discussion of OOC game issues

[sonofalderaan.livejournal.com]

Okay I know I said no more planning/discussion posts from me, but I lied. Evidently there are enough people who don't feel comfortable bringing issues up non-anonly, so I am going to try to start some discussions for them, with the intent of getting things out in the open so we don't have stuff seething under the surface which inevitably explodes with drama.

Since not all of these are my own personal concerns, I am making an open post, so that everyone can add their voices/their concerns to it. This is not going to be an exhaustive list, it is just meant to be a jumping off point.

Here's the list to get us started:

1. the game runs very slow for long periods, and then there are bursts of activity where everything else has to stop, while we wait for a plot to finish. During this time, non-combat characters feel like they have nothing to do and that they're closed out of the game since they have to wait for plot to finish before open posting is allowed again.

Thoughts: away teams (especially those that are for non-combat characters) and player run plots should help this issue. Can we get an actual estimated time-frame on when away teams/player plots will actually go into effect, IC?

2. people might feel like mods are not addressing an issue when in fact someone might have brought it up to the mods privately and they are working on it.

Thoughts: more mod to the game as a whole communication is needed. Something like a regular post from the mods saying "we are aware of issues XY&Z and we are working on them" might be appropriate?

3. on the front of mod communication, is there a reason we don't have a drop box where people who don't feel comfortable speaking up logged in can tell the mods their concerns anonymously?

4. Also in the vein of mod communication, some people feel there's too much secrecy in terms of what's going to happen, which hinders player plotting, and also can slow up the game if people feel like there's nothing going on or that they're not allowed to be involved in whatever's going on. I know this has been brought up to the mods before but I don't think it's ever been satisfactorily resolved?

Thoughts: the mods could do a regular post of "this is what we can and can't tell you about what is upcoming in the game." It would also give players an opportunity to say "I want to do X, is that going to interfere in the game plot?" and the mods could say "we can't tell you specifics, but yes, there will be something going on during that frame of time." or "no, go ahead," or whatever. An actual post seems preferable, because even if the mods say something in chat, only a small percentage of the game is actually in chat at any given time.

5. there does seem to be a recurring problem where people will bring up issues/concerns/things that need to be worked on, and discussion will start on the issue, but then nothing will ever be finalized. The two specific examples I'm thinking of here are:

a. I know there's been discussion of how to re-structure the away teams, but if any actual decisions were ever made and implemented, I don't know about them. That could be a fail on my part, but I kind of think it's because things didn't actually get finalized.

b. after the drama after the nightmare king plot, there was discussion on the issue of the fact that a lot of the day to day things characters do get handwaved instead of actually threaded out, (for example, regular training. the rogues train every day, but we obviously don't have daily logs) however, other players would not know that you are handwaving certain activities for your character, unless you tell them. Making assumptions about what is and isn't being handwaved ... well, it's trite, but we all know what happens when you "assume".

Thoughts: if issues get brought up in the OOC, I think someone needs to be responsible for making sure the issue is actually resolved. My suggestion would be that a mod or helper mod step forward and say "Okay, for issue X, I am going to be responsible for making sure a resolution is reached" and then they follow through, and if the discussion dies out or whatever, say "Okay, a call needs to be made on what the conclusion here is, so here's the call."

a: if people who know about the away teams could step up and get things finalized, that would be awesome sauce

b: there was a proposal of having some kind of regular weekly or bi-weekly post where players could check in and say "in this week, my character has been up to X" or "I've been handwaving my character doing X". that way we would have all that information in one place, and if people wanted to know what was going on, they could check that post. also if they saw something they were interested in threading out, it would be a place where they could drop the other player a line saying "hey, can we actually log this?"


And now I'm tired of typing, so I'm going to let other people do the talking.

Comments

issue 1: game speed and character involvement

[sonofalderaan.livejournal.com]

Stuff for Non-combat Characters

[morphitudinous]

I know I shouldn't be the one discussing this because both of my characters are combat, but I want to know what we can do for you.

