State of the Game | October 2013

[initiates]

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. Discussion Topics ☑ Relevance of Weapons ☑ Volunteer Warning System ☑ Siding with the United Earth? ☑ Activity Check (Increasing Requirements) ☑ Butterfly Effects, Timey-Wimey Shenanigans, Evidence of Small Timeline and World Shifts ☑ Game Pacing ☑ Plot Coherency ☑ Closing Apps during Events + Player Plot Questions ☑ Group OOC Intros ☑ * As time allows. Work and school and sleep will interfere with the timeliness of updates.

Last Updated on October 1st, 2013.

Comments

MODERATORS

[initiates]

Please place concerns directly tying in to the moderators or perceptions of how moderation has worked here in game here. Thank you!

Relevance of Weapons

[fintastic]

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?

Volunteer Warning System?

[wilder]

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.

At least, that's my own opinion about it.

Re: Volunteer Warning System?

[rittersjuwel]

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.

[(Anonymous)]

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?

+1

[(Anonymous)]

Though certain characters may indeed have unsuitable reactions to the whole abduction plot, there's really no... opting out of the fact that Exsilium has just gotten nuked to the ground. I'm also not sure how a character who would feel guilt about having allowed themselves to get kidnapped... wouldn't feel guilt for how other characters getting kidnapped anyway?

Relevance of Weapons

[strategic_guile]

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.

[wilder]

Yeah, I know a lot of the trauma came from the gamewide plot thing- but it was still connected to the whole kidnapped deal (since that's why they bombed!). Either way, I did feel like I was...way in over my head with each new development that I had signed up for. Though this totally could have been my own bad there for not thinking things through!

Siding with the UE

[scienceinacan]

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....

But yeah :D

Relevance of Weapons

[momijizukamori]

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.

Re: Relevance of Weapons

[fintastic]

Yes, I think in a perfect world, with an infinite number of mods, it would be nice if some of the missions could have personally tailored combat threads that would push those limits. I think it's very hard to do that kind of thing with the volume of people have, so I'm not too hurt if the idea is more or less scrapped or put on the backburner. It would just be nice to know where it stands.

+1

[momijizukamori]

The only thing the kidnapees got, trauma-wise, that other people didn't, was 'they cloned our powers' and... I'm not sure anyone has ICly mad the connection? Granted, that's pretty fucked up, but I know I at least wasn't expecting the kidnapping to be 'vacation in the UE until rescue' when the last major plots were an incredibly lethal bioweapon and destroying an entire world.

+1

[boundbydevotion]

ANOTHER AGREEMENT FOR A GENERAL WARNING SCALE. As someone kind of used to high-stakes trauma in my games, definitely having a scale is good, though obviously even with a warning the amount of trauma a character suffers varies due to their own personalities and histories and stuff. More character-type specific warnings would require knowing more about how a plot will go down and I think it's better to leave it to a player to decide if they'd like to risk it, as long as trauma levels ARE indicated, than to spoil plot events.

[(Anonymous)]

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.

[fintastic]

Whoops that was me. Journal jump gone awry! Wanted to edit to add (but can't now) that I'd also thought about apping characters who would want to do that, but couldn't think of a way to do it that wouldn't segregate them from the rest of the game.

[scienceinacan]

Maybe end up with a more open Exsilium if they ever return? Like instead of complete sort of exile Exsilium is at in terms of connection with UE have them... in a sort of armistice that lets Transports/some people enter UE if they have passports or something.

Or maybe, what if Exsilium itself becomes temporarily taken over by UE so Exs peeps aren't exactly being spied on but... trying to survive UE assimilation instead so PCs can choose to try and help Exs or side with UE completely...?

/Just rambling

Activity Check

[invocation]

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.

[momijizukamori]

Hmmm... it may be best-done as more player-initated/written things? Like, mods give the set-up, but the players involved can write their own NPC fights or whatever, so we don't need a mod to run an NPC. That's how I would do it anyway, but not a mod, obviously *g*

[khajidont]

This is more brainstorming than anything else, but I think the best way to utilize those sorts of characters - if allowed - is to give them a limited arc like Elle's last character... maybe they can interact with the rest of the game as a spy until shit hits the fan?

[fintastic]

Could be interesting, but it always seemed like the UE was kind of all-or-nothing. I don't think they'd let people just come and go, especially since Exsilium is supposed to be prison. As for assimilating into the UE, they give people drugs that make them complacent, so that would be up for the mods to decide how to work that out.

I like the above idea, of limited character arcs, though that brings up its own questions. And would only work for one or two people at a time? Unless some baddies grouped up... :|a

[boobwindow]

Oh, I like this idea. 8)

hi this is nita on the wrong account

[momijizukamori]

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.

[khajidont]

I AM IN AWE OF THAT PERFECT USERNAME

[scienceinacan]

Well, when I'd apped my second character to Exsilium (not a baddie) I toyed with the idea because, canonically, he'd stuck with an Empire with some crappy laws. He basically was someone who believed that "changing [the Empire] from within" was the right way to do things....

And you know, I thought about that for the UE :o What if some characters thought that was the way to do it? Transports who move over to the UE side to try and change things but at the same time be willing to do some questionable things in the mean time.

[invocation]

I'm not really mentioning it as a requirement to prevent squatting, since that will happen regardless.

I just don't see much difference between a log thread and a comment thread as they are right now because of the whole comment spam variant of a lot of logs. I'm not suggesting policing of what is a log and what isn't so much as maybe log threads needing to be a little longer to pass for AC. Mainly it's weird to me that we can do exactly the same thing in a comment thread as we can in a log thread, and we need 7 comment threads to qualify for AC, but one log comment.