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Anniversary Discussions!
Aug. 3rd, 2013 08:50![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ironwoodHappy anniversary, chelonauts!
Tu Shanshu is officially one year old this month, wow! We cannot express enough the love and gratitude we have for you, the playerbase, for helping to make this game such a success. We love you all; free Asti hugs for everyone!
With the one year notch in our belts, it's time to consider possible changes to the game. As with the six-month discussions, these are changes we're thinking about making, as mods and in relation to players, and we wanted to run them by you guys.
Just to be clear, any and all changes that we decide on will be made on a henceforth basis! For example, if modify the AC standards, they would apply to the August 2013 AC period and beyond, NOT the July one.
Without further fanfare, let us begin!
Applications
Application Cutoff
We're thinking about changing up our application cycle! Given that both Alex and myself are currently on a weird rotation for work that involves 8+ hours of travel over the weekend, we've been talking about shifting the cut-off to mid-week (probably Wednesday). Does anyone have any thoughts on input on this?
We've also discussed moving to a once-monthly app cutoff, but are open to the idea of a bi-weekly cutoff as well. Do you have any suggestions on an ideal duration?
Application Quality
Application quality is always one of the hardest things to judge in a game, and we're wondering where we currently stand! As per our previous discussion post, we eased back the standards on our setting section and tightened up the quality control in other sections; is everyone sitting comfortably in that regard?
Application Cap
Presently, Tu Shanshu has a hard character cap built into the game. There is only room for 240 PCs at any given time based on suite and resource availabilities. Any existing players in the game have the option of the swap-out application, so they can drop a character and simultaneously app another without consequence or penalty. Presently (as of the time of writing) we have 177 characters. For the sake of the metaplot and the consideration of what Alex and I can handle as mods, we aren’t currently looking at increasing the overall character cap, but we are interested in knowing if anyone has any suggestions as how to make the cap as painless as possible. Should we consider closing applications when our limit is met, or should we leave it open on a 'reserving your spot' basis?
Activity Check
Activity Requirements
How is everyone doing with the activity requirement? Presently, Tu Shanshu operates with either twenty comments across a maximum of four threads, or one post in the month. We also require double activity (a post+20 comments or 40 comments) in order to apply for a forth character. Is that still viable and manageable for the majority? While we acknowledge that there is no one standard that will work for everyone, we aim to ensure the maximum amount of people are satisfied with the activity check standards.
Reclaims
Is our reclaim policy still viable? Presently we allow one reclaim per character in a six month period if activity was not met in the course of the month and hiatus was not declared. Has this worked for everyone so far?
Character Cap
Three Per Player
Currently Tu Shanshu allows each player to play three characters, with additional characters considered permissible if double AC has been made in the previous month. Is this too difficult, or do you find it discourages people from apping more characters? Should we consider a revise of this, or allow it to stand as-is? Should we consider reducing it?
Canon Cap
It's been suggested by numerous individuals in the player base that we should lift the 'one character per canon' rule we currently have implemented. There are numerous pros and cons to this – one of the pros being player freedom, and one of the cons potentially overwhelming the game with one cast or another. We've carefully studied each side of this argument and we're interested to hear what our players have to say on the matter. Should we allow a player to play multiple characters within the same canon? If so, how many? What stipulations should there be regarding character "distance" in the source canon?
Game Information
Resource Pages
We've had some commentary on the nature of our resource pages, and that they're too long or extraneous to properly digest. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to streamline them for user consumption? We'd like to avoid adding resource pages as we feel that may contribute to a "too much information" mentality in a game meant to be sandboxy, but certainly welcome suggests on relocating or refining the pages we have to maximise the information presented and minimise reader fatigue.
Metaplot Direction
Event Frequency
In regards to our overall metaplot, have you found it too fast? Too slow? Are we being overwhelming with the frequency of events or do you find yourself being bored in between them?
Event Duration
The length of time our events last tends to be somewhat flexible, depending on player participation and feedback during either the initial planning phase of the event or during the event itself. One example is that we extended the January zombie plot by several days to accommodate those that were enjoying it. Have you found our events have run too short or too long, generally? Again, this is an area where schedules and availability make it difficult to find the perfect solution, but we like to find a good middle ground where possible.
Note: We'll also be taking into account the feedback received during our recent Malicant plot for this bit when we make the final decision on this.
Event Content
How have you generally found the event content? Too light-hearted, too dark, has it been veering into uncomfortable territory?
OTHER
OOC Comm Memes
Every once in a while we put up a meme, such as a love meme, or a CR tl;dr meme. While we don't have any plans to inundate the game with an excess of memes, would you like to see them with a bit more frequency, or less? What kinds of memes would you like to see?
Test Drive
We've been considering moving our test drive to a bi-monthly schedule, especially as we near our character cap. What are the thoughts on that?
Other
Do you have additional thoughts or suggestions that you would like to see implemented in the game? Also, if we forgot to raise a topic that we previously mentioned bringing up here, feel free to remind us! We want to cover off as much as possible here before we sit down to make any decisions.
NOTE: Replies from the mods may be delayed due to work! That said, feel free to second or third any comments you particularly agree with or foster further discussion in the comments. And, as always, ANON is an option and IP LOGGING is off!