What did you app them here to do? How did they help out/hurt people on their worlds/in canon? Maybe those plots will give us ideas on how your guys can be badass, because I know you haven't really had chances yet.

Re: Stuff for Non-combat Characters

[governorkang]

I would love to help the non-combat dudes find something they're suited for, too.

Re: Stuff for Non-combat Characters

[tatooine.livejournal.com]

IMMA BRAINSTORM.

- Bridge crew
- Quartermaster/supply management
- Protesting the increasing militarization of the ship
- Support staff for a council member
- Teachers
- Exploring/mapping the city and the ship
- Going through the media library looking for info on the Ohm
- Writing "Welcome To Stacy: An Introductory Pop-Up Book for Recent Podpops"
- Organizing boxing matches and other ways to blow off steam -- hey, it happened on BSG
- Entertainment at the bar
- After most recent shore leave, sewing
- With hydroponics up, tending hydroponics
- With hydroponics up, cooking
- Organize and participate in a beauty pageant -- yes, I'm serious (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hqsbNrcgXI&feature=related)

Re: Stuff for Non-combat Characters

[ggmoonycrisco.livejournal.com]

Usually the problem that comes up for me isn't that my characters can't do combat, it's that they're outclassed by other people. Steve literally learned to shoot by picking up a gun and imitating what he saw in a movie and though he can improvise pretty good, when a plot comes up that calls for people who can shoot, he gets outclassed by people more qualified than him pretty damn quickly. And I'm not comfortable exaggerating his abilities past what I know is appropriate for him, even if it'd mean he gets more action. Luis falls into this situation too-- he can use a gun, but he's no warrior at all. I'm not concerned about him though because he's at least qualified for science. It's the characters who aren't really qualified for anything that end up getting left out. I can hardly imagine what the players of child characters feel like.

I think the last plot did a better job of having things for everybody to do, as opposed to the Nightmare plot where it was specified that only "badass" normals could make it to the final stage-- then a post was thrown up for everyone else to use, but it was a free-for-all and it was just to keep us busy until we could post freely again.


On a related note, is it really necessary for everyone to have to wait for one thread to get totally finished up before other sections of plot can go up? I think it would help a lot if things were kept moving with different sections of plot going up concurrently, as long as everyone has the timeline straight in general. Bendytime disappears when plots come along and you have the situation where a section of the playerbase-- characters who are unqualified-- end up having to wait weeks for those who are involved just so that they can do anything at all.

Re: issue 1: game speed and character involvement

[so-pregnable.livejournal.com]

This might be reassuring to people so I wanna post it. Last the mods said, we were getting to player plots after elections and organizing the crew (which ends in, what, two weeks?), and the system they want to put in place will allow players to vote on plots they want to do each plot cycle.

Of the plots, while doing the plan, Karl and I split them into combat plots, non-combat plots, and hybrid plots. There are actually more non-combat and hybrid plots than combat plots and Karl said that each cycle, there'd be a mandatory non-combat plot, and most of the times the other plots will be hybrids, where combat happens but there's definite stuff for other people to do.

So that is something that will go a ways towards resolving that issue and the issue of non-combatants not having a lot to do was specifically why we organized it that way.

For this, I need to make a big, BIG suggestion of more plot ideas, specifically for non-fighty characters to be made to the plot suggestion post (http://community.livejournal.com/trans_pilgrims/10258.html). We have a ton, but if they're going to be mandatory every time, we definitely need more of them.

So for the system what we're getting put in place both puts the selection of plots in the hands of the players, and makes one plot per plot turn a non-combat plot every single plot round. (And most of the rest will be hybrids that have both combat and non-combat roles).

Re: issue 1: game speed and character involvement

[ggmoonycrisco.livejournal.com]

That is somewhat reassuring!

