User Mission Creation Guide

[MrKill]

MISSION CREATION GUIDE

So, you're looking into making your own mission? Well, this guide will take you through the process. Unlike the previous guide this one won't be overly restrictive, but will contain much more available information for you - the content creator. Our main goal this time around is give you the freedom of creation with this guide, but we also want to provide enough details so your not left confused with how to create a mission by yourself.

These new user missions will be the engine of in-character role play on our website; which means any mission from this point on will be created by the staff members, guardians, veterans and regular members. It'll be up to us, as a collective identity, to keep the missions going. Fortunately, everyone has this capacity. With the staff team allowing you the freedom we're excited to see how many creative missions will be created in the future. There are... some restrictions, because we can't stray to far away from the leash that binds us to the universe we enjoy.

But first thing first, here is our guide to creating your mission.

BACKSTORY

Your backstory (the details of why your mission is happening) is the most important thing for your missions quality. The better the story, the more interest from the members of our role-play. Additionally, a more complex/detailed backstory will associate itself with better character development and longevity in terms of mission activity.

Since the missions story is actually laid down by the members participating, you can't go into too much details about what is going to happen in the mission itself. Dictating a certain aspect will almost certainly cause a fall off in your missions activity, as evidenced by the staffs recent main missions. We've learned that a strong backstory is more successful than planning a missions events.

We will look at the unfortunately deleted Mission 3, for those who weren't here, it was one of the more successful missions in the past two years on the website. The mission had a very light mission plot - more like guidelines than an actual plot, all the details were in the back story. The story itself unfolded as the members typed their replies. A pelican crashed into a building, bridges were destroyed, a desert was glassed with UNSC Playable Characters still there and an entire city became a battlefield; total freedom was enjoyed by the people posting in the long deleted mission.

Compare that to the Titanium Mine mission. The mission feels too restrictive, there isn't enough freedom and people are confined to a small area they can role-play in; the lack of information also makes it extremely hard to make a positive impact in terms of activity. This is because the battleground was already decided. It had been pre-determined. The UNSC would push on a group of survivors, the Covenant would fight back, and then the UNSC would be flanked by the expected and known reinforcements inbound on their location.

In M3, however, people simply typed. A pelican took Marines from one spot to another, people flanked each other and player versus player was engaging and interesting to read [even if some of the posts were literally only one paragraph].

So, to recap, a more detailed backstory will gather more general interest.

Your backstory, typically, should contain the five W's and one H of story writing.

Let's go through the five Ws and one H together, shall we? This isn't school, so we're not going to take a long time, but just a short reminder.

1: What?

What is one of the more important aspects of a story you want to develop for your mission. This part of the information gathering process should contain the details that concerns what happened before your mission, and it is in here where the majority of your backstory begins to take form. A well developed mission will have plenty of details for the question... what happened?

2: Who?

Who is another important aspect of mission develop. You want to ask yourself who is affected by your mission, who can play it, who can participate in the mission? Ask the question... who? frequently while developing this aspect of the mission. Who? Insurrectionists! Who? Flood!... Wait, no. It's only 2548. The point is, if you can still answer the question 'Who?' you can still develop your mission.

3: When?

When is just as important as the others. Just because Yappas has a linear progressing time it doesn't mean we have to alienate the past. Basically... this would be the year your mission takes place. Additionally, 'when' can be much more than just a year. It could be detailed enough that you've iron down the specific time to the dot. You want your RP to take place on December 25th 2526 at 10:00 AM, so be it. The good thing about our linear progressing time is you can go back into 'flashbacks' to develop the linear path more.

4: Where?

Where should be a very obvious development portion for your mission. Without a where, to put this bluntly, your mission couldn't exist. 'Where' is the details of the battleground, the place your mission takes place. Where provides the setting of your mission, from the time to the ages in some novels. Are you on an abandoned planet with eroding buildings? Are you on a heavily populated human planet? Fill out 'where' as much as you can.

5: Why?

Why is another important aspect of information gathering. This is the last of the Ws, but it's also an important step; 'why' will tell the people looking into your mission why your mission is happening in the first place entirely. Honestly, 'why' might be the first question you want to answer if you're developing a mission for the human - covenant war. Thankfully, it's also one of the easier aspects of a mission to develop - though don't take it too lightly. Develop it well.

Now, the next one is debatable... but we're going to add it anyways. How can be usually associated with Why as they serve the same purpose, almost...

6: How?

How, though debatable, asks the question on 'How did it happen'. To some this applies, to others they fill this question in developing the other W's. For me, this is situation; I use it from time to time. For example: How did the Insurrectionists find out about our plan? If you can ask 'How did _____?' as a question you can use the 'how' to develop your mission better.

Now once everything is completed, you've finished this specific portion of our mission creation guide. Now, keep in mind, details are very important for your mission. You're free to go onto the next part of this guide, but don't worry; it won't be as long. But before you go, a little more on the information. You want to paint a good picture, an image of what you are writing, inside the readers mind; that is a basic of story writing, no matter the skill of the writer. You should have enough details that people can close their eyes and literally imagine the scenario unfolding in front of them, or at least enough information people can see the scenarios as a mental image.

Now, there is a thing as too much information. I'll be honest here, it's challenging to know when you've got too much information, and the line jumps from place to place depending on the backstory. Normally, however, the more details the better everything will be. I find that when there is so much information - when you have to read paragraphs upon paragraphs - you have a bit too much information. Let's realize the difference between information and descriptive writing. The reasons novels with 100, 000 words or more can usually sell well is because their authors had descriptive writing, but some of the novels I've read lacked information and allowed the reader to imagine a little bit.

