lucetimods | Activity Check Results / HMD

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Activity Check Results / HMD

The results for the Activity Check are in! Please note that the following characters were either inactive, didn't post to the activity check, or failed to speak to a moderator about their activity. Also added were characters who have joined the game or dropped since the last add/remove, for your convenience.

Copy-paste the following here:

manage_circle del_read 13sugars
manage_circle del_read abjurer
manage_circle del_read anaxes
manage_circle del_read antwort
manage_circle del_read ballofpinklight
manage_circle del_read cloudspinner
manage_circle del_read codenamexv
manage_circle del_read dangerouswind
manage_circle del_read dickmoves
manage_circle del_read gunkonmyboot
manage_circle del_read jern
manage_circle del_read layersoflies
manage_circle del_read neverpromoted
manage_circle del_read onearmedexmerc
manage_circle del_read ravelt
manage_circle del_read readytobe
manage_circle del_read spiritwalking
manage_circle del_read thebellthatbinds
manage_circle del_read voiceinthedark

manage_circle del_read presumablyalone
manage_circle del_read accepted
manage_circle del_read everyonedied
manage_circle del_read firstnothing
manage_circle del_read forelocked
manage_circle del_read myreason
manage_circle del_read secretmiracle
manage_circle del_read skyleopardess
manage_circle del_read spohkh
manage_circle del_read snapturtle
manage_circle del_read padawansnips
manage_circle del_read innerdragon
manage_circle del_read beastofthesea
manage_circle del_read comicallyheroic
manage_circle del_read deadalready
manage_circle del_read mutantblues
manage_circle del_read averybadfeeling
manage_circle del_read removeimpurity
manage_circle del_read smokesmushi
manage_circle del_read dissonates
manage_circle del_read untrueheart
manage_circle del_read padme_amidala

manage_circle add_read showsomepeg
manage_circle add_read pokegirl
manage_circle add_read tohopeagain
manage_circle add_read strengthalone
manage_circle add_read haveabiscuit

A number of you passed the activity check, but barely. (You know who you are.) Try to pick things up, as it's no fun to character-squat.

If there are any mistakes here, please let us know! Additionally, if your character was removed and you're still active, feel free to appeal to one of us about keeping your character. However, please remember next time to stay active and post to the Activity Check. Thank you!

And as always:

HMD

How's My Driving?

This is a crit post for both the community and game and for your characters. If you have something you'd like to see us improve upon with the game, PLEASE TELL US HERE! Anon commenting is on, but if anything gets really nasty there will be warnings and thread-freezing. This isn't required but everyone is encouraged to take advantage of the advice of your fellow players!

Just some pointers: no taking cheap shots, no dragging personal issues into things and for the love of all that is wise and great, please double check your replies and comments before posting them. Sometimes a change in phrasing can make all the difference between a helpful tone and a condescending one.

ALSO: We'd like to clarify that HMD means HMD- which means it's okay to have both good and bad crit. Some people have expressed concerns about posting good/bad crit when a character already has bad/good crit posted. We'd like to encourage you guys to do it anyway! You can drive well or badly, and even good drivers make mistakes. So give it a try \o

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

As per the norm.

I have long considered this game to be my 'home' game-- I've been a player for a while, and have long enjoyed my time here and cherish the friendships I've made through this game. However, I have some issues that I feel need to be shared with all of you.

My biggest concern is with the current plot. We were told in the initial plotting posts that this would be a game-changing event-- however, three weeks into this event, we have almost no information about what is going on icly or oocly, and it is hard to work with how little we have. While I understand that this is supposed to be a drawn out over he course of several weeks, simply telling us that 'resources are scarce' isn't much a starter. We need more information about the current political situation within the context of the barrier and without if we are to go much further than we have.

Furthermore, so much of the current plot is 'old' information. Newer players aren't going to know who Tyr, John, and the other NPCs are as well as the players who have been around for far longer, and the plot has been so far from focus that there has been no chance to bring this information up in recent months because of the relative inertia that has hit our game. While it may be a case of nostalgia for older players, that isn't necessarily the case across the board.

The change in the setting is nice, and I personally have loved the threads that I have had in it so far, but this lack of direction being provided by the mods isn't new. After months of little to no plot motion besides an AU type event that wasn't popular with the entire playerbase, many of us were looking forward to this event. The lack of movement is, frankly, discouraging to players who want to try for something more.

