event HMD | Spa Day

[ironwood]

As before, and for anyone who may have missed it, at the end of every mod-run event in Tu Shanshu, we try to toss up an open dialogue post so that the events can be discussed. This is mostly to see if everybody's as happy as possible with the direction the game is going, whether or not the events could be considered a hit or a miss, that sort of thing.

This particular HMD covers Spa Day event (IC log | OOC planning post)

Did you like what happened? Did the event run too fast, or too slow? Were you able to feel like your character contributed or made a difference to the state of Tu Vishan? Would you like to make more of a difference? Has there been too much 'downtime' for the characters, do you have any suggestions to make about future events, etc etc?

OBVIOUSLY if you have more comments, questions or concerns than those listed above you can add those as well! This is pretty much just a general list.

Please remember, ANON IS ON for this and IP LOGGING IS OFF so if you have anything you'd like to say but maybe you're more comfortable putting it forth anon that is a-okay! You can also feel free to PM us at this journal, or to toss a private plurk at either of the mod accounts (those being vonnerdyce or reignsdown) if that suits your fancy. Any and all comments are welcome, and though participation in this meme isn't required it's definitely encouraged if you're up for it.

Thanks again, guys, and happy turtling!

Comments

[cynisme]

I think that the spa day was a great idea, it broke up how heavy landfall and rationing were. --not so great for my boy though in the long run--

[jirk]

Damnit, R. You aren't supposed to pickle yourself!

<3 TY for the feedback, bb.

[trifurcate]

No surprise here probably but I liked the event. It was a nice break from the rationing, and an even better distraction from that hell week with Boston and everything else. There were a lot of excellent activities for characters to enjoy so, yes. Really, really enjoyed it <33 Thanks guys for all of your hard work :3

[jirk]

Thanks, Mari. <3 As much as these events are for crit, it's also nice to hear when we've taken a good direction, and we definitely appreciate the feedback. You're a peach.

[poeticverses]

Agreed on the spa day breaking up the heaviness of landfall and rationing. Since rationing looks like it's going to be going on for a while, the break was really nice! I hope we have more of these to keep the game being fun and not too heavy, which it actually kind of felt before the spa day.

[jirk]

Awesome, thank you for the feedback! I'll keep that in mind for future events. <3

[anything_it_takes]

Nice fluffy one, guys. Great for CR opportunities since it gave tense characters a reason to let down their hair mask tails. :D

[jirk]

That is the tough thing with antisocial characters, isn't it? I'm glad it worked for you, and thanks!

[cantbewalled]

I loved this event. It was something simple and light and it gave us a lot of different things to do. It broke up the tension and pressure of all of the more serious things going on and the fact that it was part of the event's plot that characters would feel lighter helped give us reasons to ease up on them when some character normally wouldn't have given in.

I will say that having only one post for this event and all the sub-threads was hard for me personally. As more people got involved and tagged in the post takes longer to load and felt a bit overwhelming are harder to find things in. I don't know if anyone else felt the same or what could be done to fix this except maybe separating the main subheading into their own posts next time if they are going to be so many of them.

[jirk]

Yeah, I definitely noticed it got bigger than we were anticipating. We've broken up events in the past with multiple posts, each one only netting about 200/300 comments a piece which made doing so almost redundant, but then this one kind of ended up being a lot busier than expected. It's a bit hard to judge which ones might be going up at the right time, whoops.

In the future, though, if you find that maybe the same thing happens (ie: we put up a post that gets unexpected traffic) feel free to ping us and we can put up an overflow post! I think there's probably too much potential for confusion/overwhelming people if we'd put up a post for every sub-header, so I'm wondering if it might not be better to stick to a supply-and-demand scenario. Thoughts?

[angermanaging]

Quick suggestion that I've seen work very well for events like this-- putting a 'directory' of links to the subheaders in the body of the main post, so those looking at it from their friends list can quickly jump to the subheader they want.

[cowled]

That's an awesome idea! We'll definitely be incorporating that in the future.

[angermanaging]

Yay, I contributed! :D

[histruename]

It looks like I'm gonna be the one to pitch in with an unpopular opinion. I... didn't really mind the last event. It was cute and fun and fluffy, sure. But I feel like it's a prime example of the game's slow spiral into slice of life.

I feel like when I first joined the game back near the start, things were very exciting and interactive. Ghosts haunted the city, zombies fell from the sky, terrorists threatened to blow Tu Vishan sky-high, and the turtle docked in a post-apocalyptic desert full of monsters. Characters took charge and got their hands dirty.

Now things are still very plot-heavy, but it's all been passive stuff. The rationing, the aforementioned "spa day", even the docking at Atam (despite having many opportunities for more hands-on exploring and adventure) have had a more indirect affect on characters than previous events.

Playing the characters that I do, I'm pretty biased. Neither of my guys do very well with slice of life. And while I'm sure they could be doing better if I made more of an attempt at forcing them into smalltalk on the network, that's not really something I personally enjoy. They need to be able to get their hands on things, make their own physical contributions. In summary: they need shit to beat up.

