Recollé Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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recallings2018-07-16 05:48 pm
recollecters) wrote in recallings2018-07-16 05:48 pm
July Feedback + Polls
Hello everyone! We'd like to draw your attention here really quick for a few brief announcements/updates/polls, etc.
As mentioned over here in the mods' feedback thread, we wanted to go ahead and poll the playerbase about a few things going forward with the rest of the summer arc and the state of the game!
First of all, let's talk apps! We had initially stated that apps would be opening again in September with newbies coming in in October. This was initially to try and avoid a new crowd coming in while everything's going on. However, we would like to hear your feedback as the players in the game.
Please vote for one of the following if so inclined!
Secondly and most importantly, we would like to hear from you, as players, what sort of things and events you'd like to experience in the game going forward! As noted in the mod feedback, we initially had an idea and have found that we missed our mark quite a bit. As such, we would love to hear what things you like about the game, what things you'd like to see more of/less of and things you would be interested in seeing implemented! While we cannot guarantee that all suggestions will be implemented we would love to keep options open and get a stronger sense of what things the game would like to revert back to.
Several of you listed suggestions on the HMD and we greatly appreciate it! We are also interested in hearing from players who may feel differently about those ideas and have other ideas they'd like to see instead.
Comments to this post will not be screened! We want to have an open line of communication between us and players and between players and players. Please respect one another when discussing suggestions.
And finally, as always, we are still in dire need of AC helpers! If you would like to assist and are available to help us check AC at the end of the month, please send us a PM or leave us a comment on the mod contact.
Thank you for your time as always, and we look forward to hearing from you!
As mentioned over here in the mods' feedback thread, we wanted to go ahead and poll the playerbase about a few things going forward with the rest of the summer arc and the state of the game!
First of all, let's talk apps! We had initially stated that apps would be opening again in September with newbies coming in in October. This was initially to try and avoid a new crowd coming in while everything's going on. However, we would like to hear your feedback as the players in the game.
Please vote for one of the following if so inclined!
Poll #20235 Applications - Should They Open in August or September?
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 41
When would you like to see the next application cycle/TDM go live?
Secondly and most importantly, we would like to hear from you, as players, what sort of things and events you'd like to experience in the game going forward! As noted in the mod feedback, we initially had an idea and have found that we missed our mark quite a bit. As such, we would love to hear what things you like about the game, what things you'd like to see more of/less of and things you would be interested in seeing implemented! While we cannot guarantee that all suggestions will be implemented we would love to keep options open and get a stronger sense of what things the game would like to revert back to.
Several of you listed suggestions on the HMD and we greatly appreciate it! We are also interested in hearing from players who may feel differently about those ideas and have other ideas they'd like to see instead.
Comments to this post will not be screened! We want to have an open line of communication between us and players and between players and players. Please respect one another when discussing suggestions.
And finally, as always, we are still in dire need of AC helpers! If you would like to assist and are available to help us check AC at the end of the month, please send us a PM or leave us a comment on the mod contact.
Thank you for your time as always, and we look forward to hearing from you!
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Anyway, thanks mods for doing this!
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This isn't really a specific suggestion, but I've noticed in recent months that the monthly event that goes up often trends towards being general and descriptive, rather than having active prompts. For instance, this month, the celebration of Tanabata is described in very general terms, but there isn't anything very specific to respond to there. Consequently, it's sometimes difficult to think of a good way to get your character involved. It might be helpful if events were broken up into prompts. For Tanabata, just as an example, something like '1: Carnival Games [Description of some games and how your characters might engage.]' '2: Food stall [Description of food stall and how your characters might engage]' etc. etc.
As a corollary to this, since the entire month of events is listed at once, it sometimes feels as if the game is front-loaded and the latter half or two-thirds of the month becomes quite slow. Because of this, it also feels as if we need to plan and fit in our whole month's activities into the one log. I wonder if it might be helpful to stagger things out. For instance, the July 3rd event log could be for dreams and such, and then there could be a post for Tanabata closer to midway through the month (backdated), which would give room for more prompts and such.
I definitely understand if these modifications aren't possible, but I just wanted to throw this thought out there. Thanks!
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I think it would definitely help to stagger the gamewide logs (or even post them around the same time, but split them into a couple of different posts based on the type of prompt--e.g., this month, maybe one for dream stuff and one for waking stuff).
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So... I know that this is a schedule that's been in place since the game's beginning. And I've felt that having the event log early in the month does make sense particularly when it's giving new characters a chance to truly experience the setting, but I do wonder if it's possible that it could be considered to shake up the event schedule somehow, especially in months without new characters. More distance from the Retrospec mingle so that the two don't clash, spreading things out throughout the month so that players don't have to focus on everything at once and giving more of a sense of progression throughout the month - I feel like these could be suggestions worth considering. But thank you for hearing us out, and I wish you guys all the luck in figuring things out!
