Nominations Open!

[press_start_mod]

 Nominations are open! You can find the tag set here.

Before we start nominating, some preliminary information!

Character Nominations
You are able to nominate characters and character combinations! This means the following:

• Character A (video game title) - A fanwork where Character A must be the focus;
• group: Character A & Character B - A fanwork where the gen relationship of Character A and Character B is the focus;
• group: Character A/Character B - a fanwork where the shippy relationship of Character A and Character B is the focus. You are also free to nominate group: Character A/Original Male Character or group: Character A/Original Female Character.

Matching is "OR", meaning that you match on a tag. If you want Character A and Character B in your gift, nominate them as a group. If you nominate each of them separately your creator only has to include one of them. Please keep that in mind when nominating!

Crossover Fandoms
Crossover character combinations are eligible. There are some basic rules though so that I don't cry a lot.

• When nominating a crossover, the fandom is Crossover Fandoms. I have already nominated Crossover Fandoms into the tag set so please use that spelling. Not nominating a crossover into this fandom will mean that nomination will be rejected;
• Nominations can be for gen fic or ship fic;
• Nominations are to be written like this: Group: Character A (Video Game 1) & Character B (Video Game 2) (or group: Character A (Video Game)/Character B (Video Game 2);
• There is no limit of the number of characters that are in a tag set, short of AO3's character limit;
• All characters in the crossover combination must be video game characters.

Series of Games
This year the test for whether a game is part of a series and should be nominated as one is as follows:

• Is the game marketed as being part of a series (i.e. a trilogy, games set in the same world etc etc);
• Are the games that make up the series part of the same continuity or different continuities?
• Is there a significant crossover of characters between the games?

Feel free to comment to discuss! At the moment:

• Dragon Age (Video Games) is the correct tag for any nominations for Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age II, and Dragon Age Inquisition;
• Final Fantasy games are separate to each other, except for the ones that are explicitly in continuity with each other
• Kingdom Hearts is a separate continuity from Final Fantasy;
• The Star Ocean games can be nominated separately;
• I am open to discussion for the Kiseki series (Trails in the Sky, Trails of Cold Steel etc);
• Fallout can be nominated separately;
• I haven't made up my mind about Avengers Academy (Video Game) as I don't know anything about it, so if you want to nominate it please tell me about it in the comments!

If you are considering nominating a game that could be a series, or could be a tie-in, please drop a comment below so that I can hash it out with you first!

Now have at! Nominations close at 11:59pm EST on 1 July 2017, though the post for tag set cleanup could be a bit later on the 2nd because I have a concert for video game music at around that time.

Comments

[tehexile]

Trails in the Sky games directly follow on from each other with the same characters, as do Trails of Cold Steel. Sky and Cold Steel happen in the same world as each other and occasionally characters overlap but they don't share playable characters. Zero and Ai are also the same world as the others, no idea about character crossover.

what is your opinion on the (classic) Phantasy Star series, the Shining Force etc. games and on the Mother series, out of interest?

[galerian-ash.livejournal.com]

Hi there, how would you like Assassin's Creed nominated? I'm thinking they should probably all be together as they're a series, and part of the same continuity (even if there are hundreds of years between some of installments). There is also a bit of character overlap in some of the games, although many characters only appear in one game.

(Also, a concert for video game music sounds like so much fun! :D)

[capsized]

Hi! I just nominated some characters from both the original Mass Effect trilogy and Mass Effect: Andromeda under one fandom ("Mass Effect (Video Games)", following the Dragon Age meta tag), but now I'm having second thoughts. How would you like these games nominated? I could see it going either way, given that a) they're part of the same world and Andromeda is an in-continuity sequel to the original trilogy, but b) they're set in very different places and there's not really any character crossover between the original trilogy and Andromeda.

Marvel Heroes Omega

[sirvalkyrie]

I'd asked you previously about Marvel Heroes Omega and you said that you'd take a closer look at it. I do feel that it stands on its own as well as any other licensed games that could be nominated. The game's story is self-contained and requires no outside knowledge to enjoy.

[(Anonymous)]

How many fandoms do we have to offer and request this year, and how many characters or groups per fandom?

[(Anonymous)]

Are vids not allowed this year? The tag set only mentions fic and art.

[weakinteraction]

Should I nominate the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic games as a series, then? They are in continuity with each other and there's a few party members the same between the two, and various characters from the first who pop up for cameos in the second. On the other hand, they're from different developers and really quite different tonally.

(And I don't play it, but what about The Old Republic MMORPG? Same continuity but 500 years later. Should I be nominating under a tag broad enough to include that as well?)

[(Anonymous)]

I wanted to make a note specifically about nominating from the Shin Megami Tensei series since I didn't see it noted. The series as a whole does have it's own multiverse thing going on, but AO3 separates most of the games as individual fandoms. It should probably go that way for this exchange too. The problem is SMT IV and SMT IV Final/Apocalypse since the latter is specifically a sequel and they share characters. AO3 separates them; do you want them as separate nominations or together?

[(Anonymous)]

Are you married to the 2 minute minimum for vids? It looks kind of arbitrary to me. 1 minute is what vid exchanges use, since it's roughly the dividing line between vidlets and full length vids.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi!

First and foremost thank you for running this exchange again!

A quick questions: according to this year's rules how should TES series be nominated? It's the same world, but most of characters differs between games and any of them could be played as standalone completely - but on the other hand, it's the story of the one world and some background figures&info are relevant to every installment of the series.

As for Avengers Academy - I'm not sure if I'll nominate it, but it feels like a standalone game, not a part of bigger comicsverse to me. It's happening in it's own part of multiverse, has separate plot and is mostly crack-ish and meta, full of battling via dance and poor evil minions hiding in the bushes. OTOH, it still have the same comics characters, just in different, more lighthearted version.

It's anecdote, but I'm playing it despite not reading a comics in my life and seeing just a few Marvel films and have no problems with understanding what's going on.

[(Anonymous)]

What is the protocol for nominating a group of characters where none of them have an official name? Would something like "group: Jane Doe & Jane Doe's Employees" be acceptable?

[(Anonymous)]

sorry this might be kind of a dumb question but when nominating pairs, do you have to include the word "Group"?

[roseargent]

I'd like to nominate characters from Tales of Xillia 2. Tales of Xillia is currently in the tagset, and 2 is a direct sequel with significant character overlap. Should I nominate them under Tales of Xillia (Series) or something similar, or just under Tales of Xillia 2?