integrating | JULY UPDATES + ACTIVITY CHECK

IC + OOC UPDATES

Hello friends!

It's that time again - Activity Check and general updates time. But hooray, you're all in luck: we've decided to go ahead and waive the AC requirement this month. In light of the difficulties in getting the current event off the ground and some work we wanted to get done as a modteam, we thought this would be the most fair approach. All you need to do this month is check in below (unless you're on hiatus, in which case you have to do absolutely nothing!).

Instead we've decided to use this space to address the State of the Game feedback post that went live the other day and talk a little bit about what we plan to do as a modteam and what we'd like your help with moving forward. We'll also be making mention of a few in-game notes that you should all be aware of (both ICly and OOCly), as well as providing a time table and what you can expect in terms of resolving the current event mission.

RE: THE STATE OF THE GAME FEEDBACK POST

First: if you haven't had the opportunity to talk on the feedback post yet but still have something important you'd like to say, feel free to comment there. There's no such thing as late feedback! For now, we'll be chatting about what's been given to us there already (thank you everyone!) and how we plan to operate the game/events like this moving forward.

In the future, we'll be providing a lot more IC guidance and IC feedback opportunities leading up to large game-wide events like this. We feel like in an effort to create momentum, we pulled the trigger on events like this too quickly when we should have spent more time building up events prior to the mission itself. Basically what this means is we'll be posting more as NPCs to foster lead up to events as opposed to leaving it entirely player character driven. Characters will still be welcome to explore their own approaches and players are still strongly encouraged to ask questions and plot on their own, but we'll be trying to play a more visible IC role.

WHAT WE THINK THIS WILL ACHIEVE:
- A better sense of in-character connectivity to current events, which means plotting and planning will come more naturally to everyone.
- A slightly slower pace in terms of building to events like this - this means a lot more talking between characters, which means necessitating a slower rate of action for the game. However, because most of you listed strong CR opportunities as your bread and butter for the game, we feel this should be pretty compatible with most people's play styles
- More IC play for player- and mod-directed NPCs to help forward player character motivations and storytelling.

WHAT THIS ISN'T MEANT TO DO:
- Make anyone feel like they need to play with a mod-NPC to access plot, or that it's even the fastest way to facilitate plot. If you have your own idea independent of our IC presence, we strongly encourage you to pursue that!

We'll be posting OOC event information much earlier to allow players to plot and plan over the course of a few weeks as opposed to forcing everyone to come up with something in a period of only a few days.

WHAT WE THINK THIS WILL ACHIEVE:
- Give players time to generate ideas for how they want to approach IC events. We feel like the Bout It Out team handled this really efficiently with THIS PLANNING COMMENT and we'd love to make sure you guys all have time to come up with outlines like this. Speaking candidly, this is exactly the kind of things helps us as a modteam to shape event logs to what you guys want to do. It doesn't need to be detailed to the most finite degree, but having a sense of connectivity ('this happens, then this happens, then this happens') laid out by you guys is awesomely helpful.
- Gives the modteam the freedom to throw surprises at you while still allowing everyone to tell the story they want to tell. We also feel this kind of planning is something we can weigh in on more effectively as opposed to answering a bunch of exploratory questions that don't necessarily lead or build to anything helpful for you guys.
- Streamline plot play and make sure everyone has the tools to do what they want AND know where their character stands in relation to others.
- Slow down play to allow for deeper CR building independent of the driving stakes of the metaplot, if for no other reason than your modteam also has adult responsibilities and it takes us time to get our shit together (as frequently evidenced by these updates). We've tried to prepare in advance, but sometimes the character driven nature of the game forces us to revise plans on the fly, so sometimes this might cause game pacing to lag. This may also cause player driver character discovery to be a little more shoehorned, as we'll have to make sure that they integrate smoothly into planned events (ie. character is investing a politician who's going to play an important part in the upcoming plot; their flexibility will be a little more limited than it would otherwise be - ex. player character can no longer kidnap/kill/whatever event important npc)

WHAT THIS ISN'T MEANT TO DO:
- Discourage players from asking questions. All questions are welcome and if you (or a group) is finding trouble approaching a plot or mission, feel free to ask us for suggestions. It's very likely we've come up with a few routes during plot idea generation at that point and we're happy to help if you feel lost and could use some outsider ideas to help come up with something cohesive.
- Put a heavy focus on OOC planning as opposed to IC play. We completely agree with the sentiment that OOC planning is boring compared to IC play and don't want to make the former the emphasis of this game. It's a necessary evil because of the close knit factors of the game, but we don't want players to feel like they're shackled to their plot outline or the OOC post instead of getting to write in the game. We're hoping the extra time allowed for planning will let people weigh in and organize at a sedate pace that isn't stressful or makes people feel like they're talking about playing more than they're actually playing.
- Tell people who to play with and how. While we're happy to offer suggestions and help in any way we can, we don't have any interest in micromanaging teams or building strategies for you guys on a purely OOC basis without your input. While we're happy to offer suggestions, we won't be randomizing matchups or assigning roles for plots because we feel it's fundamentally against what we want to do as a game. You know your characters, their abilities, their personal goals and CR better than we ever could. Because there's no IC command structure, we don't feel that's our responsibility on an OOC front; we're here to help you integrate your goals with the world, not to tell you how to play in it. We strongly feel that player and character initiative is one of the foundation blocks of Station 72. We can't and wouldn't want to tell stories without your input and initiative.

