Game Feedback Post - Mid-Year 2018

[thelostmods]

Hey Team,

We're here today to talk about your feedback. We have a new world-hop event coming up starting this weekend and it's been a little over a year since we started these. We wanted to solicit your feedback on how you're finding the new event mechanic. Do you like it? Are there things that could be improved?

How about non-worldhop events? Are you guys enjoying the variety? Are there types you'd like to see more of? Less of? Are there any themes you're interested in, particularly, that might help facilitate healing for your characters?

Do you have any player plots you'd like to advance? We are always open to these! Please just hit us up and we'll arrange them in the calendar.

Beyond events, we're doing our best to keep setting details and world mechanics up to date and consistent. Please let us know if there's something we could be doing better or if anything isn't clear. Is there too much detail? Not enough detail?

Anything else? Are the wishing mechanics working for everyone? Are the NPCs engaging when they turn up? Is our OOC response time appropriate? We welcome all feedback!

Comments

[ignes_fatui]

I've been really enjoying the worldhop events! They're engaging and while they make the game a little less slice-of-life that's not necessarily a bad thing, since it gives characters who'd otherwise be difficult to play or keep playing in the game something to do to stay involved. My only concerns are that sometimes they're frequent enough that it can be difficult to fit other more involved things in between them unless they're big enough to count as a player plot and be accounted for in the event calendar themselves, and that keeping up with them seems to take up a lot of you guys' time and energy.

I've got a couple of player plot ideas I'd like to brainstorm with people about (A followup to Spacepuncher I's launch, for one, as well as the weird tree experiments Ienzo's been up to) but I've got some details I need to hammer out on that front first before they're really presentable.

As always, thanks so much for all your hard work! This game is a pleasure to be in and I'm glad to have been able to stick around since the beginning.

[thelostmods]

Thank you for your feedback, first and foremost! We're so happy to have had you and so many others stick it out with us for so long.

One of the things we talked a lot about before implementing the world-hops was how often we wanted to do these because, as you said, they're very involved. Ultimately, we settled on every 3 to 4 months. In practice...

Colors was held in November/December 2017, Recuerdo was in May 2018, and Child of Mine will be in July 2018. We are definitely going to work on spacing them out a little better! Does 3 to 4 months between these types of events sound like a better pace for them?

Please just let us know whenever you have your ideas a little more hammered out! We're happy to help with brainstorming or using Zephyr/setting elements to help facilitate any player plots.

[equal_shots]

I personally love the new event mechanic. I have found some of the traditional event mechanics a bit harder for me to find my way into, so they have really helped me get into the game and stay in it. I also think response time has been great from you guys...I don't ever feel like I post and have to wait an unreasonable length of time for an answer. The growth of the map has been nice, too, since it makes sense in the knowledge that Zephyr is growing.

I really have little to give negative or constructive feedback on. I would say that I would personally love am event focused on Zephyr. As in... with them out and about, in the Meadous, interacting. I guess I've explained that terribly, but I can't imagine that I play the only character who wouldn't necessarily seek Zephyr out but who would also not ignore them in person. I know that there is this overarching slow-burn plot going with the gods getting sick, so maybe that could be a tie- in? I haven't been here forever so I don't know how it was that Zephyr became bound to writing their replies/not speaking, but as we've seen their family talking I would be interested in seeing if they start talking too.

Basically I kinda wanna hang out and learn more about Zephyr ♡

Otherwise, I think that everything has been thing very well! Thank you so much for such a great game!

[thelostmods]

Thank you for your feedback! It's good to know what we're doing right, as well as where to improve.

We can definitely have a future event focused on more physical interaction with Zephyr. We'll think about how to work that into a plot that has some hooks for people to potentially latch onto. Thanks for the suggestion!

[bywolves]

I love this game. I enjoy the events, and I honestly don't think they need to be spaced out more than they are - in fact, I'm always super pumped for the next world hop events in general, just because it gives me something to do outside the slice of life thing. I enjoy slice of life, but I also like a little bit of conflict, and the world hop events are super fun for that. They're also perfect for most of the characters here, people who need to heal but want to continue to make a difference. I think it also allows for us to do fun stuff with our characters that might not normally happen, like the age up/down thing coming up or like, being turned into skeletons, or w/e, basically just having fun worlds to explore and immerse ourselves in.

I'm seconding the plot around Zephyr, I'd love to see something with them as the center just because I love the interactions they have with their flock.

As for negative/constructive feedback, I can't really think of anything. You guys are prompt in answering every question/wish or whatever I've got, the map is updated regularly, nothing ever feels like it's lagging. I also generally feel like I'm contributing, or rather, that Royce is able to contribute in the plot. I do wish there were maybe more avenues to like... force him into participating in some of the non-world hop events, but I know that's against the spirit of the game. I struggle sometimes with wanting to be involved in a thing but knowing Royce would straight up be like "no" but I think that's more of an on-me thing to deal with, so.