I know you guys are very open to the characters and players creating our own world and setting the tone of the game. And obviously a lot of people seem to be enjoying the direction it's taking. But personally, remembering what the game once was, and seeing what it is now, it's starting to feel like things are moving in a direction that just isn't for me.

So I've just kind of been waiting for things to pick up again. I know you guys have said this event was just a break from the heavier stuff. So maybe you guys do have plans to bring back the tone of some of the old events in the future. I'd really love to see that happen if at all possible.

[ironwood]

Hey there! We appreciate the feedback and are going to try and hit it up point by point so that nothing gets missed.

You mentioned that you feel the game has been spiralling into slice-of-life focus and we'd like to get to the bottom of that concern first. Tu Shanshu's intent is still meant to be plot-driven and our modplots are designed to carry through with that. Based on your comment, we looked back into the events and identified what we felt were mod-driven slice-of-life events that may have been associated with the plot, but were not focal to it. Our findings were as follows:

Welcome Festival
August 2012 we ran the one week welcoming festival, which ended with the first shots of the gang war.

Decay of Tu Vishan
Commencing March 2013, the sickness and decay of Tu Vishan began. While this overarching impact is important to the overall milieu – it is, as you stated, a more passive event.

Spa Day
This is the most recent event and the most random, slice-of-life that the mods have run. We cobbled it together in lieu of a plot that had been planned which uncomfortably echoed the real-life Boston Marathon bombing incident. Given the timing, we feel certain you would agree that running the event as planned would have been ignorant and thoughtless.

While there have been two player-run slice-of-life events (Winter Masquerade, Winter Wonderland) sprinkled in, we do note that there have also been events run alongside, not in place of, that cater more to characters such as Hellboy. When it comes to player run events, we also welcome more action-intensive ones, such as the Earth Sector fire with Liz from October 2012. There have been no submissions to that effect of late, but if you have an idea that you'd like to see, even something like a re-envisioning of the haunting, you are welcome to submit one for approval/execution. Seriously, we cannot emphasise enough how much we love seeing player plots come in and if you're curious about an angle that might work, but want to check the logistics first, feel free to ping one of us!

The reason we brought up the player plot angle ties in with the size, scope, and direction of plot in Tu Shanshu. As stated, we have absolutely no intention to turn Tu Shanshu into a slice of life game. The plot is there, and continues along at the pace we've set for it. We have tried to provide a variety of ways for characters to involve themselves in this plot (characters have found maps that will come in handy later, diary pages that reveal more of the metaplot, trinkets that provide them with magical abilities, etc). Our biggest challenge, however, has been designing a variety of events that incorporate, in the long term, all manner of characters. That means some of them are active volunteer-find/action events (such as the breaking of the shell), some are passive exploration events (such as the landfall events), and some are action-oriented passive events (such as the jiangshi event in January 2013). With a growing population of between 120/130 characters and a player base of 50+ individuals, it is no longer structurally feasible to do close, intimate events in which every individual gets a hand-tailored role. That's why, when we do run larger plot events, we ask for and select from a pool of volunteers, in the hopes that everyone will get an opportunity to do their part in the game without focusing on any one group of characters or players.

This all said, we have been working on 2-3 action-oriented plots that will feature in May 2013 and June 2013 (check the event calendar for hints). Hopefully, these events will provide you with something more to do with your characters that impacts the metaplot of the game.

It may come down to a timing thing? As mentioned, it's about to cycle back into a bit more action and the anniversary event in August should have a good variety of things within it to suit the maximum number of characters. We are here to push the plot forward in a manner that is inclusive to as many people as possible. That includes finding things for non-combatants to do equally as much as providing things for people to punch. It's a tough line to toe, and we're seeing that the larger the game gets, the more we end up rotating the type of events and the longer it may be between events well-suited to particular types of characters. We're trying to strike a balance between the passive and action events to provide the most inclusion cast of the game. We'll definitely continue trying towards that balanced goal.

[histruename]

Yeah, I knew most of the reasoning behind the changes that have been made were due to the growing size of the game. And I know you guys have been doing your best to include everyone as fairly as possible. I guess I just miss the intimacy it used to have. But hey, things change and you guys have been doing a great job adjusting to everything.

I think it really is just a timing thing. We've been in a long stretch of down time and passive events that really haven't been my cup of tea, but it looks like things are gonna pick up soon. I had a peek at the event calendar, and I'm really excited for what's to come. Kinda wish I'd looked at that first, but oh well.

Thanks for asking for feedback and listening to my two cents. I definitely appreciate it.

[jirk]

This totally got lost in my inbox, whoops.

No prob, and if you have any comments in the future feel free to toss 'em our way. <3

[justlittle]

I loved the event! My only complaint is that the log got really crowded and it was hard to find specific threads within it, but that'll happen with every big event.

[ironwood]

Yeah, Chel suggested that the next time we run one we add links to the subheaders in the body of the post itself, so that might help with that issue?

If I get really non-lazy I might do something crazy like so:

Subheader Link (Bake Sale in Earth Sector)
 ◦Sherlock Holmes
 ◦Basil of Baker Street
 ◦Gregory House


But that would probably depend on time and energy and post-size, honestly. We'll see if I'm feeling that ambitious next time we do a big log like that. :|a The subheader links will be there for sure, at least.