cityship: (Default)
cityship ([personal profile] cityship) wrote in [community profile] trans_pilgrims2012-05-21 05:49 pm

Special Discussion [PLEASE READ]

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.
morphitudinous: (Display of affection)

[personal profile] morphitudinous 2012-05-21 09:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Hey everyone! It's Zoki. I just thought I'd say something, because I'm the one who brought this all up and kicked off the internal discussion. I thought you should know. After talking with mods and friends, I've realized that the doubts and fears that caused me to drop might actually be fixable. Maybe I'm not leaving after all---I definitely don't think I can handle the stress of the mod thing, but maybe I was too hasty. I gave up hope too fast.

Here's the part where I confess: the main reason I dropped was because I got caught up in an anxiety feedback loop about Trans 9's imminent death. I saw drops, not a lot of posts, and ill feelings and I held back and feared...and I don't think I'm the only one. I think I got caught up in worrying about the death and losing all of you so much that I forgot to relax and play.

In a way, I sort of became the Harold Camping of the game. Remember a year ago today, May 21st, 2011? (My apologies if you're already in the 22nd in your time zone). The final judgment was coming, the world as we knew it was supposed to end, and he knew the date. He used numbers to predict doomsday and some people got caught up in it and stopped living, focused everything on preparing for the end. I did that and forgot to have fun.

But the truth is...deep down, I don't really think that we're a lost cause. Maybe the world's not ending. We have a great mission before us: saving the universe as friends, kicking some butt, having some laughs, and all topped off with a cool ending that I still love. And I really think it can still work with a smaller crew.

But I let my inertia convince myself that it was soon going to be no crew. And...maybe that's not so.