You guys are doing great, don't worry about it.

[thelostmods]

Thanks very much for the feedback! Our thought when implementing these worldhops was to give a chance for more conflict than what might be provided by in-game events due to Zephyr learning the concept of consent early on, so we're glad that aspect of things is working out well. Given the mixed feedback we've received on frequency, would 3 to 4 months between worldhops (one a season) still be a pace for those types of events that you'd find agreeable?

We will definitely be incorporating a Zephyr-centric plot into the next calendar.

Would events that temporarily change the nature of the Meadous be something you might be interested in? We've cut back on those, but they would semi-force participation without being too over-bearing in terms of Zephyr's IC concerns about consent. Are there any particular themes for events in this vein that you'd like to see?

[bywolves]

I think 3-4 months is a pretty good compromise between the people who want to see more spacing and less spacing - every season has worked so far. I generally feel like I have enough time to do everything I want, I think? But I'm also generally a pretty quick tagger when it comes to events like these and the world hopping stuff is easily some of my favorite things to do, so. Mileage may vary.

As far as temporarily changing the nature of the Meadous, that could be fun! I'm sad I missed the Hearts event where everybody got to have their daemon for a while, so stuff like that could be nifty, I think. Or like... idk, it's hard to think of innocent enough stuff that isn't going to traumatize anybody, I guess. I'm so used to horror game events, lmao.

I'm really down for whatever you guys come up with, you guys are super creative. I'm easy to please.

[thelostmods]

We can definitely look into some other canons that have some sort of spiritual companion aspect to them to see what else we may be able to do!

[deafscythe]

Chipping in to agree with a bit longer spacing between worldhopping events, just to make sure we get enough time to wrap up player plots or do other things in the Meadous!

And also we miss Zephyr pls bring the fluffchild back to hang out so everyone can cuddle them.

[thelostmods]

Thank you very much for your feedback!

Would 3 to 4 months between the world hops be a better pace? Or more time between them? Are there any particular non-world hop events or themes that you'd be interested in?

We will definitely be working a Zephyr-centric event into the next calendar!

[deafscythe]

I think a consistent 3-4 months would be great, which would basically break it down into one worldhop per season? In that case, there could be some working of seasonal themes or concepts into the worldhops, which might be fun.

[thelostmods]

This is something we can definitely try to incorporate into future worldhops!

[aigue]

Chiming in that I think 3-4 months between world hops would be too long, unless the world hops were extended instead of being 1-2 weeks. Like Flurry said, the world hop events are a great break in the slice of life stuff, and they've all been VERY creative, so I personally would not like to see less of them.

[thelostmods]

All of the world hops, so far, have been planned and run for 2 weeks. This is the length of time we think it's reasonable to ask the mod running a particular world hop to focus on the heavy NPCing aspects of the worldhop events. Would a 3-week run with the final week being NPC-light or absent and just allowing characters to interact with the other world after it's been 'saved/restored/etc.' be an okay compromise if we extended worldhop events? We have typically seen people backtagging events well beyond the 2-week mark, but we can tack on an extra week of post-save for the worlds where this would work.

Example 1: Recuerdo, the characters could have had another week to party and witness the positive impact of their visit.

Example 2: The Void was predicated around the world falling into the Nightmare, so getting the Sisters up and out put a harder end-date on that event in IC terms.

[aigue]

Yeah, 3 weeks with the final one being focused on the setting might be a good compromise. The settings you guys have given us so far have all been really great, so the extra time to explore them some more would be fun.

[thelostmods]

Okay! That in mind, we'll be implementing this for the Child of Mine worldhop event. We'll adjust the calendar on that. Where we can make 3 weeks work in future worldhops, we'll also implement it. Thank you for the suggestion!

[devoutish]

+1; I really like this idea.

[thelostmods]

So noted! We're going to be implementing this with Child of Mine as a test-run.

[fucking_ebay]

I don't have particular feedback that hasn't already been said, so I just want to pop in here and say that I appreciate you guys and I think you're doing a great job. The events have been really interesting and engaging, each mod running them has been totally on the ball with timely responses, and I've just been enjoying it all a heck of a lot. Also, I'm looking forward to a more Zephyr-centric plot as well!

[thelostmods]

Thank you! We're really glad you're enjoying the plots we've had so far. We'll work on keeping it up.

[aibolition]

I think things have been growing great. My concerns about the frequency of world hops seems to have already been addressed so I think my only crit is that, during the last world hop event in recuerdo, I would've liked to have been given more a chance to take part.

