Welcome to Exsilium's first ever State of the Game.
How does this work? What is a State of the Game?
Good questions! This is an open forum for the community to raise comments, concerns, things they like, and things they don't like as much about the game to see what fellow players think, feel, or what to see around the game.
As topics are brought up and discussed, we'll link them here from the top post*, and hope that this helps encourage people to have their critical thinking, constructive idea hats on when it comes to discussing different elements of game culture, expectation, and the like.
This isn't a guarantee everything discussed can, should, or will change, but it's the opportunity to bring up points on what it is you see working and what it is you feel isn't, so that people can weigh in and the moderation team can go about getting direct feedback from the game as a whole.
Please keep it civil and polite. We will lock threads should they get heated! We're asking for discussion, not attacks. That sort of behavior is never considered appropriate.
First off, thank you guys for putting this up! I think you've been doing a great job with the plot lately and I am loving this moon business.
AS WE ALL KNOW one of the features of Exsil is that on arriving in Exsilium, characters are given a weapon by the Initiative, which is supposed to grow with them. Since I first apped though, they have never played very much relevance. I get that part of it is on the players to decide how their weapons will grow, but it doesn't seem like there are a lot of opportunities to really use them in combat situations. I get that, with the size of the game, it's difficult to tailor individual combat situations for players, but it would be nice to see them crop up once and a while, I guess.
I know this has been discussed before too, but I guess it would be nice to have an official, on the books statement of: What's up with the weapons, and are they ever going to be used for anything big in the future? Or are they just a hold over from the original setup?
Yes, this is something I've wondered about as well! A lot of it is because I wasn't even sure how to evolve my characters weapon, but also why it evolves at all? They're supposed to make them better fighters the more they use them, but it is possible that they can evolve to specifically combat the cloned warriors from the UE? Now that the UE has synthesized some of the powers they studied from the captives, can weapons evolve to fight those as well?
This of course opens up the idea that they can also be used on other Transports, but we can handle that if weapons can evolve for powers in the first place. Weapons evolve according to the player, but can we get a list of specific list of things that UE soldiers might be weak against? Then maybe people might notice hey, our weapons are evolving similarly why is that? Because SCIENCE! Or something. I'd just like the evolution of weapons to be more relevant to the plot.
I've had this sort of in the back of my head, too - I think my feelings are kind of like that... characters need to be pushed on in order to push back and have their weapons evolve? Kind of an 'increasing their limits by pushing past them' thing. I don't know for sure how many people picked offensive abilities like I did but I know for mine, some of it is finding situations that would push those limits.
Which may be an idea for player-instigated missions? It'd be easier to tailor things that way instead of trying to do it in mass logs.
I might be the odd one out, but Caesar's weapon has always been very relevant to him. Though it probably helps that he chose something he already carried with him and used all the time, so it wasn't a big leap to just keep on doing so. That said, I've always found my own ways to include using it in-game, so I'm not sure why people would need situations made for them, when it's simple enough to do it themselves.
An official refresher/statement on Weapons would be nice, though. I remember that having been the biggest puzzler and source of most my confusion when I first decided to app in.
I'm just going to be a lazy bum and C&P what I put down in the moderator contact post about more warning for volunteer-related plots:
This is sort of in regards of this month, but I feel like it kinda applies to future plots with volunteers since you know, too late to do anything now.
While I love tormenting characters like any good RPers...I have to admit I was completely sidelined by the extensive level of trauma the characters were going to get what with the UE stealing their powers (and maybe cloning them if that's what those short people were) and then nuking the entire city in retaliation to their rescue. Neither of which I recall receiving any prior warning about during sign up time.
Had I known back then what I know now? I...probably would have chosen a different path than volunteering my guilt-prone character tbqh or been more careful about it. Since yeah, I like tormenting characters but I don't want to break my toys either. Since you know, if I break them too much I usually end up needing to drop them.
I mean, I know there's nothing that can be done about it now but in the future would it be possible to more careful warning the level of consequences or badness characters could face by volunteering them for a plot? I mean I get a lot of the game relies on the element of surprise and I really dig that! I'm all for being surprised! But...this last plot kinda pushed it a bit far in my opinion in some ways.
I mean even just something simple, like a pain scale shown here-
- would be nice to have when we choose to volunteer. I don't need all the surprises spoiled (I don't even WANT that because I love the surprises), just something like "uh don't volunteer a character if you don't want them to face extreeeeeme harm/trauma/betrayal/crocs/etc" would be nice.
I just yeah, I love the game and I even really like the current plot! I just...don't want to break my characters to the point of unplayable because I choose to participate in a plot I didn't have a fair warning about trauma level, that's all.
I'm a totally new player so my opinion here is a little less relevant, I think, since I've never seen what it's like to volunteer a character for a plot here...buuut as someone that really craves surprise in RP but understands the need for warnings I love the idea of having some sort of "trauma/pain level" warning so you have a general idea of what you're throwing your characters into and can plot accordingly. I've never heard of a system like that being implemented before, but I think it's a great idea--vague enough to avoid spoilers, but solid enough to give players a heads up.
Not disagreeing with your suggestion so don't take this the wrong way, but I'm not sure that the warnings for this event were specifically insufficient. The real trauma happened on more of a game-wide level?
I've been wondering if some character can/will have the option to side with the UE eventually. And if the UE has/will have some "positive" factions with in it somehow.
Anyway, just really interested in the UE being... I don't know, accessible for PCs when it comes to plot? And not just for spying missions/time-travel missions and stuff :O?