Tu Shanshu is officially one year old this month, wow! We cannot express enough the love and gratitude we have for you, the playerbase, for helping to make this game such a success. We love you all; free Asti hugs for everyone!
With the one year notch in our belts, it's time to consider possible changes to the game. As with the six-month discussions, these are changes we're thinking about making, as mods and in relation to players, and we wanted to run them by you guys.
Just to be clear, any and all changes that we decide on will be made on a henceforth basis! For example, if modify the AC standards, they would apply to the August 2013 AC period and beyond, NOT the July one.
Without further fanfare, let us begin!
Applications
Application Cutoff
We're thinking about changing up our application cycle! Given that both Alex and myself are currently on a weird rotation for work that involves 8+ hours of travel over the weekend, we've been talking about shifting the cut-off to mid-week (probably Wednesday). Does anyone have any thoughts on input on this?
We've also discussed moving to a once-monthly app cutoff, but are open to the idea of a bi-weekly cutoff as well. Do you have any suggestions on an ideal duration?
Application Quality
Application quality is always one of the hardest things to judge in a game, and we're wondering where we currently stand! As per our previous discussion post, we eased back the standards on our setting section and tightened up the quality control in other sections; is everyone sitting comfortably in that regard?
Application Cap
Presently, Tu Shanshu has a hard character cap built into the game. There is only room for 240 PCs at any given time based on suite and resource availabilities. Any existing players in the game have the option of the swap-out application, so they can drop a character and simultaneously app another without consequence or penalty. Presently (as of the time of writing) we have 177 characters. For the sake of the metaplot and the consideration of what Alex and I can handle as mods, we aren’t currently looking at increasing the overall character cap, but we are interested in knowing if anyone has any suggestions as how to make the cap as painless as possible. Should we consider closing applications when our limit is met, or should we leave it open on a 'reserving your spot' basis?
Activity Check
Activity Requirements
How is everyone doing with the activity requirement? Presently, Tu Shanshu operates with either twenty comments across a maximum of four threads, or one post in the month. We also require double activity (a post+20 comments or 40 comments) in order to apply for a forth character. Is that still viable and manageable for the majority? While we acknowledge that there is no one standard that will work for everyone, we aim to ensure the maximum amount of people are satisfied with the activity check standards.
Reclaims
Is our reclaim policy still viable? Presently we allow one reclaim per character in a six month period if activity was not met in the course of the month and hiatus was not declared. Has this worked for everyone so far?
Character Cap
Three Per Player
Currently Tu Shanshu allows each player to play three characters, with additional characters considered permissible if double AC has been made in the previous month. Is this too difficult, or do you find it discourages people from apping more characters? Should we consider a revise of this, or allow it to stand as-is? Should we consider reducing it?
Canon Cap
It's been suggested by numerous individuals in the player base that we should lift the 'one character per canon' rule we currently have implemented. There are numerous pros and cons to this – one of the pros being player freedom, and one of the cons potentially overwhelming the game with one cast or another. We've carefully studied each side of this argument and we're interested to hear what our players have to say on the matter. Should we allow a player to play multiple characters within the same canon? If so, how many? What stipulations should there be regarding character "distance" in the source canon?
Game Information
Resource Pages
We've had some commentary on the nature of our resource pages, and that they're too long or extraneous to properly digest. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to streamline them for user consumption? We'd like to avoid adding resource pages as we feel that may contribute to a "too much information" mentality in a game meant to be sandboxy, but certainly welcome suggests on relocating or refining the pages we have to maximise the information presented and minimise reader fatigue.
Metaplot Direction
Event Frequency
In regards to our overall metaplot, have you found it too fast? Too slow? Are we being overwhelming with the frequency of events or do you find yourself being bored in between them?
Event Duration
The length of time our events last tends to be somewhat flexible, depending on player participation and feedback during either the initial planning phase of the event or during the event itself. One example is that we extended the January zombie plot by several days to accommodate those that were enjoying it. Have you found our events have run too short or too long, generally? Again, this is an area where schedules and availability make it difficult to find the perfect solution, but we like to find a good middle ground where possible.
Note: We'll also be taking into account the feedback received during our recent Malicant plot for this bit when we make the final decision on this.
Event Content
How have you generally found the event content? Too light-hearted, too dark, has it been veering into uncomfortable territory?
OTHER
OOC Comm Memes
Every once in a while we put up a meme, such as a love meme, or a CR tl;dr meme. While we don't have any plans to inundate the game with an excess of memes, would you like to see them with a bit more frequency, or less? What kinds of memes would you like to see?
Test Drive
We've been considering moving our test drive to a bi-monthly schedule, especially as we near our character cap. What are the thoughts on that?
Other
Do you have additional thoughts or suggestions that you would like to see implemented in the game? Also, if we forgot to raise a topic that we previously mentioned bringing up here, feel free to remind us! We want to cover off as much as possible here before we sit down to make any decisions.
NOTE: Replies from the mods may be delayed due to work! That said, feel free to second or third any comments you particularly agree with or foster further discussion in the comments. And, as always, ANON is an option and IP LOGGING is off!
