April Game Discussion

[stringmods]

♞ Game Discussion

 

▼ Info

 

This is what will be a bi-monthly (every 2 months) post where players and moderators can discuss the game, issues that there might be and propose ideas about the game in general, including plot ideas or offering their aid.

Moderators are there to help, but we know we have our problems too. That's where you all come in! Sometimes we might have ideas for solutions, sometimes you may come up with ideas on how to solve those problems which allows an even better participation by everyone. You may also have ideas that we have missed. It is also an excellent way to discuss ideas and directions about where the game is going in general.

We want this game to be awesome and to succeed and for that we need your help! YEEEAH!

▼ Important Rules (READ THESE)

 

▶ If you have issues with certain players, HMDS and moderators in general, please use the moderator crit post and leave a comment there instead. Anon is turned on and IP logging is turned off for that post as well. This discussion post is serving more as a general game discussion.

▶ Make sure to give constructive criticism in regards to problems you may have. We are not trying to find who to blame, but rather how to fix things. Also always, always always remember that moderators are only human as well, and we do also make mistakes.

▶ Feel free to suggest things not even in the game at all! We want to make this game experience as enjoyable and as fun as possible, so tell us your ideas so that the game may be fun not only for you, but everyone in the game as well.

▼ Current Issues we are aware of and trying to fix

 

Before posting anything, and considering this is our first of such discussion, please read all of this as well before posting:

We are aware of many issues and have been trying to fix them. However, these do take some time and may not be fixed completely instantly. Ergo, these are the issues we are aware of and what we are doing to fix them:

▶ Lateness in Mod / Plot / NPC tagging: One of the biggest issues in the game right now, we are well aware that a lot of events tend to end in a stand-still with burn out from tagging. We have done the following to aid us:

▶ No more Velvet and Aramid Room logs, unless it is plot important (such as the Aramid Room's opening, and the Velvet Room being turned into a Train).
▶ Cut back on NPC-intensive game events; though NPCs will still be active and involved, we do not want players to feel like they are always absolutely necessary to progress (except where it was unfortunately necessary, like with the Shining Trapezohedron discovery). Game events will pan out more like the Scorpio event or the Grand Prix before the closing ceremonies, where progression will be completely up to the players.
▶ If it is necessary, we may recruit more players to assist with NPCing in the future like was done with the Grand Prix.
▶ Limiting boss fight logs to only 4-5 players at most, particularly during Zodiac Events.

▶ Lateness in General:

▶ In regards to applications:

▶ We have been working on this the last two review months by making sure that applications are reviewed before a week has passed at the maximum.
▶ We are also using a much more simplified accept post so that it is easier for us as well
▶ We now try to review applications as they arrive to us, for the fastest turn-around rate as possible. Obviously this may slow down if we need to ask for revisions / make a major review.
▶ Depending on how many applications we get that month, we either make an arrival log, or let the players do it on their own.

▶ In regards to forms:

▶ This was a major issue in the past, since we had all the forms scattered in many pages. Now with all of them in a single page, it makes it much easier to keep track of them. We hope you noticed an increase in speed in that regard!
▶ We try to review them as we get them for the most part now, with that Friday as a general day where all the mods looks at the forms and makes sure nothing is unanswered.
▶ Jobs will no longer require mod approval anymore unless they are government/npc/working with another player jobs. As long as the jobs make sense for the character and within the city, it's fine.
▶ Persona taken from the Velvet and Aramid room that come from the accepted Public Persona database no longer require mod approval. Just leave a note in the form with "X character took out this persona today," just so we know that they did. If you do create a new Persona, however, you will still need to pass it through us for approval.
▶ Buildings imported from another universe will be limited to two a week. This means that while you can submit a building from your character's universe whenever you want, it will not necessarily be accepted immediately. This has the added IC benefit of not causing too much overcrowding in the city. However, Native buildings do not have a limit; these can be submitted and accepted in any number or amount per week, and is independent from the number of imported-universe buildings accepted.

▶ In regards to layouts and character forms:

▶The last update was the very last one. (Honest to goodness promise, or Pixle has to eat a hat and film it.)
▶ There will not be any major layout changes nor character forms to fill out again barring a major issue that would come up in the unforeseeable future. Otherwise, everything is staying the same for a very, very, very long time.

▶ We are currently looking into getting a few people to help us with the administrative work if we continue struggling in the near future, but hopefully these changes will help steam-line some things.

