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◣ STATE OF THE GAME - JULY ◢
STATE OF THE GAME ❀
Each month, we will provide general updates on adjustments the mods are making to help the game thrive as we see things develop. We wish to see the game develop organically and to be responsive to player needs and receptive to alterations that will improve player experience.
These posts will also act as reminders about any housekeeping items that need player response, deadlines, etc.
Additionally, State of the Game posts are a great place for players to ask miscellaneous clarifying questions; we'll make ourselves available to turn these around relatively quickly whenever possible.
We have updated our ACTIVITY CHECK page and guidelines to clarify our expectations. Based on some submissions to June AC, we realized our policies were unclear — as a note, this lack of clarity did not lead to any AC drops. However, going forward, both AC threads are expected to be with different characters. For instance, Character A can submit AC in June where they thread with Mario and Luigi, but they cannot submit two threads with Mario. In July, they may not submit threads with Mario or Luigi. In August, they can submit a thread with Mario and/or Luigi again.
We responded to all the feedback from the June State of the Game post here. Based on this, we are working on Setting page updates based on the June event, and we are developing a new "Life Around the Basecamp" page.
You may notice our TDM is the same as last time, with no new options. This is to better direct our focus and time towards our existing players. Our hope is to eventually have 3-4 main 'TDM only' missions that we can utilize in a cycle to keep things from being too static for existing or prospective players!
We want to make this a place that players can ask generic questions to facilitate their non-event CR and plans. However, we also want this to a place that players can provide suggestions on how our process can better support your gameplay.
Below are a list of things we would like player feedback on:
We would appreciate any thoughts or insights any of our players may have in how to provide more options for character engagement. We aren't ready to make serious setting overhauls at this time, but would appreciate any thoughts you may have on this matter .
This is your reminder that activity check closes on July 31st at 11:59 EST. All activity must be dated and submitted before this time to our STATIC ACTIVITY CHECK POST.
ACTIVITY REQUIREMENTS:
As a reminder, BONUS AC can be submitted once during any three-month period. It can also be done at any time during the month. Bonus AC provides the opportunity for: plot/story tidbits, interesting weapons or items tooled by the mods for your characters, an item from the character's home or an in-game power or ability.If there are, please let us know.
GENERAL NOTES:
These posts will also act as reminders about any housekeeping items that need player response, deadlines, etc.
Additionally, State of the Game posts are a great place for players to ask miscellaneous clarifying questions; we'll make ourselves available to turn these around relatively quickly whenever possible.
❀ ANNOUNCEMENTS
❀ MOD FEEDBACK
We want to make this a place that players can ask generic questions to facilitate their non-event CR and plans. However, we also want this to a place that players can provide suggestions on how our process can better support your gameplay.
Below are a list of things we would like player feedback on:
❀ ACTIVITY REMINDER
This is your reminder that activity check closes on July 31st at 11:59 EST. All activity must be dated and submitted before this time to our STATIC ACTIVITY CHECK POST.
ACTIVITY REQUIREMENTS:
You must submit a combination of TWO of any of the following types of activity:
☆ A log of 5 or more comments
☆ A network thread of 10 or more comments
☆ An open post in the network or log community where the player made a reasonable effort to reply**
Players may mix and match the above to any effect, as long as it meets the two proof requirement (e.g., 10 network comments and 5 log comments, or one open log and 10 network comments). "Reasonable effort to reply" to an open thread is defined as responses to some or most of the replies accrued on an open thread.
These two proofs must each be with different characters, and those characters should vary from month to month. (You cannot submit two threads with Mario for one AC period. If you submit a thread with Mario and a thread with Luigi this month, then next month you will need to submit one with Bowser and one with Peach; you cannot submit a thread with either Mario or Luigi.)
☆ A log of 5 or more comments
☆ A network thread of 10 or more comments
☆ An open post in the network or log community where the player made a reasonable effort to reply**
Players may mix and match the above to any effect, as long as it meets the two proof requirement (e.g., 10 network comments and 5 log comments, or one open log and 10 network comments). "Reasonable effort to reply" to an open thread is defined as responses to some or most of the replies accrued on an open thread.
These two proofs must each be with different characters, and those characters should vary from month to month. (You cannot submit two threads with Mario for one AC period. If you submit a thread with Mario and a thread with Luigi this month, then next month you will need to submit one with Bowser and one with Peach; you cannot submit a thread with either Mario or Luigi.)
As a reminder, BONUS AC can be submitted once during any three-month period. It can also be done at any time during the month. Bonus AC provides the opportunity for: plot/story tidbits, interesting weapons or items tooled by the mods for your characters, an item from the character's home or an in-game power or ability.If there are, please let us know.
GENERAL NOTES:
☆ There will be no AC warning list — this post is your warning.
☆ Activity sweeps and drops will be announced in the OOC Intro/CR Meme and in the hatching log to facilitate plotting of those players'/characters' close CR. (This cycle will include drops from May as well.)
☆ Dropped characters disappear, but their belongings are left behind. If you have questions about a character's inventory left behind, you can approach the mods. We have all the apps recorded.
☆ Activity sweeps and drops will be announced in the OOC Intro/CR Meme and in the hatching log to facilitate plotting of those players'/characters' close CR. (This cycle will include drops from May as well.)
