[DRAFT] A Phoney Company?

[Koniglich Wasserstein]

Option 1 can do with a bit more humour -- the characterisation of the CEO and the effect line are quite matter-of-fact.

Option 3: "Maybe we could come up with our own...errr...fry?" asks young politician @@RANDOMNAME@@ (who claims computers get drunk by taking screenshots) . "If you sent the funding to...the company who makes the phones, then surely they could do it? In fact, if we sent enough their way, we could create an even better...potato! Problem solved!"

Could you rewrite this? I have no idea what this is saying or what it involves.

Option 4: You notice an unread, handwritten letter on your desk. "@@LEADER@@," it says, "why do we even need phones anyway? Banning them will encourage people to spend more time outside - at least when it’s not raining, or snowing, or precipitating...no... if there is any precipitation, or if it’s too hot or too cold...anyway, people would talk to each other in person more, and read more; my studies have shown it’s better without them. Let’s ban mobile phones!"

Effect line: people in @@NATION@@ are commonly jailed for calling the police

I'm not against the idea of banning mobile phones, but this needs to be better written. There's some grammatical mistakes and repetition, and the argument can be made more persuasive. Also it says "my studies" but we have no idea who wrote the letter in the first place.

I will rewrite options 3 and 4 - if 3 can't be understood then it's the 'build your own chip' option. I can see what you mean with option 4 as well. Ass for option 1, his character was meant to by quite matter-of-fact but if it's completely dry then I will try to add a bit more humour in. Thanks for the feedback!

[Koniglich Wasserstein]

5th draft out now. 3rd and 4th options rewritten and a few edits to other parts of the issue.

[Koniglich Wasserstein]

Bump because it’s been a while since the last post and I really want to get this submitted soon. I won’t put it on last call yet though because I would love feedback on this draft first to see where it is.

[Tinhampton]

Is it even possible for options to have line breaks in them?

[Drew Durrnil]

This draft does not work due to formatting and player autonomy. Against submission at the moment.

[Terrabod]

Hi, it's me again! This has come a really long way since I last commented. Without further ado, here's some comments of the current draft.

Description: The main mobile phone manufacturer in @@NAME@@, Microcosm, has teamed up with a company from Blackacre, your arch enemy, to manufacturer their new phone. This is because Qualcosm, from Blackacre, have developed new technology to manufacture a chip with 3x better battery life and various other nerdy perks. After a huge uproar, people have come to you to ask whether collaborating with companies from ‘horrific’ countries should be allowed.

"The main mobile phone manufacturer in @@NAME@@, Microcosm, has teamed up with Qualcosm, a Blackacrean company, to manufacturer their new phone. This is because Qualcosm has developed the technology to manufacture a chip that increases battery life threefold along with various other nerdy perks... etc etc." - you don't have to use all of that, but I think it helps to reduce convoluted wording.

Regarding the last line, issue descriptions that end with "...and some people have come to you to talk about it" have gone somewhat out of fashion. You can still mention that the prospect of a @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ company collaborating with a rival nation has left some of your advisors tugging their collars. Actually, that phrasing read quite well; maybe you could incorporate some of that? "However, the prospect of a @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ company collaborating with a rival nation has left some of your advisors tugging their collars."

Option 1: "This would be great for the population and the economy!", says Will Fences, the new CEO of Microcosm. "Yes, it would be good for their economy, but it would be better for our compa- sorry - economy; we are still from @@NAME@@ and that’s where we sell most of our phones. In fact, I think we should be able to collaborate with any company, anywhere in the world! Plus, it would improve foreign relations too! Bonus: we’d probably become the first trillion @@CURRENCY@@ company in @@NATION@@, and all thanks to you!" He proceeds to wink.

Effect Line: The most common branded product to find inside a household is Blackacrean toothpaste

I think there are too many details in this option. Get the point across that Fences thinks the deal will be good for @@NATION@@, get the point across that he also thinks it'll result in a big bonus for him (or something), then leave it be. All the pluses and bonuses are too much information! If you can cut this down a bit, you can add in some more humour, like describing what Fences is doing after you tell us he's the new CEO.

Also remember no capital letters or full stops in your effect lines. I suspect this was an oversight because the rest are fine.

Option 2: "Why in the multiverse would you be alright with letting this happen?" says your Foreign Minister, @@RANDOMNAME@@.”Why should we even think about helping their economy along? Can I just remind you that we and Blackacre are huge enemies? For a small downgrade in our mobile phones, we should absolutely not be working with these people; they could well be fraudulent, after all." After opening up a messaging app on @@HIS@@ phone, @@HE@@ proceeds very quietly say, "Oh, that’s nice, I can send little images with my text messages."