▶ Crossovers and little warning time:

▶ The Crossover with Animus was unique and not something that we will be repeating.
▶ The surprise part and last-minute event were also a one-time only thing that we will not be repeating.
▶ If we do have other game crossovers in the future, you will be warned at the very least a month ahead of time, and any events taking place in that crossover will also get warning ahead of time.
▶ The crossover event was largely to introduce the potential of the Shining Trapezohedron; for the most part, it is meant for player plots and will mostly be up to the discretion of the players to use. It may be used for events in the future, but fully coordinated out-of-the-city plots are unlikely.

▶Tone of the Game: I think this might have been an issue with a few of you, so I figured it would be good to explain the game's tone. Destiny Strings is both Persona and Shin Megami Tensei inspired. Which means while it is slice- of-adventure/life in the city, there is instances of mood-whiplash which means that for very happy things, there are also very dark events which may happen. We do plan on warning you ahead of time when those do happen as much as we can.

▶Factions: There also seems to be some confusion about this as well; YOU DO NOT HAVE TO JOIN EITHER SIDE. Part of the Visitor's advantage is that they are the Wildcards not only in terms of Persona power, but also in what they can do here, and it was never our intention for you to think that you HAVE to pick a side.

▼ Discuss!

 

We've outlined some things we're doing behind the scenes to make the game better, but please use this post to discuss any problems, concerns, or suggestions you have. And remember to keep it civil. We will not be afraid to step in if things get out of hand.

Comments

[all_wound_up]

I'd be happy to volunteer for some administrative help type stuff if you guys need it. Especially accepting custom made Personas, considering I've submitted over 30 of them myself at this point and have a pretty good feel for what's permissible. ;)

EDIT: I also figured it couldn't hurt to put down a bit of what I've seen as a problem in the game so far, even though most of it has already been addressed in this post. Tone aside, as I haven't actually had that much of an issue with that, the biggest weakness I've seen is scheduling. You touched upon this with the discussion about lateness of plot threads and NPC tagging, but it's also gone beyond just that in several cases. I think pacing has been something of an issue - starting one big event and not finishing with it completely before moving on to the next thing. This has caused not only plot posts, but also scheduled things on the monthly game calendar to happen later than originally stated.

For example, last month the Velvet Room opened almost two weeks later than was listed on the calendar, and while I know it's open all the time now and taking out Personas no longer need specific mod approval, this is just the most recent example of what's slowly become a larger problem over the past few months. It seems like things are already improving on that front, so I don't want to belabor the point too much. However, especially in games that have monthly calendars for their events that set out dates ahead of time, it's very important to keep to those dates as consistently as possible, as it quickly becomes frustrating for players when the mods continue to miss self-imposed dates and deadlines.

Communication is also important. It was asked on Plurk if people would mind delaying the opening of the Velvet Room to allow people who were apping new characters in during that cycle to take advantage. Which is fine, but not every player in the game necessarily has Plurk or even has the mods or the mod account friended. Anyone who was only going by the game calendar probably thought the mods had just forgotten entirely, and even for the people who saw that Plurk and were okay with it, way more than a few days went by before the room finally opened, and with no communication from the mods in the interim explaining the delay. Even a quick note that said 'we're swamped right now and there's no log, but the Velvet Room is open, go get your Personas' would have sufficed for most people, I'm sure.

On the whole, though, I'm still extremely happy with the way this game is going, so I hope my various criticisms haven't been too bad. I've had such a good time at Strings since joining, and constantly recommend it to friends who are looking for a fun new game to join. I'm really committed as a player to making it succeed, so again, if there's anything at all I can help out with whenever you all need it, I'd be happy to have the chance. :)

[stringmods]

On the topic of pacing, I couldn't agree with you more; our slowness and failure with NPC tagging caused certain plots to drag on long past their IC completion point, and made them either run into the next event, or made us delay the next event or log because we wanted to finish the previous one. We're doing our best to try and not let this happen again, and clean up our act on the front of scheduling and tagging. Honestly, we really don't have an excuse for that one, and I don't want to even try to excuse it: it sucked, we sucked, and we're doing our best to do the opposite.

This was one of the reasons for changing some things regarding approvals and making the Velvet/Aramid Room open 24/7, and while we can't apologize enough for the lateness of the Velvet Room log, we're working on keeping to our dates and being more organized in the future, in part by improving the administrative and NPC work so we can have more time to work on the plots and making sure they get up in time.

