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.