thisavrou_ooc | State of the Game

Greetings!

Over the last few months, Thisavrou has experienced a fairly steady drop in our playerbase. We've gone from a game with over a hundred characters to a game with barely half that. While we've done what we could to improve our game quality, your mod team has been reluctant to consider more drastic measures—just because the game's grown smaller hasn't made it unenjoyable, and the players who have stuck around have put an incredible amount of creativity and thought into their plot responses.

You've motivated us to learn from our mistakes and to do what we can to provide a challenging and worthwhile game. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most positive feedback we've received were on plots with the most mod responses—whether in the form of NPCs, choose-your-own-adventure options, or interactive puzzles that need solving. But especially as the game's shrunk, that's created a dilemma on our end: to keep the smaller game interesting, it's taken greater investments of mod time and energy... something that whether from offline troubles or game burnout, your current modteam can't always provide.

We don't want Thisavrou to close—and you can bet there's a lot more plot waiting in the wings if we can keep things running. But at this point, that's something we need your help to accomplish.

After a year of amazing plots, intensive work, and incredible patience, Jaina is looking to step down. While she's volunteered to stick around long enough to help transition any new mods, she's not the only one who's struggling to keep afloat. Sharn and Jen are willing to stay on in the long term, but don't feel confident in their ability to run everything without more support—and similarly, don't want to place the game's survival on the shoulders of a single new mod at this time.

For this reason, we are opening head mod apps, and looking for at least two new mods willing to step up to the role. The position involves responding to game questions, writing up plot logs, and everything between. If interested, please fill out the following form and drop it off on the screened Feedback page.

In the event that we don't receive two apps we feel able to accept, your current modteam will look to bring the game's plot to a close during the month of April. (This wouldn't wrap up every current plot point, but would offer some resolution to those who've stuck with us this far.) While other possibilities were discussed, they weren't ones that we felt would work in the long term—though we would welcome player input on the matter, and a discussion space has been created below.

The upcoming test drive and reserves will be delayed for one week as we wait for responses to come in. At the end of that period, we should know whether we're looking at a mod transition or upcoming closure, and will provide information accordingly. We're grateful to those who've provided feedback, and especially for the helper mods who've given time to make things easier on our end. We're also grateful for every single one of you. It's been an awesome ride, and if we can, we'll be glad to take it further.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

How much more plot would you estimate we have left?

If the game were to continue with the goal of fully playing out everything planned for this arc? We'd estimate four to five months of strict metaplot. In a more typical rate of play, leaving room for PCs to drive things and for non-metaplot-focused events to occur, this might play out over the course of six to eight months.

Depending on how things pan out, would the current mods (that is, Jen and Sharn) be adverse to the idea of closing application intake, and wrapping up the rest of the plot with just the remaining characters?

With the game being considerably smaller, it might be easier to customise to character involvement, and move plot forward. It might take some restructuring here and there, but downsizing could help make it manageable for the remaining chunk. Heck, instead of new head mods, maybe the helper mods could shift from page management to plot assistants.

Personally, and perhaps a little selfishly speaking, I'd love to see things come to their conclusion, but in the end, rp doesn't trump everyday life. I know you guys have done a lot already, and this is your personal lives that you are volunteering for our enjoyment, so if you've already considered these options and found them unmanageable, I completely understand.

While not a bad idea in theory, we have doubts about this working out in practice. As above, we were surprised to discover that the game took as much or more effort to run as it got smaller—and the only way to make that lighter would be to limit plot involvement, which more or less defeats the point. (Even apart from trying to make things maximally enjoyable for our players—plot engagement is how we know we're doing something right, and not something we'd look to reduce. We try to run a game, not just tell a story.)

At present, app processing takes a small but discrete chunk of time and effort, while list managing and drops are handled mostly by our list mods. The bulk of mod energy goes toward plotting: whether working out the progression of events, doing the writeups, or running events and keeping them engaging as we go. This is what we need support on, and closing apps wouldn't alter the situation. If anything, we worry it could place a bigger burden on the plot requirements as things go on—no new characters means the only new stimuli for the existing cast to thread with would be provided by mods and metaplot. In larger games, PCs tend to inherently create some amount of drama and engagement on their own.

If the list mods had interest in transitioning to full mods, we would welcome them—but the same goes for the bulk of our playerbase. We don't feel we can put anyone on the spot in that regard. Similarly, we can't blame anyone for not feeling capable or interested in the time investment required.

Thanks for the extremely thorough answer! In that case, I can see why it would be difficult.

With that in mind, I think that if downsizing is not a viable option, and new mods don't step in, I think, personally, I would prefer to see Sav come to its own natural conclusion (as much as humanly possible) within the mod's own abilities to do so.

Out of curiosity, you mention the mod position would entail writing up plot logs. I assume that also means coming up with concepts behind them, not just fleshing out details?

I'm curious how much the new mods would be involved with this kind of planning. Would they be more bridging the gaps between the events of the greater plot, or does the game need help with some of the larger direction as well? Basically, how set in stone is the plot/timeline, and how much room is there for the new mods to change, expand, and contribute?

Absolutely! Our apologies if we were unclear on this point, but new mods would be as involved in planning as they would be in producing plots. We're looking for people interested in helping run the game, and that includes involvement at all levels of the process.

Where the larger metaplot is concerned, a rough outline does exist, and there are specific plot points, events, and interactions pending. That said, we certainly wouldn't describe it as set in stone. Part of the goal with Arc 3 was always to shift toward a more PC-driven style of events, and as a result, we've tried to keep the larger progression flexible. We would be open to new mods' input in that regard, as well as any changes they wanted to make—though obviously, we would want any major shifts to be in keeping with the game's history and themes. ("Let's throw this space stuff out the window and turn sav into a sex game" isn't so much on the table.)

It's less that you're unclear, more that it's a particular point of interest of mine? I've done modwork before back at Gargleblasted, including a lot of worldbuilding — I remember how fun it was at first, but also how difficult it became when the idea well started running dry, both for mods and players. On the other hand, there wasn't nearly as much of a story arc in mind for that game.

(Also yes, of course! I think people would riot if a new mod came in and started rewriting it as a sex game.)

So, unfortunately I think this is happening not because of anything wrong with the game itself but because DWRP games often only have so long a shelf life. The oldbies are getting burned out and newer games are more appealing to potential new applicants, so the game is slowly trickling out.

This sucks, and I love the game and would also love to volunteer to step up as a fulltime mod but I honestly don't think that my schedule going forward would allow for it and I think that applies to a lot of the core playerbase here. Not a lack of interest, but a lack of time and energy.

Thoughts: if we can't get two more mods to sign on, and which I admit is the most probable scenario, is there any interest in maybe deliberately downsizing the game, restructuring it for a smaller playerbase, maybe even making it invite-only? As noted in the post, there's still a lot of investment in this game with the current players, there's just not as many of us left. Would converting it into something more informal and low-pressure rather than closing it maybe be a decent compromise?

State of the Game - Please Read!

Questions for the Modteam

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General Discussion

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