Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning
-
@kanye-qwest said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
But there are new players who do come on and find places and grooves and things to do, and I think sometimes "this just didn't click for me because I was busy with other things" need not be conflated with "new people will never be able to find a place to fit in".
I thought about not responding to this, but it's bugging me on a Let's All Be Nice To One Another Manner (also why I was debating saying anything at all), but I don't see @auspice saying anything like "new people will never be able to find a place to fit in".
It's certainly not what I saw in her referenced post.
-
ouldn't clues that has been gotten already be adjusted to give 2 or 3 that are in the same tree? Like if Joe Blow is looking into the Brightest Star' by Jane Smith has already discovered multiple clues, if not most, relating to that couldn't the new ones looking into along the same lines end up with multiple clues to reflect a lot of the legwork being done? To me.. THat would cut down on the 'outdated' and rehashing of clues and help newer (or not been played) characters feel relevant/catch up.
-
I do think the game required significantly more active time commitment to stay caught up before crisis and @action combined to make plot more manageable. There IS an issue that has continued with information sharing that I find puzzling and it does seem to be ongoing, like clues are candy and people just hate sharing their candy sometimes?? But I do think systems have progressed significantly to allow better time management than in Alpha. Work in progress.
Ftr, I don't play every day; I just don't have time to play every day. I have a full time job and spend 3 hours every day driving.
-
@thenomain Um. Really?
@auspice said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
So I really do get why new people are feeling like they'll never be able to find a place to fit in.
-
@kanye-qwest /Understanding why/ is not the same as /saying/ .
-
@kanye-qwest said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
@thenomain Um. Really?
@auspice said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
So I really do get why new people are feeling like they'll never be able to find a place to fit in.
Her entire post was about her experiences, so yes, really. What I see is you cherry-picking one sentence out of an overall sentiment in order to discuss how wrong it is out of its original context.
But this does help me realize what bugged me and spurred me to respond in the first place. Thank you.
(edit to clarify: I don't disagree with the sentiment, just the false attribution.)
-
@icanbeyourmuse said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
It's clues and story lines. I just get a lot of 'We're rehashing this stuff.' after a certain point. Because /they/ have the information but /I/ don't.
This is what @theories are great for.
When I was playing Aislin, I made a point of trying to put together cohesive theories for the things I went over frequently, so I could hand out a summary easily (and even potentially share all the associated clues, though that was AP-expensive), and then we could semi-hand-wave the almost cut-and-paste explanation and focus on the inevitable Q&A afterwards. Especially since that Q&A was generally much more interesting and engaging RP for everyone involved than just "Aislin stands and lectures on a topic for about seven pose rounds."
Now, not everyone wants to use them, and that's okay too—RP'ing out the rehash can also be a lot of fun for the person just learning it. But if you find yourself constantly rehashing chunks of metaplot and unwilling to do so in order to involve others, shortcutting that is part of what @theories are really good for.
@pyrephox said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
I think, maybe, that some of that stuff isn't as 'out of date' and resolved as people think it is, also. Sometimes PCs think they know/understand more than they actually do. If there's something that really intrigues you as a character, I'd definitely try and pursue it on your own, too - through an action or something. You might find something that surprises you (and other people, too).
I found, as Aislin, that even 'outdated' clues were still often relevant to things. Just because a given chunk of metaplot isn't the current focus doesn't mean it's not relevant to fleshing out the history of the world, or that it might not be relevant to future metaplot foci. Putting together the puzzle pieces is half the fun, and sometimes a clue fits in more than one place.
-
![😕](http://musoapbox.net/assets/plugins/nodebb-plugin-emoji/emoji/android/1f615.png?v=4vfms5ns7sl ":\")
Ok.
- I was never once 'talked to' about my activity. Maybe talked about? I dunno, but I was never talked to.
- Every time I tried RPing except in scheduled private scenes on Arx, they blew up into big, unwieldy things. I couldn't handle that at the time (and still often can't now).
Saying the quiet parts out loud since 1996.
-
@auspice No, you weren't "talked to" about your activity. You approached us and said you were sorry, that you weren't trying to camp out on a character, but that you were very busy.
And yeah, I'm not a fan of huge scenes, either. Trying to follow everything gives me a headache.
Edited for clarity: I believe you brought it up on a channel, not privately.
-
@saosmash said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
There IS an issue that has continued with information sharing that I find puzzling and it does seem to be ongoing, like clues are candy and people just hate sharing their candy sometimes??
Isn't much of a puzzle. People aren't always good at sharing the spotlight and sharing means they may have to share it... for those that are more collaborative there is this:
@sparks said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
...even potentially share all the associated clues, though that was AP-expensive),
It's systematically discouraged.
I strongly encourage people to do org clues to be more AP efficient with clue sharing, but it doesn't always (rarely) happens.
@kitteh said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
@wildbaboons I had a similar eye-opening moment when during uh, some kind of Q&A session they ran on public channel, @Apos mentioned the (fairly large, though I forget the exact) # of secret orgs. With neither of my characters being in any, it was a little perception-changing.
Yes! this! I knew there was a couple. A handful maybe. Apparently there are tons and that is where a lot of plot seems to be.
-
@kanye-qwest said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
@auspice No, you weren't "talked to" about your activity. You approached us and said you were sorry, that you weren't trying to camp out on a character, but that you were very busy.
