The Atlas Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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theatlas_ooc2016-11-28 04:11 pm
atlasmods) wrote in theatlas_ooc2016-11-28 04:11 pm
Entry tags:
Player Survey
Hey everyone! It's been a wild first month here at The Atlas, and the mod team would like to thank everyone for hanging on while we got things rolling. There have been some ups and downs, things we've needed to work on, and some good fun had! We've done a bit of looking inward on our end, and now we'd like to look outward and see what everyone thinks so far in order to help improve and grow the game. To this end, we'd like all continuing players to please fill out this form with as much information as you'd like to share. Everything said here will be read and considered as we prepare to move into the next couple months and the next stage of the game. While we know we can't please everyone, we would like to see where we might need to fix or change things to make a game that everyone can enjoy.
1. The Overseer Drone 24-Hour Event
While there was a good amount of participation, the turn-out was much less than expected. Those who did participate, we appreciate your efforts and are working to figure out an outcome for you! Those who didn't, was there a specific reason? Were you not sure what you could or should do? Was it simply a bad time to run an event? Is this sort of event not fun or interesting? As the previous 24-hour event had gone rather well, we'd like to know what was on everyone's minds going into it.
2. Discoveries
There has been talk of revamping discoveries to make them less mechanical and easier to handle on our end. Are you happy with the current system? If yes, what do you like about it? If no, what would you change?
3. Pacing
There has been some concern about the game moving too fast, or characters not having time to settle. How is the game speed? Is there too much going on? Would you prefer less intense events to let characters relax and interact in non-stressful situations? What elements did you enjoy the most so far of the first month?
4. General
For now the game is taking place on Kharas, but soon enough it will be opening up in a big way. With that said, what sort of things would you like to see? What might be interesting or fun to engage with? What would make your playing experience that much better? As newer mods we are all learning as we go, and if things haven't been working we would definitely like to try to change that for a better mutual experience.
5. Concerns
Outside of these categories, are there any issues or problems that you've seen? Things that haven't gone as smoothly as you'd like? Matters that you feel need to be brought up on their own merits? There are a couple issues that have already been addressed (using a real world cipher instead of completely randomizing an alien language, and tone on mod/OOC posts for example), but if there is anything else that has been hampering enjoyment, please let us know.
1. The Overseer Drone 24-Hour Event
While there was a good amount of participation, the turn-out was much less than expected. Those who did participate, we appreciate your efforts and are working to figure out an outcome for you! Those who didn't, was there a specific reason? Were you not sure what you could or should do? Was it simply a bad time to run an event? Is this sort of event not fun or interesting? As the previous 24-hour event had gone rather well, we'd like to know what was on everyone's minds going into it.
2. Discoveries
There has been talk of revamping discoveries to make them less mechanical and easier to handle on our end. Are you happy with the current system? If yes, what do you like about it? If no, what would you change?
3. Pacing
There has been some concern about the game moving too fast, or characters not having time to settle. How is the game speed? Is there too much going on? Would you prefer less intense events to let characters relax and interact in non-stressful situations? What elements did you enjoy the most so far of the first month?
4. General
For now the game is taking place on Kharas, but soon enough it will be opening up in a big way. With that said, what sort of things would you like to see? What might be interesting or fun to engage with? What would make your playing experience that much better? As newer mods we are all learning as we go, and if things haven't been working we would definitely like to try to change that for a better mutual experience.
5. Concerns
Outside of these categories, are there any issues or problems that you've seen? Things that haven't gone as smoothly as you'd like? Matters that you feel need to be brought up on their own merits? There are a couple issues that have already been addressed (using a real world cipher instead of completely randomizing an alien language, and tone on mod/OOC posts for example), but if there is anything else that has been hampering enjoyment, please let us know.
no subject
Overseer
Although I did participate, it seems as though a lot of people are still busy with holiday stuff, so that could've contributed to the lack of turn out. November & December seem to be the two slowest months for RP.
Discoveries
I'm fairly chill on this front, so far it works fine for me, but if it's a hassle for you guys I can understand shaking it up. I can't really think of any part of it I feel super strongly about. I'm gonna touch on discoveries in the "general" section.
Pacing
I think for me I've been having issues with the fact there's either a lot going on, or very little going on. The first couple of weeks felt like it was non stop events with little time to catch our breath in between (both oocly and icly; it can get tricky to play characters if they're constantly exhausted) and a few of the events had multiple elements happening at once in a way that things often got overlooked.
