Soulgemmed Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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griefseeded2016-01-12 11:47 pm
soulmods) wrote in griefseeded2016-01-12 11:47 pm
Entry tags:
Mod Announcement
Hello, everyone! In response to a bit of feedback we've gotten in regards to this month's event, we would like to publicly address a few things.
Namely, the pacing of the event. As Soulgemmed operates on a 1:1 IC:OOC ratio (meaning that one IC day = one OOC day), we put the event end up on the OOC day that it would ICly have ended. This meant that three event logs went up in the span of three days.
Firstly, we will address the boss battle, which lasted approximately twelve hours. Naturally, some players were disappointed at the length of the battle. Due to its short duration, there were players who did not get the chance to participate.
In response to this, we received feedback requesting that, in the future, we allow each thread with the NPC to exist in its own continuity; namely, if character A kills the NPC in thread A, this does not stop character B from starting a new thread and killing the NPC in thread B.
While this method of NPCing would allow everyone to participate, it would also be incredibly thread intensive. With the current modteam configuration, we do not feel that this method would be viable. It would be altogether too time-consuming for both players and mods and would run the risk of characters being stuck in limbo while they wait for resolutions to the fight. Though the boss may be considered the climax to the event, it's still a very small part of it.
Player sign ups was also an option that was considered and discussed, but it was determined that it would come with its own issues. In the boss battle, the main complaint that came up was that the short duration of the battle led to many players not getting a chance to partake in the fight. Therefore, we want to change boss battles to be more inclusive. We feel that sign ups would be achieving the opposite: rather than boss battles that players might end up being excluded from due to missing the cut-off time, we would end up with boss battles that players will definitely be excluded from.
Instead, future time-sensitive events such as boss battles will be clearly marked as such in the OOC plotting/details post that goes up. We will put a general time frame on there to alert all players ahead of time. As an additional note, while this boss battle in particular lasted only twelve hours, we do not intend to have a boss be defeated so quickly in the future. This first boss was something of a tutorial boss, and as such, he went down rather easily. This will not be the case in future battles, and all players will be given at least 48 full hours to tag in and interact with the boss.
However, since we neglected to mention that this part of the event would be time-sensitive, we are allowing players who missed it the chance to participate and tag the NPC as if he were alive. For the next 72 hours, any additional tag to that log will be tagged back. Please note that this is a one-time exception, and we do not anticipate this happening again in the future.
Furthermore, while that particular part of the event was meant to be time-sensitive, the other parts of the event were not. That is to say, we do not mean for there to be any pressure to complete the threads in the first event log before the second event log goes up. Similarly, while the boss fight part of the second event log was time sensitive, the other parts of that log - the trek there, the pre-battle planning, the battle against the elements, for example, were not meant to be such. And although we put them all up in quick succession, expecting players to be able to write top levels and tag out to all three logs, then have those threads quickly wrapped up, would naturally be quite unreasonable. We had no such expectation in mind. Rather, these event logs were designed to last the entire month.
Perhaps this poses a question. Why put all three event logs up in quick succession rather than spacing them out? Our reasoning is thus: we wanted to open up the setting for players to do with as they saw fit. Rather than be stuck in a nightmarescape for the entirety of the month, which would both be emotionally taxing for the characters and limiting to the players, we wanted to get the conclusion of the event out of the way in a timely manner so that players who wished to play out the slice-of-life aspect of the game or explore other elements of Nyoi-cho, such as its magical mirror network or dreamscape-like houses, would be able to do so. This would also open the game up to individual character logs, network posts, and the like.
This brings us to a second question, however: Why not space the event logs out and simply backdate them? While this would be an option, it would pose the problem of affecting character interactions that occurred outside of this event in the meantime. With no resolution to the event, players would face the problem of not knowing how to have their characters broach the subject of the mutual experiences that they would have, ICly, just undergone. Thus, we felt it best to clearly establish what the characters would have spent their days in the event doing.
In order to facilitate backtagging in this month's event logs and make them more welcome to latecomers, we will be editing the stickied post format entry on the IC comm to always include links to the current month's event logs.
As an additional note, Nightmares are incredibly common enemies and are what the magi will be facing on a daily basis. Thus, we encourage players to run their own Nightmare logs. In the event that you want to play out your character facing a minor Nightmare, you are free to put up your own logs for this with no mod approval required and run your own NPC boss fight, or contact the mods if you'd rather have someone else NPC the fight. Because these are not massive, time-sensitive events it would allow for a tagging schedule that would suit the needs of all players involved. That being said, if you want to run a player-run nightmare event, head on over to our calendar and review how to submit the details there!