And yeah, I'm not a fan of huge scenes, either. Trying to follow everything gives me a headache.
Edited for clarity: I believe you brought it up on a channel, not privately.
OK. Might be a bit of misunderstanding, then! It felt like it may have been put out there that I was spoken to re: activity and I just wanted it to be clear that I wasn't.
Those were the main two things. It's not like I was constantly running around other places playing. IIRC, I think I was only really on Faraday's BSG game at the time (I can't recall any others, tbh) and it's never been very big or active.
Most people can tell you that even now, I get in probably 1 or 2 scenes a week and one of those might be a public one if I'm lucky.
Saying the quiet parts out loud since 1996.
-
@wildbaboons said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
@kitteh said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
@wildbaboons I had a similar eye-opening moment when during uh, some kind of Q&A session they ran on public channel, @Apos mentioned the (fairly large, though I forget the exact) # of secret orgs. With neither of my characters being in any, it was a little perception-changing.
Yes! this! I knew there was a couple. A handful maybe. Apparently there are tons and that is where a lot of plot seems to be.
Not really. Like to a large amount. Both from my experience outside of them and from what I've heard in passing from those with PCs in them.
-
@auspice My bad if that's how it came off! I probably should have said "when you spoke about your activity" or something less formal sounding.
-
@roz said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
@wildbaboons said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
@kitteh said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
@wildbaboons I had a similar eye-opening moment when during uh, some kind of Q&A session they ran on public channel, @Apos mentioned the (fairly large, though I forget the exact) # of secret orgs. With neither of my characters being in any, it was a little perception-changing.
Yes! this! I knew there was a couple. A handful maybe. Apparently there are tons and that is where a lot of plot seems to be.
Not really. Like to a large amount. Both from my experience outside of them and from what I've heard in passing from those with PCs in them.
Yeah to be honest way too much of my time is spent responding to player initiatives for me to create sweeping new storylines that would come from there, and I'd prefer if I could. It's one of those things on my to do list in order to try to wrangle things to the point where I can focus more on that, and that will probably have more of a bottom up approach (trying to seed things on lower characters and let it flow up) than top down, since I think the characters in positions of power tend to naturally get involved regardless.
-
I will also say that I think that the new @action system helps, or can help, in regards to that feeling of flailing around in the dark. The ooc_intent switch is, or at least I have found it to be, /very/ helpful. Hopefully it is as helpful for staff as it is for me, but making me state 'out loud' what I hope this action is capable of accomplishing has helped clarify what I want out of what I'm doing. Before it went in, I know sometimes I would hear people mention that the response to a storyrequest was completely unexpected, and it could sometimes feel like a dialogue in Mass Effect, where the prompt says 'express skepticism' and the dialogue is like, "YOU LYING FUCK."
One thing we all need to remember, too, is - despite having 300+ active characters (christalmighty) - Arx is in beta. Half the mechanical systems haven't even been designed, yet. The ones that exist may get significantly changed in the future. The way of doing things has changed pretty significantly over the time I've played, and I expect it to change further in the future. So, even when I express criticism, it's with the understanding that none of this is really the 'final product', and I think that staff is generally very open to considering players' actual experiences in the changes that they make - within the constraints of the game they want to run.
Which is good. I'd really rather be told 'no, that's not the game we're doing' sometimes, than have the game collapse under trying to be all the things to all the people, which is a real risk with a game this large.
-
@icanbeyourmuse said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
ouldn't clues that has been gotten already be adjusted to give 2 or 3 that are in the same tree? Like if Joe Blow is looking into the Brightest Star' by Jane Smith has already discovered multiple clues, if not most, relating to that couldn't the new ones looking into along the same lines end up with multiple clues to reflect a lot of the legwork being done? To me.. THat would cut down on the 'outdated' and rehashing of clues and help newer (or not been played) characters feel relevant/catch up.
Highlighting/seconding this for @Apos and @Kanye-Qwest -- I'm a newbie, and I think this is a Very Good Idea. I'd also tack on that, as a newbie, having what clues I do have be in story format, while interesting, can be pretty unclear sometimes as far as fitting the pieces together, especially while I'm still cobbling together the theme in my head OOC. Some sort of branch/tree structure that's (increasingly?) visible as you get clues would be great.
-
@apos said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
(trying to seed things on lower characters and let it flow up) than top down, since I think the characters in positions of power tend to naturally get involved regardless.
Please. Top down is not very effective. It stays at the top.
-
@fortydeuce I think @revelations are meant to partially fill this idea, but I definitely think the clue system could be worked on a bit more in this direction. My concern about a 'tree' is that not all of the clues are pre-written, and it might be jarring to have trees that expand unexpectedly - especially for those players who obsess a bit about getting All The Clues.
-
@pyrephox See, and there's another point of newbie confusion -- how is @revelations different from @theories? The helpfile just lists the command. I didn't even know it was a command.
-
@fortydeuce Ooh, ooh, I know this one!
A @revelation is something that you receive when you gain the right combination of @clues to see a bigger picture perspective on a topic. It's automated, and it'll give you the revelation itself, and a list of the clues that you have that triggered it. A @theory is something like a revelation that /you create/, which may or may not be accurate.
