post-mission assessment
Hello, Audentes! With the completion of the Perdition's Rest mission, we'd like to once again open up a discussion on game observations. To view our previous post-mission assessment, click here.Game updates:- MAGITEK UPGRADES: A reminder that characters may request upgrades to the magitek/jewelcomms through AC bonus bank rewards. Please see the list of upgrades that have already been implemented on the magitek information page.
- MEDICAL CENTER: A new addition to Oska is the medical center! Which has obviously always ICly been there and forgetting about it was not at all an OOC oversight. Check the Oska locations page for details.
- PLAYER CAP vs. CHARACTER CAP: After testing out a 75-player cap for several weeks at the beginning of Perdition's Rest, we decided to revert to our 80-character cap due to concerns about numbers bloating. Please look here and here for more information about these changes. As of today, we now have room to start accepting apps under the 80-character cap. However, due to plot reasons, apps will not be processed until after characters return to Oska on 21 December. We appreciate your patience while we reestablish equilibrium!
- CHARACTER CAP PER PLAYER: Also due to bloat concerns, we reverted from allowing three characters per player to only allowing two. Apping a second character now requires submitting double AC proofs for two months along with your app (for a total of eight proofs).
- DROP MECHANICS REMINDER: As a reminder, characters who drop or idle will be ICly transferred to another ALASTAIR team, and it is handwaved that this is announced to characters. In order for a character to "go home," they must have been in-game for six or more months and you must contact the mods to request it. For more information about "special drops," please see the FAQ.
- HMD CLARIFICATION: There has been some confusion about how our mandatory HMD works when on hiatus, so we have clarified that point on the hiatus page.
Our HMD happens every third month and is required to pass AC that month; failure to do so will result in an automatic strike. If a player is on hiatus, they must either submit their HMD proof with that month's AC or the month after.
If you are unavailable to post to HMD before the due date because you are on hiatus, you may post whenever you can, as long as it's before the following month's AC. For example: if you were on hiatus for November and unable to post to the HMD before 1 December, you are fine to post to the HMD any time before 1 January.
HMD participation is mandatory in Futurology, and skipping it is not an option.
- ACTIVITY CONCERNS: Futurology's activity check is undemanding and for the most part we are content to keep it that way, but in a capped game we must hold our players accountable for their participation.
When a player is in poor activity standing, we send out a PM and request a correction of the situation. Multiple such PMs have been sent out in the last three months. We ask that our players strongly consider their commitment and their tag load, and communicate with us before the monthly AC if they are struggling with the game or need to take an activity strike.
No changes to the AC system are planned at this time. However, we may consider tightening our activity check in the future.
Future changes:- ALASTAIR FILES: As a Nondenominational Winter Celebration gift, Audentes will be receiving access to ALASTAIR’s files due to passing the probationary newbie period. (And not at all because the files didn’t exist OOCly until now.) This will include information about ALASTAIR, Zymandis, etc. in order to better spread the meta out ICly and OOCly to everyone, old and new. Be on the lookout for this in late December!
- SQUIDGE PARK: Upon characters’ return to Oska, there will be a new addition to the castle grounds: a squidge park! For those who were not around for the Zeta-12 mission, squidges are small, jelly-like creatures that require nurturing and care in order to evolve into their adult forms. Due to Audentes's efforts in the Zeta-12 mission, ALASTAIR has been gifted with a clutch of squidge eggs to care for. Look for more information on the upcoming log!
Perdition's Rest Review- MISSION OBJECTIVES: The mission objectives were clearly outlined in our briefing page in attempts to mitigate unclear goals in previous missions. Was it useful to have them listed out in no uncertain terms? Would you like us to continue providing primary, secondary, and optional objectives (when applicable)?
- BOUNTY BOARD: We introduced the Bounty Board on the previous mission. In Perdition's Rest, we utilized the Bounty Board more, including several story-related bounties. Do you like the current Bounty Board system? Is there anything we can do to improve it?
- METAPLOT: We also introduced the metaplot conflict for the game, ALASTAIR’s enemy organization Zymandis. Keeping in mind that we will be revealing more about Zymandis as time goes on, how did you feel about the introduction? Our intent was to have the reveal occur organically, but in the future would you prefer metaplot to be announced outright (OOCly and/or ICly)?
- YOUR THOUGHTS?: Let us know what you thought about Perdition's Rest! What worked? What didn't work? What would you like to see in the future, and what would you not like to see again? Feel free to discuss amongst yourselves as well.