For example the second arrival event: the storm aspect could've been interesting to play with, but it ended up overlooked because there wasn't a huge amount of time between when we found out it was happening and when the arrival log went up, at which point everyone was much more focused on the new arrivals. Maybe the storm warning could've gone up earlier/separately to give players more time to plot out some stuff to do with it.
(A similar thing happened with the pod explosion/bone discovery, very few people did anything with the landslide aspect bc there was so much else going on).
On the other end of the spectrum there was a good two weeks between the Forgotten City event and the Mark of Atlas event where it felt like there wasn't a lot for characters to really.... do. Maybe part of this is on me being uncreative, but I didn't feel the city was particularly engaging without using the discovery mechanic, and I don't want to rely on that too much. At least with the ship characters it felt like there were more options to play around with, since there were a lot of different rooms to poke around in. Once the initial investigation of the city was done, it didn't (to me at least) feel like there was much more worth doing with it. I know things slowed down OOCly around this time too, so that could have contributed to it.
On that note I have to admit I'm kind of disappointed that the hull was made essentially unexplorable for the new arrivals, ten minutes to suit drain is a short time, especially since the power-pearls are a limited resource. Plus the impression that came across in the OOC post was that the hull was closed off after the storm. I get that you probably wanted to have characters move on and not keep having to do discoveries for that area, but there was also a suit upgrade in the hull that I'm not sure if the second round of characters are able to access now.
As a minor note on the 24 hour events, I think it would help to make it clear if/when it's going to be a single thread. I know a few people who signed up for the "go" event but felt like they weren't able to join in the thread because they missed the first few hours of it and weren't sure how to jump in. While I understand wanting to keep certain elements of the event a surprise (which I do enjoy!), threads like that aren't really typical of dwrp in my experience, so I think a little more OOC communication about what's involved might be helpful. Personally I wouldn't mind if you wanted to make sign ups for these events an RNG sort of thing, so that it was kept to a handful of character with players who have a bit more info ahead of time so they can schedule around the event.
General
While I don't have any specific ideas about what I'd like to see in the future, I do think a little more freedom could help. At the moment, it feels a bit like we have to be spoonfed information about the setting (through discoveries) without much room to play around ourselves. Letting players suggest rooms for the hull was a step in the right direction, but I still don't feel like players are really able to contribute to the world-building. I realize this is a game where the setting is a bit more structured, but for example it would've been fun for me if we'd had a bit of free range to find "artifacts" in the city without having to rely on discoveries. Like - you guys could've given us a vague outline of what could/couldn't be found, and left it to us to have characters stumble upon toys, or crockery, or structures within the buildings.
As it is, there's too much of a reliance on discoveries to find out information, which ends up making a lot of work for you, slowing us down if we're waiting on responses, and making it feel a little restricted about what we as players can contribute to the setting.
Concerns
I'm gonna end this on literally the most minor nitpick but it seems silly to me to have to link our HMD as part of AC every month, especially since it's already on the taken page.
no subject
Discoveries: I'm honestly still confused by discoveries as far as the IC requirements for being able to make one, so a less mechanical system would honestly be welcome for me. I unfortunately have no input as to how to make them more organic but I do feel that a change to them would be beneficial to maybe getting more people to do them! My one major complaint with discoveries is it feels like we have to use them to get any access to information in order to do anything with the setting. There's a lot of things that I'd like to do but am not ever sure if I have to put in for a discovery to do them, so I just avoid doing them so I don't mess things up.
Pacing: I feel that for the small amount of characters the game currently has, that the pacing is a little wonky. I felt like there was so much to do in the start of the game and things were hard to pick what to focus on but that's slowed down a lot to the point where I'm not sure there's enough to do. I think a large part of this problem is that there just aren't a lot of logs going up apart from intro & event related things so things still feel really disjointed in that the group as a whole aren't necessarily showing that they're settling and it often feels like jumping from one event to the next without much going on outside of them. I think that the discoveries issue I mentioned above might have a lot to do with it. I know that I want to do more but am not sure if I need to fill out a discovery in order to branch out from what information you've already given us on the most recent event summaries. I know I'm going to be making more of an effort now to post open logs for general camp things + more mundane scenarios to try and bridge the gap I'm feeling.
