count for points if you post it later?

[ffexchange_mod]

Everybody gets points! Any new works created for Chocobo Races will receive points, even if there is some overlap in the prompts that are getting filled. The more the merrier! :)

[jessicamariek]

Quick question - if you filled a multi-part or open-ended prompt last round, is it cool to do a different take or different part of the same prompt for this one? (darn secondary-plot bunny has been nibbling my brain again...)

[ffexchange_mod]

Absolutely! Go for it! :D