Activity Check Results / HMD

[lucetimods]

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 dropped recently, for your convenience.

Copy-paste the following here:

manage_circle del_read absolutewill manage_circle del_read brokenpromise manage_circle del_read chibifalenas manage_circle del_read devilsuppressor manage_circle del_read eyesofremorse manage_circle del_read faithfulstudent manage_circle del_read fowlplots manage_circle del_read gungho manage_circle del_read hark_a_suicune manage_circle del_read silpheed manage_circle del_read smackmywitchup manage_circle del_read tenerezza manage_circle del_read tibias manage_circle del_read trashed manage_circle del_read silpheed manage_circle del_read holyknights manage_circle del_read airbound manage_circle del_read sharpness manage_circle del_read penstabby manage_circle del_read chainedraven manage_circle del_read bereavement manage_circle del_read nikori manage_circle del_read divinacommedia manage_circle del_read mythmaker manage_circle del_read burningdownfate manage_circle del_read powdersup manage_circle del_read happierdays manage_circle del_read selfinteresting manage_circle del_read dogboy manage_circle del_read thelittlemacthatcould manage_circle del_read cladinthedark manage_circle del_read skyborne_mage manage_circle del_read former_third manage_circle del_read kindhearted manage_circle del_read abetteryoda manage_circle del_read handmotions manage_circle del_read returnthyname manage_circle del_read fearless_leader manage_circle del_read reversible manage_circle del_read illusionarymoon manage_circle del_read consultsdetective

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 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

Comments

Re: Luceti / Luceti Mods

[i_speak_softly]

Related to the above: I have noticed that important plot information is often posted just a few days before the relevant event, and often late at night (for players on Luceti time or in nearby timezones). This has the effect of excluding players who have full-time jobs or similar commitments: if someone goes to bed before the announcement is posted, and doesn't come back to RP-land until the following evening, that's almost an entire day before they're even aware an announcement was made. They then have even less time to plot, and are left out of things because other players who can stay up late made their plans the night before.

I understand that the mods are busy too, and there's no time that would be convenient for the whole playerbase, but it seems like it would be good for everyone if in general we were given more notice about things that required plotting or other organization.

[lucetimods]

In regards to the tornado thing, we apologize for that; we didn't actually think it would be as big a deal as it apparently is. It was mostly something thrown in to stir the pot a little, but people really got interested in it, which we totally should have seen coming, but alas. If we do that again we'll try to toss a head's up on the mod account just to say that Things Are Going Down.

In regards to plots in general, it's always been difficult to balance forward notice being right on time- if we put it up too early, people will spend a lot of time rushing at the start to plan, and often lose enthusiasm for it the longer they wait, not to mention the activity kind of fizzles and dies in the days prior to the event beginning. Entries are neglected because people don't want to tag new things with an event coming up- stuff like that. We have been trying to improve on the forward notice, though, so the tornado thing is more of a slip-up than a continued trend, we're hoping.

This is part of why we encourage Luceti's backtag-friendly atmosphere; even with several days notice, people don't always have things planned in advance, so it's nice to have the game at a pace where it doesn't matter as much.

[i_speak_softly]

I agree that loss-of-enthusiasm can be a problem. As a compromise, would it be possible to put up a "teaser post" a day or two ahead of the real plot details, giving the approximate time that important information will be revealed? That way busy muns would know something is happening, and may be able to check in briefly, so they won't be quite so behind the next evening.

I'm not sure why an impending event would cause people to tag less, especially since with or without an announcement we tend to know approximately when experiments are going to happen.

As for backtagging, while I find most people are happy to continue a thread for weeks, starting one more than a couple of days after it should have happened generally seems to be less well-received.

[lucetimods]

Well, considering we did that this time and it was met with a lot of enthusiasm, it's certainly something to consider for the future!

I said that because it has actually happened in the past- it's something we've noticed over time. It's hard to keep a steady enthusiasm up over the course of several days, and the knowledge that event threads will soon take up their time can cause players to avoid starting new threads on pre-event entries. It's not a guess, it's historical.

We will try, though, to give a reasonable forward notice. Hopefully with better mod communication and earlier planning we won't have to scramble to get posts together at the last minute, which is sometimes the cause of late announcements whether we've planned things well in advance or not!

No promises that we'll be perfect, but here's hoping.