I just want to end this by saying that I haven't been so excited to be a part of a game in a long time and am grateful for all that you do! I really like that you guys are open to feedback and how involved you are with writing the NPCs and coming up with discoveries and the 24 hour events. It makes me eager to see what's next.
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1. The 24 Hour Event.
I would guess that the overall lack of turnout had a lot to do with it being Thanksgiving weekend for a large percentage of the game, plus November itself seeming to be busy for others for other reasons from holidays to political burnout.
However I was around to tag for a lot of the 24 hours and I really struggled to throw my hat into the ring due to feeling really anxious for the following reasons:
• Despite having a decent amount of threads and tags in the intro log, my character (both due to his fantasy setting and being new) had very little understanding of the aspects of the world necessary to be helpful — while I OOCly was aware of stuff people had discovered such as weapons, acid plants, energy pearls, the time slowing tree, I didn't feel like there was any universal dissemination of this information ICly and I didn't want to risk infomodding.
• I was phased by the lack of OOC communication between players that I think could have been facilitated by the mods. Not everyone was on Discord and if anyone plurked about the thread I didn't have them added. As such I was nervous about tagging in and stepping on toes by contradicting other people or ruining their plans, and I felt like I had to make my tags way more open ended. I feel like the group ICly would have benefited from being able to plot as they went, even just to say "my character will lure it towards the tree" "cool, my character will rescue people from rocks, does anyone need to be rescued?" "my character needs a gun" etc. This also might have helped more with my first point.
• I wasn't really sure what was going on! There was a lot of confusion about where everything was. While I love tabletop, there is a reason that in fight scenes there is usually a map on the table and it is clearly laid out where the fight is, what distance everything else is, and who is where. I had real trouble orienting objects in space especially with conflicting OOC information and the absence of some players. This also ties into my second point obvs.
• I wasn't really sure what I was allowed to have succeed! This is way more an anxiety on my end than you guys', but again, in a tabletop situation it would be as easy as rolling dice to see if I succeeded or failed based on my character's established abilities. Dreamwidth based fights seem nebulous, and with the extreme power nerfing I struggle with even my character, with all his video game stats and abilities. Suit based powers got knocked out early — but not for everyone? I don't think Justine was wrong in any way to say the light missed Max but then I was like "oh, we can just do that?" but wasn't sure how realistic it would be etc.
Ultimately I found it easier to just write my character out of fighting than be a bother trying to establish the above, and I'll own that that is my bad, but I hope this perspective at least gives you an idea of what isn't working with the format. I honestly joined this game because I watched the last 24 hour event and it looked like so much fun and the whole game reminds me of tabletop, but I think some aspects of tabletop that benefit from everyone being able to sit in a room together and chat in real time and be present for every action anyone in the group takes have a much harder time translating to DWRP without heavy mod facilitation.
2. Discoveries.
I'm fine with this for now. As with my first point above, I wish it was clearer how this information was disseminated - once someone finds something out so they have to tell everyone? How does common knowledge spread when there is no physical central community and no network? (Not a criticism of the lack of network, which I enjoy for the record. Just that a mechanic to better encourage information spread such as IC group meetings or a base of operations or a way to record info in a book anyone can check etc would probably help people utilize the discoveries more maybe?)
My only real crit would be that I think mods could remind people about the mechanic more. Like you shouldn't have to hand hold players obviously but I think people forget, so nudging people interacting with the setting in tags by going hey, you could submit that to discoveries! And maybe more plurks or mentions in the Discord. But if that is just adding more to your todo list then maybe that's something established players should take on instead?
3. Pacing.
I know everyone so far has said there was nothing to do this month, but speaking as someone who was new I was pretty overwhelmed. Maybe the game is just slightly faster than my RP speed which is fine, and something for me to work out, but I feel like I was still playing the "where am I what happened what does this do" game and failed to engage in the city at all (partially my bad because I missed the link to the OOC post with all the city info when writing my starter and didn't incorporate it as au would have liked.) And then the underground post went up and then the event log! I would have loved more posts in between those things with a chance for my character to meet more people and settle in but I also felt too overwhelmed to make the post myself. Anyway this is mostly on me I think? It's not very constructive criticism for which I'm sorry, and I honestly don't expect you to change to fit my RP style but I wanted to offer a different perspective.
