rpanons | Everything is under control

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Concerns?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

No, but can't changes be made to it to make it work in the long-term? Also, I wouldn't be surprised if gamerunners are tired in Aather partly because people have been running two games a week for a year, with come exceptions. That's a lot of constant gamerunning. We could talk to AJ and Zazzle about other events giving out memories, or even mini-games leading to that end. It's not a perfect solution and it seems flawed, but there are ways to find solutions.

I would be up for considering non-game memory solutions, but it's already really hard for gamerunners to run off-the-cuff experimental games, and scaling things up would make that even harder. Considering that games and playing in games and gamerunning is one of the core conceits of Aather and it's part of what some people apped for, I really do feel like an "it's fine to change the focus and make this even more difficult for gamerunners in the process" is something that will change some peoples' play experience for the worse! Also -- speaking of other things that are already difficult to scale up -- I don't know how the mods are going to handle making the game's plot available to many more characters are this rate. We're already getting complaints about the rate of IC information dissemination and it's much, much harder to get casual threads with plot NPCs than it used to be.

I'm just really adamant in my belief that some things about Aather require the game to stay small ICly, and I think how the game has changed since Peridot & Kunzite and then later Carnelian & Iolite have settled in — and the differences between the older equilibrium and the new one which has settled in — support that belief. I'm really not trying to be a "don't fix what isn't broken" person -- I agree that the queue isn't desirable at its current levels -- but there are non-jamjar elements to the game that are important to a lot of people, me included, that are extremely difficult to scale up! And I am personally more willing to wait for a long time to get those elements, since they are very rare in larger rps. Hence the direction of my arguments.

On the matter of plot, I've seen people find solutions for it in other games. Those people who have accomplished it are, in fact, in Aather. If that's another thing that needs to take place, then that's another thing that can be brought up in discussion as something we should be looking for a solution to. Sixteen additional characters is not going to change that if that's a problem. And realistically, I think it's been a problem since before Carnelian and Iolite. It shouldn't be approached as a game expansion issue but rather a game issue in general. "How do we get plot information out better?" versus "Too many characters makes it hard." I don't think that's the reason why when other DWRP games find the means to get plot to characters that want to participate. (There is also the problem where some players in Aather aren't fond of plot, so how do you disseminate the plot without forcing them to be involved? I know you're speaking on an information based system here, but it does extend to the mod events AJ and Zazzle run.)

I admit on the matter of gamerunning I'm not the best, but I do think there are means to making these work. I personally think the way the game has changed since those teams were introduced shows that Aather can come up with solutions. Two more teams is something that can be factored into solutions if everyone is working to come up with them. Clearly, we're not the majority of the game here, but it's why I think a foregone conclusion approach should take place so that we can better come up with solutions instead of arguing whether that should happen in the first place. One does necessitate the other, but we're not going to come out with the right answer if we get stopped at the first step.

If people genuinely believe -- which I think is what is being said by the naysayers here! -- that adding new teams isn't going to be a solution, I think it's fair to argue against treating it as a foregone conclusion. From my perspective it's something that won't fix the problems it's meant to address and will exacerbate other problems which we're coasting with right now, and what further solutions will we have to come up with then? Better not to open that can of worms and look for other solutions now.

I hope that when the official community discussion happens at least one person creates a thread for "if we DON'T open up new teams, what do you suggest?" because I honestly feel like we're spending so much time arguing about teams that no one is bending their creativity towards how to move through the queue faster in other ways.

... But what other ways are available? Make people drop faster? Make people feel bad for having an off week and they can't play, which ends up hurting their motivation to continue playing? Aather is already bad enough if you take a trip for a weekend and come back to it. It's a constant thing. People have tried narrowing down their registries. People have good ended before they were ready. There aren't ways to "speed up the queue" unless we forced people to drop out of the queue. And dropping thirds is not going to help, either. That will just create more feelings of people feeling bad. In the past, the mods pointed out how third players are active enough that they can't change it.

Personally, I think we need to look at helping game running and plot dissemination, but I don't think finding "other ways" to look at fixing the queue is a solution.

This.

We could reopen the discussion on adding new people to teams? That, at least, would stress gamerunners less. It hasn't been brought up here at all.

People have actually shot that down harder than adding new teams in past discussions. People are really against adding new people to teams because there's already too many people on teams to keep up with. With new teams, there doesn't come the weight of responsibility, as far as I recall.

Considering it's a way to open up more slots that doesn't make it as difficult on gamerunners, I think it's as worthy of being brought up again to consider in the light of changes in the game as the other when the modpost happens.

I'm personally up for it being a solution. I think once when I talked to the mods about it, even they said that extra slots wouldn't be viable compared to the new team creation, but I can't remember their reasoning. It should definitely be brought up, maybe with some solutions or additions of "this is how team stuff can be done better."

I am personally against this because, while it may be easier to carry on with your own circle of CR with two more teams running about elsewhere, it's a lot more difficult to create cohesive team relations when you have too many team members to keep up with. To a lot of characters, it's important to have relations with their team or to retain a solid team identity. Expanding teams would impede that and would most certainly lead to OOC frustration on top of IC frustration. Larger teams are much more difficult to coordinate, and I know there are issues with coordination already, even just from the hero side (as opposed to the game-running side).

Feels bad man.

Everything is under control

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