Though maybe this has already been asked before/has been happening....
I like the idea, but outside of spying, what would characters do? If they went over to the UE headquarters, they'd be cut off from the rest of the game. It would make playing difficult.
I actually have recently been wondering about this, myself, for Dist. I don't feel that he's going to be leaving RIGHT NOW but I wonder if we'd maybe be able to shift those characters into maybe an NPC status? And have them post every now and then to antagonize the folks in Exsilium, or in open logs in the UE/mission logs?
Like, for example, the most recent events. If it would have been possible maybe to have the characters there in the UE instead of just faceless NPC scientists, but also shifted to the point that they don't need to be super active to still be around, if that makes sense?
SECONDING THIS. I'd love there to be an option open for characters who might choose to side with the UE, whether by working as a spy for the UE among the Transports or some other way.
Hey mods! What's up. I'm enjoying the event; thank you very much for it!
I'm actually wanting to talk about something that I've been wondering about, and that's the AC! I find it kind of excessively easy, and while this is pretty cool for those of us who have billion hour jobs and school and who knows what else, I think it could be a little more...than what it is without being too harsh?
The idea of being able to pass AC with just two log comments technically has always sort of seemed odd to me, especially because a lot of people (myself included), do the whole quicklog format of rping, and some of those threads aren't much different from comment threads at the end of the day. I know p. much most of us do more than two log comments a month to pass, but I thought I'd throw that out there.
While AC is pretty easy, I don't feel like making it harder would... serve much purpose? Like, squatters are gonna squat no matter what, unfortunately, and there comes a point where AC actually becomes too much of a pain to want to play (and I have in fact dropped a game because the AC requirements, while reachable, were frustrating to have to go and gather up and it took the fun out of things)
Also, I think we'd have to get into differentiating different types of logs, because I tend to use longer prose tags for logs, and differentiating between commentspam logs and prose logs on the AC is just an extra level of hassle, and saying 'LOGS MUST BE PROSE-ONLY' is limiting to players.
I'd like to throw in my two cents to the effect that I have seen several instances of players abusing the current HMD system, in particular as Robyn mentions the "D+D" possibility. This is a total of only two log comments, less than 15% as many comments as are required to make up the same amount of activity in network comments. This system enables players unable to make it through a log thread in the span of a month, which can be unfair to other players waiting on their results, especially in situations like September's plot where drastic events happened during single-digit numbers of days.
In addition, I have seen instances where the network length recommendation is abused as well, leading some players to immediately drop threads that have reached the regulation comment count. This is an IC/OOC intersection with no explanation other than player neglect. When this method of abuse is favored, it means all characters are recorded doing in a month.
Furthermore, there seems to be no system in place keeping track of strikes - allowing players to take strikes as often as every other month. Which basically means someone could post two log comments every two months and stay in the game. I don't think any player in the game actually flouts the check this severely, but I have seen players take strikes more than once, which to me seems to defeat the point of their status as "strikes" against you. Some games for example have a "three strikes and you're out" policy.
In addition, there was talk last month about adding a cross canon requirement IIRC? Since people who abuse the flexible AC system are more likely to play insularly, either of these changes would be very welcome to me as a sort of "two birds, one stone" situation.
I'm not sure what solution would be best; my personal activity is very high so I don't have a lot of thoughts from the perspective of what the minimum should be. Requiring more pieces seems viable with relatively few rule changes. I'm not sure how much that would annoy people, digging up more links, but pretty much all the mods would have to do is change the "two" to whatever number they choose (and more backend work checking the greater number of threads). Cross-canon clauses would be a little more complicated to write but I really feel like they could help a lot if implemented well, since the psychology of only needing to write replies to one or two key logs is most nourished by the mindset of someone thinking of specific key characters.
This got kind of long; basically our current AC is flexible without being completely lax but would probably not lose a lot of committed players were it more stringent, I think.
I love the premise of the game, I like the huge unexpected changes to the setting, and I like the pace of the game. The fact that it's very fast at some times and slower at others keeps things exciting but feasible. If it were this fast all the time, I'd burn out.
One thing I'd like to see is constant small changes to the setting. Each mission, private or large-scale, results in permanent alterations, tiny or enormous. Like the feral sheep being suddenly turning docile or the huge talking ravens all speaking Spanish or Big Ben suddenly working again. In fact, I'd love to see a butterfly effect: some throw-away mission to pick up cigarettes and booze has massive geopolitical repercussions or the entire surface of the planet completely destroyed or something NO, NO NOT THE TEQUILA put that back, wow oops.
I'd also like to see more timey-wimey paradox stuff, people going back in time not far enough and cross their own timestreams and bad things happen. Or an immortal character gets sent to the past, but there's some problem and they don't get picked up, so they have to LIVE OUT thousands of years and then they make their way back to Ex somehow and BOY ARE THEY PISSED. Or people turning up before they left on missions and having to meet themselves, or multiple versions of themselves, or stay the fuck away from themselves before even more bad things happen. Anyway not any of that specifically, but generally more weird paradoxical non-linear things that can only happen in a time-travel game.
God I'm so sad this was before my time. There are many other info pages that weren't around when this was first created - and of course the mods are doing lots of hard work on other things right now, in particular the moon mission bonanza would probably make this possible but not exactly easy from a modwork perspective - but god it was so cool.