(If anyone has suggestions for me personally I'm open to 'em!)
4. General.
I would love to just be able to handwave survival and focus on the actual plot, but I kept getting caught up this month on food, water, shelter... and so did a lot of my threads, which meant I wasn't rping about researching markings or engaging with NPCs. I really hope that as the game goes on something is clearly established to allow players to handwave that all these aspects are taken care of and just focus on what their character is doing beyond menial tasks.
5. Concerns.
Nope!
Despite this wall of text I think you guys are doing a great job! I really appreciate how innovative the game is and how creative, how it has a little of ecats mingles and a little bit of tabletop inspiration but also some more traditional DWRP game aspects, and it takes talent to keep all those balls in the air. You've always been very prompt answering my bajillion questions and I have no problem with the tone of the mod posts. I love seeing the mod personas around the Disco and watching the creativity being poured into this beautiful, interesting setting, not to mention how attentive you guys are to player concerns, as shown by posts like this one!
no subject
Discoveries
Pacing
General
Concerns
no subject
I like the free-for-all threading-as-we-go-aspect to the mechanic! I don't have very many players from the game on my plurk, so having the Discord channel personally made me feel less weird about jumping in as a new player even if I immediately incapacitated my character. I also like the idea of having rng sign-ups for these types of threads in the future - as far as characters needing to engage with a single 'boss creature' for the sake of keeping things a little less hectic on everyone involved. In that case I think it might also be important to expand the area of effect (other smaller enemies, damaging weather elements, etc etc) so that anyone who didn't get picked by RNG has something to work with too - especially in the case of the event going on in an area where lots of characters are already congregating and it gets a little tricky to ICly explain what your character was doing if they're the type to jump right into the fray.
I actually found the Boney interrogation thread a bit more difficult to work as a single thread, and I was glad you guys were able to accommodate more for the players!
Discoveries
The one problem I had as a new player with these was that I wasn't entirely sure when I could use them - for some reason it didn't even occur to me that the monoliths could be investigated this way.
Pacing
November is a weird month and December is kind of the same with the holidays, so not much to say here!
General
Also asking for more chances to worldbuild ourselves! It might take some pressure off of you guys in the long run.
Concerns
Thirding the HMD thing!
Thanks for being so open guys! I'm enjoying myself so far and am excited to see where the game goes from here.
no subject
Amber did an excellent job of laying out how I felt about the event. Lots of uncertainty. I was wary using meta knowledge or anything that could be seen as god-modding, and ended up having my character do something useful but not fighting - when actually, even with powers knocked out, she should be a good shot and therefore useful in fighting. But I hadn't asked for a weapon IC or OOC, and didn't think it would make sense for her to have moved Hunk very far and then have time to come back to the fight and demand a gun, because what's on screen could only have taken a few moments.
2. Discoveries
I don't think the rolling the dice aspect of Discoveries is a bad idea. Variable levels of success make sense, and in theory ameliorates players feeling like they failed because they aren't clever enough to figure out the setting. That said, while Breq failed her roll to look for useful things in the city, since I mentioned she would investigate and follow the whistling arches I was little disappointed I didn't get some hint of whether they do anything besides look and sound pretty or some indication of where they lead. Perhaps I should have made a separate discovery roll? Made something up myself?
3. Pacing
I agree there's something wonky with the pacing. Some of that may be how spread out we all are, timezone wise. It can make it hard to get threads moving quickly even if even if the people involved individually have the time and energy to do boomeranging. Hopefully, it will smooth out.
4. General
In general, I'm just really not sure how much of other discoveries and other meta-knowledge I should let my character have. By the calendar, Breq's been on the planet a week, so it seems reasonable she'd have least heard everyone's names, and been shown most of the useful things that have been found, but since a lot of that hasn't happened on screen, how much should be handwaved? I can tag out more, to get around to threading with all characters, of course, but there's a limit to how many threads I can juggle at once without feeling overwhelmed.