We're looking forward to seeing your mission backstories!

CONTENT

Your missions content is important as well, not just the backstory. What is different between 'content' and 'backstory', which provides the information to the mission? Well, the difference is that 'content' is the stuff that takes place during the mission and out of character information. Content relates to a map, troop numbers, objectives and similar topics. Content is still important, but make no mistake; you can't have content without a good backstory. You'll find yourself struggling to make a good backstory if you've already decided this is how many of a certain thing there is going to be.

Content for your mission is easy to create. In fact... most of it should just fall in place if the backstory was well thought out. Let's not jump the gun, though. Remember, you want your mission to be playable and fluid, not pre-determined. It's important that your missions content doesn't interfere with the fluidity of a developing mission.

MANAGING YOUR MISSION

Managing your mission is another critical element, but you won't be doing it alone. The staff team will be watching all of the missions created from here on end. Thankfully, this should reduce the mission developers load to manage their own mission. The staff team will provide assistance when it comes to questions and concerns about your mission and will approach you when aspects of your missions are interfering with anything in particular.

However, because you're the creator of the mission, you do have the responsibility of maintaining and managing it. It is not the staffs responsibility to ensure your mission continues, it is up to you - the mission creator - even if the person reading this is a staff member. You need to make sure the mission is accurately represented to the Halo Universe, with the addition of our own custom canon [check approved canon proposals for our own custom canon], including the timeframe.

This means that it would be irresponsible to have a mission related to the flood taking place in 2548, or the Fall of Reach happening before the dictated time in the Halo Universes timeline.

STORY PLOT

As mentioned above, it might be affect your mission negatively if you pre-determine specific events and outcomes of your mission. We recommend, based on the evidence provided to us by recent missions in the past two years, is to keep your story plots very minor in regards to how it could effect a role players ability to freely post within your mission. It is very important to make sure your plot is fluid. Let the role-players develop the story in the mission, so when you are making your mission, consider this advice.

A mission that allows members to flow freely will be more successful than the ones that have a strict and governed series of events through out the story. We role play on this website to make our own stories with other members of the community, it isn't as engaging when we have to role play to someones idea of the perfect mission with everything already planned.

A good example of this would be the UNSCs Seventh Marines Unit Mission. It was active in terms of new posts a day until pre-determined points in the plot were reached, where activity stagnated before picking up again. A tactic to combat this is to introduce something new into the role-play, but this tactic was originally created to cause excitement in an already exciting atmosphere - not fresh up a boring mission.

SIZE

It's important to consider the size of the mission. When staff attempted to make user missions we tried to fit everyone in, but the fact is people just don't post as much as they used too. Not because they don't want too, but because they're not interested. This is where size comes in. Before you start creating a mission after reading this thread you should consider the size of the mission itself. How big of an area can people RP in? How many people will you allow to RP in the mission?

Limiting your mission size may sound negative, but it's actually a positive thing. With less people who are more interested in the mission the more chances the mission stays active longer, and you can always increase the size of your mission - or even decrease the size of your mission - throughout the missions progress as people post in character.

Too big of a mission will likely leave you looking for people to RP the mission with, and as posts take longer to write, interest drops and eventually your mission will become stagnant or even inactive.

INTEREST CHECK

To go with size, we've included interest check here. Before you officially put up your mission as an completed mission you'll need to post an interest check of it first to gauge the interest the community has in your mission. Now, this might be a negative thing. Hours of work you've just done might be poorly received, that is a possibility, but remember that you are building your missions for a community. Some people just won't like what the mission has to offer. Now... since that is out of the way, let's continue on.

Before you post your interest check you should have a set number of people you'd like to see interested before launching the mission. It would depend on what type of mission, of course, but it could be anything. For example, if you were doing a Covenant Vs. Insurrectionists Vs. UNSC you could set that number to one Covenant, one Insurrectionist, one UNSC. That way, you'd only need three characters, and if the size of the mission was small... the chances of the mission actually finishing would be much higher than the staff having to do a time-skip.

CONNECTIVITY

It's important that your thread corresponds to the websites canonical advancement, including other threads that have taken place. You can go to the [Mission RP Dates] thread to find out what thread took place at what time. Now, remember. The only way the year increases is by a main mission - that does not mean you can not make a mission a few days/months ahead of the most recent mission that advanced the time. All you need to do is make sure your thread isn't taking place during another event in our canon.

Why? One character can't be at two places at the same time.

CONCLUSION

We hope your mission gets this far - the conclusion. The only missions that accelerate the timeline forward are staff sponsored missions, which can be seen in the thread 'staff sponsored missions' that has been pinned in this area of the forum, so your mission conclusion won't elevate the websites time frame.

Fortunately, when a mission is completed, it can be added to our canonical RP archives. This means that the mission is recognized as a piece of our own canon, and biographies can be edited to include the events of the concluded mission. Now, here is the tricky thing. Since - obviously - you can't participate from mission to mission so quickly, especially if they took place during the same time frame, you'll have to be a bit flexible to the current date of the RP. Like above, we recommend setting up your mission with a specific date. Both a day, month and year needs to be included to avoid confusion.

Example: If you play as a UNSC Marine and your mission concludes on... July 5th, 2551 you wouldn't be able to participate with the character you role played with in a thread taking place ten light years away on July 6th, 2551. The UNSC just doesn't have that capability in terms of faster than light travel.