I don't know if the multiverse thing is another one of your references, but I don't see how it fits in here. You might be better off having this speaker make their position clear in the first bit of speech, then introduce the speaker, then expand upon the initial position given. This structure tends to work quite well in existing issues.

I like the humour at the end, but I think you can cut the bit where he reminds you that Blackacre is a rival nation (I think we can assume everyone who answers issues know this, plus we've been insinuating throughout the rest of the issue that working with Blackacre is a bad idea). You could instead add some more emphasis to the "they could be bugging our phones" idea you brushed upon.

Option 3: "Maybe we should come up with our own...what’s it called?" asks elderly politician @@RANDOMNAME@@ with a posh accent. "Oh yes, a chip! What if we made our own one? Surely we must be close to having this so-called technology of our arch enemy? I’m sure our fabulous scientists will have this wonderful example of innovation ready in a jiffy!"

Effect Line: people are excited for the next phone (which will hopefully be out in a decade)

This is nice and brief, but I think you should emphasise that @@NATION@@ is behind and that it will take considerable time and funding to get to the stage that Blackacre is at right now. Ideally without adding too much text to the option, which I know is a big ask.

I'm not a fan of the parenthesis in the effect line - maybe you can change the order of it around to something like "citizens are excited to hear that Microcosm's next phone will be out within the next decade".

Option 4: You notice an unread, handwritten letter on your desk. "@@LEADER@@," it says, "why do we even need phones anyway? Banning them will encourage people to spend more time outside, and encouraging people to chat face to face more. My studies have shown that they are damaging millions of peoples' eyesight constantly. There’s no reason not to!"
Signed,
@@RANDOMNAME@@,
CEO of PhoneBoxes4U

Effect line: people in @@NATION@@ are commonly jailed for calling the police

Uh, yeah, of course the letter is unread.

I think you need to revise the wording of this option so it sounds more like real speech - it's a bit artificial at the moment. And as Tinhampton pointed out, you're going to have trouble when submitting this issue because I don't think you can include line breaks. How about instead you have as the final sentence "Yours sincerely, @@RANDOMNAME@@, CEO of PhoneBoxes4U" with no line breaks? I think that would work. Oh, and I don't get what PhoneBoxes4U is supposed to be. What does this company do, and why does the CEO want to ban phones? Why is it a CEO that brings this option to the table?

Also, the effect line could be funnier. Take the idea of this option to the extreme; imagine people writing letters to the @@CAPITAL@@ Fire Department to inform them in the event of a fire or something like that.

[Koniglich Wasserstein]

Is it even possible for options to have line breaks in them?

I'm not sure, though I thought they would?

This draft does not work due to formatting and player autonomy. Against submission at the moment.

Ah, okay then. I'll change that up.

[Koniglich Wasserstein]

Hi, it's me again! This has come a really long way since I last commented. Without further ado, here's some comments of the current draft.

Description: The main mobile phone manufacturer in @@NAME@@, Microcosm, has teamed up with a company from Blackacre, your arch enemy, to manufacturer their new phone. This is because Qualcosm, from Blackacre, have developed new technology to manufacture a chip with 3x better battery life and various other nerdy perks. After a huge uproar, people have come to you to ask whether collaborating with companies from ‘horrific’ countries should be allowed.

"The main mobile phone manufacturer in @@NAME@@, Microcosm, has teamed up with Qualcosm, a Blackacrean company, to manufacturer their new phone. This is because Qualcosm has developed the technology to manufacture a chip that increases battery life threefold along with various other nerdy perks... etc etc." - you don't have to use all of that, but I think it helps to reduce convoluted wording.

Regarding the last line, issue descriptions that end with "...and some people have come to you to talk about it" have gone somewhat out of fashion. You can still mention that the prospect of a @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ company collaborating with a rival nation has left some of your advisors tugging their collars. Actually, that phrasing read quite well; maybe you could incorporate some of that? "However, the prospect of a @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ company collaborating with a rival nation has left some of your advisors tugging their collars."

Hi there! The "tugging their collars" part does read well, I might well add that in. Maybe instead of the last sentence.

I think there are too many details in this option. Get the point across that Fences thinks the deal will be good for @@NATION@@, get the point across that he also thinks it'll result in a big bonus for him (or something), then leave it be. All the pluses and bonuses are too much information! If you can cut this down a bit, you can add in some more humour, like describing what Fences is doing after you tell us he's the new CEO.

Also remember no capital letters or full stops in your effect lines. I suspect this was an oversight because the rest are fine.

Yeah, I could definitely cut out the 'bonus part. I think maybe I could just cut out the place and make that sentence 'It would improve foreign relations too!" I'm not sure if that is cutting this down enough though. As for the effect line issue, I will correct that.