5. Concerns
Maybe set out some guidelines about how players can participate in worldbuilding and content creation? I'm getting the impression a lot of us are excited about the lore and exploring the setting, but worried about stepping on the mods' toes.
edit: Just wanted to add a thank you for being receptive to feedback and for setting up a game that's been fun so far and has a lot of potential. I think the mix of tabletop-like gaming and online RP can come together to make something really awesome.
no subject
I'm actually going to throw in a voice of dissent here, but it might be a unique situation all in all: I didn't know that I could play in the event until it turned out that the family I was spending the holiday weekend with was having a lazy day. I actually waited to see if anything would happen IRL before I jumped in and tracked the thread to keep an eye on things. Having signups would have kept me out of it. That said, I think if we avoid holiday weekends in the future, this won't be a factor for anyone, including myself. Having the event on the weekend was a good idea!
I think granting some level of "make it easier for players to branch off and do their things" like Luna suggested would be ideal! I do like the big action thread, but I also like characters being able to "know" a thing is happening, but somehow managed to get around interacting with it. If that makes sense?
discoveries
With discoveries, I think it puts a lot more work on the mods to not just have the information available up front. In addition, I've been wary of what my characters can learn about discoveries without the information being handed to my character ICly. Having an aspect of discoveries include "dissemination of information" is really important. For example, I handwaved Lexa and the pearls because I wasn't sure, so outside of one or two threads, I just glossed over how she was getting in and out because I didn't want to infomod. I think the idea of having everyone work face to face is great, but we might need to work out a system between the mods and playerbase over what people know.
In addition, I think some things are left up to the discovery arena and it might be that some people (IE this has actually happened with me) are reluctant to have their characters discover a thing because they just discovered a bunch of things already. I've been reluctant to have Lexa doing this because she comes from a culture that has managed a lot of this, so I didn't want to grab things away from other people.
Otherwise, I think there should be more for people to do with the discoveries. The pollen was a great idea, so things like that would be ideal.
pacing
My biggest thought is that there's a push to get a thread to ten comments, so it might be that things can feel a little unnecessarily drawn out, so I'm going to go into AC in a later section.
That said: I do feel the "in-between drag" a bit, and while I personally managed it with Lexa this month, I wish there was more to do outside of the 24-hour events. I do feel like Cayde's player did a fine job of creating a plot scenario to interact with more that's ahead, but right now, I think that there's a lot that isn't obvious yet for us to explore and take advantage of the setting. The city was a city, but you can only do so much, and there was the implication that exploration would be limited until the 24-hour event, which led to things dragging a bit.
I've been in games where players have helped lend to the setting and then the mods have taken those things to give more for people to work with, and I think there being a part of every post where people make up stuff would be cool. Then the mods can add it, and expand upon it, and maybe give minor plot hooks based on it. It doesn't involve as much work from the mods, since it's just taking playerbase stuff and adding it to the setting. Plus, it gives us more to do in-between the plot changeovers. But yeah, my biggest thing is managing that in-between period so that there's more to do. Like Justine said, the hull was great, though I was sad our newer characters (especially like the Star Trek folk) couldn't really go into the hull.
Oh, and Justine's note on the storm was good, too: making these separate and announced circumstances, even on the calendar, would help. That might give us a few days to play with a storm, then a few days of waking people up, and then exploring the city (possibly with some of our own ideas thrown in, and then the newbies can feel involved as well). Some of the room invention happened in the hull, but I'd like to see it expanded on, perhaps in how Justine suggested. It'll give us more to work with while waiting for answers (and I think giving a little leeway and information in advance is fine: if people are running ahead and infomodding like mad, you can nudge them a bit and remind them that they took it too far).
general/concerns
I think you guys are running a great game, so I don't have much in the way of concerns. I think I'm having a lot of fun! That said, I think my note about trusting us to not go too far with worldbuilding in our threads is something I'm most concerned with. I don't think you intended to limit us, and I think there just needs to be a more strongly communicated happy medium. I definitely found myself nodding at most of Amber's comment, and I think this is less of an Atlas mods thing and more of a "DW RPer standards making us not want to go over the line" thing at play.
In addition, I would like to propose that AC is moved from the current state to 20 comments a month across 2 or more threads. Or three or more? Or perhaps 30 comments a month across three or more. Sometimes, it's hard to get a thread to ten comments (even WITH reaching a natural conclusion), and I've been in games that have done the 20-or-30 variation and it's worked out great in assuring activity without making you feel as if you need to drag out a certain thread past completion. I've had threads that don't make sense to keep going in this game, but I maintain it because I don't want to mess up someone's AC. I've found that people here are very good at picking up threads, so it's more about adding something more natural to the quality of playing!
edit: In addition, I'd like you to consider a more linear strike system. Right now, the system is based on contacting the mods for exemptions if you ended up running into the end of the month without AC. Allowing people to have one strike and then maybe add ten comments to their next AC might make the game seem more lenient.
