Sol Raveh Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
solravehmods) wrote2016-07-01 11:14 am
solravehmods) wrote2016-07-01 11:14 am
State of the Game: June 30th
Hello, players!
There’s been a huge amount of changes this month; a lot of them very important to yourselves! Since there are so many, let’s jump straight into them-
Setting Information and Housing Updates!
Goggs has been hard at work on the following pages, and that hard work has been rewarded! The Settings Information now has an interactive map of currently explored and newly discovered locations; to explore any of these, just hover over the location you’d like to read about, and you’ll be taken directly to that room’s description.
Likewise, Housing has also undergone a radical transformation, with information included on each of the NPC controlled areas and additions that have been made to the castle since characters have begun occupancy.
The current rooming situation is up to date; however PLEASE NOTE: If your character is not currently allocated a room, drop us a line on the housing page!
Bestiary Update!
Mozart is currently hard at work bringing the castle an updated listing of the current shadowy creatures that can be found across the castle- the Bestiary. The more common enemies can of course be found on the fringes and outside the safe zones, and more will continue to appear as our brave adventurers progress through the Queen’s territory… keep an eye on this page, as updates will continue to occur throughout July.
Items Requests and Favors Page!
Outside of some general tidy up, Bird and Rin have also updated our Item Requests and Favors Page to include an up to date listing of all favors accrued by characters in the game. Additional information on how favors are accrued has also been added to the Item Requests page.
NEW Mission Log page!
In addition to the Item Requests, we now have a new page- Mission Logs. This page has some helpful information on castle pushes and how to implement them both ICly and OOCly, as well as a new form for players to fill out when a push has been attempted. We have high hopes that this will allow pushes to be more easily organized within the player base, as well as ensure that people can keep better track of when they might have garnered themselves a point in Ozuma’s favor, to boot.
Community Tag Updates and Community Tracking
Hold on, Bird isn’t done yet. The tags for both sol-raveh and solnet have now been updated to include all characters, and to make life a little easier on everyone, she may have taken some time to go back and update the character tags on every log, back to January.
To save her some time and loving exasperation, please remember to tag your characters into the posts they’re partaking in! Not only is this important for being capable of tracking your own logs, but another announcement below makes ensuring your tags are in place absolutely worth the effort.
One more reminder here; please ensure that you are tracking all of Sol Raveh’s comms! Multiple incidents this month have involved people not receiving information in a timely fashion, due to not having one or more of the comms on their reading page. We do our best to ensure that updates to missions and events go up via the moderator plurk, however player plots and additional logs made on different comms, including memes, can easily be missed. The current active communities for the game are as follows;
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
sol_raveh
solnet
solravehmods
sol_raveh_ooc
solravehs_temple
Character Activity Check and Warning List!
I can hear everyone inhaling in utter horror from one whole hemisphere away; so don’t worry. Sol Raveh is not making AC compulsory.
However, at this current stage we do have many characters who have not partaken in any activity for three months or more. Whilst Sol Raveh will remain AC free, to ensure that character’s not currently active aren’t left falling by the wayside, any characters without threads within a three month period will be wiped from the game come July 30th.
Characters who have not made activity since April 30th fall under our current warning list; this list and details in regards to the activity check can be found here. If your character is not on the warning list, they’re completely clear, and you have absolutely nothing to worry about! Please note that depending on the success of this current check, more may be implemented in the future, be that on a bi-yearly or quarterly basis.
Moderator Feedback!
We are aware that the above contains a lot of changes, and whilst we do our best to ensure whatever changes have already occurred add to the enjoyment of being here, sometimes there’s things we haven’t even thought of yet!
Likewise, there are always improvements that could be made in other areas. Below is a toplevel specifically for leaving moderator feedback, and we highly encourage everyone to let us know about their opinions on the most recent transformations that have been made, as well as anything else that may have been on your mind. Please remember that we are human too, however, and so we can only take on board what’s been put to us as we are!
If you’re at all unsure about what you have to say, or feel that it’s something you’d like to discuss in private, feel free to drop any one of us a line through the information provided on the Mod Contact page!
FINALLY…
Thank you all for joining us on this wonderful journey. As we come ever closer to one year since Sol-Raveh’s opening, the mods would like to take this opportunity to commend our entire playerbase, both new and old, for the enthusiasm and dedication that has been given to our tiny game.