Though you do have a point about the plurk communication-- in the future, if there's going to be a significant calendar slip (which hopefully there won't be!), we'll be sure to let everyone know on the OOC comm as well. c:

[greatseal]

I'd just like to say that in regards to the tone, be mindful of the way the game is billed. It was billed as slice of life with a Persona-type plot, not as a game with horror elements. And there is a difference. Persona, at least, is not horror - it's got very dark elements and deep psychological themes, but people aren't being hacked to bits or anything like that.

A game like Animus is dark on a different level from the plot of Persona. The crossover is done now and can't be changed, but for the sake of the future I'd just like to address the problem I had with it. While it was "opt-in" on the surface, it still affects the greater tone of the game. Characters who went there came back with the knowledge that a lot of people - their friends - are trapped in a horrible place. And since it's another RP entirely separate from this one, they can't ever be rescued. This is a different type of situation than would have happened even if the characters had gone to an original world (even one somewhat similar to Animus.) A situation like that could have been fixed through player actions in future events. Animus can't be fixed, so we're left with an extremely dark, hanging plot thread.

Basically, I think that while it's admirable to try and appease a plot of players, you're going a little too far in trying to be everything to everyone. You need to keep plots centered around what the game is billed to be. Just because some players are okay with the kinds of plots Animus has doesn't mean it's a good idea to make those plots available to the game as a whole. Strings is a different type of game than Animus and it's not really fair for players to app into the game expecting a certain type of experience and having to deal with the fallout of hardcore horror events instead. Another example of this was during the tournament, when the option of hacking off limbs was given (even though no one took it as far as I know.) That kind of thing as a mod-given option is taking it a level beyond the darkness of the Persona series.

[stringmods]

This does bring up some very good points.

We do agree that Animus is a very dark game, and dark horror crossovers are not something we will be repeating ever again. However, for Nyarlathotep who GAME SPOILER WARNING, ONLY HOVER OVER THIS BOLDED PART IF YOU ARE OKAY WITH PERSONA 2:IS ENDING INFORMATION., we felt Animus would fit with what we wanted to showcase.

The idea was that it couldn't be fixed in the future. It's left in the dark for this very reason. Nyarlathotep's plan from the very beginning was to show them something thinking they could go and fix it, then realize they could not, nor could they ever. He enjoys watching characters despair.

However, the characters involved can overcome that (although not all of them ever will) and realize that there are other places that they can fix, such as the city.

We do realize that we might have also overdone it in that aspect too! That was what we wanted to do, but it might not have gone perfectly as we planned. And again, we will not be doing a crossover over of that type again, precisely because Strings is not a horror intensive game, and we don't want it to be.

We do understand that while options like limb removal is definitely not for everyone nor would we force it to anyone unless they wanted to do it, the game is also billed as 16+ and taking place in a post-apocalyptic city. We aren't just trying to appease to everyone, but also make sure characters understand that the city is dangerous. Danger doesn't mean full horror and despair either; the theme of the game is hope and trying to give everyone a better future. If someone had cut off a limb, they could have gotten a replacement back in the city, for example. Or players with healing skills could have helped, and so on.

This is also why we have death as being permanent, and while no one has taken that option either, someone would be allowed to have their character die, should they chose to-- because the city is dangerous.

I do agree we should try to bill the game better, especially since I think most people have mostly only played Persona 3 and 4 and while Persona 3's plot was rather dark in many aspects (not that P4 didn't have some dark themes, but for the most part it was very light-hearted despite the whole murder aspect), we're thinking of the entire franchise as a whole when we said based on persona, including the P1 and P2 dualogy, where there are some really dark parts (the lab in Persona 2 EP comes to mind). That said, the deaths in P3 and P4 aren't something to shake a stick at either, and we try to advertise the game as being both slice-of-life AND adventure.

[hasherhandsfull]

I'm going to try to explain this as fairly as possible so please bear with me.

I worry that there's becoming divides among some of the community in the game, some ICly but more problematically OOCly. I mean, in every game there's a certain amount of tagging-one's-own-friends/casmates, but when exclusivity starts to develop - or worse, when friction starts to develop - that's when there are problems. For instance, in the leadup to this discussion, there was a lot of friction between those who were concerned about aspects of the game and those who were perfectly happy with the game as is. This friction led to some less-than-friendly debates, the specifics of which I'm sure you're already aware of and I won't go into detail here.