I love this game! I enjoy the setting and I enjoy the plots but I worry about plots happening only in major bursts around long periods of downtime. Periods of heavy activity are fine, but there's been a pattern of big plot points that get cleanly resolved (or at least mostly resolved) followed by a month or two of nothing.
My suggestion is to actually use the current Moon Base plotline as a basis for pacing in the future-big plots with quieter times in the middle that, while not high-octane, still have things going on that apply to the world build and meta plot. I know on Exsilium there were limited resources, tensions with the Exiles, monsters in the woods, and the constant looming threat of the UE. I enjoy playing with all of these things but I worry that sometimes it's easy to forget they're there. (I know you can't force people to play with certain mechanics of the world, but sometimes these things could have more attention drawn to them, perhaps?)
Sorry if this is all just rambling, it's late where I am.
I agree with this. We do have these long...droughts I guess, followed by sudden floods of plot and I don't mind it too much because I'm settled into the game and have CR to fall back on, but I do think it might be a lot for say, a brand-new player to absorb and get involved in. If they app in during a dry spell, there's a whole lot of downtime, which isn't very engaging and hard to build meaningful CR with. But if they app during an event like the one we just had, the risk of getting completely overwhelmed is really high.
I think pacing as it is right now is fairly erractic, and smoothing it out a bit would go a long way!
Heyo!! I'm newish, so this perspective is coming from someone who was in the game a year ago and has just apped back in.
My suggestion is to focus on quality instead of quantity. There's been a lot happening to the transports the past few weeks - the party, the kidnappings, the rescue, and now a nuclear threat and a moonbase. While I'm glad this isn't the same game it was a year ago because progress is good, it is kind of jarring to leave what was a pretty grounded plot based on politics and scientific stuff and come back to a game with space zombies.
Which isn't to say it's not enjoyable! It obviously is, lots of people are having a great time playing with what you've given us. The problem is that it seems like a lot of cool toys that will wear off quickly. Stacking everything up like this also has the impact of negating some of their potential, and encourages players to move on to the next issue quickly instead of really playing up the opportunities of the first one.
This is really disorganized and rambling, but I guess my main point is: you don't have to dump 20 things on players at once to keep them interested. It's more important and more effective in the long run to provide well-paced content and really give them the chance to sink their teeth into it, with some consequences that are very clear to the players. That way if you take a month off from heavy plot, we still have the fallout of the last one to play with.
I know there's a mention above of each plot changing Exsilium - that's good!! The problem is the players have no idea how, or they don't know how to apply it in-game. If something changes, it should be something very obvious that characters can respond to, otherwise it's not particularly useful in the long run.
This is somewhat touching on both idea of plot coherency and the overall pacing of the game that was mentioned above, but it seems to have more relevance in this post so I'm just...going to stick it here for now! Also sorry this is a beast of a post.
But right now I definitely think that sense of quantity over quality is really hampering the ability to become invested in the plot of the game. This isn't to say the individual events are fun or that they don't engage people in the moment, but personally I find the connective tissue between one plot event and the next to be slim to non-existent. They feel like dots on a blank page of paper with no lines drawn from one to the next, no fall out, no consequences (good, bad or anything in between). I realize that I'm saying this right now right as we currently had a big setting change because of the nuclear attack on Exsilium which, for all intents and purposes, should read as 'consequences' but I don't feel like there's any sticking power in Exsilium. It feels like things happen, the Intiative/player base plays a reactionary role in fixing it, and then everything goes back to the statue quo. This moon base stuff has a long game in mind, sure, but ultimately Exsilium is going to be set to right and--? Then what? There may be the intent of having some kind of long felt, really game changing (and I don't mean just changing the setting, but rather than tenor of the game or how the Initiative works against the UE or etc) effects, but I can't honestly say there's been an established track record for that kind of plotting in the past so it's hard for me to feel like there's going to be a different result in the future.
In general I feel like there's both a lack of a long game - a sense that the plot is moving toward anything with purpose - and a lack of coherency in individual events. To the former: I feel like most of the events since Black Rock (? Don't cite me on this, I may be getting the timeline wrong here) have been massively reactionary rather than the Initiative actively trying to do anything about the UE. For a game billed as being about a resistance force, the Initiative doesn't actually seem to do any kind of resisting/have any game plan whatsoever beyond running around and panic fixing stuff that the Initiative throws their way. Which to an extent it totally understandable; they're a small force against a massive super power. But as players, it's hard to become invested in that. It gives our characters no sense of agency or purpose with regard to the overarching plot and as a result, time between missions devolves into meaningless slice of life.
To the latter point and the things that's more tied to the post above: I do think sometimes individual plot events feel slapdash - a case of throwing wet spaghetti at the wall and hoping some of the noodles will stick in an attempt to fix previous plotting missteps that then...just make for a further lack of clarity. Moreover, plots often feel like a means to an end - even if that end doesn't make a lot of sense logically or seem to tie in with things that came before. Like don't get me wrong, I think the uncovering the UE's nuclear strike plans was awesome! But what I don't understand is why the UE would decide to bomb the Initiative now when a few months ago they were playing a different game entirely with biological warfare and just recently kidnapping transports. Or, if the nuclear strike was a direct result of the assault on UE to rescue the kidnapped transports, it seems like the UE wouldn't have time to enact plans to nuke Exsilium in the time between rescue groups hitting the UE and those same rescue groups finding those plans. Like either that timeline is massively borked or the UE is a bit of a wishy washy evil robot overlord.