The quality of our playerbase shines at every given opportunity both ICly and OOCly, and the cooperation of many clever minds coming together to triumph over the (often deadly) situations of the castle is something we hope all of you can join us in being fiercely proud of. A game is only as good as the playbase that supports it, and we hope that we may continue to provide an environment that allows all the space you need for the many wonderful ideas and player plots that you have provided Sol Raveh over the past year.
With our love,
Rin, Leia, Ichi, Goggs, Mozart, and Bird.
There’s been a huge amount of changes this month; a lot of them very important to yourselves! Since there are so many, let’s jump straight into them-
Setting Information and Housing Updates!
Goggs has been hard at work on the following pages, and that hard work has been rewarded! The Settings Information now has an interactive map of currently explored and newly discovered locations; to explore any of these, just hover over the location you’d like to read about, and you’ll be taken directly to that room’s description.
Likewise, Housing has also undergone a radical transformation, with information included on each of the NPC controlled areas and additions that have been made to the castle since characters have begun occupancy.
The current rooming situation is up to date; however PLEASE NOTE: If your character is not currently allocated a room, drop us a line on the housing page!
Bestiary Update!
Mozart is currently hard at work bringing the castle an updated listing of the current shadowy creatures that can be found across the castle- the Bestiary. The more common enemies can of course be found on the fringes and outside the safe zones, and more will continue to appear as our brave adventurers progress through the Queen’s territory… keep an eye on this page, as updates will continue to occur throughout July.
Items Requests and Favors Page!
Outside of some general tidy up, Bird and Rin have also updated our Item Requests and Favors Page to include an up to date listing of all favors accrued by characters in the game. Additional information on how favors are accrued has also been added to the Item Requests page.
NEW Mission Log page!
In addition to the Item Requests, we now have a new page- Mission Logs. This page has some helpful information on castle pushes and how to implement them both ICly and OOCly, as well as a new form for players to fill out when a push has been attempted. We have high hopes that this will allow pushes to be more easily organized within the player base, as well as ensure that people can keep better track of when they might have garnered themselves a point in Ozuma’s favor, to boot.
Community Tag Updates and Community Tracking
Hold on, Bird isn’t done yet. The tags for both sol-raveh and solnet have now been updated to include all characters, and to make life a little easier on everyone, she may have taken some time to go back and update the character tags on every log, back to January.
To save her some time and loving exasperation, please remember to tag your characters into the posts they’re partaking in! Not only is this important for being capable of tracking your own logs, but another announcement below makes ensuring your tags are in place absolutely worth the effort.
One more reminder here; please ensure that you are tracking all of Sol Raveh’s comms! Multiple incidents this month have involved people not receiving information in a timely fashion, due to not having one or more of the comms on their reading page. We do our best to ensure that updates to missions and events go up via the moderator plurk, however player plots and additional logs made on different comms, including memes, can easily be missed. The current active communities for the game are as follows;
sol_ravehsolnetsolravehmodssol_raveh_oocsolravehs_templeCharacter Activity Check and Warning List!
I can hear everyone inhaling in utter horror from one whole hemisphere away; so don’t worry. Sol Raveh is not making AC compulsory.
However, at this current stage we do have many characters who have not partaken in any activity for three months or more. Whilst Sol Raveh will remain AC free, to ensure that character’s not currently active aren’t left falling by the wayside, any characters without threads within a three month period will be wiped from the game come July 30th.
Characters who have not made activity since April 30th fall under our current warning list; this list and details in regards to the activity check can be found here. If your character is not on the warning list, they’re completely clear, and you have absolutely nothing to worry about! Please note that depending on the success of this current check, more may be implemented in the future, be that on a bi-yearly or quarterly basis.
Moderator Feedback!
We are aware that the above contains a lot of changes, and whilst we do our best to ensure whatever changes have already occurred add to the enjoyment of being here, sometimes there’s things we haven’t even thought of yet!
Likewise, there are always improvements that could be made in other areas. Below is a toplevel specifically for leaving moderator feedback, and we highly encourage everyone to let us know about their opinions on the most recent transformations that have been made, as well as anything else that may have been on your mind. Please remember that we are human too, however, and so we can only take on board what’s been put to us as we are!
If you’re at all unsure about what you have to say, or feel that it’s something you’d like to discuss in private, feel free to drop any one of us a line through the information provided on the Mod Contact page!