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axiology2016-12-14 12:03 am
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THESE WERE GREAT!! I've never been in a Futuro-style game before and was actually startled by how smoothly it went and how the mission progressed, due in part to having large overarching IC goals to bounce off of, so thanks! c: I also think that having bounties that tied into the objectives and metaplot were super fun, as well as the silly ones that were breaks from the more intense plot. It hit a fairly even balance, at least for me.
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I think that a little more OOC dispersing of plot information would be very helpful, but for the most part, because my character was ICly eager to stay involved
and because im too investedI was able to follow the Zymandis developments fairly well. I'm very interested to see where everything goes, especially since we have a good crop of characters (including mine) who would ICly care about alternate timeline junk, hahaha.other thoughts:
I'm slow as balls no matter what so my perspective of the game's pace is BASICALLY IRRELEVANT, but I do appreciate the movable IC/OOC timelines and mod willingness to allow for more time to complete threads, like what occurred prior to the Perdition's Rest mission! I've known you guys to be pretty attentive to player needs and willing to be flexible around them in the short time I've been here, so my only suggestion is to keep at that. Thanks for your hard work, mods-- I hope to stick around the game a while.
(also semi-related but will the bounty NPCs Jin talked into joining ALASTAIR-- the deputy and ex-bandit brother and sister team-- get sent over to another team already or are they stuck at the Oska nondenominational winter bash. because I gotta know if a 7 foot Qorral man is running into mistletoe and doorways.)
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Bounty Board was great! I really look forward to getting to utilize it in the future. Falling flat on my face in November threw me out of the loop, but I feel like there's a good sense of what players can offer out as their own character bounties, and a variety of kind of... threading prompts provided by accepting/working for the bounties provided.
Metaplot wise, while I was on hiatus, most of this I followed from the sidelines. What I appreciate most is that there feels like a sense of weight or consequence now to what the team does, giving a focused, ongoing kind of antagonist to work for/against as a whole. I feel like going forward, especially, that's going to be really key. I don't feel there's any big need to know specifics of what's going on with regards to Zymandis, but a heads up when they're going to be related to plot/logs in the future would be nice (and even on the calendar, if that's possible). I can't say much either way on organic reveals vs told up front, but I think that the allowance for player characters to come forward with information was nice. Otherwise I leave commentary to those who've had better brains on this situation, since gosh but I've still been out of it.
Thank you so much for the work and thought and creative energy you guys put into running this game. It's appreciated and amazing!
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Missions: These were neat! I enjoy the concept of the bounty board, and particularly how it tied into the storyline of Perdition's Rest. A couple concerns I had, however, were related to mechanics. For example, I was how "much" characters are able to accomplish on their own in a bounty log, such as in the Clear the Way bounty. The bounty was open to everyone up until the deadline, which sort of implies that nobody will be entirely successful? And while I'm generally all for making handwavey motions about such things for the ease of rp/plotting, I did wonder a little about how to explain it icly with characters like Sai who wouldn't leave a task unfinished.
The other question/concern I had was about characters that might be inclined to do the bounties by themselves. I totally understand that oocly they're sort of like a cr-building device, hence the length requirement, and it's fairly easy to contrive a scenario where characters would work together in most situations! But I was wondering about what would happen with characters that icly might not want to share the rewards from doing a bounty/might actively avoid such cooperation?
Metaplot: I thought the reveal of Zymandis was very well-executed. Personally, I prefer organic rollouts of ic information to getting all the details upfront ooc, and I spent the whole mission having a great time trying to piece together the tidbits that we were given as a result of player actions.
I definitely want to see a similar format for future missions, where the plot details we receive are contingent on the actions characters take, as opposed to just giving us the info outright and letting us work backwards on how that information was received icly--it's a strategy I've seen used in other games, and I've never found it particularly satisfying.
I really liked the idea of purchasing a central involvement in a plot reveal via AC bonus coins, though I also wonder if there might be a cheaper/alternative option for newer players?
Misc: I would love to see the NPCs taking a more active role within the game/the missions. For example, maybe an occasional post from Lloyd or an open thread on event logs to chat with setting-relevent NPCs like Miz Poppy at Perdition's Rest.
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As for allowing characters to "solo" bounties, due to the interactive nature of DWRP, unfortunately we cannot see any way this is possible. The requirements for a bounty are to have an AC-length thread, which cannot be done by a single person! If your character is not the sort to intentionally ally with another for the sake of completing a bounty, it's always possible to have them coincidentally run into someone else working on the same task.