I agree after reviewing comments that waiting to check AC until the end of the month or only contacting someone after the AC period has closed is ideal; words like "warning" in large capital letters can sometimes be daunting. Similarly harsh language exists on the upgrades page with the words about infomodding, and it seems to contradict the actual behavior of the mods (as you all seem very swell). I am legitimately the worst person at telling when language is harsh, but I guess that's why I'm pointing out that these things were noticed by me as a player: it actually did stand out. Sometimes mods err on the side of sounding harsher because they want to have that distance, so I don't know if that's what happened in all of these write ups, but I thought I'd say something.
And yeah, I agree that linking the HMD every month when it's on the taken page is redundant.
no subject
1. The Overseer Drone 24-Hour Event
I’m on a much needed holiday right now, so I’ve taken something of a step back from RP to take that time for myself. That aside, a single thread event for the entire game feels really chaotic to me, so I felt strange about tagging in (even only once since that might've been all I could manage with the other things I've had scheduled for my holiday)
In the previous event, I was on the Stay team, and I think that worked particularly well for me since the Stay event felt much more “at your leisure” than the thread for the Trilobite Queen. It was much more comfortable for me (personally) to go at my own pace and not feel rushed by the speed of others tagging. With the Boney event, I also felt less rush since the timespan was longer, and we only had three people in our thread, which made it easier to keep track and reply as needed. When it’s something like 24-hours and everyone has to ping a single thread to get in on the action, it feels like it'd be bit like a constant bum rush, almost like a shouting match. That thought alone took away most of my interest in possibly making time to get a few tags in rather than just one, but again I’m on holiday right now, so that’s something of a specialized case anyway.
Seconding the suggestion on sign-ups with RNG for who makes it into an event thread. Otherwise, there could also be a few threads going rather than a single one (if it’s possible with the particular event) to prevent confusion from what essentially feels like everyone talking at once.
2. Discoveries
My opinion is similar to that of Brandi’s. I’m a bit confused on the best way to use the system. There’s things I’d like to do, but I don’t know if submitting a Discovery is necessary for them, and that often keeps me from carrying it out because I feel strange needing to ask about everything to actually do something. Because of that, I’ve just stuck with the Event posts since information is predominantly laid out there for me to use, and it makes it feel much easier to go with the flow.
Also, while I do love the idea of RNG, I think it’s also not the best used as it is now. It puts all characters completely on a level playing field with everyone else, but there are times when a character may be more or less intuitive than others at success with discovering something and that’s not taken into account at all. For example, Bucky would excel at a scouting/searching Discovery, but if you give him a piece of advanced tech, he would have greatly reduced chances. Give him organic matter instead? Now he’s above average. Since all of that is nuanced information per character, I know why it’s not used directly into calculating success, but it also means players will be more disappointed with a failure for a Discovery they felt should definitely been a success.
3. Pacing
Justine summed it up pretty well. It’s both too fast and too slow at times. It’s a bit rough. I wanted to do stuff with the storm, but people had moved on really quickly, and I felt awkward going back to it when most everyone was already doing other things. But then there was not much to do between Forgotten City and Mark of Atlas for my character to feel engaged in. ...but then Mark of Atlas had time critical portions.
Also seconding a bit of what Brandi said. It feels a lot like we’re hopping from event to event, and my character doesn’t have a good idea of who he’s even working with. Maybe a encampment mingle post could help?
4. General
Seconding Justine again. I’m generally the type that’s brimming with plot ideas, but I’m having a really hard time figuring out what kind of things I can even do because a lot of the universe is spoon-fed and needs discoveries for our characters to move forward. While, yes, that is a mechanic used specifically for the characters to progress, you’re also preventing players from knowing any more than the characters at a given time which makes it hard for us to dynamically world build upon or create plot ideas with.
Stuff that they would be able to inherently pick up aren’t that easy to pick up either. For example, while I have a gist of the climate, I don’t actually know how it actually works on Kharas and how likely another storm might happen. I know information about Kharas is being limited to add to suspense so that we can be just as surprised as our characters when certain things happen, but players are still left with very specific information that can’t be used without us wondering if it was only for a given location or if it applies elsewhere as well. Are the trilobites still hanging around? Do they wander around and still end up in the encampment so that the survivors need to fight them off on occasion? I mean, is there even an encampment still? I don’t know any of these things for sure because world information is scattered with event information.
