Activity Check | March 1-31, 2014

[ironwood]

REMINDER: Welcome to the new Activity Check format! As outlined in the State of the Shell update post back in February, we have officially shifted over to an entirely comment-based requirements for reporting monthly activity. We have included a Questions header in the comments section below so please don't hesitate to ask us to clarify anything you need.

This period of AC covers March 1st to March 31st and in order to qualify for this period, the threads in question need to fall on posts or logs started between these dates. Backtagging is fine – the AC has a grace period of seven days in which to continue existing threads up to the 7th in order to make the required comment count. For example, if your thread is standing at 17 comments and the final 3 comments are added between the 31st and the 7th, that's totally acceptable! However starting a thread (for example on the 4th) on a post made from the previous month (on the 28th) would not count.

→ 20 comments by your character

• May be reached in a maximum of four separate threads; IC inboxes do not count.
  
• Twenty overall comments from your character, not the final total of the thread(s) itself.
  
• Reaction spam (or icon chain) comments (like 1/4... etc) only count as one reply.
  
  
• In the instance of closed logs or locked network posts with no public content, please note that only one thread from these entries qualifies for the AC's overall comment count, including the entry itself.
  
  EXAMPLE: If you make a log locked to two people that accumulates one thread with 10 comments and a second thread with 10 comments, you can only use one of them rather than the whole post counting as the required 20 comments. However if the same post were to have two people reply but one of the threads hit 20 comments by that character in itself including the entry as a "starter comment", that could be used. This only applies to closed logs/posts that limit the number of participants; multiple threads from public network posts or from open/catch-all logs are exempted from this stipulation.
• If you have used a thread with a single character to meet your entire AC in one month (all 20+ comments), you are NOT ALLOWED to solely use that same character again in the following month for the entire AC.
  
  EXAMPLE: I'm playing Luke Skywalker and for this month's AC I used a single thread with Han Solo (with 20+ comments) to make my comment AC. That means that next month, I'm not permitted to use only Han again, even if I've done a dozen threads with other characters since. However, 20 comments accumulated across threads with Leia Organa, Yoda AND Han Solo is perfectly acceptable.

Characters accepted in March 2014 or who were on official and approved hiatus for two weeks or more during the activity period are exempt from the Activity Check. Your AC status (exempted/not exempted) is included as part of your hiatus confirmation comment. However, everyone is encouraged to fill it out so that we have a record of your activity, and so we don't accidentally sweep anyone from the game.

If for any reason you have been unable to meet the AC and your character is 'swept' from the game, you may reclaim this character once within a 6-month period if you reply to the Activity Check results. If that particular character lands on the AC again, you will need to re-apply for them, except in the case of extenuating circumstances. Characters who are not reclaimed will be considered dropped and removed from the game.

ADDITIONAL NOTE: For those interested in apping a 4th character at the conclusion of this AC, please be advised we do look for additional activity before approval to app a 4th will be granted. That means we are looking for double AC -- that is, 40 comments per character from your existing three characters.

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MISSION CREDITS
You will also notice a subsection in the AC comment form that deals with mission credits. Only use this section if you are claiming any credits for your character(s) for this month, if they participated in player or mod missions. Remember that these are NOT part of your required monthly AC in any way! If you're not claiming any credits, you can leave that section blank or delete it entirely.

Each mission your character undergoes (threaded out with at least ten comments from your character, across any number of subthreads in the mission log) is worth a full credit, and each handwaved mission is worth half a credit. Please note: only missions that you yourself come up with can be handwaved; the 'mod missions' are ones where participation is considered mandatory, as you are filling a limited slot. Credits can be exchanged for IC favours with Evandau or from Eva, with greater rewards being offered for a greater sum of points. (ie: if you log five missions over a five month period, you will have five credits to bank, if you log three missions and handwave two you will have four credits, etc.)

We will strongly consider anything you would like to see for your character at this time! Examples of such rewards might be items with magical properties, monetary compensation or special possessions, access to plot development information, etc. Your credits will be confirmed by the mods and added to a spreadsheet for tracking.

IMPORTANT: Only credits notated and confirmed on the AC posts count, so if you don't include them, they won't count towards your overall tally when you go to claim them. ETA: Credits can be claimed until the close of the AC on the 7th of the month, so threads in the mission logs can be continued until then towards your overall comment tally.

<b>Player:</b> Your Name <b>Character:</b> Character name | Canon (or Original) | <user name="USER"> <b>Activity:</b> >Thread: <a href="LINK">Character - (# comments)</a> ———————————<b>MISSION CREDITS</b>——————————— <b>Character:</b> Character name | <user name="USER"> <b>Credit:</b> Full (or) Half >Thread Link: <a href="LINK">HERE</a> <b>Outcome:</b> 1-2 sentences describing the end result of the mission for your character. <b>Reward Category:</b> Monetary, Special Item, Information, Boon, Random, etc (OR) N/A - if you're banking the credits to cash in later, as noted above.

You have until April 7th to fill out this activity check for your character(s).

Comments

QUESTIONS

[ironwood]

If you have any questions about the Activity Check, please ask them here.

