ONE YEAR DISCUSSION PRE-GAME EDITION

[ironwood]

Hello to one and sundry! For those of you just joining us, or even those that have been here for a while, Tu Shanshu's one year anniversary is about to roll around in approximately two weeks! We had a discussion at six months, but this one is structured a bit differently, rather than us suggesting topics to be discussed, we're putting the nomination of those topics to our playerbase! Alex and I can't think of everything, and a lot of you guys have put forth excellent suggestions in the past, so we're dropping this post here for your consideration.

What consideration, you ask? Well.

This is a call for suggested topics to be brought up and discussed at some point in early August with as much player input as possible. This lays the potential groundwork for some changes to be made to the game both ICly and OOCly, with the caveat that mods still have the final say on what will or will not be implemented.

Feel free to suggest topics for OOC mechanics, IC plots, the setting at large, or anything you can think of that might benefit the future direction of the game! This is meant to be as inclusive as possible, so please don't be shy. Please keep the actual 'discussion' down to a minimum, so that the topics are easily navigable for compilation and review.


There will be a few sub-headers posted, so please wait for those to go up, but everything else is free game!

Thank you, guys, for making this an excellent almost-year of gameplay, and many happy returns!


edited to add: anonymous commentary is on and welcome, feel free to utilize it if you'd like.

Comments

SUGGESTIONS FOR IC CHANGES:

[ironwood]

Things like NPC interaction, palace logs, a revisitation of the mingle-log idea, etc etc. Anything that falls into these categories can go here! Suggestions, comments, ideas, feel free to roll with it all.

SUGGESTIONS FOR OOC CHANGES:

[ironwood]

Things such as application review (how's our review speed? Should we have an application-per-week cap? Should we switch to a monthly review?) and application quality (too harsh on apps? Not harsh enough?) as well as other things such as the character-per-canon cap, our double AC requirement for a fourth character, etc. Or anything else you'd like to see brought to the table for discussion.

[backinakidflash]

I think, if it can be reasonably proved that two characters wouldn't interact, a character-per-canon cap might be able to be lifted?

There are some pairings that would be such a stretch to see conversing that it wouldn't be leaving out something that should obviously happen (IE, Moon Knight is not about to befriend Molly Hayes).

[jirk]

That option is already on the table for review, and will definitely make an appearance in our anniversary post!

[eye_of_isis]

I know at the six month mark you guys mentioned going easier on the setting sections but it still seems like you want the applicants to know more about and demonstrate that knowledge of the setting than the character itself. Of course, it might just be me, but maybe it's something that should be discussed?

[ironwood]

We'll consider it as an option for the discussion, thanks!

[anything_it_takes]

In regards to this concern, I would like to chime in that I believe the rationale for extensive settings was that other players should be able to read it and fully grasp on the world the character comes from? The thing is, this really isn't necessary for gameplay. Your character only knows what the other character tells them which is really all you know to play, and if you are not already familiar with the canon and OOCly want to know more, it's more useful to go look it up yourself than to go read somebody else's setting summary.

In fact, I find it far LESS useful when the setting is over-long because key information is spread out. While I don't mind writing thorough settings for my own apps, I don't personally feel like the stringent standards do any good to other players.

[ironwood]

While we appreciate the input, we'd like to clarify that this post is to gather suggestions of what to discuss in the anniversary post itself and not to hold discussions as of yet.

As noted, we will be considering this as an option. <3

[anything_it_takes]

Derp you did say that, sorry running on autopilot!

DOCUMENTATION

[anything_it_takes]

I've heard some players are a little overwhelmed by the amount of documentation they feel they are expected to review upon arrival, never mind the event infodumps. For the former, maybe a clear distinction between what their character learns upon arrival (I know this is summarized but it feels like the information has to be dug up & isn't clearly delineated) and an easy link to it in the "accepted" email would help, if this isn't being done already.

For the latter, with so much game and event information that people need to know because it may affect their character, more tl;dr summaries of key knowledge would undoubtedly be welcomed!

[ironwood]

We currently link to our 'world introduction' and our 'event summary' in our accepted notifications, which I believe covers everything you brought up here? The introduction outlines everything a new character is given or told upon arrival, and the event summary is a quick, two-three line summation of the major in-game events.

If that's not what you're looking for, let me know!

[anything_it_takes]

Maybe the approach of these documents is too much from a storytelling approach and not enough "bam here's your info?

Just something I thought should be on the table for input from other players, just in case this is a widespread sentiment!

[everylittlegirl]

I know it's been mentioned of a hard cap on total number of characters, but I think this is something that might deserve discussion?

The game is not only growing huge, but seems to be growing faster and faster. If there's a hard cap on characters, what happens when that is reached? Will existing players be afraid of dropping for fear of losing character slots? Will existing players all be allowed 3 characters, but the number of players will be capped? Will there be a cap of only X apps per cycle? Etc etc.

And while I, personally, would really like a hard cap (though not sure about the best way to go about it), I've heard others mention not being as big of fans as I am.

So, yeah, would love to discuss.

[ironwood]

We do have a hard cap on characters for the game overall based on resources available in Keeliai, et al. I think it stands at around 248 and is based on the number of total suites available.

That said! We will consider adding how best to address approaching that cap as a part of the discussions.

[angermanaging]

Thought of something to add to the discussion--

Perhaps we could review the policy to require a player to pass an AC with a fandom character before allowing them to apply for OCs?

[ironwood]

Thank you for the suggestion!

We do want to clarify, however, that this probably won't come to the table for discussion. We understand that some members may desire changes to this policy, but on the backend of things, it has functioned as intended and we are not looking to change it.

To elaborate, at least from my (Alex) angle, this policy increases our objectivity when it comes to OC applications as we've had the opportunity to read at least one other application from the player. This assists us with identifying strengths and weaknesses in an OC application by knowing the style of the player's app writing. It also allows us to see their relative activity and consistency of play with the fandom character(s) that they play, so that we can more easily see how they might handle their OC in-game.

[angermanaging]

Okay! I don't feel that strongly about it, it's just something that's occurred to me as I know a couple people who might want to app OCs but not necessarily fandom characters. But I do see your reasoning there. I know applications are incredibly difficult to judge due to how little they give an indication of actual playing style, and OCs in particular create a problem of not having an external frame of reference.

So... yes, I see what you mean. Just thought I'd bring it up. o/

GENERAL SUGGESTIONS:

[ironwood]

Anything that doesn't fit into the above categories!

[heartofgraces]

I'm very sorry I cannot read timestamps.

Hi I love you? :D

[ironwood]

It's okay we love you too. <333

Re: GENERAL SUGGESTIONS:

[alphatar]

DAT EMPEROR