And then suddenly in a game built on time travel, there's not enough time to...time travel...and fix it? Which I would understand if there were only a few hours until the nukes hit. Or if it had been established that the Transporter required some kind of energy or consumed a resource in order to work and that there simply wasn't enough of that available in such a short time to fix the multiple nuke strike zones. But that's never been established and in fact doesn't seem to be an issue once the transporter is taken to the moon, so it feels like it's just a 'Because we said so' justification for why everyone has to go to the moon - something that feels especially hollow since it seems like the projected fix for this disaster is to, you know, do it with time travel. Or like, from an IC standpoint, why would the UE even wait nine days before putting their nuke plan in action? It seems like a convenient plot hole for the sake of moving people to the moon base and, again, feels flimsy.
And I realize a lot of these points are, individually, kind of petty and easily capable of handwaving away. But when plot holes and inconsistencies in plotting are the rule rather than the exception, when events and the circumstances that cause them seem largely based on 'Because reasons' it adds up to plot that doesn't go anywhere and plot that doesn't invest characters or players.
And I want to get into thoughts about how to modify this and how to fix this trend, but a) that would probably be another MASSIVE WALL OF TEXT! and no one wants to read that and b) I probably want to tool that response to whatever further debate happens in this thread.
A lot of first encounters are established through the intro logs that are put up every month with the new waves of applicants. That's a good chunk of beginning CR and interactions, all of which can go towards AC for that month.
It's a hit and miss, however, for some. For me, my first month with a new character always always lands me with more than enough proofs/threads/etc for AC. For others I've noticed, they apply into the game with a character at the beginning of a month, dabble here and dabble there in the intro log or on the network annnnd then rl (or anything) happens.
IDK. The first month free to pass go collect your $200 feels like it's too easy. It's nice, sure. Maybe the free month pass for AC that we get with the new characters we apply into the game can be used later on down the road/whenever we really need it? Like for instance: I join with X during October. I make AC just fine the first time, the second month, the third month, but the fourth month is when rl hits hard and I can't make AC. So maybe then I could use that free month AC (of course as long as I check in with it?).
What are your thoughts? Could this even be considered?
I remember being new very clearly, and looking at the intro and the first monthly post area and being downright terrified of it. And sometimes, there just are new characters who never get a tag or more than one reply.
GRANTED, in some cases, it's very much because they didn't have a good hook, or you sit there and wonder how to approach, or they just aren't tagging around. But I think that first month in any game is a really insecure, floundering time, and it TAKES one or two months to really settle.
I'd be more inclined to have it for new players, rather than new characters, if that makes sense? This is a huge game, with an enormous plot that can move dizzyingly ... some players see that and dive right in, but others need a bit more time and reassurance.
i have a couple of thoughts coming out of the last plot, so they're sort of specific! but one thing i've been thinking about as this plot ran this past month is whether it might have been wise to consider closing applications for september? i love getting new people, but with a plot so quick and intense and — frankly — cr-intensive in a lot of ways, i feel like it might've been particularly difficult to get settled in and get involved, and speaking as an old player i can say i didn't get the chance to branch out to new cr like i might've wanted to just from working to keep up with the plot. actual new people by all means tell me if i'm way off base!!! but that might be something to consider for future plots that are more along these lines?
this is a smaller point, but i would've liked to see the option of who could kill catsovi open instead of just announced as going to adra. what he's done had a big impact on a lot of characters, so i'm sure a lot of people would've been interested in letting their character potentially get that shot, and it seemed odd to me to have that closed off as soon as the plot was announced.
i think the plotting posts do a good job of announcing what's going to go down and all, and i love how helpful and informative the questions threads are, but i think it'd be helpful if a way could be found to maybe draw more attention to some of the answered plot questions. there's some pretty relevant and important information to a lot of players that ends up being revealed in there, and while of course it's up to the players to keep an eye on threads like these — they exist for a reason, i know, hahah — i think it'd be good if some of the answers with bigger impacts could get added to the plot posts themselves or given an additional post or something? for instance, things like just how far kidnappee experimentation could go or how the vr room works on the moon, which were asked about and are relevant to a fair few people but could be easy to miss.
Specifically, yeah, I think this first of the month post more than any others may be probably the hardest to intro into, and felt the weirdest to do my own thing in.
With the large amount of characters who get accepted every month (we had almost 40 last month and the majority of them introed in the first four or so days of the month), it could be more practical to do one ooc intro log for the whole month. Tower of Animus has a system like that and it works really well. So many new characters every month can make it difficult to keep track of them all and others can be easily missed since there's a flood in a very short period of time. So along with group ic posts for the new characters it might be swell to do the same for ooc intros.
I think that would be a good idea...maybe something like a CR meme for new characters to post top-level comments, and then everyone else can reply to them?
I was talking in another thread and the idea came up... Would there be any interest in having a second greeting post for newbies, like say, Saturday? Sort of a calmer situation to go over what had happened and make time for cookie missions.. I mean...
It's always been a little difficult to touch base with housemates, especially because housing tends to get assigned way later than the start of the month, and by that time a lot of people have already intro'd and so people becoming roommates tends to get either overlooked or just forgotten about.
I was thinking maybe we could have a midmonth Roommates CR Meme of some sort? I've always been puzzled as to why the CR Meme is at the end of the month, right before all the newbies can actually use it. It seems to make much more sense to me to have it midmonth to help the new folks settle in. So maybe a consolidated meme like that would work too!