Regarding plot slots, a plot slot costs 75 coins, which can easily be obtained in a single month. There are currently no plans to adjust the price depending on a character's length of time in-game.
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As to the solo bounties and plot slots, that makes sense! Thank you so much for your answers, and for all your hard work!! I've only been here a very short time, but I already feel at home here. ♥
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We're glad you feel at home, and hope you continue to do so!
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Bounty Board: As one of the most zealot players in at least ONE bounty board series, I definitely appreciated the "tiered" bounty board responses like the path clearing one and, of course, the holodisc one. It made me super eager to start and finish threads related to it so I could get the next piece of information/plot. I can't speak for everyone, but I would love more tiered bounties like that.
Metaplot I like the way the metaplot was announced in game and would like it to continue that way in the future with ONE caveat, which I will get to. The way we handled things in the mission was very organic and natural and I've been in games in the past where doling out information IC-ly works very well and keeps players on their toes and allows them to think "in the moment" rather than planning how their characters would react to this. For example, if I had known going into this how Zymandis would have played into everything, then I probably would have subconsciously downplayed Urahara's initial disinterest in the Qorral, and it wouldn't have been as meaningful an arc to have his perspective change. Again, can't speak for everyone, but I do know that knowing future events can lead me to either glossing over and handwaving initial emotional reactions to things, because I'm waiting for the payoff. I don't know if that makes sense or not...
BUT the caveat- obviously not every player can stalk/keep up with several posts of meaty discussion and doling out information, so this is where the OOC posts can come in. Once information has been dealt out, an OOC post summarizing everything that was discussed (i.e. what's on the network and thus now common knowledge to anyone who would have been stalking free of everyone's opinions and yelling) should go up. This will be helpful to both sets of players- the ones who were in the thick of it, who might have trouble recalling all the facts and the players who don't have time to engage or might have missed a post.
I think you guys do an amazing job, and I really appreciate your approach to modding and making the game fun for us!
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Unfortunately, currently we don't have the time to summarize and outline every plotpoint on the OOC community as well, but we'll strive to make sure all major plot information is conveyed in logs and major AC rewards posts.
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metaplot: i had a little bit of trouble following this mostly, i think, because i pretty much just showed up and then metaplot was happening and i was a little shy about getting involved. i don't feel that was an issue of its presentation, though--from my perspective, it was a lot easier to understand than i have experienced in other plots/games when i enter the game with a plot in media res.
perdition's rest general: i honestly really loved everything about this plot? i was pretty worried that since i was showing up most of the way through the mission i'd have trouble following along but i really didn't at all. i very much appreciate the clarity and straightforwardness of the mods' communication with players throughout, it made for a really great first month for me. thank you!! ♥
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I loved the fleshing out of the bounty board and the mix of story and "side quest" bounties gave me a really cool balance of serious plot vs. dumb SOL self-indulgence. I'd suggest maybe labeling the story-related bounties in the future so people know where to look to better get involved in the plot, but otherwise everything was A+ great please continue
CYOA:
The one I submitted was pretty simple, but I enjoyed watching others get to bounce ideas off you guys and get more meaty info by asking the right questions. I think the CYOA format works really well in terms of DMing interactions so everyone gets equal attention instead of picking one person to thread with an NPC, so I'd definitely like to see it return!
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- Bounty Board usage. This was a really great way to give players thread ideas and encourage CR development. I especially liked that some bounties contributed to the overall metaplot.
- Zymandis. GAME-CHANGER. Wow this was great. I love the idea of something arcing between missions, and even as a relatively new person, I can see how previous missions led up to this point (i.e., we needed Timeline.exe introduced, etc.), so it comes across as very well-planted.
- Mission Objectives: very handy!
Things I missed from Zeta-12:
- An easy access point to say "I'm going to try this thing" and have the mods reply with results (CYOA elements). Note: I know there was a log of this! But I liked how it factored into every stage of the Zeta-12 plot, to clarify.
- Mission success/failure dependent on players/characters choosing "correctly" — the idea of consequences, both positive and negative, was really attractive to me.
Miscellany:
- Increasing activity expectations to appropriately reflect the game cap is a great idea.
- It was a bummer when the cap dropped back down that a lot of people who thought they were looking at a short wait wound up with a longer one. Not sure what the solution was, but it seemed to disproportionately impact a handful of waiting apps.
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like i think it might have lessened the strain of the switch if we'd first kept the player cap with the per player cap reduced to 2 + the double activity requirements, since no current players would have been able to app for two months anyway/the influx of new blood wouldn't have been so abruptly staunched.