5. Concerns
The only thing that comes to mind is getting a warning reply on my AC submission comment. That was genuinely jarring to me, and I’ve never needed to explain that situation before. I understand it was likely to let me know it doesn’t meet requirements since you guys don’t have an AC warning period in this game, but I denoted in my actual comment that I was working on it still. To add to that, it immediately prevented me from being able to modify the comment, as should have been implied would happen from my having said I was working on it. The same thing happened for Brandi, and it kind of made a mess of things. Per what’s written in the actual AC post, I didn’t expect my comment to be looked at until after the 27th, and it all felt really awkward because I was being called out publicly for something that I was obviously aware of. Perhaps in the future you could reach out by PM instead to make sure we’re aware? That would have made the situation a lot less awkward for me personally.
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It seems like a very tabletop aspect to me, which is fine, but then usually in a tabletop setting characters' skills and experience are taken into account when the die is rolled, which it isn't here because we haven't got stats up for our characters
I'm not sure if there's an immediate solution that doesn't just create my work for you guys, but I just wanted to toss my two cents in with Curt.
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Though I haven't actually participated in 24 hour events, I have enjoyed them. I think this event suffered from the holiday weekend; I was out for large portions of Saturday, or simply unable to tag due to RL factors. When I did finally have time to sit down and tag, I was unsure of what actions I could take, because stepping in so late felt awkward. (Same for the last one, I was out for large portions of the day, and then I was unsure of where to step in.) Having something where characters can branch off and do stuff would be helpful, so characters don't all have to pile in one thread. I liked the first 24-hour thread where people said if they were staying or going. More OOC plotting posts might help with that, at least for people not on discord, though it does take some elements of surprise out of it.
Amber summed up a lot of my concerns with the thread - there was a lot of uncertainty about what characters could do and who knew what.
2. Discoveries
I enjoy the system, though I recognize it is a lot of work for you guys, and it might benefit from being somewhat more streamlined. My big issue with discoveries is the IC dissemination of information. For example, the monoliths and their stories - Lance and Clark discovered those, and I wasn't sure what to do ICly after that, if others would have picked up on it or if we had to go through and interact.
3. Pacing
Justine summed up my feelings about this. It feels either very intense or very slow, which isn't necessarily ideal in a game. That being said, I do enjoy the game a lot and now that I feel a little more settled into everything, it's easier to pick up on stuff to do.
4/5. general/concerns
I'd like more opportunities to add to world-building, so letting us know how far we can go with it would be appreciated. Also, I agree with what Alison had to say about AC - sometimes it can be tough to get a thread to 10 comments and still have it feel natural. But that is more on me than anything else, I think.
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1. The Overseer Drone 24-Hour Event
I feel like in concept, an event like this isn't a bad idea. It has a tabletop feeling to it that I think some people would enjoy and it doesn't bury mods in having to respond to several threads at once. But I did feel like stylistically doesn't work for a game that just has so many characters and players in it. It was a struggle to tangle so many characters into one thread. There's the argument of out of character communication and how much that would benefit a thread like that. And I do wholeheartedly agree with that. But I feel like it's important to also note that that can get tricky when there's a lot of players involved in the thread and there's no limit to how many players can be involved.
One thing I would suggest (and I see that Lance-mun also mentioned this /o/) is a limitation perhaps? Asking players to sign up prior to an event would let everyone know who is involved and those people would then be able to coordinate among themselves. I feel like that would be one way to help things run smoother. It would help prevent the dogpile effect where there's just far too many characters funneled into one thread and it feels like you don't know what's up from down.
Another suggestion would be to maybe split things up a bit so that there are multiple threats at once giving characters more things to react to and spreading them out. I know it would require more work from the mod team, so I can see it being something you guys might not be feeling as much, but I really feel like it would help make everyone feel involved and that they're able to do their part it in.
Either way, I would have loved to participate more in an event like this, myself, but I found myself drawn away and in over my head and backed off due to the sheer number of players in the thread and the lack of coordination. It was a bit much, I'll admit.
