STATE OF THE GAME + ANNOUNCEMENTS.

[futurologists]

STATE OF THE GAME Hello everyone! It’s been awhile since our first feedback post, and we’ve had a lot of changes over the last couple months. Thank you all so much for your support in making Futurology as successful as it’s been. We have a couple announcements and general discussion points to bring up, so let’s get started: ANNOUNCEMENTS CHARACTER CAP. Regardless of today’s poll results, the overall game cap is not being adjusted for the time being and will remain at 90, with a max of (2) characters per player. This max cap may go up or down at the mod team’s discretion as time goes on, but for now we want to see how things proceed at this game size. This means there’s currently no set date or details for the next app cycle process, but we’ll make an announcement when that changes. APPLICATION FORMAT. While these won’t be open for a while, there are a few changes to note going forward. For the Abilities section, all powers must be outlined in the player’s own words. Links to outside resources should be strictly supplemental. And while Personality sections previously had a 2k word soft cap, this has now been adjusted to a 1.5k word hard cap. ACTIVITY CHECK. There aren’t any changes to the core AC requirements, but going forward consecutive hiatuses and strikes will not be accepted. Furthermore, there will no longer be AC warning lists. This is to make things as fair as possible as well as reduce mod workload, but we know life happens! Players are always welcome to contact the mod journal or contact post should personal circumstances arise, which will be taken on a case-by-case basis. Additionally, the AC bank and rewards have been consolidated for ease of processing. The point system has also been simplified, so network (or inbox) and log comments are worth 0.5 and 1 coin respectively. They do not need to be turned in at increments anymore, but all threads still need to reach AC length to be submitted. Expect some renovations to the AC rewards system going forward! POLLS Please only vote once with one journal -- duplicates will be removed. Discussion is welcome in the comments below. GAME SPEED It’s been suggested to us that given the pacing of the game, it might be better to run at a slower game ratio. For example, 1 IC day would cover 2 OOC days, and so forth. Poll #17177 GAME SPEED Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 47 View Respondents What OOC days:IC days ratio would you like the game to run at? View Answers 1:1 (no change) 24 (51.1%) 1:2 10 (21.3%) 1:3 13 (27.7%) Reverse it and make days ICly last 48 or 72 hours 0 (0.0%) CAST CAP Given the total character cap, it’s been brought to our attention that a specific cast cap may be helpful for game balance. If there’s interest, we will likely tweak the exact number based on discussion and mod discretion, but we’d like to gauge what ballpark value would be most fair. Any casts exceeding the cap will be grandfathered in. Poll #17178 CAST CAP Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 54 View Respondents Would you be interested in implementing a cast cap? View Answers No cap 4 (7.4%) Cap of 5-10 44 (81.5%) Cap of 10-15 6 (11.1%) Other; please specify 0 (0.0%) PLOT SUMMARY Here is a brief overview of our story thus far: Festival of Illumination: The original group of ALASTAIR recruits arrive to the strained city of Chantes. Though the human nobles are pleased to have them, it seems the recently mobilized goblin militia is wary, and diplomatic relations are low all around. Tensions are especially high after the death of Queen Odette and recent disappearance of the sun, only made worse when the local Festival of Illumination celebrations are disturbed by an unknown force under the strange banner of a chimera. Divided (event write-up): Tensions come to a head when the goblin militia storms the main city square, erupting into a citywide brawl. ALASTAIR recruits get caught up in the fight, and some of them spend the night in the slammer for it, though it earns them a few leads on some missing faces around the city. All Hallow’s Eve: Happy Halloween! Both sides celebrate the passing of the dead peacefully, but the night ends on a sour note as it is once again interrupted. This time, there are bodies -- one human, one goblin -- and one suspicious man from the earlier lock-up. Storm the Castle: Growing impatient, many of the recruits cook up a plan to infiltrate the castle. Two recruits in particular break into the King’s chambers and discover that he may not have loved Odette as much as he’d like you to think. Home Investigation: Recruits head to the home of Agatha Belrose. It looks like someone has been here recently, at least. They also discover many herbs that could be used for magic as well as a grimoire with some unsettling spells inside. Order of the Chimera (event write-up): Impressed with the recent infiltration of the castle, the Order of the Chimera sends out invitations to some of the recruits. At the meeting, they finally learn that the culprit behind the sun’s disappearance is neither human nor goblin -- he’s both. He seems to have other plans, but the meeting is stormed by guards before they can learn what, and many characters are carted off to jail on charges of treason. Jailbreak (event write-up): A member of the Order who escaped, Arthur, comes to the recruits for help breaking them out of jail. He strikes up a deal, agreeing to at least provide information about reversing the spell as long as he is given full protection from Michel, the Order’s leader and his brother. Recruits head to the jail, take down the guards, and erase the runes keeping the anti-magic barrier up. During the break, Michel is kidnapped by recruits. The prisoners are free for now, but they’ll have to live as fugitives. DESIGN CONTEST And finally, something fun for the holidays. We’ll be holding a official uniform design contest! The rules are simple: dress up this template and send it in for voting in January. The winning design will be integrated ICly into the game after the end of the current mission. We will be looking strictly at design, not artistic ability--be as simple or detailed as you would like! For design purposes, here is ALASTAIR’s logo: CREDIT HERE. The official colors are purple (#4C3380), black, and white, though this is more for guidance than a rule. Variation is more than welcome. The deadline is January 8th at 12:01 AM (GMT). Please leave submissions on the screened post here. IN CLOSING Finally, a thank you to everyone who suggested plots, gave us suggestions and feedback—we really appreciate your input, and they’ve helped shape the flow of the game so far. We’ve got even more cool stuff (and player plots!) lined up for January, so hold on tight! On a related note, we tend to favor player plots that are collaborative and allow for a wide range of characters to participate, rather than putting the emphasis on one cast or one player/character. We feel this is the fairest approach! We can’t bring every single suggestion we receive into play, sadly, but we do appreciate all of them. A warm and heartfelt thank you to all our players who’ve put up with the growing pains of a new game with new mods. We wish you all a happy holiday season!