I guess I'm just concerned because this kind of sectionalism - particularly the example I mentioned - is dangerous and should be something that we all - mods and players - are at least aware of, if not trying to actively fix/avoid. We don't want the game to feel uncomfortable or stressful or unwelcoming at all. While this game isn't nearly that bad, these past couple months have been fairly stressful for me so far as Strings goes and there have been times (not all the time but sometimes) where I've been slightly worried about raising my concerns/opinions and if I'll face retaliation for expressing them.

Also, I apologize if I'm incorrect about this, but I felt that given that your last point regarding factionalism was likely inspired by a plurk I made on the subject (since I have not seen anybody else mention the topic of factionalism and the possibility of being forced to choose sides). Because of that, I'd like to point out that the topic that I brought up was purely speculation and theorizing, something that I enjoy doing, even if I don't take all my possibilities seriously. If I did think that something like factionalism would seriously become a major issue/problem, I would have made sure to talk to you about it. I feel like my comments were generally blown out of proportion in that particular instance, though if I'm wrong and other people have been concerned as well, again I apologize.

[stringmods]

Divisions between players is never something we want to have (as mods, that is something we work hard to minimize), but unfortunately, there is not much we can do here, as that is a conflict primarily up to the players themselves.

What we can do is make more plots where players have to work together, then make characters who barely know each other get to play against each other (this is something we will be doing in the Taurus event). Moreover, we can have more OOC posts where players can introduce each other, and maybe encouraging players to do a few more Meme posts to talk about their CR and their characters if only so we can mingle more.

We do agree that Strings needs a bigger community feel, and we will try to improve that as moderators, but the success of it will be largely dependent on the players wanting to do this with us as well.

You should never feel like raising your concerns or your opinions about the game will cause retaliation, and we apologize if we gave off that impression. If anything, having players talk with us is how we can improve as a whole, and make the game better. If you're worried about how others will react, we welcome you to contact any one of us in private if it makes you feel more comfortable.

Regarding the factions, there was actually a few players who came and asked us about the factions, and it's fair to assume that if one person is worried about something, there might be others that are as well. We did answer them, but we figured that other players might want to know the answer to this too, so we wanted to make sure everyone knew for certain we weren't trying to make people pick sides!

[hasherhandsfull]

I guess I should have been clearer. When it comes to the fear of retaliation, most of my concern has never been you guys, but rather from other players. I understand that this may be outside what you can actually fix, but I still felt it important that you be aware of the problem, in case there's anything that you can do to address and possibly discourage it. I do appreciate the offer to keep things private if that makes me or other players feel better, really I do. But at the same time, in instances like this (where the concerns are more general and affect the whole playerbase), as long as nobody's being rude, I don't feel like anybody should be afraid to speak up with their problems or concerns - publicly or privately.

Also, that's reassuring to hear, regarding trying to make a more community feel, and I thank you for that, and will try to do my own part as well. And thank you for the clarification regarding the factions. My apologies for the misunderstanding.

[stringmods]

Disagreements may break out between players; it's a perfectly normal thing and no one agrees 100% with each other all the time (otherwise the world would be a rather boring place). We are however, glad you brought this to our attention.

Again, while we can encourage players to talk with each other, we also understand that not everyone will want to be friends or get together. In that instance, we expect that the IC/OOC barrier is respected, and even if you may not want to play with someone, that you do so in a polite and respectful manner.

However it is when the issue becomes repeated or overheated that we can try to step in and do the best we can.

[destinedwaters]

Many of my concerns have already been mentioned either by another player or by the entry itself. However, I would like to mention a few more that have not.

I haven't had much of an issue with the tone myself, nor the crossover (because this, along with being a Persona game, does have aspects of SMT as well due to franchise), but overall, I have to concur with the belief that scheduling is the most predominant of the faults. Namely getting them up in time, along with finishing important plot/subplot threads in a timely manner. Other than these concerns and the communication failures, I am fine with the way things have been relative to the game and how it is run.

And yet, while I am relatively happy and at peace here, there are other problems I've noticed that must be brought to light. For instance, there have been incidents in which others of the playerbase as a whole. As mentioned above, there are some clear divides among parts of the community, particularly in out-of-character interactions and ideals. Such as others taking one statement (or fears/concerns/confusion) and blowing any mentioned statement out of proportion. While some friction and clashing is very well and good--as different points of view are essential to grow not just as other players, but as individuals--friction on a large scale and refusal to listen has the opposite effect. Gorse put it much better than I ever could, since I was personally greatly affected by circumstance, but it can be bad enough to where some could become afraid to speak their minds, or even play anymore at all.