In the future, we'd like to focus on player/character driven initiatives to facilitate both IC and OOC mission planning and exploration. While we're more than happy to guide you guys through and toward plot points (that's our job as mods!), we'd love to see you guys taking this horse by the reins a little more. We've purposefully left empty spaces in leadership roles for the Nest; this wiggle room is meant to facilitate player characters taking charge and, consequently, helping to facilitate your player plots and CR building. In terms of nest dynamics, we want to leave it up to you how your characters cope. You're our first line of idea generation when it comes to how you want to accomplish the mission here on Concordia (and beyond), how the broods work and what happens as a result, etc.

WHAT WE THINK THIS WILL ACHIEVE:
- If you character wants to do something, do it! Organize it! While no character is obligated to agree with your character's approach, we want to see you guys helping one another to build IC systems for your characters and investigation routes (if, of course, that's something you feel your character would pursue; if not - whatever!). Just because something isn't detailed in an OOC mod post doesn't mean it isn't a viable route to pursue. Do what you want; we'll keep tabs on it and help facilitate your storytelling. At the end of the day, we're here to tell you 'YES' to your plotting even if sometimes it's a 'YES, but--'. That said, this DOES mean that there's more organization and communication required of players who want to drive plot. We have faith that you guys can manage that if that's something you want to pursue!
- More player created NPCs and world-building. Bout It Out (thanks Noodles!), Concordia's religions and theology (thanks Jay and Alison), and Ilde's hooligan friends (thanks Vee!) are a great example of this: player generated ideas and characters that we as a mod team can occasionally hijack to further or deepen the metaplot as its relevant to your characters.

WHAT THIS ISN'T MEANT TO DO:
- Discourage players from asking for mod input. If you have a question, concern, or suggestion you're more than welcome to approach us with it!
- Limit game plot to player plots. There's a metaplot here, but how it unfolds is entirely up to you guys. We'll always be throwing surprises and events at you, which means all our plans (both in terms of the mod team outline and player plans) have to be flexible and adaptable. But at the end of the day, we'll follow your lead -- wherever that leads...

At the end of the day, we feel like the responses to the State of the Game post focused a lot on pacing and plot integration. We hope these approaches can begin to successfully address some of the problems we've all been experiencing, but as always if you have further suggestions, questions or comments, please do let us know! We've included a QUESTIONS/FEEDBACK section in the comment area below; don't hesitate to weigh in! It feels to us like as much as we're learning how to run a small game, that a lot of the playerbase is also learning how to play in one too; anything we can do to help each other seems like a great step forward.

Now, for some GENERAL OOC UPDATES:

Due to the changes in plotting organization, we expect that the IC to OOC timeline will get even more wobbly than it already is. While we're still roughly 1 IC day to 2 OOC days, expect us to be playing extremely fast and loose with that from here on out. This is something that most people seemed comfortable with from one of the first feedback posts of the game and we feel like everyone is intimately acquainted with the reality of the RP time paradox nightmare, but if you have any questions or concerns please let us know! We'll do our best to make sure everyone's more or less on the same page re: what day it is and when things are happening, but expect there to be some wiggle room and occasional uncertainty.

We've added a rule that players can't hiatus for two AC consecutive AC periods.

Because of the slow pace of the test drive meme, we've made it so only ONE sample thread is necessary for applications.

And, some GENERAL PLOT AND IC-RELEVANT UPDATES:

-We're hoping to have all the pieces for this current plot in motion and on the way to being resolved by July, 31st so we can move on with our lives. What this means for players: if you have any questions, concerns or thoughts for the current plot, get them in now so we can integrate them! We know the infiltration team especially has has some trouble getting some bearings and playing, but we need your input and specificity to help guide you if that's what you want. If you'd rather just scrap it and move on, that's cool too - we'll figure out a timeline of events that you can have for reference moving forward. Expect some big things to come in the VERY NEAR FUTURE because...

- We're killing Anakin Skywalker. We'll be posting a top level on the current event log for the events leading to this no earlier than Monday, July 25th and no later than Thursday, July 28th. This doesn't mean you have to be in the exact right place to ICly react to that information if you aren't ready to play it yet, but as a mod team we have to have all our hypothetical ducks in a row to do a write-up for it by then. Originally we were going to implement this sooner, but since players seem to be finding traction on the current log we thought we'd go ahead and hold off for another week on introducing additional plot points to see if they had time to come about organically instead of us passing them down from on high etc.

AC CHECK - June to July

This month's activity check is a simple check in. Please comment with your character journal below to check in!

All players are required to respond to this post by 11:59 PST on the 31st. Anyone who doesn't respond will be added to the AC warning list and have 24 hours to respond before being automatically dropped from the game.

AC EXEMPTIONS:
Sam Wilson (hiatus)
Clint Barton (hiatus)
Nathaniel Horn (hiatus)
Hux (hiatus)

As this is a check-in month, ANY tags you've done may be logged and banked toward earning and spending AP. Remember not to count the tags you've used to make your AC count.

CONCORDIA MISSION: OVERVIEW • DAY :008 - :013
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JULY UPDATES + ACTIVITY CHECK

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