PMOG Forum
civilized discourse for an uncivilized gameworld
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garayur Level 10 
SeerPosts: 18 |
The purpose of this thread is to determine beneficial behaviors for the use and creation of portals. There are plenty of threads for creating good missions and what makes a bad mission. As of yet, I have been unable to find a thread on portals. So I'll start one here. I will start this off with a couple of questions. 1. How many of you have actually gotten a portal rated 4 or higher, and what was the destination and location?
2. If you frequently have high rated portals, what do you recommend? 3. What do you like to see in a portal? 4. What don't you want to see? |
chava Level 18 
DestroyerPosts: 1467 |
Portals are Chaos! They need not be useful, just chaotic! |
delerium Level 9 
BedouinPosts: 6 |
I agree with phlimm. My opinion is, portals should have similar guidelines as missions. A good portal should probably adhere to these guidelines: First, there should be a well thought out description text or else I will just not go. That's not to say that the description text should tell you where you are going, only that it should be creative and there should be some incentive for me to click on it. Second, the place I go when I do click should be worth my time. No one wants a portal to google, nor do we want them linked from pmog to the numa numa video on youtube. Trust me, everyone has seen it. Personal gain sites are worse. No linking to your myspace page, or to those "make money at home" sites. One use that I use for portal is when I finish a mission and notice that the mission is missing a really great site that would complement it nicely. Placing a portal at the end of this mission helps people learn more about that mission topic without you needing to create a whole mission on your own. I admit that everyone has different tastes, and what I like may not be what you like. There's nothing wrong with that. If the portal looks like the creator put some effort into it, then it's a good portal in my opinion. |
mmmpi Level 13 
BenefactorPosts: 417 |
I often attach portals to my missions or end of mission to assist the player or to go to a site that lightposts won't work in. I wish people would uprate portals that are part of the mission - rather than just going through and not rating them which masks them from players who might need them. I like random portals as part of chaos, but don't like a sales pitch. |
bleaquehaus Level 8
BedouinPosts: 71 |
Granted I haven't had the guts to MAKE a mission yet, but I been thinkin'... If a mission is an unusual tour of related internet sites, I theorize that a portal should lead to either a surprising addendum or an intellectual dead end. Let's say I'm making a mission about the effects of nuclear energy on bunnies*. I might include a portal to a Captain Carrot fansite, or the thing with the bunnies in quick movie cartoons (incidentally, this is why I don't make missions-I can't remember the name of anything!). I might leave a crate or mine to reinforce the point for the first person to take the mission. delerium's points are all excellent. chava is also right. Spin the wheel, baby! I'm also considering experiments with finding two random web sites and portaling them together, but ONLY if I can find a connection between them. It appeals to the storyteller in me. *Say, because I thought somebody's avatar was just flat-out awesome. |
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garayur Level 10
SeerPosts: 18 |
A quick summation then. 1. Portals should be placed in appropriate locations. This means that the location the link to should be related to the original site in some way. Don't drop portals on Google or Pmog just because they have high traffic. Use portals to expand your missions and to link related sites. 2. Portals should have good titles. The title doesn't have to give away the target location, but it should at least give the implication of useful information. "XD" is not a useful title. Creative and interesting titles are preferred but not necessary. 3.Portals should be placed to enhance the Pmog experience. This can be for choas or for order but not personal gain. Nobody wants to visit your minicity. If we want to visit the codex we can do so quite easily. Unless we are acquaintances we probably don't want to see your personal website or myspace page. 4. Try to be somewhat original in your content. You know those youtube videos you have seen a hundred times? we have too and we really don't want to see them again. We have all visited google as well. 5. If you are dropping portals for chaos, originality and the title are still important. While I enjoy a good Rick-roll there are other things you can link. You can use portals to lead people astray from their area of interest. Use them like a trail of breadcrumbs to a heavily mined site. To widen the spread of the topic a bit I would like to add portal rating behavior. Try changing your minimum mission rating to two instead of three. There are a number of interesting portals that get rated down for whatever reason. How do determine how many stars you will rate a portal? How often do you rate portals? What ratings do your portals usually receive? |
orangerineman Level 20
SeerPosts: 554 |
I get my portal hits through bribery! *evil grin* |
la_souris Level 15
BedouinPosts: 23 |
I agree with the qualities of good portals as outlined above. Though I've been guilty of portal use to guide players to my missions when appropriate (say, when looking at sites closely related to those in a mission), I'd have to emphasize that portals should sometimes involve an element of mystery or surprise. Chaos is fun once in a while :-) On a different note: is there a specific address from which one can monitor one's portals? Or must one check up on each individually? |
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bleaquehaus Level 8
BedouinPosts: 71 |
If I take a portal I rate it. My ratings tend to be my gut feelings produced by the new website. If I'm happily surprised, 4 or 5. If, as usually happens, I'm annoyed by another pointless Rickroll or minicity, a 2 or 1. 3 equals confusion (just like real life!). I think la_souris is on to something here...a website addition for monitoring portals/crates/missions. It could be purely voluntary for those folks who like to drop'n'go. |
sobekneferu Level 11
SeerPosts: 60 |
I am always surprised when I see a portal that tells you or hints at what to expect get a 2. I think if a portal takes you where you in general terms expect to go, then it should get at least a three. For example, on missions, sometimes people add portals to link to a website that they don't want in the mission but is an optional place to explore for those interested (so not talking about fixing a broken mission) and they get a 2. I find that weird. Okay, vent is over. |
meekon5 Level 4
SeerPosts: 5 |
Portals are an object of chaos. I like to place them to distract people rather than "help" them. I don't understand this "good" portal thing. I do agree with the tacky aspect of placing them to direct for self serving. i place them as random events. |
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