We hope this has addressed some of your concerns with this event. Thank you.
Namely, the pacing of the event. As Soulgemmed operates on a 1:1 IC:OOC ratio (meaning that one IC day = one OOC day), we put the event end up on the OOC day that it would ICly have ended. This meant that three event logs went up in the span of three days.
Firstly, we will address the boss battle, which lasted approximately twelve hours. Naturally, some players were disappointed at the length of the battle. Due to its short duration, there were players who did not get the chance to participate.
In response to this, we received feedback requesting that, in the future, we allow each thread with the NPC to exist in its own continuity; namely, if character A kills the NPC in thread A, this does not stop character B from starting a new thread and killing the NPC in thread B.
While this method of NPCing would allow everyone to participate, it would also be incredibly thread intensive. With the current modteam configuration, we do not feel that this method would be viable. It would be altogether too time-consuming for both players and mods and would run the risk of characters being stuck in limbo while they wait for resolutions to the fight. Though the boss may be considered the climax to the event, it's still a very small part of it.
Player sign ups was also an option that was considered and discussed, but it was determined that it would come with its own issues. In the boss battle, the main complaint that came up was that the short duration of the battle led to many players not getting a chance to partake in the fight. Therefore, we want to change boss battles to be more inclusive. We feel that sign ups would be achieving the opposite: rather than boss battles that players might end up being excluded from due to missing the cut-off time, we would end up with boss battles that players will definitely be excluded from.
Instead, future time-sensitive events such as boss battles will be clearly marked as such in the OOC plotting/details post that goes up. We will put a general time frame on there to alert all players ahead of time. As an additional note, while this boss battle in particular lasted only twelve hours, we do not intend to have a boss be defeated so quickly in the future. This first boss was something of a tutorial boss, and as such, he went down rather easily. This will not be the case in future battles, and all players will be given at least 48 full hours to tag in and interact with the boss.
However, since we neglected to mention that this part of the event would be time-sensitive, we are allowing players who missed it the chance to participate and tag the NPC as if he were alive. For the next 72 hours, any additional tag to that log will be tagged back. Please note that this is a one-time exception, and we do not anticipate this happening again in the future.
Furthermore, while that particular part of the event was meant to be time-sensitive, the other parts of the event were not. That is to say, we do not mean for there to be any pressure to complete the threads in the first event log before the second event log goes up. Similarly, while the boss fight part of the second event log was time sensitive, the other parts of that log - the trek there, the pre-battle planning, the battle against the elements, for example, were not meant to be such. And although we put them all up in quick succession, expecting players to be able to write top levels and tag out to all three logs, then have those threads quickly wrapped up, would naturally be quite unreasonable. We had no such expectation in mind. Rather, these event logs were designed to last the entire month.
Perhaps this poses a question. Why put all three event logs up in quick succession rather than spacing them out? Our reasoning is thus: we wanted to open up the setting for players to do with as they saw fit. Rather than be stuck in a nightmarescape for the entirety of the month, which would both be emotionally taxing for the characters and limiting to the players, we wanted to get the conclusion of the event out of the way in a timely manner so that players who wished to play out the slice-of-life aspect of the game or explore other elements of Nyoi-cho, such as its magical mirror network or dreamscape-like houses, would be able to do so. This would also open the game up to individual character logs, network posts, and the like.
This brings us to a second question, however: Why not space the event logs out and simply backdate them? While this would be an option, it would pose the problem of affecting character interactions that occurred outside of this event in the meantime. With no resolution to the event, players would face the problem of not knowing how to have their characters broach the subject of the mutual experiences that they would have, ICly, just undergone. Thus, we felt it best to clearly establish what the characters would have spent their days in the event doing.
In order to facilitate backtagging in this month's event logs and make them more welcome to latecomers, we will be editing the stickied post format entry on the IC comm to always include links to the current month's event logs.
As an additional note, Nightmares are incredibly common enemies and are what the magi will be facing on a daily basis. Thus, we encourage players to run their own Nightmare logs. In the event that you want to play out your character facing a minor Nightmare, you are free to put up your own logs for this with no mod approval required and run your own NPC boss fight, or contact the mods if you'd rather have someone else NPC the fight. Because these are not massive, time-sensitive events it would allow for a tagging schedule that would suit the needs of all players involved. That being said, if you want to run a player-run nightmare event, head on over to our calendar and review how to submit the details there!
We hope this has addressed some of your concerns with this event. Thank you.