How are the section doing?
Spending most of my time in here I have made up an opinion of my own, but I'm still interested in hearing what other think of this section.
I encourage to blunt honesty but still urge people to keep a respectful tone towards each other and the works of the person.
How is it doing right as far as content, editing and histories etc.?
What can we as AAR writers and readers do together or by ourselves to give the section a higher standing and more attention from the average Joe?
What are the tendencies of the AAR's here?
Basically a breakdown of the section..
Content: I feel that there is a number of AAR's that stands out from the crowd of the ordinary story. A good example is "Time of Darkness" by Cra_z_guy. He has successfully mixed M2TW with his passion for The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion into a believable world with a history that can capture you with its epic struggle for humanities survival. You ought to believe that Cra_z_guy is a big liar when he says in his opening post that he is a photo-editing newbie, because in his first update he clearly demonstrates notable editing sense by the fact that his pictures shimmers of atmosphere and have a look that seems creditable to the world. He has kept a steady line of updates and is now up to his sixth page in his AAR. Very well done.
Also Aeneas Veneratio's "Sent into Exile" should have just as much compliments from here. Good editing and pictures, mate.
However, there is also some AAR's out there that practice the Mayfly-syndrome (so to say).. They pop up, get half a page of updates and then they simply die out.. Quite simply a waste of time, effort and, frankly, space in this section. I do of course reckon that everybody have to start somewhere and many (apparently) discover that they do not have time, interest, abilities and so on, to carry out a sustainable AAR. But there's just so many of them! It seems that most people don't realize what amounts of work you have to put into these histories. You have to play, brainstorm, combine events, gather pictures, edit, write a cohesive text that can bind a person, you have to think ahead and always be certain of where you are taking your AAR.
Therefore I see so much trash here, to very blunt. I am almost certain if you deleted all the Mayfly AAR's, you would sit back with only a handful of REAL AAR's. But still we need to support each other, comment the AAR's and always give criticism. Both good and bad.
Pictures: There can be no doubt about the qualities of the pictures in this section. They are of a good standard, but of course not as high as in the picture thread, but then again writers have their priorities spread over several points. Many writers seek to make the pictures an integrated element of their AAR's as means to rise atmosphere, interest and views. In many cases this has had great success.
Of course you can excaudate the use of pictures and as a side effect neglect text, as I personally believe that Bomberboy's "The Struggle for Independence" is an example of.
Ideas: I'm certain we all can agree that there is a 'standard' AAR, or recipe, that many people follow and that's all right. But for my own part I like AAR's that have different approach to the stories of their campaign. I like in-depth AAR's, not the:
"1315: Took Magdeburg. Many Casualties. Great victory for Kaiser Klaus. Ho rayh......."
If I want that kind of entertainment I'll just take the AAR below that one. Or the next or scroll some pages back for the sake of it. What I coming at is that I can only encourage people to come forth with their ideas and try them out. It might work, well that's good. Or it might not work and become a Mayfly, who cares?! As long as you tried to contribute to the site, section and people reading. So the only real consequence of experimenting is success.
Overall: If had to create an image of this section, it would be of a little child trying to look through the legs of adults because he simply isn't tall/big enough. I don't think that this section has realized it's true potential. I have seen AAR sections become some of the major players on a site. If anyone were around when MCM wrote his "Imperator" AAR's on RTR's homepage, they would know what I'm talking about. People would simply gasp in awe of just how big those AAR's were. The top 5 AAR's views were in the twenty-thousands.
This section can be so much more than it is right now. But we need to help each other. Give out compliments when they are deserved (which I think aren't happening all that much), help each other improve in pictures, text and all the aspects of writing a good AAR.
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Originally Posted by Gaius julius octavinus
