state of the game discussion (FOLLOW UP)

[neosapienmods]

STATE OF THE GAME (continued)

Alright, we've read over the comments offered, and here's a few things we want to do going forward.

We're going to skip Activity Check this month, obviously, since February was kind of a bust, aside from the one big plot reveal.

Apps are going to be Always Open starting on March 5th. Reserves will still be a thing, but only active for a small period for each individual reserve. It's basically a "hey hold this spot for me while I get my app together" thing.

A Test Drive will go up on March 1st, alongside the AU Workshop, rather than being posted on different days.

THIS IS THE IMPORTANT ONE: While we always approached this game with the idea of giving you guys a lot of freedom to build unique characters and not limit the scope of your ideas, we're going to take that a step further and basically share the reigns of the game's plot and direction with the playerbase. While the major NPC accounts will still be controlled by the mods, players can now control the direction of the story entirely without simply reacting to our directions.

This also means the OOC plotting aspect is also in players hands. Cidriel had the right idea in the last post, but with this kind of direction, we'd like to see the players themselves throw the details of their characters together with others, along with the general IC status of the game's world, and build off of each other's stories to see what the most interesting place to take the game is. Basically, if y'all wanted to do that form post, you are welcome to do so.

March is where all this experimentation will be happening, obviously. If there's something you just want to throw at the wall and try, March is definitely the month to do so!

Once again, if any of you guys have any questions or comments, post them here, discuss possible ideas, get the ball rolling on plotting, etc etc. We're kind of all flying blind here, so let's see what happens!

Comments

[thezekeinator]

This sounds like a terrific idea and I'm all-in. I've got ideas of my own!

May I suggest a central point for plotting, so that people can see, respond to, and build off of the ideas we're kicking around?

[neosapienmods]

As said in the post, if y'all want to do that, you are more than welcome to create those sort of posts yourself and get a jump start.

the basic gist is while the mods will need to approve and "officially" post some things, things like that are entirely up to player direction now.

[thezekeinator]

I should say that one reason I favor a centralized, navigation-directed post for plotting is to encourage new players to join the game. Rather than needing to scroll through the OOC comm looking for something that they might find interesting, they could easily jump to a single page, see what's out there, and start thinking about how their own characters could fit into it.

That'd overlap with the AU workshop, so a less-focused idea would be to require a tag for these plots which could be linked on the AU workshop for people to browse. I also think a centralized post is easier for existing players; if in a month's time I want to look up something someone posted right now, I wouldn't have to go comm-diving for it.

Another possible alternative would be a plotting community separate from the OOC community, where current and prospective players could all post. That would add the side benefit of keeping new AU workshop ideas popping up on reading pages, instead of us having to track the workshop page for posts or just check frequently.

Whatever the case, I want to make sure that plots are easily accessible to people outside the game, because an active plot that you can write into your AU can be very engaging and offer good CR and opportunities. Plus they could also plan introing their characters in unique ways!

[nephtunium]

Oh I like this idea! The idea of helping to build the world in a way is very exciting!

Definitely agreeing with Dragon that a central place for plotting is a good idea, both for ease of finding it and just keeping things in one spot.

[fibrillate]

Oh, I'm into this. I threw in a bunch of potential narrative hooks for Levi's backstory that could affect the game overall, so I'd be glad to help build something great with everybody else here.

[rubricatus]

re: having a place to discuss plot

Assuming monthly bulletin posts continue to happen, I think those might be a good, centralized place for plotting. It keeps everything gathered in one place, it allows people to use it as sort of a monthly status update for ideas and plotlines they have, and it's easy for the mods to keep tabs on. Yes/no/maybe?

[neosapienmods]

absolutely. but i also want people to feel free to not have to wait on the bulletin post, too. so if someone is itching to post something, they absolutely can.

[rubricatus]

tbh I was going to add something like "bigger plots/ideas that develop late in the month/etc can be posted separately to the OOC comm" but I didn't want to get too far ahead of myself when I was just tossing the idea out to see how that works for everyone, lol. So yeah, that too.