rpanons | Everything is under control

Everything is under control

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Concerns?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I don't think it is ever a good idea to close apps on a game that people are interested in playing in unless there is a plot reason to do so. In a game like Aather, what would have happened if a slot needed to be filled? Or in a team like Citrine, which rotated slots a lot, what would they have done when they were left without anyone? What about Turquoise near the beginning? That's not a viable solution and I don't think "closing apps" should ever come up, especially since people express interest in the game.

There is "waiting" for a month, even, and then there's waiting in a forty-three person-long line not certain of the conditions of when you will get in. You might like the smaller game, and there isn't much of a difference in these numbers. No one is expecting you to have CR with all 108 characters in the game; that certainly would not change if we went from 108 to 124 or even to 140. (The last number is theoretical; I am not saying we should go to 140 anytime soon.) Aather was created without any idea of the direction it would go on. However, its existence and playerbase met it with a heavy amount of enthusiasm. I think curbing that would be a bad idea. Opening it up a little more is never a bad thing.

I wouldn't suggest closing the app pool permanently by any means, just till the queue was at a more manageable size. Ironically, this would have the exact same effect numberswise as if new teams were put into place.

If part of why you apped was because you liked the game small -- if part of why you continue to feel comfortable there and comfortable running games there relies on it continuing to be small -- yes, opening it up a little more can sometimes be a bad thing. The way these discussions inevitably go is starting to make me resent the fact that more people want to join my game because I feel like I'm being told that I'm the one whose feelings on the matter are my own problem (I agree with other anons that that was a harsh wording), which is an extremely sad commentary, since I love playing with new people.

I like Aather small and I think that it runs better on various ooc and ic levels as a smaller community. I also agree with the above!anon that opening more teams up would probably not remain a viable pallative for more than a month or two. I have a problem with trying it just to see because I do see it as one that has the potential to change elements of the game which I love and find unique to it, partly because it's so easy to find panfandom games with the potential for unlimited or less-limited expansion.

Out of curiosity, last year, were you upset when Iolite and Carnelian got added to the mix? I personally don't think that disrupted the flow of the game at all. However, the game has been at that level at a steady pace for a while. I have to wonder if it has given people the idea of don't fix what's not broken. Sure, the game is fine IC and even works fine in terms of OOC dynamics, but that doesn't solve the problems of a queue. I don't think a new set of teams will drastically alter the very state of Aather, and I feel like people are going into dramatics to suggest that is the case.

I doubt anyone is trying to undermine anyone's feelings. It's not a matter of undermining your feelings at all. I think the anons arguing against you are arguing because we think it won't hurt the game, and that people will come to find it won't be that game-changing in the long run. In the end, it will only help matters.

I would have preferred that Carnelian and Iolite not be added, yes, though I've enjoyed the characters who've played on them immensely. I don't think that anyone is going into dramatics, simply stating that there are elements of the game specifically tied to its current small size that would change if it became larger.

The queue has always been a problem no matter what we've done with the teams in the past, which is why I don't think that adding more teams will solve the problem of the queue.

I haven't seen anyone on here suggest that adding two new teams will drastically alter the very state of Aather. The argument is that adding two new teams won't fix the queue, and trying to add enough teams to fix the queue will drastically alter the very state of Aather.

Yes, thank you.

Then why is the nature of the game, IE the "smalltown community feeling," brought up at all? By bringing up these elements, it creates the implication that by adding new teams, we are introducing a potential problem to the setting. In other comments in this thread, anons have mentioned that everything IC and OOC works the way it is. These are points only made when the opposite or potential opposite is "new teams will change that."

Because if "add more teams" is the only solution people can come up with for being resentful of the queue, that's exactly what's going to change, because long-term adding two more teams hasn't fixed the queue either of the previous times it's been done.

Because we're already looking ahead to the point where it becomes an issue again. If your solution to "the queue is too long" is "add more teams" then that's going to keep on happening until the game is unrecognisable. Two more teams right now isn't going to change the nature of the game, but what about a few months down the track when the queue gets long again and you start saying we just need two more teams again? I don't object to 14 teams in principle as a game size, I object to it as a solution to the queue, because if that's the solution then the number is just going to keep increasing.

"A few months" is different from almost a year, and I personally think AJ and Zazzle are more on point with things enough to know that things should be stalled. Things have been stalled. The queue filled up in December. We're in March. They believed the queue would only stabilize. Unfortunately, it hasn't, a whole two months later. It has only increased as the weeks have gone on.

However, we don't know if it would be a solution that would help or not. Yes, we talked in the past about dealing with the queue, but AJ said that there was a chance things would stabilize within a month—and they did. In this case, it's well over that, and even the mods are looking for a solution. I think that is a sign that two teams are probably the only thing we can look to, because nothing else works right now. I don't think it is perfect, but I do think it's better than doing nothing, which is currently what is being proposed. The status quo isn't working, so we should look to something else.

The queue will continue to be a problem as long as more people are apping than dropping. Adding two new teams will shake the status quo for a little while, but then the queue will start to build up again and what worries me is the thought that we'll be right back... well, probably not here because traditionally this discussion takes place on the OOC comm, but we'll be somewhere having this exact same discussion and reaching the exact same conclusions and deciding to add another two teams just to shake up the status quo etc etc.

