Panem Events (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
etcircenses) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thegamesooc2016-01-02 01:20 am
etcircenses) wrote in thegamesooc2016-01-02 01:20 am
Entry tags:
State of the Game: Endgame plotting
Please read! If you do not respond, your silence will be taken as consent to whatever is decided.
Hey everyone! Your friendly neighborhood modteam here to address some concerns.
On the recent HMD, we've been told that the pace of the game has been too quick for people to keep up with and still get everything they want out of the war. We've been aware this is a bit of a problem for some time and have finally worked out a few different solutions to present to you guys on a vote! They're down below. But first, we'd like to let you know where we've been coming from thus far.
Games like ours, large ones with an overarching metaplot, tend to die in endgame because of pacing, or drops, or any number of reasons. In an effort to compensate for that and not end up like some of the past great games that have ended up with only three players to see their completion, we set up a schedule of events for ourselves, an end date, and other useful tools for pacing to make sure nothing ever stagnated and that there's always something to do, which is a complaint we've had from players in the past.
It looks like we overcompensated a bit (oops...) and we want to give all of you an apology, and a thank you for sticking with us as we sort things out.
To rectify this mistake, we've come up with a few options for pacing for which we'd like to hear feedback from you, the players. This game isn't just for us, its for everyone here that has a hand in shaping our collective version of Panem. We are, however, sticking fast to the rough end-date we have in store; any longer and we risk the game stagnating.
Option 1: Keep on Keepin' On
This option is for those who find the pacing just fine and don't understand what all the fuss is about. The Games would continue with twice monthly District Liberations and plots in between, putting us at something posted every week for players to interact with. The Game will end roughly in mid June.
UPSIDE: No changes
DOWNSIDE: The pace remains quick, which is what we've been told is unwanted.
Option 2: Cut it Down
District Liberation posts would be once a month, but instead of the remaining eight Districts, players would only see four of them. Certain other plots concerning Avoxes, some Peacekeeper stuff, and other smaller plots as planned would be cut to allow for more free pacing up until the run on the Capitol, and the plots would be all related to the metaplot. The end of the game being placed in May.
UPSIDE: Slower pace, earlier end date.
DOWNSIDE: Less District missions means less of the world is seen, also less shuffle opportunities and the District stuff has less of an impact on the overall war.
Option 3: Mash Up
District Breakouts would run two at a time for the remaining duration of the war and be posted once a month. Players would be required to decide which Breakout each of their characters would like to participate in for that month and note it on the OOC District Roll post. Each breakout would be given more time to run, and plots would still be run later in each month for extra plot and flavor, but staggered a bit to allow them to gain a bit of steam and resolve before the next thing happens. The shuffle chance would be lower here as well, but we will allow for players to choose a side for each character before the Capitol run. Game's end would still roughly be in mid-June.
UPSIDE: Slower pace with no change in end date. No content is cut.
DOWNSIDE: Characters will only get to see four of the remaining eight Districts. Lower shuffle chance.
And there you have it! These are what we feel are the three best options going forward, but we want everyone to be in on the final decision. Please fill out the form below and put it in a comment. All players are requested to vote. If you do not reply by 01/08 we will assume that you agree with whatever is decided by majority vote.
If there are any questions, please put them under the appropriate heading below.
We hope that with this vote, we can reach a solution that everyone can be happy with going forward into the end of the game. Thank you again for your feedback and your patience.
Hey everyone! Your friendly neighborhood modteam here to address some concerns.
On the recent HMD, we've been told that the pace of the game has been too quick for people to keep up with and still get everything they want out of the war. We've been aware this is a bit of a problem for some time and have finally worked out a few different solutions to present to you guys on a vote! They're down below. But first, we'd like to let you know where we've been coming from thus far.
Games like ours, large ones with an overarching metaplot, tend to die in endgame because of pacing, or drops, or any number of reasons. In an effort to compensate for that and not end up like some of the past great games that have ended up with only three players to see their completion, we set up a schedule of events for ourselves, an end date, and other useful tools for pacing to make sure nothing ever stagnated and that there's always something to do, which is a complaint we've had from players in the past.
It looks like we overcompensated a bit (oops...) and we want to give all of you an apology, and a thank you for sticking with us as we sort things out.
To rectify this mistake, we've come up with a few options for pacing for which we'd like to hear feedback from you, the players. This game isn't just for us, its for everyone here that has a hand in shaping our collective version of Panem. We are, however, sticking fast to the rough end-date we have in store; any longer and we risk the game stagnating.
This option is for those who find the pacing just fine and don't understand what all the fuss is about. The Games would continue with twice monthly District Liberations and plots in between, putting us at something posted every week for players to interact with. The Game will end roughly in mid June.
UPSIDE: No changes
DOWNSIDE: The pace remains quick, which is what we've been told is unwanted.