Mission credits

[shorttempered]

Does the mission requirement have to be completed within the same month? The reason I ask is Mark is a part of a mission started in March, and he hasn't reached 10 comments yet, but the threads are still ongoing. Because I haven't reached 10 comments in march does he lose the opportunity to pick up mission credit for that particular mission?

Re: Mission credits

[ironwood]

Great question! I should have added that in, sorry. The window for the credits works the same as the AC comments, meaning that you have until the end of the 7th to finish up ongoing threads in the mission log to get yourself up to 10 comments overall.

Re: Mission credits

[shorttempered]

Okay, thanks!

My plan is to get 10 (I think I'm at least halfway there, so getting 10 by the 7th shouldn't be a problem), but just so I know going forward: what would happen if you don't reach 10? Claim a half point?

Re: Mission credits

[ironwood]

Yep, you'd still get a half credit because we don't want to see the tagging that anyone has done as wasted if something happens that they can't to the 10.

Re: Mission credits

[shorttempered]

Good to know, thanks!

another about credits

[washitaway]

maybe this is obvious, but for those of us with multiple characters, do we bank our credits per character or per player?

Re: another about credits

[ironwood]

Per character! (I... actually don't know that I specified that anywhere, my bad!)

[washitaway]

Awesome, thanks!

AC changes and stuff

[corage]

Considering the change of the AC, does the old rule about not reusing characters for the old AC still apply? Like say this month I used characters A, B and C, so does that mean I can't use A, B and C for next month and only characters D, E, F? Or can I have threads with the same characters as long as they're not the only ones I'm using for the AC and I have somebody different?

Apologies if this has been asked before, but a re-clarification would be appreciated.

Re: AC changes and stuff

[wintershepherd]

It's there in the write up.

If you have used a thread with a single character to meet your entire AC in one month (all 20+ comments), you are NOT ALLOWED to solely use that same character again in the following month for the entire AC.
EXAMPLE: I'm playing Luke Skywalker and for this month's AC I used a single thread with Han Solo (with 20+ comments) to make my comment AC. That means that next month, I'm not permitted to use only Han again, even if I've done a dozen threads with other characters since. However, 20 comments accumulated across threads with Leia Organa, Yoda AND Han Solo is perfectly acceptable.

[corage]

Yeah, I got that part. I'm asking more in the case of multiple characters separately as a proof, since that used to be enforced pretty strongly in the old AC format (IE. if you used a character in any form of AC last month (eg. Luke and Yoda, each 10 comments) you can't do it again for the next unless its in a combined thread (eg. Luke and Han combined for 20)).

...of course, I might be mis-remembering things here so if that's the case, massive apologies. OTL

[wintershepherd]

Nothing about this rule has changed, it never precluded anyone from using CR over in consecutive months unless, like it says, only one person was used for the whole requirement both months. This was to prevent people from having one thread partner for meeting AC while theoretically they could have ignored the rest of the game and still gotten a technical pass on the AC. When I went through and updated I did change the wording based on some feedback that it had been unclear but the rule itself hasn't changed at all.

[corage]

Ahhh, okay, I must have mixed it up then. :x Thanks for the clarification, and apologies for the confusion!

[wintershepherd]

No worries :)

[andaway]

Two questions about the missions credits:

> Will there be some kind of... list, so we can guess how many credits is each thing worth? Like idk a favor from Eva 1 and a half credits, weapons from Malicant 2 credits and so on? Just so we have a better idea.

> Sorry if this was explained and I somehow missed it, but I don't think it was: Can we use mission credits for normal AC?

[wintershepherd]

We don't have any kind of list yet, but I'll get together with Roy before next month and have a sort of grouping for the types.

Yes! You're right, that's not added in anywhere but mission threads can absolutely be used for AC.

[bonjourguignon]

In the case where you provide more than one scenario to choose from and put it in the same comment/post, and two separate people choose two separate prompts, could that top comment/post count to the top of each character's thread as one AC comment per character?

For example, I might want to use this set of threads for AC. Eponine chose scenario 1, while Enjolras and Joly both chose scenario 2. Could I count the top comment as applicable AC for both Eponine AND either Enjolras or Joly, and thus have that top comment total to 2 AC counts; or could I only use it once for one of the three characters to total to only 1 AC count?

[wintershepherd]

Only one of those threads would be useable since it wasn't in an open post where anyone could reply.

[bonjourguignon]

Ah, hrm. So even though my thread was OTA, since the post (not posted by me) wasn't OTA, it wouldn't apply? That still begs the question of, if the post had been OTA and I could use more than one of those threads, whether or not my top comment would still only be considered as one AC count.

(sorry for switching between journals as I reply)

[problematical]

That's correct. Because the post is closed, even if your comment is "OTA" it's still limited to those who the closed thread is restricted to. If you had made the post open and only castmates had chosen to respond to it, that's a different issue and you could have used multiple threads.

As for the top comment, it can only be counted once regardless of whether you were able to use multiple threads springing from it or not. It's the same as if you had made just a regular network post and had three people respond, you wouldn't be able to count the post starter three different times.

(np!)

[bonjourguignon]

Gotcha, thanks so much for the clarification! :)