I don't know if the multiverse thing is another one of your references, but I don't see how it fits in here. You might be better off having this speaker make their position clear in the first bit of speech, then introduce the speaker, then expand upon the initial position given. This structure tends to work quite well in existing issues.

I like the humour at the end, but I think you can cut the bit where he reminds you that Blackacre is a rival nation (I think we can assume everyone who answers issues know this, plus we've been insinuating throughout the rest of the issue that working with Blackacre is a bad idea). You could instead add some more emphasis to the "they could be bugging our phones" idea you brushed upon.

Nope, the multiverse thing is not a reference to anything. I mean at time of writing, I thought that was what it said when the site was down but having seen it since I think it says 'NationStates metaverse' not 'NationStates multiverse'. I'll cut the 'can I just remind you' sentence.

This is nice and brief, but I think you should emphasise that @@NATION@@ is behind and that it will take considerable time and funding to get to the stage that Blackacre is at right now. Ideally without adding too much text to the option, which I know is a big ask.

I'm not a fan of the parenthesis in the effect line - maybe you can change the order of it around to something like "citizens are excited to hear that Microcosm's next phone will be out within the next decade".

Ok, that's fair enough. I think that the way this option is presented it could well be interpreted that the creating of the chip would be quick, contrasting with the effect line. As for the parenthesis - I thought they needed to be there, but maybe not then.

I think you need to revise the wording of this option so it sounds more like real speech - it's a bit artificial at the moment. And as Tinhampton pointed out, you're going to have trouble when submitting this issue because I don't think you can include line breaks. How about instead you have as the final sentence "Yours sincerely, @@RANDOMNAME@@, CEO of PhoneBoxes4U" with no line breaks? I think that would work. Oh, and I don't get what PhoneBoxes4U is supposed to be. What does this company do, and why does the CEO want to ban phones? Why is it a CEO that brings this option to the table?

Also, the effect line could be funnier. Take the idea of this option to the extreme; imagine people writing letters to the @@CAPITAL@@ Fire Department to inform them in the event of a fire or something like that.

To be fair, the wording does sound a bit artificial, and I'll take out the 'unread' part. I'm going to have to take out the line breaks anyway, and I think it definitely could work. With the phone boxes thing, at least here in the UK we had phone boxes before mobile phones where you could pay to call on the go. The idea is that this guy will make money out of banning the phones. But if this needs to be explained, maybe I should take this part out.
I like that effect line idea as well.

Anyway, thank you so much for putting in the time and effort to write that comment - it's really appreciated and I will use a lot of those edits in the next (and hopefully last) draft.

[Terrabod]

Oh, and I don't get what PhoneBoxes4U is supposed to be. What does this company do, and why does the CEO want to ban phones? Why is it a CEO that brings this option to the table?

With the phone boxes thing, at least here in the UK we had phone boxes before mobile phones where you could pay to call on the go. The idea is that this guy will make money out of banning the phones.

Ohhhhhh! That makes sense to me now! For some reason I had in my head that it was the boxes that mobile phones come in, but I understand the point you were making. The phone box thing could definitely work, but (1) you might consider adding something in the option about how this guy wants you to fund the building of phone boxes across the nation or some other ulterior motive for him contacting you (2) you might want to consider that his argument (i.e. "banning mobile phones will increase face-to-face contact") doesn't quite match up with the fact he owns a phone company and probably wants people to use his phone boxes (although this could be done humorously, pointing out that irony) and (3) you might consider that it's strange he writes you a letter when he owns a phone box company.

[Koniglich Wasserstein]

With the phone boxes thing, at least here in the UK we had phone boxes before mobile phones where you could pay to call on the go. The idea is that this guy will make money out of banning the phones.

Ohhhhhh! That makes sense to me now! For some reason I had in my head that it was the boxes that mobile phones come in, but I understand the point you were making. The phone box thing could definitely work, but (1) you might consider adding something in the option about how this guy wants you to fund the building of phone boxes across the nation or some other ulterior motive for him contacting you (2) you might want to consider that his argument (i.e. "banning mobile phones will increase face-to-face contact") doesn't quite match up with the fact he owns a phone company and probably wants people to use his phone boxes (although this could be done humorously, pointing out that irony) and (3) you might consider that it's strange he writes you a letter when he owns a phone box company.

Your first point is a good idea, considering the fact that he wouldn't have been in the room when the argument happened and it is unlikely that you'd open it at the same time, and point three goes with that as well so maybe I'd have to think of a different way of contact considering his job. I think that your second point is also good, and I like the idea of putting that kind of irony into the option.