I tagged a portion that was meant to receive NPC tags back, that got nothing (and still has nothing) while another group was boomerang-tagged with. I understand the desires to wrap up plot and choosing the larger group to focus on makes sense, but it was a little discouraging to be ignored (even for a non-plot forwarding thread) and to even miss out on joining the second group due the quick decision of who that group would be and to only tag said other group, especially as these discussions and decisions often seemed to be on work hours when I was unavailable. If this continued to happen, I could see some players feeling left out. Perhaps instead of plurk-focused discussion and decisions, plot info can be worked with on the comm with some buffering time to allow everyone to join in if they wish to. Even if it changes nothing of who joins, I would appreciate having had the option and I'm sure others would too.

I was also a little confused about the amercanized view of death in an event based of Dia de Muertos. There seemed to be a lot of focus and emphasis on allowing the people to live forever, which seemed opposite to the point of coming terms with and accepting death as a natural aspect as I feel the holiday does. BUT! That may be a matter of conjecture and I am not Mexican, so instead of crit with that respect, I'd like to suggest maybe some event or other that does address the aspect of naturalness, that grief is something to be dealt with not avoided, as I feel that would be a helpful point to address in healing our number of traumatized characters who handle death with various levels and lack of grace. That said, I can understand that such a plot MIGHT be too heavy for players.

Nevertheless, I'm very interested in more plots of similar nature in addressing deep-seated problems that characters have, bringing them to confront issues and traumas they would have elected to ignore, but in a manner with which they can move forward from it. Perhaps even polling (which... I guess would be like this post but more single-topic focused) people on what sort of things they'd like/want their characters to come to terms with. Even if it doesn't get used, it may be good for the players themselves to look at and try and understand the healing goals they have in mind for their characters.

Again, y'all are doing great. Thanks for such a wonderful game, and don't forget to take care of yourselves! Mods gotta be people too.

[thelostmods]

Thank you very much for your feedback! I'll let Sora address the specifics of the Recuerdo event. To your broader point about making sure everyone has a chance to be included, we will definitely make this a priority for future worldhops.

We also think the idea of having more comm-based communications for these events is a great idea! Where there's some major twist or event that occurs in a worldhop's plot, we're going to institute a 24-hour notice policy. That is, we'll post about what's going on (with a summary), and give people at least 24 hours to review and plot what they want to do before moving ahead with anything ICly. We hope this will give everyone the opportunity to weigh in on major events and impact the direction of the worldhop. A lot of the plotting does seem to happen even when we put up OOC posts, but they'll be available, regardless.

Regarding the suggestion of a plot focused around the naturalness of death/grief, we'd like to tackle this issue more sideways with events and worldhops just to prevent it being too much of a downer for characters who do not effectively or gracefully deal with these topics. Our goal in the Colors worldhop, for example, was to end on a bittersweet note. The characters were able to rescue the Sisters, send the Brothers back to the Nightmare, and raise the Sisters to the Upper Limit. This raising, though, amounted to a death sentence for the Sisters as individuals. Some characters had one-on-one conversations about this fact with the Sisters and how they felt about the idea. By showing that the Sisters were willing or even excited at the prospect of ceasing to exist to create a new world, we were hoping to facilitate some of the development it sounds like you're talking about.

We can certainly look for more ways to take this sideways sort of approach to dying and grief to nudge characters toward some greater healing in respect to this! And we'll look into implementing such a poll on topics for healing later this month or next month once we're out of the current worldhop.

[aibolition]

Sounds great! I do like the plan for more sideways analysis, what with it being a lighter game too. I look forward to seeing what you guys do, not just with this but various and general topics.

[thelostmods]

We apologize that some groups were unaccounted for during the Recuerdo event. Initially, there were some thread tracking challenges, but ultimately RL issues resulted in us dropping the ball on some threads. We are taking every measure to ensure this does not happen going forward. We want to be sure everyone is able to enjoy the world hop events to the fullest, so we appreciate the feedback on the tagging issue. We strive to be transparent as a mod team with our playerbase, so we genuinely appreciate all the feedback we get.

I plan on picking up on the tags again, so I’d be happy to play out any threads still hanging if people are interested. Personal IRL issues have kept me from really doing as much tagging as I'd have liked to. So my sincerest personal apologies on that front. If a specific thread was missed please throw a link at me.

Whilst Recuerdo was based very heavily on the holiday Dia de Muertos, the event was more meant to a contrast to The Void event. Along with the fact it was tweaked to have some of its own built-in mythology to not pull too heavily from another culture. We wanted players to discover more of this realm and see how it connected to the other godly planes. So aspects were adjusted to account, in part, for the RP environment and to emphasize certain aspects that we wanted to highlight for the event.

[aibolition]

Thanks for getting back to me! I'm okay with letting it go since it's done and over, I just wanted to bring it up for future things. RL Happens.

And that makes sense! It does play good contrast to the void, and I did like the aspect of the land of the dead being connected to multiple worlds, on that note. Thanks for the clarification!