tushanshu_ooc | Suite Change Poll

Entry tags:

#discussion,
#mod

Suite Change Poll | VOTING

I was going to do an actual poll and then it turns out you need a paid account, whoops. So we're doing the next based route instead!

We have three options for shuffling around the housing situation, with the goal of increasing CR opportunities for players, based on the discission and the ideas put forther in this post. I've included a brief description of each below the cut.

ONE. Reshuffle all characters into full housing blocks.
• Characters would still have separate suites (no shared living spaces) within the same block of four per building, there would just be fewer buildings, essentially condensing the housing blocks.

TWO. Randomly assign characters to shared suites, no choosing.
• Characters would be given new addresses and be assigned a randomly partnered roommate, so TWO per suite. There would be shared common areas (living room, kitchen, office, etc) but separate living spaces (bedrooms, bathrooms, consoles).

THREE. Quad housing, partly character chosen.
• Characters would move into larger units and would share with FOUR total people. There would be shared common areas (living room, kitchen, office, etc) but separate living spaces (bedrooms, bathrooms, consoles, etc). Characters would be allowed to partner with ONE character of their choice, while the other two (or other pair) may do the same. **As a mod note, if this option is chosen, there won't be any "cast blocks" (ie; all four people from the same canon).

Please vote for your choices in order of preference in THIS COMMENT. If you need clarification on any of the options, please ask under the Questions header. Remember that this is strictly OOC voting preference, so what you as a player want to see implemented in the game; your character(s) may not agree!

Each choice will be assigned a score (1st choice = 3 points, 2nd choice = 2 points, 3rd choice = 1 point) and the choice with the most points will be announced on Friday, May 23rd with the changes going into effect as of June 1st, 2014.

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I'm still not sure how that would necessarily prevent characters from shuffling themselves around, though?

For that I'd have to ask for the player's cooperation with it. There's no reasonable way to prevent 100% of characters from wanting to change after the fact, short of like... killing the chars for moving, which obviously isn't the genre of game we have.

Yeah, that's what I'm worried about. :|a

:( I'm sorry. I didn't want to change the nature of the game by putting something so stringent ICly as "do this or else". The bottom line is that this move comes down to what is most hopefully going to help everyone who plays here and that's going to take some concessions on both sides.

It's fine, this just might change my vote, since I'm not sure how we'd be able to keep the TLOUs IC and maintain the "no cast quad" rule in a scenario #3. So thank you for the response! This has given me more to chew on.

Follow-up question: for option #1, would it be okay in that case for characters to continue bunking together in whatever configuration they chose once (basically the same as they are now) once the new assignments were put into place?

I'm really trying to move away from the whole "room wherever you want" option seeing as how it's not being beneficial any longer, so it's something I'd have to review if that ends up being the leading choice.

So there is going to be no accounting or leniency for characters who would ICly refuse to comply with the new configuration, no matter which one is instituted?

That's what I'm leaning towards, as I mentioned below, I can't make exception for one cast just because they're ICly close knit, when dozens of other canons have similar "family groups" and are expected to have separate housing.

Ellie on another journal. Would it be possible to have bigger apartment complexes to account for this?

Because the biggest thing I was getting at, and what Froda's getting at, is that we wouldn't be able to ICly do this. Ellie would ignore whatever block she was assigned to, and just go sleep on Joel's floor.

OOC, we don't want to make this difficult, but we can't play our characters ICly complying with this. Right now, everyone is crashing on Joel's couch. And that's basically what would happen.

I understand where it is that you're coming from in wanting to keep a group together but it's not reasonable for me to change the entire housing format of the game with the sole purpose of accommodating the TLOU cast. Based on the number of characters we have left in the game, and being able to keep them spread across all 5 Sectors, and utilizing the buildings we already have in game for consistency's sake is the reason I went with the options I've listed above.

Again, I'm asking for a little bit of player leniency for the overall benefit of improving the game as a whole. I don't want characters to become "wildly OOC" as is stated but in an RP setting, sometimes there has to be a middle ground. That's why I included the option of allowing characters to choose to be paired up, like in the case of spouses or parents/children. But I don't understand why it's such a major stopping point if other castmates are in the next block over, instead of in the same room. The characters might not like it, I get that part, but I don't see why as players this can't be worked out?