Either way, I'd just like an easier way to get in touch with roommates, because I feel like whether or not you get roomie CR is entirely dependent on either luck or tracking them down like a creeper. :p
I think this is a good idea! I like never...look at the Housing page or pay attention to it so I never know who my roommates are for one of my characters is at least, and they rotate pretty often so it slips my mind a lot to even think about getting CR. Having a meme focusing on roommate CR/next door neighbor CR (since housing is split into wings now and people are situated closer together) or at the least including a section for location/roommates in the CR meme might go a long way.
I've also always been confused as to why the cr meme is right at the end of the month. It would make more sense at the beginning/mid point of the month, once drops have been processed and new folks have come in.
So this is just something I noticed on the plot page that's been on my mind for a long time. Quoted below, my own emphasis added:
The Initiative brings characters into their land of exiles and equips them with their sentient weapon. They train them, group them into battalions and they send them on “missions” to particular points in their history with a goal in mind -- alter that event in the Initiative’s favor.
This whole "battalions" concept is something I haven't really seen in game. The OOC freedom to tag into gamewide mission logs one-by-one translates into an IC impression of a hundreds-strong mob being thrown into the past pell-mell and told to carry out the objective, one which tactically minded characters have criticized in game. Strategists, or psychics, or god-level powered characters are all pretty much left up to player initiative in shaping the path of any given mission, while combatants don't have much guidance on where their characters should be except for the whim of whom they want to tag.
So what would be interesting is if perhaps battalions became a serious construct! Not only would this effectively organize the forces, but it's an opportunity for CR with ~squadronmates~ #WeRideTogether #We Die Together. There are a wide variety of implementation possibilities.
Mods assign each character to a division (clearly a prohibitively high amount of work)
Mods allow strategist characters to come to power and they (their players) assume the task of organizing the transports
Mods decide how many battalions there should be, post "1st Division" "2nd division" "3rd division" signups, and players throw their characters into the division of their choice
Mods create guidelines for the makeup of a division (e.g. one tactician, one healer, three offensive combatants, two defensive combatants) and this shapes signups
If this whole idea isn't really something of interest in idea or work involved, I would suggest maybe revising that line on the plot page? Since it is a little misleading, implying a level of organization that isn't really there.
(Full disclosure: I anonymously submitted a version of this suggestion to the Suggestions page back in September.)
Ish and I really really liked that suggestion, actually! I'm sorry we never got back to you about that (hooboy this last month or so), but yeah, thumbs up we're definitely going to try and do something with that. You're right, it would lend not only a lot more organization to mission logs, but a lot more sturdy opportunities at CR. So thank you!
I JUST HAD A LITTLE THING THAT I THOUGHT UP DUNNO WHERE TO PUT IT SO IT GOES HERE HAHA
So I think that the last plot was really neat, with the total annihilation of the city and the dramatic change in the setting and stuff, but there was one thing that ended up confusing me. When I read the info post, I assumed that the shift from Exsilium to the moon would ICly be very short - like a day or something - because it specifically said that there would be no time to warn the natives or time travel back and fix the problem. Instead, it sort of seemed to stretch out over a week or more, which I understand OOCly (aka we couldn't all get up our posts on one day) but don't think made much sense ICly (if they had more than a week, how could they not have fixed it? Not that it's easy to fix or anything but there was certainly a lot of time).
So I guess the tl;dr is that the timeline of this last event confused me.
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exsiliumooc2013-09-30 09:14 pm
MODERATORS
Relevance of Weapons
AS WE ALL KNOW one of the features of Exsil is that on arriving in Exsilium, characters are given a weapon by the Initiative, which is supposed to grow with them. Since I first apped though, they have never played very much relevance. I get that part of it is on the players to decide how their weapons will grow, but it doesn't seem like there are a lot of opportunities to really use them in combat situations. I get that, with the size of the game, it's difficult to tailor individual combat situations for players, but it would be nice to see them crop up once and a while, I guess.
I know this has been discussed before too, but I guess it would be nice to have an official, on the books statement of: What's up with the weapons, and are they ever going to be used for anything big in the future? Or are they just a hold over from the original setup?
Relevance of Weapons
This of course opens up the idea that they can also be used on other Transports, but we can handle that if weapons can evolve for powers in the first place. Weapons evolve according to the player, but can we get a list of specific list of things that UE soldiers might be weak against? Then maybe people might notice hey, our weapons are evolving similarly why is that? Because SCIENCE! Or something. I'd just like the evolution of weapons to be more relevant to the plot.
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Relevance of Weapons
Which may be an idea for player-instigated missions? It'd be easier to tailor things that way instead of trying to do it in mass logs.
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An official refresher/statement on Weapons would be nice, though. I remember that having been the biggest puzzler and source of most my confusion when I first decided to app in.
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Volunteer Warning System?
This is sort of in regards of this month, but I feel like it kinda applies to future plots with volunteers since you know, too late to do anything now.
While I love tormenting characters like any good RPers...I have to admit I was completely sidelined by the extensive level of trauma the characters were going to get what with the UE stealing their powers (and maybe cloning them if that's what those short people were) and then nuking the entire city in retaliation to their rescue. Neither of which I recall receiving any prior warning about during sign up time.
Had I known back then what I know now? I...probably would have chosen a different path than volunteering my guilt-prone character tbqh or been more careful about it. Since yeah, I like tormenting characters but I don't want to break my toys either. Since you know, if I break them too much I usually end up needing to drop them.