A little information and direction would be more than appreciated, as would someone taking the time to compile a coherent information resource about what the plot is so far and how the important NPCs play into it.

You're absolutely correct! We failed to deliver when we intended on this one, and we're really sorry for that.

Full disclosure: prior to my hiatus, there was a misunderstanding about the NPC post - it was written in a way that meant my absence would not interfere with the responses, because it was going to be posted fairly soon afterwards and I wasn't going to be available for it. I thought it was communicated that Tyr would be playing a role, but some wires got crossed and that didn't end up happening. Cue confused discussion amongst the team after I got back, which, due to our work schedules, took some time to sort out (we had to figure out the problem before we could find the solution).

Then AC happened and discussion about that over the last week derailed the pending questions we'd asked each other about the event (plurk hiding replies probably didn't help) and we've only just cleared up how confused we'd gotten ourselves.

This whole mix-up has taught us a couple of very useful lessons: just like we tell our players, if a question or suggestion doesn't get a response when we need it, ask again. And it's certainly taught me to ensure that everyone is on the same page as i am before a vacation. That's on me, and I really am sorry. Both the NPC and the most recent mod post should have been posted earlier.

We will be getting everything set up and finalized for the next arc of the plot within the next day or so, that is a promise. All we can really do is learn from this and carry on. Again, apologize to you and the entire game; the delay was unintentional but definitely avoidable.

I'd also like to echo the sentiments of the anon above me in regards to how this plot is being handled, specifically in regards to pacing. I've been in the game for a long time, and I've always felt that stretching out certain events for too long creates a kind of fatigue that inevitably leads to disinterest. I believe this plot is dangerously close to reaching that point, since despite all the hype you've given us for things that could happen, nothing is happening.

The journal delivery was handled poorly. It felt like it was implied in the initial post that it would be something the entire player base would get a say in, but I never saw any real opportunities for debate in regards to whether or not they'd actually deliver the journal or open it (unless such conversations happened on plurk, which not everyone in the game uses). I was assuming a poll of some sort would come up. Instead, it ended up becoming the sole decision of the mun who got chosen, which didn't really seem fair.

The NPC post for Tyr was especially disappointing, since it took nearly four days in some cases for people initially commenting in to even get a first response. It makes it seem more like the post was just there to throw more information at the players, rather than serve any actual purpose in advancing the plot. The recent post with John feels like much more of the same, and you even labeled it as such ("The Great Infodump ") with the cut text. Not to mention most of the details that would be shocking fall flat when you consider the things that have been referenced are so old, much of the playerbase wouldn't even know what's being referenced in the first place.

I understand that it's difficult to design a plot where everyone can make a difference, especially in a large game like Luceti. And you guys have done an amazing job at creating such plots in the past (such as the most recent draft). But for the most part, we aren't even being given anything new to work with that isn't just more of the same daily-life-in-Luceti stuff we've already been doing between events. And given everyone is in the past, usual means of creating environment-based conflict/plot (mallynaps, the background shifts, missions, etc) are now gone.

The lack of any sort of timetable for when event things are going to happen is very troubling. I get that you want to build hype and probably make for some kind of dramatic reveal (or at least I certainly hope that's what's coming), but it's been three weeks and there's still nothing to do. It feels like all of this has just been spent setting up a plot without giving anything to show for it.

First, I'll toss this response I gave to the anon above.

Additionally: The journal delivery was a slight disappointment to us as well, because we expected players to be proactive about communicating what they wanted to do with it which kind of... didn't happen. We never implied (or meant to) that there would be a poll or debate; the post stated that it would be up to the discretion of the one chosen.

Since nothing actually came of it, however, we'd like to establish the fact that missing out on the contents of the journal was never intended to be a big deal; we thought it would be funny to toss it in as a sort of easter egg in case people were curious, because Lucetians are known for being nosy bastards. Ship sailed, but you guys really didn't miss much, so please try not to worry about it.

For the record, the Tyr post was Kyo's choice and was created for character development and NPC interaction and a slice of worldbuilding at Kyo's discretion. It was entirely optional and wasn't a crucial part of the plot. Its only contribution to the above mix-up was that I was concerned it would overload Kyo with NPC stuff, when meanwhile Kyo wasn't aware of what I assumed was going to happen anyway.

