Special Discussion [PLEASE READ]

[cityship]

It has come to the mods' attention that there is a signficant chunk of players that have concerns about the health of the game and think it's dying. Unfortunately, this means that everyone's in a holding pattern waiting to see what happens and the problem with this is if we collectively do this as a game, we might not make it past rebellion.

So the mods have decided to address the issue head on to discuss it.

For our part, the mods want to encourage people to send in plots, tag around, invite people for June, and put up posts. We'd also like to take suggestions and answer questions and want to try to reassure you that we will do whatever we can on our end to make things fun. Our response times for plots and answering questions about things people can do in the game are down to only a few days (usually 3-5 for complicated issues/questions). Sometimes we can even get a response back the same day or just 1-2 for simple issues. If players want to run plots, we can definitely get an answer back to you very quickly, and in the case of milk runs, you pretty much have free reign to do those whenever or however you want. So now's the time for us to ask the question: what do you need from the mod team to have fun? What things do you want? What things might you want to see?

What things would players like to see from other players? This is also a good place to discuss that. As of right now, close to thirty people have posted for and made AC, which means that there are a good chunk of players that have have at least some interest in continuing to play. (Hopefully that will be reassuring to those of you worried about mass drops.)

At this point, the game is really only what we make it, and while there were a lot of problems over the last year, we are very dedicated to working on the ones that were on the mod end. The game can be made fun again, but now that the backlog of work and mod duties have been caught up, it is definitely something we need to discuss and cooperatively work on and confront head on as a group.

So discuss away, and please plurk and replurk this to your heart's content, point other players you know to it via AIM, etc. It really is something we need as many eyes seeing as possible.

EDIT: Please keep commenting, even if the mods don't respond to each of your individual comments. We're incorporating all the player feedback into our discussions about this in modchat.

EDIT 2, EDITINING: The mods are going to have a big modchat on Friday the 25th to iron everything out and probably have communication go up then or over the weekend.

Comments

[on_your_nerves]

Here are my thoughts on stuff as both a mod and a player.

As a mod, I've seen a lot of ebb and flow to the game over the years. Believe it or not, there were times it was slower and deader than this, especially during the first year, where even the mods were dead sure it was dead in the water, but we managed to kick it into gear again with the players kind of working together to give the game some CPR. And while I've seen some people that lack enthusiasm (understandably after all the problems) I've also seen people plotting furiously, so I do think it has enough kick left to make it to endgame. Also as a mod, I promise we'll keep approval times down to a minimum or find other people to mod who can. We are very serious about keeping mod activity up however we can so that the structure works and people can do whatever they want to have some fun.

As a player, I think some things could change to make things better.

1. I think Mala is right about the AC. Some options for a new AC others have made on plurk are:

- one open post per player
- one open post per character
- one open post per player or tagging two threads with IDK ten comments or something
- one open post per character or tagging two threads, etc etc

Then figuring out if it'd be monthly, bimonthly, or trimonthly. If anyone has any other suggestions, here's a good place to list them so maybe we can discuss them or have a vote or both.

/modhat back on. Going back to a mod standpoint, I think the mods need to make a call to definitively make it more stringent with some emphasis on open posts, but leave HOW stringent up to the player vote, but that's just my individual opinion. /modhat off.

Also maybe someone putting up a mingly post thing can count as an open? If if they're not tagging around all over, facilitating people mingling is still helpful.

2. Like I said to Mala, I think we need to push up friending/CR meme/watercooler whatever to monthly, maybe? We can add that to the mod schedule/tasks if people think it's a good idea.

3. Not as a mod, but as a player, I have always felt a little bit overwhelmed by running things or setting up posts. When I was in big casts, I tended to play major or main characters like Aang for the Avacast. This isn't even about knowing the setting well, either, because I've played at other games I was less familiar with and started getting the same burnout just because I'm good at figuring out scenes and plotting. With plots and things, a lot of times I wind up organizing plotty things but these things can be a bit more of a team effort with players helping the plotrunner set up posts and all.

This isn't really a criticism of anyone in particular, but I do think we have a slight problem of certain people being good at running things for other players but because people rely on them to do it a lot and sometimes are nervous about giving it a try, it can lead to burnout to the people who do it a lot. The nervousness is understandable, but I think another thing that might help is people working a little outside of their comfort zones to not just tag things or new people but also to run things. Not everything has to be a giant plot, either, so it's not really that hard to do a tiny one here and there. People can run little minimissions or milk runs that are just 3-4 characters or even a random pair off of 2 and choose the other people by RNG. With the milk runs, the one Amit, anna, Kaylin, and I has been really easy and lowkey so far, with us all helping push IC actions along, so I can tell you that it's actually pretty laid back and easy.