Comments

QUESTIONS.

[futurologists]

Questions referring to the announcements or polls can go here!

Re: QUESTIONS.

[hellshaped]

Hello there! Just a quick question regarding plot suggestions. I want to make sure I've been submitting things through the preferred channels. Do you prefer to be contacted through PM, the mod contact page, or the suggestions page?

Additionally, one of my suggestions was for a new setting -- do you want suggestions for these, or should we leave that to you guys and stick to plots/events?

[futurologists]

You absolutely delivered them to the correct channels! It's our bad for not confirming with you, but they've been seen and are getting considered!

Going forward, we'll be sure to respond to each suggestion we get to make sure people know they've been received.

[hellshaped]

Oh it's no problem!! I understand things fall by the wayside when you've got a whole game to look after. Thank you for putting my mind at ease :>

Re: QUESTIONS.

[kamiizumi]

While this doesn't actually change my answer to the cast cap poll, I am curious about how tightly we're defining a cast. I'm not particularly expecting castmates, but I do play from a canon that has a lot of different versions that are all in their own continuity, some of which are very different from the others - would these count together, or would these be considered separately (i.e. Marvel 616 and MCU are listed separately on the taken list, so I assume they don't count together)?

[futurologists]

We're counting canons that occur within the same universe as part of the same cast, while canons that take place in different universes will count as separate casts. For example, the different Dragon Age games would all count as a single cast because the games all take place in the same universe, while Marvel 616 and MCU would count as separate casts as they take place in two separate universes.

Does that make sense?

[kamiizumi]

Makes sense! If we're going that way, though, the qualifier as to which version didn't get put on my entry on the taken list, which it probably should be; is on the taken list itself the place to comment about editing that? (As it stands, just saying "TMNT" explains about as much as just saying "Marvel.")

[futurologists]

Commenting to the taken list with that update is perfectly fine, yes!

Re: QUESTIONS.

[ricksybusiness]

ANOTHER QUESTION i'm sorry

Re: the uniform contest, can we submit different designs? Whether as one entry (formal wear + field wear in one entry, for example) or as separate entries?

[futurologists]

To make things easier, we ask that players only submit designs for field uniforms.

Re: QUESTIONS.

[inroad]

is it all right if we can't draw for the life of us to also use other references to more accurately show the style we were trying to get across? can we for example paste a small thumbnail on the dressup that is maybe an article/clothing style we found online or from a movie or etc or just stick to drawing only?

[futurologists]

It's perfectly fine to use references!

MOD/GAME HMD.

[futurologists]

Any suggestions or constructive criticism you have for us can go here!

[adoube]

Minor suggestion — I think sometimes plot sign-ups and updates get lost when they take place exclusively on the calendar post. Would it be feasible to have occasional updates on the OOC comm? Or OOC planning posts?

[futurologists]

We're a bit confused as to what you're asking. We currently put up OOC planning posts for almost all of our events and generally post reminders about sign-ups on Plurk.

Were you asking for reminders to be posted to the OOC comm instead of on Plurk? Or to have a separate sign-up post on the OOC comm for events?

[adoube]

My bad on articulating poorly -- yes, I was thinking of reminders on the OOC comm, or of separate sign-ups posted there, whichever is easier on you. Having said that, I don't personally follow the mod plurk, so I wasn't aware of its activity in that sense. That might be something more easily resolved on my end.

[becauses]

I suggested (was one of the people who suggested?) the 1:3 day ratio, so I wanted to explain my thoughts. I love the OOC rate at which we have events, but I think that ICly it leads to awkwardly long periods where nothing happens. Like with the jailbreak, people were in jail for a pretty long time, despite the fact that ALASTAIR members are go-getters who probably wouldn't have let their friends sit in jail that long... but OOCly it had to be that long because that's how the events were spaced out, and OOCly they were spaced that far apart for a good reason: so people could finish their threads (of getting thrown in jail, of being in jail, of planning to break people out of jail, of breaking people out of jail).

In other words, I think OOC time dilation makes IC reaction times more realistic.

Also I voted as canonballs because I didn't realize what I was logged in as oops.