I mean, I know there's nothing that can be done about it now but in the future would it be possible to more careful warning the level of consequences or badness characters could face by volunteering them for a plot? I mean I get a lot of the game relies on the element of surprise and I really dig that! I'm all for being surprised! But...this last plot kinda pushed it a bit far in my opinion in some ways.
I mean even just something simple, like a pain scale shown here-
- would be nice to have when we choose to volunteer. I don't need all the surprises spoiled (I don't even WANT that because I love the surprises), just something like "uh don't volunteer a character if you don't want them to face extreeeeeme harm/trauma/betrayal/crocs/etc" would be nice.
I just yeah, I love the game and I even really like the current plot! I just...don't want to break my characters to the point of unplayable because I choose to participate in a plot I didn't have a fair warning about trauma level, that's all.
At least, that's my own opinion about it.
Re: Volunteer Warning System?
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(Anonymous) 2013-10-01 04:55 am (UTC)(link)+1
(Anonymous) - 2013-10-01 04:59 (UTC) - Expand(no subject)
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Siding with the UE
Anyway, just really interested in the UE being... I don't know, accessible for PCs when it comes to plot? And not just for spying missions/time-travel missions and stuff :O?
Though maybe this has already been asked before/has been happening....
But yeah :D
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(Anonymous) 2013-10-01 05:18 am (UTC)(link)(no subject)
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Like, for example, the most recent events. If it would have been possible maybe to have the characters there in the UE instead of just faceless NPC scientists, but also shifted to the point that they don't need to be super active to still be around, if that makes sense?
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Re: Siding with the UE
Activity Check
I'm actually wanting to talk about something that I've been wondering about, and that's the AC! I find it kind of excessively easy, and while this is pretty cool for those of us who have billion hour jobs and school and who knows what else, I think it could be a little more...than what it is without being too harsh?
The idea of being able to pass AC with just two log comments technically has always sort of seemed odd to me, especially because a lot of people (myself included), do the whole quicklog format of rping, and some of those threads aren't much different from comment threads at the end of the day. I know p. much most of us do more than two log comments a month to pass, but I thought I'd throw that out there.
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Also, I think we'd have to get into differentiating different types of logs, because I tend to use longer prose tags for logs, and differentiating between commentspam logs and prose logs on the AC is just an extra level of hassle, and saying 'LOGS MUST BE PROSE-ONLY' is limiting to players.
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Re: Activity Check
In addition, I have seen instances where the network length recommendation is abused as well, leading some players to immediately drop threads that have reached the regulation comment count. This is an IC/OOC intersection with no explanation other than player neglect. When this method of abuse is favored, it means all characters are recorded doing in a month.
Furthermore, there seems to be no system in place keeping track of strikes - allowing players to take strikes as often as every other month. Which basically means someone could post two log comments every two months and stay in the game. I don't think any player in the game actually flouts the check this severely, but I have seen players take strikes more than once, which to me seems to defeat the point of their status as "strikes" against you. Some games for example have a "three strikes and you're out" policy.
In addition, there was talk last month about adding a cross canon requirement IIRC? Since people who abuse the flexible AC system are more likely to play insularly, either of these changes would be very welcome to me as a sort of "two birds, one stone" situation.
I'm not sure what solution would be best; my personal activity is very high so I don't have a lot of thoughts from the perspective of what the minimum should be. Requiring more pieces seems viable with relatively few rule changes. I'm not sure how much that would annoy people, digging up more links, but pretty much all the mods would have to do is change the "two" to whatever number they choose (and more backend work checking the greater number of threads). Cross-canon clauses would be a little more complicated to write but I really feel like they could help a lot if implemented well, since the psychology of only needing to write replies to one or two key logs is most nourished by the mindset of someone thinking of specific key characters.
This got kind of long; basically our current AC is flexible without being completely lax but would probably not lose a lot of committed players were it more stringent, I think.
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WRT double dipping & event/arrival logs
lets pretend I'm still logged into the right account
i'll just be a modcat gnawing on a table
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+1 oops replies to the right thread this time!!
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AC
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One thing I'd like to see is constant small changes to the setting. Each mission, private or large-scale, results in permanent alterations, tiny or enormous. Like the feral sheep being suddenly turning docile or the huge talking ravens all speaking Spanish or Big Ben suddenly working again. In fact, I'd love to see a butterfly effect: some throw-away mission to pick up cigarettes and booze has massive geopolitical repercussions or the entire surface of the planet completely destroyed or something NO, NO NOT THE TEQUILA put that back, wow oops.
I'd also like to see more timey-wimey paradox stuff, people going back in time not far enough and cross their own timestreams and bad things happen. Or an immortal character gets sent to the past, but there's some problem and they don't get picked up, so they have to LIVE OUT thousands of years and then they make their way back to Ex somehow and BOY ARE THEY PISSED. Or people turning up before they left on missions and having to meet themselves, or multiple versions of themselves, or stay the fuck away from themselves before even more bad things happen. Anyway not any of that specifically, but generally more weird paradoxical non-linear things that can only happen in a time-travel game.
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God I'm so sad this was before my time. There are many other info pages that weren't around when this was first created - and of course the mods are doing lots of hard work on other things right now, in particular the moon mission bonanza would probably make this possible but not exactly easy from a modwork perspective - but god it was so cool.
