I am totally here for cap limitations. It sucks to feel walled out of the sphere you wanted to play in temporarily but I'm not sure that feeling like Mage PC #431-9 in a sea of other PCs all clamoring to get involved in the same IG opportunities is fun, either.
There's a lot of reasons why Mage player environments get can rough but I think having more PCs than resources definitely encourages people to get tribal and exclusive.
@gangofdolls said in San Francisco: Paris of the West:
but I'm not sure that feeling like Mage PC #431-9 in a sea of other PCs all clamoring to get involved in the same IG opportunities is fun, either.
The question is:
What will they provide for the people that get walled off for X weeks? Everyone's gonna get established, settled, grab spots, roll up on any plots running....
Are they factoring in the need to help new people get/feel involved once those spheres reopen? The perk to rolling 'enrollment' as it were is there's a sort of steady stream of new people. But if you're the only ones for the foreseeable future, I can see people (esp. the bad Mage players and the ultra-cliquey Changeling players) making sure they grab up any and everything they can and hoarding.
Saying the quiet parts out loud since 1996.
I am all for sphere caps, although it's my opinion that they ought to go hand in hand with fairly low alt limits.
I don't mind having to wait for a spot in my chosen sphere to open up if that means more attentive staff (not even attentive to me, necessarily -- just more attentive generally). I would be a little peeved if I have to wait while Alty McAltface has a character in each of the 18 spheres available in Hypothetical Game #10, though.
(I do not know what SF:PotW's alt policy is; I am speaking in general, not offering criticism, or for that matter praise, of this particular game.)
@autumn One more caveat: "Spots" should be offered on a first-come first-served basis starting at the same time. No reservations or special deals - give X more slots starting at whenever based on when applications are submitted (which shouldn't need to be 100% complete, but which shouldn't just be placeholder ones either).
@auspice said in San Francisco: Paris of the West:
@gangofdolls said in San Francisco: Paris of the West:
but I'm not sure that feeling like Mage PC #431-9 in a sea of other PCs all clamoring to get involved in the same IG opportunities is fun, either.
The question is:
What will they provide for the people that get walled off for X weeks? Everyone's gonna get established, settled, grab spots, roll up on any plots running....
Are they factoring in the need to help new people get/feel involved once those spheres reopen? The perk to rolling 'enrollment' as it were is there's a sort of steady stream of new people. But if you're the only ones for the foreseeable future, I can see people (esp. the bad Mage players and the ultra-cliquey Changeling players) making sure they grab up any and everything they can and hoarding.
Tbh, my general experience is the first 'wave' of players in a newly open game generally gets this kind of unfettered access to building ties, getting established, etc. so cap or no cap, there's just a certain amount of this sort of thing that I think is unavoidable. I don't confuse that with necessarily being good but I think of it as a cost of doing business in terms of coming into a game later.
My attempt on Fallen World, for example, had stripes off this problem. Granted, I wasn't aware of any resource hoarding or the usual kind of channel clique fuckery that you may see on other games. Instead, what I did experienced was that most PCs were hugely siloed into their situation. Many of them didn't leave their builds, except for plot participation. There was very little public RP and while some players were open to new PCs, many people seemed to be satisfied with their IC networks as they existed.
I generally pride myself on being a proactive player in most game environments but I had a very hard time getting into things there in part because the blush was off the rose and the honeymoon period had passed and the game phase was definitely set to 'coast'. I think if I had been not quite so burned out on MU* at that point, I may have hung on longer but I just couldn't do it. I just happened to get lucky on the timing where SF is concerned, in terms of being around at opening.
I think, though, that small caps do make for better spotting where your concerns are related when staff is solid. I so far believe the SF staff fits this bill. They seem more inclined to squash a problem like you're describing because they have a better sense of what is happening in their own game sphere. There's just no way that 100+ mage PCs even has that kind of visibility because its just not humanly possible.
And its still possible that bad actors and broken stairs will be in these spheres, the statistics generally reflect that you'll get a percentage of that no matter what. But at least staff has a better chance at preserving resources, ensuring continuity, and controlling for quality so that its easier to bring the next wave in. If people are unfriendly or closed off if you're in that second wave, that's their loss and I mean that as a compliment to you.
@gangofdolls said in San Francisco: Paris of the West:
Instead, what I did experienced was that most PCs were hugely siloed into their situation. Many of them didn't leave their builds, except for plot participation. There was very little public RP and while some players were open to new PCs, many people seemed to be satisfied with their IC networks as they existed.
That's an endemic problem for nWoD games. I don't have good theories about why it happens, other than it's perhaps a cultural entrenchment - i.e. that it's roughly the same crowd migrating from MU* to MU* doing what they've always done, which is play mostly with each other and avoid uncontrolled interactions unless there's a carrot involved.
@arkandel I definitely think that's some of it. I'm kind of an outsider in that my ties to the community aren't very extensive and I'm not great at spotting people from game to game unless they're transferring or re-amalgamating the same PC from that game or just openly saying who they are.