3. Pacing
I'm still pretty new, so I can't really speak for the pacing as it was before. But I do tend to feel like I was grabbing at straws and agree with much of what others have said. I didn't really feel there was a lot to react to as far as the starter log went and it honestly made for a difficult start to get engaged with the game. I don't think the discovering mechanic is a bad thing. But I do feel like more interactive prompts outside of the event ones would be great and give the RP side of things more momentum. When events do happen, they are interesting though from the ones I've read. (I just ended up pretty busy in the end with holidays among other things, so I ended up not participating as much as I should have with the event log and that's of my own fault. @@; )
4. General
More wold building opportunities would be great. I am also in agreement with less focus on mundane things like worrying about rations. From prior experience, a mechanic like that admittedly becomes like something of a chore after a while and tends to take away from focus on other things that are more the bread and butter of the roleplaying experience.
I think you guys have got a lot of spunk and enthusiasm to try and make this work. I think you guys have a lot of courage, too, for trying the mechanics you're trying. I just think it's more or less a matter that you have the foundation laid and it's definitely not a bad foundation by any means. Just a matter of tidying things up and getting things in order from here. Figuring out what works and what doesn't through running it. /o/
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24-hour Event
Echoing the holiday weekend in the US probably put a damper on things (I was able to participate a decent amount, but even I was travelling most of Saturday morning/afternoon ET). I personally think single threads are great for events like this and take a lot of pressure off of me as a player (because I can jump in when it's relevant and hang back when it isn't), but I totally get why that might not be the case for everyone. I agree that limiting slots for the "big thread" could help with some of the nervousness on part of the players, since I think a lot of the anxiety comes from not wanting to step on someone else's toes or box other players out. Just knowing in advance who's on deck to be in the thread could help a lot to facilitate OOC communication, because that way you know that you jumping in isn't taking opportunity from someone else.
I wasn't around for the first 24-hour event, but having read through the posts, I also really liked the methodology of the Stay thread, and I think there's value in having both types of events (big, single fight threads vs peppered individual comments in character threads). They don't necessarily need to happen at the same time every event, since I can imagine that'd be a lot of work for you guys, and I don't necessarily think that every character needs to be involved in every 24-hour event (especially if the game gets bigger), so maybe making them leaner will help them pack more punch.
Discoveries
I'm in favor of these being revamped, especially if it makes things easier on you guys! As has been mentioned, I really, really like the discoveries mechanic and the tabletop feel it gives things, but it has made me a little hesitant about what I can/can't assume and how much branching out I can do before I step into infomodding. I feel like striking a middle ground could make it both easier on us and on you guys— maybe we could get more "basic" information that everyone is permitted to use (provided their characters do the necessary poking around), and save the Discoveries page for more special/fun/plot related info?
The example of the stories on the monoliths someone brought up is really good— I wasn't sure if I was allowed to use that information ICly because I hadn't been the one to get the discovery, but it did seem like the sort of thing anyone could have potentially stumbled upon. I feel like that would've been something great to include in the main post, with maybe bonus info restricted to the main Discoveries page (like maybe there could have been broken pieces of the monolith nearby that helped fill in some of the blanks of the stories that you could only get via Discovery, but the basic outline of the stories were available to everyone— this sort of thing isn't my area of expertise but hopefully you get what I mean!!)
Pacing
I agree with the sentiment that the pacing seems to be uneven, but imo the onus is more on the players than the mods to create the sort of communal/cooperative environment between the characters IC to help alleviate the valleys (there wasn't that much to do event-wise between the arrival log and the big event log, but there also weren't that many open posts during that time, either). That said, I think there are a lot of good ideas in this post to help facilitate that; I think opening up more basic environment info/potential discoveries and saving special information for Proper Discoveries would give people more room to be creative (and thus be more comfortable to post), as would giving more OOC space to ambient events like the storm. I think a lot of the issues here boil down to us not being sure how far we're allowed to push info about the environment, so hopefully balancing that out will help resolve most of them.
Like other people have said, though, the game is still new! We're all getting a feel for things, so honestly I'm sure this'll even out with time.
General/Concerns/etc
This is all I've got for right now, but if I think of something else I'll be sure to jump back in. But basically: I've been having a ton of fun with the game so far, and I think you guys are doing an awesome job at juggling what has to be a really logistically complicated game behind the scenes. Hopefully this is helpful for you guys, and thanks for being so great!!