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prosodi here...again... will use my actual account one day i swear
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Pacing
My suggestion is to actually use the current Moon Base plotline as a basis for pacing in the future-big plots with quieter times in the middle that, while not high-octane, still have things going on that apply to the world build and meta plot. I know on Exsilium there were limited resources, tensions with the Exiles, monsters in the woods, and the constant looming threat of the UE. I enjoy playing with all of these things but I worry that sometimes it's easy to forget they're there. (I know you can't force people to play with certain mechanics of the world, but sometimes these things could have more attention drawn to them, perhaps?)
Sorry if this is all just rambling, it's late where I am.
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I think pacing as it is right now is fairly erractic, and smoothing it out a bit would go a long way!
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Plot Coherency
My suggestion is to focus on quality instead of quantity. There's been a lot happening to the transports the past few weeks - the party, the kidnappings, the rescue, and now a nuclear threat and a moonbase. While I'm glad this isn't the same game it was a year ago because progress is good, it is kind of jarring to leave what was a pretty grounded plot based on politics and scientific stuff and come back to a game with space zombies.
Which isn't to say it's not enjoyable! It obviously is, lots of people are having a great time playing with what you've given us. The problem is that it seems like a lot of cool toys that will wear off quickly. Stacking everything up like this also has the impact of negating some of their potential, and encourages players to move on to the next issue quickly instead of really playing up the opportunities of the first one.
This is really disorganized and rambling, but I guess my main point is: you don't have to dump 20 things on players at once to keep them interested. It's more important and more effective in the long run to provide well-paced content and really give them the chance to sink their teeth into it, with some consequences that are very clear to the players. That way if you take a month off from heavy plot, we still have the fallout of the last one to play with.
I know there's a mention above of each plot changing Exsilium - that's good!! The problem is the players have no idea how, or they don't know how to apply it in-game. If something changes, it should be something very obvious that characters can respond to, otherwise it's not particularly useful in the long run.
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But right now I definitely think that sense of quantity over quality is really hampering the ability to become invested in the plot of the game. This isn't to say the individual events are fun or that they don't engage people in the moment, but personally I find the connective tissue between one plot event and the next to be slim to non-existent. They feel like dots on a blank page of paper with no lines drawn from one to the next, no fall out, no consequences (good, bad or anything in between). I realize that I'm saying this right now right as we currently had a big setting change because of the nuclear attack on Exsilium which, for all intents and purposes, should read as 'consequences' but I don't feel like there's any sticking power in Exsilium. It feels like things happen, the Intiative/player base plays a reactionary role in fixing it, and then everything goes back to the statue quo. This moon base stuff has a long game in mind, sure, but ultimately Exsilium is going to be set to right and--? Then what? There may be the intent of having some kind of long felt, really game changing (and I don't mean just changing the setting, but rather than tenor of the game or how the Initiative works against the UE or etc) effects, but I can't honestly say there's been an established track record for that kind of plotting in the past so it's hard for me to feel like there's going to be a different result in the future.
In general I feel like there's both a lack of a long game - a sense that the plot is moving toward anything with purpose - and a lack of coherency in individual events. To the former: I feel like most of the events since Black Rock (? Don't cite me on this, I may be getting the timeline wrong here) have been massively reactionary rather than the Initiative actively trying to do anything about the UE. For a game billed as being about a resistance force, the Initiative doesn't actually seem to do any kind of resisting/have any game plan whatsoever beyond running around and panic fixing stuff that the Initiative throws their way. Which to an extent it totally understandable; they're a small force against a massive super power. But as players, it's hard to become invested in that. It gives our characters no sense of agency or purpose with regard to the overarching plot and as a result, time between missions devolves into meaningless slice of life.
To the latter point and the things that's more tied to the post above: I do think sometimes individual plot events feel slapdash - a case of throwing wet spaghetti at the wall and hoping some of the noodles will stick in an attempt to fix previous plotting missteps that then...just make for a further lack of clarity. Moreover, plots often feel like a means to an end - even if that end doesn't make a lot of sense logically or seem to tie in with things that came before. Like don't get me wrong, I think the uncovering the UE's nuclear strike plans was awesome! But what I don't understand is why the UE would decide to bomb the Initiative now when a few months ago they were playing a different game entirely with biological warfare and just recently kidnapping transports. Or, if the nuclear strike was a direct result of the assault on UE to rescue the kidnapped transports, it seems like the UE wouldn't have time to enact plans to nuke Exsilium in the time between rescue groups hitting the UE and those same rescue groups finding those plans. Like either that timeline is massively borked or the UE is a bit of a wishy washy evil robot overlord.
And then suddenly in a game built on time travel, there's not enough time to...time travel...and fix it? Which I would understand if there were only a few hours until the nukes hit. Or if it had been established that the Transporter required some kind of energy or consumed a resource in order to work and that there simply wasn't enough of that available in such a short time to fix the multiple nuke strike zones. But that's never been established and in fact doesn't seem to be an issue once the transporter is taken to the moon, so it feels like it's just a 'Because we said so' justification for why everyone has to go to the moon - something that feels especially hollow since it seems like the projected fix for this disaster is to, you know, do it with time travel. Or like, from an IC standpoint, why would the UE even wait nine days before putting their nuke plan in action? It seems like a convenient plot hole for the sake of moving people to the moon base and, again, feels flimsy.
And I realize a lot of these points are, individually, kind of petty and easily capable of handwaving away. But when plot holes and inconsistencies in plotting are the rule rather than the exception, when events and the circumstances that cause them seem largely based on 'Because reasons' it adds up to plot that doesn't go anywhere and plot that doesn't invest characters or players.
