mod update 12.5

[hownkai]

M O D U P D A T E

Hello Savrites! We would like to thank everyone who sent thoughtful suggestions to us when we made Thisavrous's State of The Game post. We are going to address some of the concerns previously made, so please read everything thoroughly and consider them before coming to us with questions you might have. Also, much thanks and appreciation to those who remained respectful towards us - whether publicly or privately - with these decisions. This game has grown considerably since it has opened, evolving in ways that we, the Mod Team, could never have suspected, and we are going to do our best to keep things running as smoothly and fairly as possible. Things To Note: • Apps will be open next month and then they are going to be temporarily closed until further notice. For this upcoming app round: we are going to be taking a total of 60 apps. It will be strictly on a First Come, First Serve basis. As per our the application page, there will be no app challenges. (This is to help encourage players who really want to be in the game and keep the game cast a manageable size.) • As per player suggestion, there is now a section on the application devoted to the contracts that must be filled out. Veteran players may take a look and add this to their application if they choose, but it is not necessary. This is just a step we are taking from this point forward. Now, for the nitty gritty of this post: the death rule and lack of punishment system within the game. We decided to put this into place as a way to give players an IC reason for an OOC rule. On our previous post, we tried to keep it simple so that players would still be able to plot, but when asked for more clarification, everything got more and more muddled. We apologize for everything getting confusing, and we took a step back for a few days so that we could look at all the suggestions we had received in order to try to come up with a better solution. This Rule Consists of Two Parts: • ONE: If your character has decided to kill another crew member, and they are successful, then they will be given the choice between hold time and being dropped off on a neighboring planet. • TWO: If your character has decided to kill another crew member and are not successful due to miraculous medical procedures or other means, they are still given the choice between hold time and being dropped off on another planet. These are the only two specific scenarios that we are giving. Players can still plot out situations where they are talked down from killing someone else, can still accidentally kill someone through numerous means, and NPC deaths on planets are still possible. We think that the captains notifying crew of this new two-part rule will sway quite a few of the characters in game to not murder one another carelessly or needlessly. We also think it will curb some of the violence that has created a rather intense atmosphere for characters and players in the game. However, this isn’t being put into place to stop all plot-related deaths and murders; just to curb those between crew members. As for punishments, the captains are not going to make any kind of punishment system. The last one didn’t work and seemed to only make things worse. If characters ICly come to the captains because another character is doing something untoward (torture, abuse, etc.) then the players involved and mods will all come up with what plot should happen. Everything is open for discussion. There will be gray areas and scenarios that come up in game that won’t fit this rule, as many of you have come to us asking about, and we understand that. If it comes up in the future, and you aren’t sure, please ask. We would appreciate if players took the time to read this through carefully and think about how it would affect your character, if it would at all, before responding to this post. We have done our best to be as accommodating to players in the past ten months as we possibly can, and this is the first time that we’ve made such a big change. The game has to grow and evolve since it’s become so large, and in order to do so, sometimes, we have to bring in new systems. That doesn’t mean anything is set in stone or that we won’t listen to players' concerns and suggestions. We only ask that everyone be respectful in the future and to try and think things out before coming to us. Wrapping this up, we want to thank all our players that came forward and offered well-thought out insight into what we can do to make this better for as many people as possible. It was really nice to get that awesome feedback and to have support in trying to make the changes we feel are necessary! Below are a couple comments for things that were suggested that we want your vote on. Please check them out and respond. Thanks, everyone!

Comments

[ryuuzaki]

- Amissis-Re was my favorite of the events since March, because characters were able to see each other's worlds and bring items back without necessarily needing to be canon-familiar. "Mixing the canons" was a little bit harder.

- I like short-term Space Cootie events. (You know, the seemingly serious weird illness that gets cured, but you have to find a cure.) It's always good when there's an option for any incapacitation to proceed slowly, so people don't feel sidelined unless they want to be.

- I like things that involve puzzles. Sometimes it can be hard to incorporate them, because 1. they have to be driven by the kind of character who would create puzzles for whatever reason, and 2. a lot of common puzzle types don't play well with automatic translators, because they're based in wordplay or specific to one language.

- I like events without a lot of special plot roles. So far, I think those roles have been incorporated well here: the team leaders in the current event could be seen as special plot roles, but they don't keep anyone else from playing to their strengths. They're mostly just players who were willing to put in some extra work and have characters who are a good match for the spot. RNG plot roles are only a problem when an event is much less interesting for anyone who didn't get them, or when they keep characters from playing to their strengths.

- A lot of people have mentioned memory and dream share. The one thing I think is worth keeping in mind is that the setup on the player end in events like those (or Silent Hill things) can be demanding and time-consuming, so we'd probably need extra lead time. I like it when thought goes into the effort that would be involved in executing a specific event concept.

- I don't hate events that are usually seen as cracky (de-age, bodyswap, forced honesty, audible narrator, etc), but a little goes a long way.

- On the other hand, most of what happens on Star Trek: TNG seems like it would be fair game for inspiration for at least a short event. I'm not saying "go to TNG and reproduce episodes as events," but more "if it happens there it could probably happen here," because there were definitely episodes with de-aging, certain personality traits being emphasized, dreamscapes, and so on, and they all had causes that made sense in the context of the show.

- I like consequences of past events turning up later, although not all consequences have to be negative.

- If there's no thematic reason why it couldn't happen, it might be interesting to see another ship come to the Moira's aid at some point, with no bad intentions on their part at the time. Then there are possibilities with that ship: something happens to them and we have to help them? An event comes up in the future where they're the opposition?

Thing I dislike:
- Long-term serious food shortages. Short-term stuff that goes on just long enough to involve a week or two of rationing, temporary loss of luxuries, and people getting petty and hoarding or making deals is fine and can be fun to play out. Actually trying to survive for six months on two weeks of food is not, if it's played out realistically. Find food at the end of the two weeks.
- Events where characters are subject to one of a variety of sets of effects and players don't get to choose which category of effects they're going to be subject to -- it's chosen for them as a surprise. Since this is hard to explain, the easy shorthand is the way Ryslig has a lot of monsters, but you don't get to choose which monster your character turns into. (Opt outs and opt ins help, but ideally we'd just get to choose what sounds like fun and maybe get RNG'd to first and second choices if one category has really filled up.)
- Events that drag on too long.