FINALLY…
Thank you all for joining us on this wonderful journey. As we come ever closer to one year since Sol-Raveh’s opening, the mods would like to take this opportunity to commend our entire playerbase, both new and old, for the enthusiasm and dedication that has been given to our tiny game.
The quality of our playerbase shines at every given opportunity both ICly and OOCly, and the cooperation of many clever minds coming together to triumph over the (often deadly) situations of the castle is something we hope all of you can join us in being fiercely proud of. A game is only as good as the playbase that supports it, and we hope that we may continue to provide an environment that allows all the space you need for the many wonderful ideas and player plots that you have provided Sol Raveh over the past year.
With our love,
Rin, Leia, Ichi, Goggs, Mozart, and Bird.
MODERATOR FEEDBACK
Apps Question
Do we have a way to confirm invitations on applications? Like, require the applicant to include the journal name of the source of their invitation, i.e.: Dawn (Sans,
Then mods PM the player to confirm the invitation.
I think that will help prevent awkward situations where a player did not actually acquire an invitation but was approved anyway or something?
Moderator Duties - gonna have a bunch of these, sorry!
When I modded we had a spreadsheet and a task would have a cell next to it be color coded - blank if it hadn't been completed, green if it was done, yellow if it was coming up due, red if it was overdue.
If maintenance is done in small pieces on an ongoing basis and the work is spread out among the mod team, it'll be a much less daunting and exhausting task for one or two people later!
Game Activity
(nb4 Worst Sans)
It'd be great to see this happen on an ongoing basis like, every other month or every quarter-year? Having no formal AC to scramble and fill out is really lovely, but this kind of check can be easily done now that our tags on the comms are up to date.
Events
I don't know how many others do, so I thought I'd explain my process in the hopes that others can take something of value from my suggestions and start writing their own.
When I write an event, I keep in mind three questions:
I.) INCLUSIVITY Objectively speaking, does the central conflict/experiences/features of the event include as many of the players as possible? And if it can't, do you have an alternative option?
EXAMPLE: The powers swap was limited to a certain time and area, additionally you could only swap if a.) you had powers to swap and b.) the people you happened to be with in said time and place ALSO were eligible for a powers swap. Fortunately, there was also a ton of exploration missions happening, which acted as both a vehicle for the event and an alternative for those who did not swap powers.
II.) ACCESSIBILITY Can just about anyone participate in this event without jumping through hoops? (Alternatively, is there an easy out in case players aren't into it?)
EXAMPLE: While this may not apply to EVERYONE, the goal is to make it as easy and uncomplicated as possible for as many players as possible to participate. The musical event had circumstances that were easily accessible to any character without requiring them to go out of their way or be OOC to conveniently enjoy the event.
III.) APPROPRIATENESS Does this event fit into the overall theme/situation?
EXAMPLE: I guess basically asking if it trivializes the overarching conflict, causes metaplot NPCs to be OOC, breaks the immersion of the setting, etc. Does an event that turns everyone into talking hamsters make the game's main opponent (the Queen) look like a silly goofball or something, you know, stuff that's groan-worthy and makes you care less about the game. This is the apply common sense part.
Ultimately, I try really hard to make sure other players have an impact and aren't being reduced to spectators. Opportunities for participation and players feeling relevant to events increases player engagement, the lifeblood of activity!
Re: Moderator Duties - gonna have a bunch of these, sorry!
Since a lot of people have smartphones and there are many free apps or apps that come standard with your OS that calendar/daytimer/assistant, I have found it particularly helpful to use things these to ping me with reminders -- I recommend spacing out whatever maintenance stuff, events and anything else you need to keep on top of and let your phone ping you when it's time to check up on these! That way you get peace of mind that you won't forget about something and you can pace yourself so the workload is manageable!
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However I also see the side of needing to have some kind of system in place to make sure people aren't squatting indefinitely. Summer is usually the time when people like our players and mods aren't as busy as they usually are during say the winter holiday and the beginning of the year. People are getting ready for conventions or vacations but generally know ahead of time where they're going to be with that sort of thing. Hence why I held it off until the start of July. Not to mention we only started in October and I didn't want to spring a sudden HEY GUYS DO THINGS NOW on everyone so shortly after beginning.
That said there probably will be at least quarterly checks to see where everyone is at from here on out.
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We will do our best to make them as inclusive as possible, though do be aware that all the hard work in the world won't make an event ping to every single person in a game.
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