And I want to get into thoughts about how to modify this and how to fix this trend, but a) that would probably be another MASSIVE WALL OF TEXT! and no one wants to read that and b) I probably want to tool that response to whatever further debate happens in this thread.
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pretend I am less lazy than I actually am re: accounts ok!
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Apply now and your first month subscription is on us!
A lot of first encounters are established through the intro logs that are put up every month with the new waves of applicants. That's a good chunk of beginning CR and interactions, all of which can go towards AC for that month.
It's a hit and miss, however, for some. For me, my first month with a new character always always lands me with more than enough proofs/threads/etc for AC. For others I've noticed, they apply into the game with a character at the beginning of a month, dabble here and dabble there in the intro log or on the network annnnd then rl (or anything) happens.
IDK. The first month free to pass go collect your $200 feels like it's too easy. It's nice, sure. Maybe the free month pass for AC that we get with the new characters we apply into the game can be used later on down the road/whenever we really need it? Like for instance: I join with X during October. I make AC just fine the first time, the second month, the third month, but the fourth month is when rl hits hard and I can't make AC. So maybe then I could use that free month AC (of course as long as I check in with it?).
What are your thoughts?
Could this even be considered?no subject
GRANTED, in some cases, it's very much because they didn't have a good hook, or you sit there and wonder how to approach, or they just aren't tagging around. But I think that first month in any game is a really insecure, floundering time, and it TAKES one or two months to really settle.
I'd be more inclined to have it for new players, rather than new characters, if that makes sense? This is a huge game, with an enormous plot that can move dizzyingly ... some players see that and dive right in, but others need a bit more time and reassurance.
Just idle thoughts.
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this is a smaller point, but i would've liked to see the option of who could kill catsovi open instead of just announced as going to adra. what he's done had a big impact on a lot of characters, so i'm sure a lot of people would've been interested in letting their character potentially get that shot, and it seemed odd to me to have that closed off as soon as the plot was announced.
i think the plotting posts do a good job of announcing what's going to go down and all, and i love how helpful and informative the questions threads are, but i think it'd be helpful if a way could be found to maybe draw more attention to some of the answered plot questions. there's some pretty relevant and important information to a lot of players that ends up being revealed in there, and while of course it's up to the players to keep an eye on threads like these — they exist for a reason, i know, hahah — i think it'd be good if some of the answers with bigger impacts could get added to the plot posts themselves or given an additional post or something? for instance, things like just how far kidnappee experimentation could go or how the vr room works on the moon, which were asked about and are relevant to a fair few people but could be easy to miss.
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group ooc intro posts?
(Anonymous) 2013-10-01 04:03 pm (UTC)(link)no subject
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IC Meet and Greet this weekend
Do things like exploration, maybe meet NPCs, etc.
Or do you all figure one big mingle's enough?
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Roomie CR Meme
I was thinking maybe we could have a midmonth Roommates CR Meme of some sort? I've always been puzzled as to why the CR Meme is at the end of the month, right before all the newbies can actually use it. It seems to make much more sense to me to have it midmonth to help the new folks settle in. So maybe a consolidated meme like that would work too!
Either way, I'd just like an easier way to get in touch with roommates, because I feel like whether or not you get roomie CR is entirely dependent on either luck or tracking them down like a creeper. :p
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I've also always been confused as to why the cr meme is right at the end of the month. It would make more sense at the beginning/mid point of the month, once drops have been processed and new folks have come in.
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Battalions
The Initiative brings characters into their land of exiles and equips them with their sentient weapon. They train them, group them into battalions and they send them on “missions” to particular points in their history with a goal in mind -- alter that event in the Initiative’s favor.
This whole "battalions" concept is something I haven't really seen in game. The OOC freedom to tag into gamewide mission logs one-by-one translates into an IC impression of a hundreds-strong mob being thrown into the past pell-mell and told to carry out the objective, one which tactically minded characters have criticized in game. Strategists, or psychics, or god-level powered characters are all pretty much left up to player initiative in shaping the path of any given mission, while combatants don't have much guidance on where their characters should be except for the whim of whom they want to tag.
So what would be interesting is if perhaps battalions became a serious construct! Not only would this effectively organize the forces, but it's an opportunity for CR with ~squadronmates~ #WeRideTogether #We Die Together. There are a wide variety of implementation possibilities.
If this whole idea isn't really something of interest in idea or work involved, I would suggest maybe revising that line on the plot page? Since it is a little misleading, implying a level of organization that isn't really there.
(Full disclosure: I anonymously submitted a version of this suggestion to the Suggestions page back in September.)
Re: Battalions
Ish and I really really liked that suggestion, actually! I'm sorry we never got back to you about that (hooboy this last month or so), but yeah, thumbs up we're definitely going to try and do something with that. You're right, it would lend not only a lot more organization to mission logs, but a lot more sturdy opportunities at CR. So thank you!
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Feedback on the moon plot
So I think that the last plot was really neat, with the total annihilation of the city and the dramatic change in the setting and stuff, but there was one thing that ended up confusing me. When I read the info post, I assumed that the shift from Exsilium to the moon would ICly be very short - like a day or something - because it specifically said that there would be no time to warn the natives or time travel back and fix the problem. Instead, it sort of seemed to stretch out over a week or more, which I understand OOCly (aka we couldn't all get up our posts on one day) but don't think made much sense ICly (if they had more than a week, how could they not have fixed it? Not that it's easy to fix or anything but there was certainly a lot of time).
So I guess the tl;dr is that the timeline of this last event confused me.