But another problem also comes up when combat characters are also qualified for noncombat roles. If the mission involves six people entering Nathan's Famous Hot-Dog Eating contest, those six people could just as easily be Badass McGrizzledspacemarine and his crew as they could Average Joe. And let's face it, we have a majority of Badass McGrizzledspacemarines. I know there's been several occasions when the part fills up too fast and nonfighty people get left out anyway.

I'm not sure exactly how to remedy this aside from players agreeing to take turns, because we don't want to get to the point of mods policing who does what everywhere.

[sonofalderaan.livejournal.com]

this is awesome to know. maybe it should go in some kind of official announcement post, so that the people who are not wading through the comments to this post have a chance to read it as well?

issue 2&3: communication with the mods

[sonofalderaan.livejournal.com]

Re: issue 2&3: communication with the mods

[cftfic.livejournal.com]

2.) That's a good idea, only sometimes it's possible that they might not WANT their concerns aired out publicly - but I think it might not be a bad idea for us to tell THEM that we're working on it.

3 http://community.livejournal.com/trans_pilgrims/166295.html? That's pretty much the same thing, especially since everything is screened.

issue 4: plotting and game secrecy

[sonofalderaan.livejournal.com]

Re: issue 4: plotting and game secrecy

[daemonomicon.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking about implementing a regular "what the mods are working on" post in the OOC for a while now, but RL has been getting in the way of that.

I'm about to head in soon, and tomorrow I have a crapload of homework to work on, but I think I'll get working on that sometime soon.

issue 5: making sure discussions get resolved

[sonofalderaan.livejournal.com]

issue 5a: away teams

[sonofalderaan.livejournal.com]

Re: issue 5a: away teams

[governmentninja]

The away team stuff was finalized. Ages ago. It just wasn't updated on the wiki page.

Basically, there's list of Away team leaders, then everyone else goes into a sort of "talent pool", and teams get picked basically available by who is available/wants to go.

That was decided because the mods couldn't keep up with updating the Away team lists every podpop, and made the teams much more flexible.

issue 5b: handwaving

[sonofalderaan.livejournal.com]

Re: issue 5b: handwaving

[terminatefate]

I want a linked sidebar post where you can OOCly find what people are up to by clicking it. That'll help with handwaving/setting up threads.

Goddammit, LJ, that was a half-assed refresh. :|

Re: issue 5b: handwaving

[comedownthisroad]

I like this plan. I wish to subscribe to your newletter. :|

Re: issue 5b: handwaving

[offensive.livejournal.com]

While I think it's goofy to like, list out every little thing your character has done, the major things, obviously it WOULD be very useful to have a list.

In another game I'm in every activity check we also have to do a little list of what our character's been up to within the game. While it wouldn't really work as far as our activity checks go, some sort of bi-weekly "THIS WEEK IN..." or something would be lovely.

Re: issue 5b: handwaving

[ggmoonycrisco.livejournal.com]

At XI, they have a small update post every two weeks that lists events in the game. In the comments on that post, people OOCly tell what their character is up to, what lessons their teachers will be having that week, plotting, etc.

As I recall we used to have a post every so often that detailed one-sentence summaries of the current threads going on. I really liked reading that and it would mean some work for somebody, but the discussion portion of the post like in XI could be very helpful.

yes/no/ham?

Re: issue 5b: handwaving

[staturity]

Brought this up in the school post, but I like the idea of a general handwaving post, at least for the training stuff, where people can go "Character X is attending Y class." And just have that linked somewhere where people can readily access it.

Re: issue 5b: handwaving

[governorkang]

Oh, I like this. I was actually thinking of doing a handwavey post with the Warfare Training, for the characters that don't tag into it, but a general one for all ship activity would be extremely shiny. :D

other issues

[sonofalderaan.livejournal.com]

Re: other issues

[so-pregnable.livejournal.com]

The Wiki is way behind on updates. Can anyone update any page, or what? Like if I see a mistake on the cast list where one of my characters is still listed and I dropped them, am I allowed to change that?