I wanted to bring up something that I've seen discussion about between other players - the current AC requirements. I know you've said in the past that you don't plan on changing them, but I've spoken to multiple people who had trouble making AC lately not because they weren't tagging around but because they had difficulty making the thirty comments in three threads requirement.

It worked just fine back when Luceti was a faster game. Now, things have slowed down a lot, and it can be hard to make the three-thread count when people are only tagging you back every couple of days. Tagging out more isn't a viable solution since it doesn't matter if you have two threads going or twenty when you're getting tags back at a slow pace. This isn't meant to point fingers at anyone or imply that this is a bad thing- I for one am happy that Luceti is a game where you won't get threads dropped on you if you can't tag for a few days - just to point out the current pace of the game.

The general agreement I've seen is that people are fine with having a thread limit for AC, they would just like it increased slightly to reflect the fact that the game is slower than it used to be and there aren't as many things to tag. Thirty comments in four threads is perfectly reasonable and would make it easier for people to make AC through normal tagging instead of having to ask someone to boomerang at the last minute to get a thread long enough.

I agree with this. For several ACs in a row, I've had trouble meeting the requirements because while I do tag around, I have very little luck in boomeranging. Thanks to a combination of various factors, both from my own end and the people I tag, threads tend to move very slowly. What often happens when AC rolls around is that I have quite a few threads that fall within the slotted dates, but most of them only have about five comments from me. Ten if I'm lucky. You can see how that makes it very hard to compile thirty comments in only three links.

Yes, a post helps with getting more comments inside one link, but if you play a character who isn't social, it'd mean having to force some non-substantial action post and it's very hard to be original with those sort of things.

I think that even four links instead three of would be a great help, so please consider this.

Thirding this sentiment. I'm not an inactive player, and I frequently have to find myself asking friends to boomerang with me just to make AC. This was no problem when the game was active and we regularly had multiple new posts every couple of days, but we have slowed to the point where we are lucky to have multiple new posts a week.

I had 18 threads within the AC dates and I still had to ask someone to boomerang with me to get to 30 in 3 threads.

Added to that, Dreamwidth roleplay has slowed down, since Luceti's beginning.

Many newer games don't have the 30 comment, 3 thread limited threadcount AC that Luceti does, and they thrive, drawing in newer players much more consistently and easily than Luceti does. This is because they've been created to match the current pace of the dreamwidth roleplay scene.

Luceti needs to evolve and grow, both with the plot and with the current ruleset, as several previous HMDs threads have requested. Players drop because the game doesn't change, and new players don't enter the game because Luceti doesn't fit their pace or meet current expected standards of engaging plotline and accessibility.

The other games I'm in all have lower AC requirements because that's more realistic for the pace of DWRP these days.

If you're going to insist on maintaining the 3 thread rule, the total number of comments needs to be lowered. Otherwise you need to allow more threads that can be used to make AC. The only games I know of that still have 30 comments as a requirement are fast-paced ones like Haven. Everything else tends to be around 15.

Please this. Luceti is not a fast paced game most of the time, and the AC needs to reflect it. You've said before you refuse to change it because you make exceptions easily, but that doesn't solve the problem. It doesn't seem right to ignore the current state of the game and dreamwidth RP.

Aang | Avatar: The Last Airbender |

savedtheworld
Rock Lee | Naruto |

niceguypose
Kurt Wagner / Nightcrawler | X-Men Evolution |

wildbluevagner
Jade Curtiss | Tales of the Abyss |

yourfononsarewhack
Mytho | Princess Tutu |

soheartless

Red | Pokémon (gameverse) | Journal HMD

Nara Shikamaru | Naruto |

endgames

Billy Kaplan/Wiccan |

selfhelp | Young Avengers
Mikage Celestine |

fyulong | 07-Ghost

Hiccup | How To Train Your Dragon |

showsomepeg

I just popped in with Hiccup a couple weeks ago, but please let me know if you find something off about his characterization! I guess that's sorta hard to tell in an intro post but. You know. He's still a fairly new muse for me.

If you'd rather have this conversation somewhere else, I have an anon enabled HMD here.

Silver | Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver |

strengthalone

Just brought him in, but HMD anyway. I have one on Silver's journal that'll always be open, too, so come to me absolutely whenever.