I also think there's just a certain amount of fatigue that sets in. There's a certain amount of new game energy that hits and people are psyched and ready to go. But we're primates who get easily entrenched into routine and familiarity and over time, the collective 'maximum effort' wanes as well. But like you, I have a lot of ideas about why but can't really explain this either.
@gangofdolls Partially that's game runners' fault too. But let's discuss it somewhere else (if at all) since this thread isn't about that. 
For those worried about resource hoarding, two things:
It is a very large city with an extensive grid. Nobody will be able to control all of the resources with the current caps. It is just not feasible.
Those starting with resources have to be able to justify them, even if it is so much as strange contacts/allies. Gabriel is great about asking about this stuff, and I know he is willing to blue pencil it.
Didn't didn't SF close Mage and Changeling while some people were still in the last stages of CG?
Fair enough for having caps on sphere numbers, but it seems like there was no real plan in terms of how they were going to handle new players. While it's a nice idea to think the closure is to ensure players get attention and plot, why wouldn't they have publically said 'we are allowing X amount of PCs in these spheres!' straight off the bat and been transparent?
Giving little to no warning while people are spending time developing their PC concepts and statting up, only to be told 'we're closed!' at the final gate seems really unkind.
@a-meowley Meh ain't worried about it. It will open up eventually and when it does folks have a near finished character to zip on through.
Not a big deal.
@a-meowley they were caught unprepared by a few big waves of apps coming in all at once without warning, I believe.
I'm 90% certain anyone who was working on an app at the time it was closed will be approved. I vaguely recall Gabriel saying he had intended on 25 Mages to begin with. I definitely recall him mentioning the number of already approved and the number still apping and it was over 40.
Because they straight said on their bboards 'We did not expect this level of turnout for Changeling and Mage' is why. It's not that difficult. Changeling got smashed because people had just come off of the Darkwater reboot and were actively planning character 'transfers' there. Dunno about Mage, but Mage tends to be popular in general, and I'm sure a lot of people went there after the Reach Threeboot thing (since someone said the Reach has petered down on people?)
I'd say it's just timing and realizing 'oh crap, we didn't plan for this initial rush'. I don't get this ascribing maliciousness to a staff decision they had to make to make their game tenable for them.
Yeah, if you had made any sort of substantial progress on the character, then you probably got an @mail informing you that you were still good to apply. Which is at least how Mage doubled their expected numbers. Gabriel (who I think is @Darc ?) is still working on processing those apps.
And staff there have been very open and accommodating of just about everything, from what I've seen, so it's not like people had the door slammed in their faces. If there are people who were in chargen and are now barred, it's probably because they either hadn't logged in for a bit, or hadn't really made any kind of substantial progress on this one.
I know in Mage, literally 20 people got that @mail, and he even said on channel that he'd be willing to work with people if some got missed but were still in chargen. Which is how Mage went from 33 to like, 45 or something.
So this is pretty much the opposite of unkind.
So far the staff on this game that I have interacted with (Hadraniel and Gabriel) have been nothing but role models. Tough when they need to be, but fair and welcoming. They behave like fellow RPers and not rock stars who seem to think they can do no wrong. I am legit mystified by their performance so far.
@sunnyj said in San Francisco: Paris of the West:
I am legit mystified by their performance so far.
I don't see why you should be, based on your performance as a player and staffer.
Just as a reminder, Vampire is still open on San Francisco. It has a strong plot so far with a solid base and room for players to step in and make the game their own.
I advise players who might be interested in politics/mystery/intrigue to give it a shot. The game doesn't seem to have any pillow fights or cuddle-piles in the vampire sphere... that I know of.
@derp said in San Francisco: Paris of the West:
Yeah, if you had made any sort of substantial progress on the character, then you probably got an @mail informing you that you were still good to apply. Which is at least how Mage doubled their expected numbers. Gabriel (who I think is @Darc ?) is still working on processing those apps.
And staff there have been very open and accommodating of just about everything, from what I've seen, so it's not like people had the door slammed in their faces. If there are people who were in chargen and are now barred, it's probably because they either hadn't logged in for a bit, or hadn't really made any kind of substantial progress on this one.
I know in Mage, literally 20 people got that @mail, and he even said on channel that he'd be willing to work with people if some got missed but were still in chargen. Which is how Mage went from 33 to like, 45 or something.
So this is pretty much the opposite of unkind.
Yes, I'm Gabriel (I mention that I'm the Mage TL earlier in this thread, but it's easy to miss). 20 mages are approved. 16 mages are in the approval queue, and made it into the cap. So, not quite 40, but quite a few more than the 25 I was hoping for. Once I have a Mage Admin at my side and we're in a good rhythm, we'll re-set the cap at something loftier.
@darc Make it 99 - a Mage should never be quite 100, after all. 
I am totally here for cap limitations. It sucks to feel walled out of the sphere you wanted to play in temporarily but I'm not sure that feeling like Mage PC #431-9 in a sea of other PCs all clamoring to get involved in the same IG opportunities is fun, either.
There's a lot of reasons why Mage player environments get can rough but I think having more PCs than resources definitely encourages people to get tribal and exclusive.