I'm starting to think it might be more productive to have a discussion about what the absolute maximum team we're comfortable with is. However many we have, the queue will still become a problem, but at least we won't be arguing over two more not changing anything anymore.

There are a lot of implications that new people wanting to play in the game is a problem everywhere in this discussion which is very problematic and insulting. That people expressing interest is a problem in itself. No one is saying the queue will be magically fixed by adding two new teams, only that it would create more available slots that might help slightly than doing nothing. The queue will never disappear, but it's only natural for the game to expand slightly after almost a year since the last time it did. Nothing will be ruined by this, just as nothing was ruined when Carnelian and Iolite were added.

I want people to actually offer suggestions to help instead of bringing up things that are irrelevant.

I have no problems with new people wanting to play in the game -- I love playing with new people. I have problems with expanding the number of teams, which I've detailed my reasoning for in some places and agreed with anons who share my opinion in others. I brought up temporarily closing the app pool till more people are placed as a suggestion to at least stem the growth of the pile. I don't see any insults to new people who want to play in the game here, only acknowledgement that a long wait time is something that I personally see as necessary for Aather to keep functioning at its best. We obviously disagree, but saying that the basis of our disagreement stems from insularity and not an honest difference of opinions is an insulting strawman in and of itself.

I see your arguments, I really do. I just don't agree that they're in the best interest of Aather's future.

Nothing will be ruined by two new teams, but a few months down the track from now (if we're lucky) the queue will balloon out again and people will have issues getting into the game and we will be back here having this discussion again. We need to weigh up the pros and cons of adding new teams on their own merits, not as a way to help the queue. Because it is not something that will actually help the queue. Doing something that "might help slightly" just because it might help slightly is not a good way to make decisions if it's going to have other repercussions.

If I had suggestions I wouldn't be offering them here, I'd be emailing the mods already.

But you know what, at this point I think the only thing that's going to solve this discussion is to just add two new teams and see what happens. As long as we can all agree that we actually keep an eye on what's happening so that when we reach the point of this discussion again we all have more information about exactly the effects of adding new teams on the queue.

We don't know that the new teams won't help, but we do know that not adding new teams will absolutely not help. I think that everyone can see that, because we are currently without solutions. If we create the possibility of more slots, even 14 (+2 knights), then doesn't that at least provide some opportunity for more queue flow? If everyone is in agreement that it won't dramatically change the course of the game, because no one is arguing or worried about that, and no one thinks 16 more characters will hurt anything, then why don't we add the teams? Adding a negative number of slots will not move the queue when nothing else is moving the queue.

Personally I'm comfortable with expanding to 14 teams from a community point of view, but I'd want to see the discussion be about the pros and cons of expanding the amount of teams and who's comfortable with how many. I don't know how many other people are comfortable with expanding how far and I think that's a better discussion to have at this point. The question is at what point that "might help" is not worth the extra issues that adding more teams creates for current players/gamerunners and I can't answer that question for anyone but myself.

There are some people that do still believe that adding two more teams would have something of a negative impact (namely for trying to run games), though I am not necessarily one of them! But there are still those whose opinions are still valid! So by adding two more teams we may negatively affect those players, while not actually positively affecting the status or movement of the queue or game as a whole.

DA just coming in to all of this: ideas! What if we open up Personae creation again? Maybe there are players out there with game ideas who just want a Persona.

Another option, what if people can make Personae and have, idk, Personae-centric plots they can play out with teams as a way to get memories? Like, for example, hey, there's a bear infestation at Cabin X, whatever members of that cabin who are around have to play a small game to power up Goldy to get rid of the bears. In the end they also are rewarded with memories, and maybe plot.

Or maybe have a variety of game sizes but more often? Meaning, "this game will only have 1-7 number of teams" with a max cap being half of Aather/6 teams + whatever Knights availible. Go half or go all? Though that might make teams frustrated if they really wanted to play in a certain game... maybe have that game again for those teams later in a week, like a staggered game?

Sorry, some of these are probably unreasonable suggestions, but wanted to try throwing things out there!

I don't think this should be done cavalierly, because it's a huge strain on gamerunners, especially gamerunners who are looking to do anything different. It's easy to say that adding teams won't change things up when it hasn't before, but the difficulty curve of running games with more teams is nonlinear -- this has been true in the past as well.

However, AJ and Zazzle have noted that they are going to do a non-anon community brainstorm about this at some point soon. It would probably be a better idea to restart this discussion there.

I would also like to point out that the queue has been growing over the past two months after it actually became quite short in December—it stayed under 20 for several weeks and went down to 11 team apps at one point. People saw that as a good time to get their applications in, so the app count more than doubled immediately (within the two weeks) afterwards, which is what has significantly contributed to the current bottleneck. There's a good chance that adding two new teams will have the same effect, where people will take the fact that the queue is suddenly drastically shorter as a good time to submit their app, returning us to the same problem almost immediately.

You can turn this around though, too. The current bottleneck is pretty anomalous over the course of the last year. The pool has gotten bigger and smaller, but it's been relatively stable and it's been flowing relatively well most of that time.

Making two new teams won't drop the app pool down so low that everyone will necessarily see it as a great time to app. We had pretty good equilibrium there for a while. If we could get the queue back into the 20-30 range, things may well balance out again.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Everything is under control

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Ideas

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