☆ Dropped characters disappear, but their belongings are left behind. If you have questions about a character's inventory left behind, you can approach the mods. We have all the apps recorded.
MOD QUESTIONS
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Example:
June:
Character A log
Character B network
July:
Hiatus
August:
Can I submit threads with A and B again, or does it still need to be C and D?
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Hiatuses excuse players from activity check for the month that the hiatus was posted for. They will return entirely to normal for the following month as if there were no hiatus. We think it would be unfair to hiatused players to give them additional activity obligations when they're trying to return. For that reason, they will have no restrictions on what characters they submit AC with for the month they return from hiatus, regardless of what they submitted the month before they hiatused. Think of it as a clean slate.
In short, yes, you could theoretically submit threads with A and B again in August in the scenario you referenced. We'll clear this up on our Activity Check and Hiatus pages.
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I have AC for this month so this is not a strictly For Me question, but I noticed that the lack of an event this month made it harder for some people to get involved or reach out, especially those that have less CR or who are lone canon warriors. Do you guys think it would be fair to maybe halve the AC this time around? I noticed that one of your thoughts was about player engagement/et al and I think reducing the stress levels surrounding AC might also help while we're all still sort of getting our 'sea legs' so to speak.
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We have also noticed some slowing down this month as a result of not having an event this month. While we encourage people who have had particular difficulty threading to drop a retroactive hiatus in their activity comment (or on the Hiatus page) to exempt them from AC, we agree that we can lessen the burden of AC for all players this month to account for getting our footing with pacing the game's events.
FOR AUGUST ONLY, players may submit (2) activity proofs of the following types:
☆ A log thread of 3 or more comments
☆ A network thread of 7 or more comments
☆ An open post in the network or log community OR AN OPEN TOP-LEVEL ON A MOD-POSTED LOG where the player made a reasonable effort to reply
Players will still need to post two activity proofs with characters that they did not submit threads with for June AC. New players, as always, are exempt from AC for the month they join.
Let us know if you have any further clarifying questions on this point! We'll be pinging the Discord and Plurk with a link to this update so that everyone knows.
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Are characters with shielding powers (Alina can create light dome shields, Lance can use a D&D-y shield spell) able to shield against the acid rain, or is that considered impacting the setting and liable for unpredictable outcomes?
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Shielding small areas or between 1-3 characters with a character's magic/spells/etc would be fine. Any more than that, you might start noticing odd 'glitches'.
Hope this helps!
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I understand that I can't make AC by tagging the same characters in consecutive months. However, what if I play two characters?
ex.:
• I play Sonic and Peach.
• Month one: Sonic makes AC with Mario and Peach makes AC with Luigi.
• In the following month, can Sonic make AC with Luigi and Peach make AC with Mario?
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AC is processed by character, not player, so so you are free to double up on who you're threading with across multiple characters.
To answer your specific example, it would be fine for Sonic to make AC with Luigi and for Peach to make AC with Mario after the opposite had happened in the prior month.
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Quick question about open posts - does this count an open top thread in an event log?
(This is a question I have been afraid to ask throughout my ten year RP career in case people thought I was lazy ahahaha)
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For the purposes of AC, posting an open starter (i.e., one that anyone in the game can reply to) on any log posted by
Let us know if you need more clarity or are indeed wondering about a specific case!
FEEDBACK
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My biggest pressing concern is the fact that when I apped in this round, the intro-log was pretty much a rehash of the TDM, with mostly things being added for older characters to react to that left little for the newer ones. As such, I simply kept doing my TDM threads instead, since posting twice would have been a little silly for the same result.
As well, while I know the game is supposed to be character driven, I was expecting some sort of log or something to go up to have my character get involved with and react and interact to/with, but the only log that happened this month was the arrival log. As it stands, only two log posts have been posted in the logs comm since the arrival post, and one is a closed prompt. Is this going to be the norm? Or will there be smaller things happening around the camp to help springboard the action a little?
Thanks in advance!
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In a general sense, in most games, I think handwaving memes are under-utilized and would be a good direction to go in. A lot of that stuff does happen on Plurk, but not everyone has everyone else on Plurk. These characters have been living together for two months now in a very communal arrangement, so there’s plenty of room for offscreen interactions.
Re: FEEDBACK
Not a question, but a suggestion: the hiatus page is a little unclear in that it says you can “take a hiatus once every three months” (pretend that’s a totally accurate quote, you know what I mean!) Some people will interpret that as “you must be fully active two out of every three months” and some will interpret that as “you may only be exempted from AC once every three months” — not totally the same thing. If the intended meaning is more the latter, then a clarification there might be good. (This has been on my mind because I made AC last month even though I was exempted, and was a little worried about this month and was like “but I still gotta.”)
Everything else is all good, though; I’m enjoying the setting and the game! Thanks for your hard work. (Edit in the few minutes since I posted this: making the NPC post to help people out was an especially nice idea!)
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What I mean by static mechanics could be 'everyone slowly turning progressively more purple when they touch each other', or maybe something that makes it engaging to explore the adamant like there being an alien from the movie aliens to combat rather than only an achievement unlock of a new area, or the chrysalis randomly giving everyone a temporary power/swapping it with others. These are terrible examples, but just having something constant, intense, or "unavoidable" to fall back on would be rad.