Even if there's a main plotrunner for things, it'd possibly provide people more opportunities for stuff to do if we tried to treat things like player plots as a more cooperative effort so players don't get burnt out.

And uuuum, that's all I can think of for now, sorry for my wordiness but I'm too tired from work to really cut it down.

[splendid_roman]

I really hate the idea of AC including putting up open posts. Just because I'd rather tag other people's posts than put up one of my own - if you put up an open post you don't know how many people are going to tag so you have to make sure you don't have too many threads on when you put it up, whereas tagging other people's means you can be more sure of how many threads you have on.

And, I don't know how much this is true, but I worry that it would mean everyone puts up posts and no one tags them.

[on_your_nerves]

I think the problem is that we've trusted people over time to do opens on their own but there's been a strong tendency not to and without opens, new people have trouble hooking in. Without fresh blood, the game won't make it.

I'm leaning most in my personal preference towards the open post or two threads option though. At least that way if they don't put up an open, it means players would be tagging someone else. The combo might lead to some doing opens and others meeting their AC by tagging around.

[elementofloyalty]

I'll express more publicly my support for AC being scaled, maybe 2:1, based on the number of characters a person has. At 3 characters you need twice total in any combination, at 5 three times, at 7 four. I definitely support T9 as a home for muses that may be harder or more difficult than most, so I definitely don't want a 1:1 ratio, but I do think that, on the one hand, if you have six characters you need to be more active, and on the other, if you have six characters it really shouldn't be a burden meeting the requirements so long as other people are posting too.

[cityship]

This is not a bad suggestion.

Like if you have 1-2 characters, you have to make AC for one character. If you have 3-4, you have to make it for two, and if you have 5-6, you have to make AC for three. That's fairly reasonable to ask because if they can't be that active with that many, they might have too many. I think right now there's a few players that have like 6+ but I've seen them making the AC-for-three pretty easily.

It'll definitely be something we take into consideration.

^ This was me,

[on_your_nerves]

[on_your_nerves]

Er and my math may be wrong on the ratios there but I gt your idea.

[elementofloyalty]

You're in keeping with what I was suggesting.

To flesh out the idea a little more:

The requirements have to be divided across multiple characters. Using myself as an example, I couldn't spam the comm with three open Zetta posts and call it good. And I couldn't do twenty-eight Rainbow Dash tags to open threads, one Abby, and one Zetta, and call it good. One separate character needs to make the requirements for each 'level' of AC.

If some characters have required-post options, position-requirement posts count for AC, but not vice versa. I have required-post obligations with Zetta and Aibghalien, so at a 2:1 ratio I would need to make one open post with each of them, plus one open post or thread to another. But if I made open posts with Zetta, Rainbow Dash, and Maridian, I'd still need to make one for Abby, because he's got a position requirement.

I don't know if we could enforce this, but I think there's a really important distinction to be made between "open" and "semi-open" posts. There are some "semi-open" posts that are clearly written for a specific thread to occur -- witness my latest Zetta post, which was overtly geared to his usual CR but allowed for other people to tag in. It's a fine line, and like I said, I don't know if there's any way to determine and enforce it, but I don't think posts like that should count for AC. They're written in such a way that other people tagging in is an afterthought, and generally they aren't really as open to participation or encouraging other people to post to.

[morphitudinous]

Yes, this is good. I know we can't force it, but I know I really want to emphasize open posts.

I just looked back at the archive---in May 2011, there were a handful of open posts nearly every day, and they all got played in. In May 2012, we have about two or three a week, and they're usually posted by the same few players.

I know part of it is that we're a much smaller game---by my estimate there were around 80 players back then, and we'll be lucky to have 40 pass AC this time, but the drop in activity seems disproportionate to me.

The problem with so many people never posting opens is that you never have a chance for your character to start CR with theirs unless they're in a plot together, unless they tag one of yours---and usually you have to go out of your way to email them to ask for that. To me, it just seems like it's impossible to break in with a large chunk of the cast.

And that's fine---some people don't want a lot of CR, they might have too much to handle, no one has to play with anyone else. It just seems to have gotten to a point where very few are open.

IDK. I'm sorry if the wording's harsh, I don't mean to be criticizing anyone. It's just a hard thing to articulate.