LOG AND FURTHER DISCUSSION

[thusiamods]

THIS POST IS MEANT FOR FURTHER INPUT AND DISCUSSION if you were not present for the IRC chat yesterday or something new has occurred to you that you wish to add.
K/Yukari will be tracking this post as main overseer of this part of the discussion.

Full Log of the IRC Discussion

DISCLAIMER The list below is not a list of changes that will be implemented for certain, they are only meant as a summary of topics covered during the discussion, including solutions people offered. As of this post all points listed in the bullet summary are still up for debate if people have something they wish to contest or anything to add. We also encourage people to just tag in if you see something you really agree with, so that we have a good idea of what people are liking.

Official concrete changes will be covered at a later time once it's been decided what changes will be adopted. Some advice and suggestions can and will be acted on as soon as everyone has been given a chance to give input. Some may wait until much later before it is implemented or noticeable.

BULLET LIST OF SUBJECTS COVERED

CR Building Problems and Potential Solutions

• + Helping to anchor new arrivals by assigning them a Greeter for an IC day or so, with the goal of pairing up players that don't already have CR or don't often play together. People paired up with the new arrival would be drawn from a list of volunteers.
  
• - No more big world-plot events for a while (small tie-ins are fine).
  
• + More exploration posts that group strangers together to explore things.
  
• + More focus on short events that will encourage people to interact with strangers (interaction-specific status effects like handcuffing, unconscious games)
  
• + Nature elements that cause effects in the new area (kaleidoscope blossoms etc) ((editor note: btw someone should make a post with those sensitivity vines at some point))
  
• + God or mod fetch-quests into the ruins to bring stuff back and give players things to do together.
  
• + Definitely want to get on running more CR-building events asap to start building up momentum.
  
• + Advertising more on other DWRP comms to bring in new players.
  
• + More events with pre-signups/pre-pairings to help get people matched with unusual CR
  
• + Being aware that backtagging is ok and that our current game pacing is suited to backtagging. If you want to play in a post that is a week old that is okay!

General Engagement/Event Problems and Potential Solutions

• - Avoid resolving an obstacle before characters have tried to solve things themselves
  
• + Provide specific engagement options while leaving room for characters to improvise
  
• - Don't drag on a plot too long waiting for characters to react (context: at the time of the event players felt like their own solutions had been shot down while also feeling like there weren't concrete options provided to pursue)
  
• + Balance opportunities to do things with timely resolution to events. Try to keep major required action portions of events to about two weeks or less.
  
• + People-focused plots are more engaging (flooding was something everyone could react to personally, status effects hit everyone, etc).
  
• - Avoid only giving people in certain specialties things to do during an event (e.g. only fighters or only engineers have a reason to engage).
  
• - Many players feel like the world/past events as it's been described has been too structured and that there are rules and worldbuilding they don't know about and thus feel like there's no room to just come up with ideas and do things.
  
• + EMPHASIZE that the structure is really just a starting point to jump off from and stretch around. It should be considered a framework to be built upon and adjusted as needed.
  
• + Adding the element of a villain to Thusia, a force to work against but as a tie-in to player-to-player cohesion and conflict rather than as a focus of the plot
  
• + Encourage people to play the nature half of things, reminder that everyone is allowed to play the nature account, to use it to pick up where a different runner left off.
  
• + Mod would also like to allow people to come up with a creature or plant or other nature-element and let them run a mini-event to intro it after it's been ok'd.
  
• + Asking people to do sign-ups with the mod for specific time-chunks (decided by the event runners) if they want to run a larger scale event, extra encouragement for people to sign up with a partner or partners so that they have someone to toss ideas around with and be excited with them during times when a mod or a plot-helper isn't around to help keep energy up.
  
• + Learning to live with nature as a meta-theme
  
• + The one caveat to fostering a sense that you're allowed to DO ANYTHING as far as plot/events goes is that there has to be a consistency check, to make sure it flows from past ICly established things (which is less than has been oocly laid down so there is room for flexibility).

Information Dissemination

• - Many feel that the weekly event summaries bog things down and make players feel even less engaged because there is the psychological effect of having everything they missed listed there while not being sure how to get involved.
  
• - Relevant details tend to get buried or skipped over if it's included in posts with too much flavor text.
  
• + When introducing a new element to the world--in order of most to least effective when used alone--do the following: a post where charas can engage with and get reaction comments from the new element, short simple flavor text mingle focusing on one element that causes a reaction, short flavor text that is merely descriptive, larger descriptive flavor text post, OOC announcement pointing to new development.
  
• + Having regularly scheduled chats on IRC to keep both the mod and the playerbase up to date on what people have been doing in the game, rather than summary posts or relying on plurk

God Involvement Problems and Potential Solutions

• - God shrines aren't getting much use and many players feel as if gods aren't around much to interact with.
  
• + Change the system so that there are some designated "vendor" gods who aren't active and then another set of gods who are active and played in the game to interact and develop and provide events to react to.
  
• + Making specific posts for trading on the main comm from time to time, play with elements like having a limited supply of something
  
• + More materials rather than fully made items
  
• + With the shift to having active gods and vendor gods, there would also be room to allow people to app gods specifically for an event, a certain character-arc, or series of events, after which the god would be done and dropped.
  
• + Allowing demi-gods or powerful spirits to develop.
  
• - The god-players don't really communicate enough among each other to build CR or toss event ideas around.
  
• + One solution was to have a god comm that shows up on the network. Spoiler-sensitive things could be comm-locked and linked, non-sensitive things like sign-up calls or asking about general interest of other gods and players could be open. Advantage is that it's less timezone sensitive.
  
• + Other solution was having regularly scheduled God chats in the #theoi chan to catch up or toss around ideas or just get used to regularly talking to each other. Encouraging just generally hanging around in god chan.