District Liberation posts would be once a month, but instead of the remaining eight Districts, players would only see four of them. Certain other plots concerning Avoxes, some Peacekeeper stuff, and other smaller plots as planned would be cut to allow for more free pacing up until the run on the Capitol, and the plots would be all related to the metaplot. The end of the game being placed in May.
UPSIDE: Slower pace, earlier end date.
DOWNSIDE: Less District missions means less of the world is seen, also less shuffle opportunities and the District stuff has less of an impact on the overall war.
District Breakouts would run two at a time for the remaining duration of the war and be posted once a month. Players would be required to decide which Breakout each of their characters would like to participate in for that month and note it on the OOC District Roll post. Each breakout would be given more time to run, and plots would still be run later in each month for extra plot and flavor, but staggered a bit to allow them to gain a bit of steam and resolve before the next thing happens. The shuffle chance would be lower here as well, but we will allow for players to choose a side for each character before the Capitol run. Game's end would still roughly be in mid-June.
UPSIDE: Slower pace with no change in end date. No content is cut.
DOWNSIDE: Characters will only get to see four of the remaining eight Districts. Lower shuffle chance.
And there you have it! These are what we feel are the three best options going forward, but we want everyone to be in on the final decision. Please fill out the form below and put it in a comment. All players are requested to vote. If you do not reply by 01/08 we will assume that you agree with whatever is decided by majority vote.
If there are any questions, please put them under the appropriate heading below.
We hope that with this vote, we can reach a solution that everyone can be happy with going forward into the end of the game. Thank you again for your feedback and your patience.
Questions
Questions
Can there be some other mechanic for shuffling tributes from one side to another, in addition to the existing shuffle. Or, if there is one, what is it, and how do I sign up, please?
no subject
no subject
no subject
I'm not saying we should push it back by a year or anything like that, but why is it so important to end at such a particular time? With eight Districts left, even if we went down to one District breakout a month, that puts the end of the war at September. Why is that not an option for us?
no subject
Unfortunately, with the current playerbase size, speed and replacement rate (apps to drops), none of the mods feel like it's feasible to extend the date out further. What we're afraid of is that players will drop for natural reasons and with no new players, the game will dwindle over the time period to five or six dedicated players and a whole lot of empty space and burnout. New players are not joining us much, largely because they're understandably turned off by the idea of joining a game that's already on its way out, and that will just become a more prominent concern as the months go by, even if we fix all the pacing issues. Even with the best pacing in the world, players will leave because RL comes up, they lose interest, they leave RP, so on, and we haven't received any new applications since October, and very few since the summer at all.
Some of us, myself included, have run endgames in the past that went down that road, and it's discouraging and exhausting for the mods and really disheartening and stressful for the players, who feel the need to artificially increase their activity to make up for the absence of partners. A tiny game can work when the players are extremely active, but that's not the game environment we've cultivated, and we don't want to put pressure on players to do fifty tags a day to keep it from becoming a ghost town.
We believe the game deserves a good endgame with participation and pomp, and that timing it for before the game fizzles out is a necessary factor we have to consider. So communally, the mods decided that the likelihood of the game surviving nine months even at a perfect pace is not high enough that we want to extend endgame that long. It's definitely possible for us to make it six months, but from experience none of us think that extending it to nine is going to do anything but leave a few stragglers at the end with very few partners to play with.
As for realism, we've had to alter the Capitol significantly from what it is in the books just to make it playable. Even THG canon characters, including Snow, have somewhat different motivations than what they had in the books, just due to the way the game has played out over the last few years. And while it's realistic for the Capitol to just bomb the hell out of everything, that doesn't leave for very many ways for characters to be played, so we've opted to tone down the Capitol's triggerhappiness a little and keep the missions smaller and the stakes for individual battles a bit lower.
no subject
Have you considered maybe extending it by one or two months, rather than the three months Sarah suggested? Just long enough to set it in the summer, which in my experience of modding is when people are most active, rather than at a time when a lot of people are likely to be stretched pretty thin already.
no subject
This is a legitimate concern and we're glad you brought it to us. At this point we haven't closed polling so haven't made any adjustments to the calendar, but when the game has decided on an option and we go to implement it I promise we'll be better about scheduling around really busy periods than we were this last holiday season (where we did indeed drop the ball, didn't take the pulse of the game, overestimated the free time people would have, so on). We've both put longterm and shortterm procedures in place behind the scenes already to make sure that the playerbase is ready for new material when we post it in the future.
So pretty much, what I can guarantee is that we're going to be a lot more mindful in the future of when the playerbase has time to play, and that includes when we make the new calendar and when the time to actually post comes, and that mindfulness includes being aware of when players get sucked up into exams and semester-end. We will definitely be considering that as an important factor in our planning.