I want this game to flourish; not seem intimidating or unfriendly from both inside and outside its communities.


(And as a side note, I'd also be happy to assist with some administrative duties, such as keeping lists updated as well as links to entries--something else I had noted in the past few months with moderator updates.)

[stringmods]

As I stated in my reply to Brantron, the scheduling is completely our fault, due to our slow tagging habit and letting things drag on far too long so they interfered with things in the future. We're working on improving this, keeping to our schedule and allowing more events to be open and not depend on mod NPCing unless it is absolutely crucial to the story.

We can do our best to foster a more communal feeling in Strings, but at the end of the day, it's up to the playerbase to be open to communication not just with us, but with each other as well. We can encourage good behavior, but it's really up to everyone to participate together. We absolutely do not want anyone to feel uncomfortable however, and we more than welcome you to speak with us if you're worried or have problems, or want to speak your mind in a more private setting.

[hertale]

So here's a question/suggestion - I know that at least for Pixle (and I think maybe one of the mods too, but I can't quite recall), English isn't their first language. I notice a lot of spelling and grammar mistakes, and while I would like to point out every one I feel like I might get people angry at me if I keep pointing out so many.

Is it possible to either get a native English speaker to double-check from the playerbase or one of the other mods when writing things out that are going to be seen by the players? I want to be helpful but I don't want to be seen as overly picky. I also don't know if this is an issue for anyone else or it's just me and my OCD...

[stringmods]

Sometimes writing (and rewriting) a post causes us to miss mistakes that might seem obvious to others not in the mod team. We do our best to make each post as best we can, but we have no doubts that mistakes do slip through the cracks.

We wouldn't be angry, on the contrary if it means improving the overall experience for everyone, we'd be all for it! If you'd like to aid us in this, simply PM or leave us a note in the mod feedback post with mistakes you notice, and we'll make sure to fix them as soon as possible.

[hertale]

No problem. o7 I'll try to keep that in mind.

[imthegoodguy]

I'm not going to add any thinky thoughts because I've done that twice over and don't have any right now besides, but if youse giase need help with the tags in both communities, I am game for helping (since I went back and retroactively tagged a bunch of stuff and so on so forth).

EDIT: Wait I do have a thinky thought. There needs a system for names.

The easiest example to bring up that'll make this thought make sense are Asian names. They're entered in whatever order the player submits, and that honestly gets confusing. Often players will have the names listed in both Western and Asian order on their journals. That doesn't make it easy to find their tag. It'd be easier to have one rule to rule them all when it came to names--i.e., everybody's name is in the Western order, or all the Asian names are in the Asian order.

But wait, there's moar!

Nicknames are a trip-up, too. There are people who have full names listed on their journal but are tagged by their nicknames, which, in one case, at least, gives them the same tag as another character. This is a little harder to talk about since it's not as easy to understand as Firstname Lastname vs Lastname Firstname, but it's still a problem I run into when I'm trying to tag stuff.

What I'm trying to get at is there should be some consistency with names and how they're tagged, just to make the tagging process more streamlined and easier to navigate. I hope that made sense...

[aurathread]

Agreed with this, too. The Nekus, for example, are listed as both Neku Sakuraba and Sakuraba Neku, the former being the OU and the latter being the AU.

[stringmods]

That is entirely my fault; when I made the tags, I go with the name order they were given on the app post. For the next app round, I'll modify the app slightly so that it's firstname then familyname that we ask for everyone regardless of their origin, and we can have a better naming consistency.

As for the current characters already in the game, I'll comb the list tomorrow to see what names should be changed in the tags, and add it the big mod post at the end of this week, so that the players involved know that their tags have changed. If you do notice some, please feel free to list them here so I can make sure to change them!

[imthegoodguy]

The only thing I would add is consistency where it concerns nicknames. As I said before, there are some characters who are tagged by their nicknames but who have their full names on their journals. The easiest one that comes to mind is Joshua from TWEWY. There are also two characters known as "Haseo", but one of them has their full name listed on their journal--despite that they're also tagged as "Haseo". That's massively confusing when trying to tag, because I, at least, assume that the character's going to be tagged by the name on their journal and thus think that that character doesn't have a tag.

[ineedthemforanalyzing]

Everyone with concerns has covered the ones I can think of right now, both nitpicky and more general, but if you'd like another volunteer for Persona-processor I think I can manage it for pretty much the same reasons Brantron said.