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August is/was being hyped up as being a big turning point in characters dealing with the after-effects of the new AUs they have been living, and how it relates to their original AU, and even their canon self.
I just personally think it would be complicated or even confusing to have to sit and hash out what will happen to them, which AU details will be kept and so on, and at the same time try to workshop and tag new players on the TDM during what will essentially be the last half of the month of August. Not to mention having to relay any surprises to players who may be applying with the notion of a certain character (especially if they're a cast-mate) being played as a certain AU, only to get in the game and find out that, oops! it's not that one at all but another one. (I'm not saying anyone would use this as an opportunity to bait-and-switch someone intentionally, just that it could be especially awkward and a source of tension.)
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Actually, in some months if there is going to be a tonal change (like a lighthearted festival vs. a darker Revenge of Retrospec event), having two logs at different times of the month wouldn't be the worst thing that could happen. I do understand that is creating more work for you, mods, but I figure it's worth a suggestion all the same.
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Additionally, more detailed event prompts would also be a help. In general, it feels like sometimes the openness of a lot of the info/prompts we get is less "open" and more "vague," and I do struggle to come up with compelling threads/logs/what have you when they get more vague.
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In terms of the tone and types of events, I approve of the idea of events having darker elements and more occurrences that involve consequences for players. I do still appreciate the slice-of-life and light-hearted elements, and I like having a variety of different ideas with different tones to draw from, although I understand that striking the right balance is easier said than done. Sometimes the different elements don't mesh together very well - like meshing together bringing back the missing residents with solving the bingo card. Although it felt like a fun idea at first, and I understand that part of the intention was providing an opportunity to build CR, it felt like an odd dissonance that characters were restoring the lost NPCs by performing various light-hearted tasks.
I personally like to challenge my characters and to introduce new obstacles and difficulties for them to make their character arcs more interesting, because I'd rather it not feel too easy for them to get through their problems. So I generally like the idea of the events getting more intense as the plot progresses, while still having room for light-hearted shenanigans and slice-of-life stuff. Perhaps some thought could even be given to alternating intense events and breather events or mini-events?
...I think that's all I have in mind to say! But I'll come back if I think of more points and suggestions. Thank you again for hearing us out, mods!
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For me, I thought the buildup of Recollé's first year was very nice and organic, from small glitches around the world (fruits, colors, things like that which had to be earned back, which I liked having that tier system where small changes are seen overtime, something I feel could be implemented to events like the repainting event), cumulating to the huge summer event where we learned there was more to what's going on than just Retrospec, and it really shook the game up in a really exciting way. Compared to that, the second year so far is much more open, with the introduction of new locations and wide scale changes like the NPCs disappearing for a month, but I guess I sort of miss the guided flow of how the first month went, in that things tied together more neatly— which is harder to emulate now with so much more to the world and I know everything will tie together in time, but as a player who had 1-2 characters in the first year of the game, and a different character predominately in the second year, that's sort of what I'm feeling in terms of how my characters view Retrospec and everything that's happening. There's OOC and IC summaries to everything that happened the first year and people are great at getting new characters up to date, but it feels like an info dump sometimes and hard to follow just by the sheer amount of information- I think it'd be nice to bring some of that information from the first year back into relevance, if they still are. I'd like to know more about the founding fathers of the city, for example, why there was discontent amongst the farmers when the city was first being constructed, the four families, how Retrospec's objectives have changed since it was first conceptualized, do the four new cities outside of Recollé matter anymore after the event or are they just background places to play in, etc.
The recent months have been a lot of reality instability and trying to do damage control, and it feels more like the characters now are taking direction under Retrospec and for the most part doing what they're told re. how to restore the city (it's okay to have things spill over to more than one month, I think, like in May and June's events with the layers collapsing and buildings/NPCs being affected, a tiered system like how fruits/colors were done could be a way to track progress without things ending abruptly at the end of the month, while still being possible, depending on the characters' efforts), Zee's quests (which is a great addition to the game where characters can do things off to the side, but it feels somewhat disjointed from the game as a whole because the information collected helps Retrospec but isn't always passed on to the other characters in the game, or sometimes doesn't apply to the game as a whole at all, if it's just restoring energy or is a personal quest like Minato's was. I guess the impact is sort of lost? a fun thing to do on the side, but ultimately optional, which I think is what it meant to be anyways, but is still a LOT of time and creative energy for you to write up and everything), etc., where in the first year, I like how people went out and sought out plot clues on their own (in the mayor's office, the Retrospec building, the history museum, etc.) which was exciting to see.
Also I miss Jim, haha.
Maybe this is my nostalgia coloring what I enjoyed from last year that I'd like to see more of going forward, but that sort of continuity is what I like, to feel like everything we discovered so far means something instead of being forgotten, especially as we bring in new characters into the game. I like the monthly events but I think they can be restructured a little for flow/pacing/impact/etc. As always, thank you for your hard work in building up the game!!