We have been discussing it together and it's not about wanting to keep the group together. It's about the fact that, especially in Joel and Ellie's case, they literally IC'ly would not comply with the new housing arrangements, and trying to come up with a way for them to comply to it without there really being any IC consequences for not complying would be making them out of character. That's the issue we have. Like, Joel IC'ly simply would not accept Ellie living in another suite, and would just bring Ellie back to live in his place. Which is also why I want to know what the IC consequences would be if a character doesn't comply. If there ARE no IC consequences, then what's stopping a character from just going ahead and doing whatever is IC for them?

I don't have the exact consequences done up but there will be something ICly to enforce the new housing arrangements, regardless of which option goes into effect.

Any chance players can vote on that instead?

No current plans on that side, sorry.

I have a few IC consequences that would make Ellie accept being forced to live apart from Joel, if it comes to that.

1) If somehow being from the same world attracted Malicant to people, Ellie would live separate from Joel, or would accept only being near-ish to him.

2) Martial law would have her disobeying sometimes to crash on his floor, but if there were a legitimate defensive reason for not allowing more than the prescribed number of occupants per room, she'd accept it.

These two coming from Evandau, whom Ellie trusts and likes, would be enough for her to accept the rooming changes.

That was something that was broached to me in Plurk last night and I apologize for not realizing at the time that my phrasing was nixing short term scenarios.

I have no problem with people crashing in others' suites if they're like... injured, or hungover, or they had a nightmare and don't want to be alone that night, ANYTHING of that sort of thing is all totally fine and won't have any kind of repercussions ICly. What I was addressing, because that's what was being put forward here, was a 100% "no we're ignoring where we're assigned and living wherever we want, all the time".

The reasoning behind the splitting people up is tied in part to the safety of character's souls in Keeliai, which is as far as I want to go into detail because it's the basis of the June plot so... I don't really want to spoil that ahead of time.

It's not about we as players wanting our characters to be together. It's about what our characters would ICly do - which is choose to live together, unless forcibly separated somehow.

Can you at least consider some of the suggestions we're offering? I think a suite size change would be easy to do - just make them three pairs instead of two pairs. Again, I want to make this happen as well, I just want to be able to do it in a way that all our characters can be IC about it.

Okay but as players, you control the characters' actions, it's not like they're running off without your permission to bunk together.

What about having them in adjacent buildings? Paired something like, Joel/Sarah in one address and Tess/Ellie in the next one over? (Or however they'd divvy up, not sure on the best dynamics there.)

Really I think this mostly boils down to IC consequences - if there are some that will make the characters comply with the new housing situation, then I'm fine with them being shuffled around.

Tess, for instance, would be fine living in separate housing as long as she's close by - she'd be concerned if Joel were, for instance, forced to choose between Sarah and Ellie because she thinks that could have negative psychological ramifications on him. She would, however, grudgingly comply with, say, an imposed kind of martial law situation where they are now assigned housing and would face fines or jail time for non-compliance.

(no subject)

denyamenti - 2014-05-19 15:20 (UTC) - Expand

Okay, well, frankly, I'm really concerned at the lack of leniency about this. This new housing thing is supposed to help encourage and facilitate CR, which is a great idea! But not if it is going to require some characters to be wildly OOC in order to comply with arbitrary OOC restrictions.

What about making the suite size a little bigger to accommodate slightly larger groups of characters? Like six? It seems to me that there is a way to compromise about this so that the CR thing can happen and we can all keep our characters IC.

See here.

I'm just going to poke my nose in this convo for two seconds because I have a suggestion regarding your concerns for ICness should your less than ideal scenario be put into play:

You all keep mentioning how codependent the TLOU cast is, but I'm fairly certain there are times of the day in which they are not all together at any given moment. Meaning it should be feasible for them to simply hang out in Joel or Tess's living quarters during certain hours of the day/night before the people who live elsewhere are "required" to return to their sleeping quarters for the night. Being required to sleep in a certain location doesn't mean they can't still be together while awake, and if they're that paranoid, there will still be consoles for instant communication.

It's a happy medium between them wanting to stay together and complying with the potential new housing requirements. As Li already suggested their quarters could at least be nearby one another, and it's not like the group of them wouldn't be used to the idea of forced militaristic restrictions, I do think that enough leniency can be made to make all parties happy, y/n?

What would be the IC consequences for a character not complying with the new housing arrangement? I ask because in Joel's case, he would IC'ly in no way comply with this, not when his daughter and Ellie are in game.

See here.

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