Feb 18, 2016, 3:55 PM
@Pyrephox I'm not saying BITN has a built in self destruct time limit, but I am also not saying I am a man who has never flaked out on a game.
Changeling: The Lost Update [CofD]
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Around 18 months post B-Day I intend to start work on a MegaGame.
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@skew said:
@Ganymede said:
No one ever likes my ideas.
That's true.
@tragedyjones & @Pyrephox: I think I might set a goal for 18 months out to get a C:tL game going. Depending, of course, on how long BITN lasts. I don't think the story needs to go more than 18 months, in truth.
sadface You hurt my heart.
Not about the Changeling game - that would be fantastic. But that a mortals game would have an expiration date before it even opens. I can see WHY, and have even said myself that more games need to be willing to let things change and end as appropriate to the game, but still. SADFACE.
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@Pyrephox said:
@skew said:
@Ganymede said:
No one ever likes my ideas.
That's true.
@tragedyjones & @Pyrephox: I think I might set a goal for 18 months out to get a C:tL game going. Depending, of course, on how long BITN lasts. I don't think the story needs to go more than 18 months, in truth.
sadface You hurt my heart.
Not about the Changeling game - that would be fantastic. But that a mortals game would have an expiration date before it even opens. I can see WHY, and have even said myself that more games need to be willing to let things change and end as appropriate to the game, but still. SADFACE.
18 months is more than enough time to enjoy it, or for it to become something else, or for people to love it so much it gets a renewal on its life.
I think high character death/turnover would help a lot with the last bit.
"Excuse the hell out of you. He's a bag of dicks. I'm a carefully curated box of cocks." -- to @GirlCalledBlu upon being misrepresented.
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@Pyrephox I'm not saying BITN has a built in self destruct time limit, but I am also not saying I am a man who has never flaked out on a game.
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@tragedyjones said:
@Pyrephox I'm not saying BITN has a built in self destruct time limit, but I am also not saying I am a man who has never flaked out on a game.
There is that. And let's be perfectly honest: I'm not sure I've ever played on a game for 18 months straight. I am easily distracted.
So easily distracted.
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@Coin said:
I think high character death/turnover would help a lot with the last bit.
Do we have an example of a high death/turnover MU* which worked? And I define 'work' as in 'retained an active playerbase of more than a handful of people'.
It's not a rhetorical question, I don't know if we do. The successful games I can think of in this context were all ones the same characters were often played for more than a RL year each and involuntary PC death was infrequent.
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
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@Pyrephox said:
sadface You hurt my heart.
It hurts me to write it. But it's realistic, and it is, imo, the way we ought to look at stories. They have beginnings and they have ends. I believe 18 months is enough time to tell a good story, to have fun, then to look for something new. As @Coin said, it doesn't need to be that BITN closes. It could be that in 18 months we pause BITN for a bit (or go soft RP) and regroup, and come up with a new setting. I've played on games where "let's pause and come back 2 years after, after the <big event> has settled" and they've been very successful. Likewise, I've watched as a new cohort of staffers have came in and breathed life into a game in this manner. The story will end, but the game need not necessarily.
And, of course, it's impossible to predict where we might be 3, 6, 12 months from now, both in real life and in the game setting. I'll be revisiting long-term plans every so often.
@Arkandel I played on a non-MU RP game where we had high character turnover and it worked well. Obviously it's not entirely applicable, but it did keep things fresh and lively, and those character that lasted a long time started to feel old. The key, I found, is to have a good story in place that can explain where/why a person is gone, and allow ends to be tied up neatly. Death is an obvious choice, but in those games, we also had the option to "sail back to the mainland". I think we can achieve similar in a WoD MU.
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@Arkandel said:
@Coin said:
I think high character death/turnover would help a lot with the last bit.
Do we have an example of a high death/turnover MU* which worked? And I define 'work' as in 'retained an active playerbase of more than a handful of people'.
It's not a rhetorical question, I don't know if we do. The successful games I can think of in this context were all ones the same characters were often played for more than a RL year each and involuntary PC death was infrequent.
Dark Metal?
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@Arkandel said:
@Coin said:
I think high character death/turnover would help a lot with the last bit.
Do we have an example of a high death/turnover MU* which worked? And I define 'work' as in 'retained an active playerbase of more than a handful of people'.
It's not a rhetorical question, I don't know if we do. The successful games I can think of in this context were all ones the same characters were often played for more than a RL year each and involuntary PC death was infrequent.
The Greatest Generation seems to have been healthy and well-regarded for its time, although I never played there, so don't know anything other than the reputation.
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@Arkandel said:
@Coin said:
I think high character death/turnover would help a lot with the last bit.
Do we have an example of a high death/turnover MU* which worked? And I define 'work' as in 'retained an active playerbase of more than a handful of people'.
It's not a rhetorical question, I don't know if we do. The successful games I can think of in this context were all ones the same characters were often played for more than a RL year each and involuntary PC death was infrequent.
Dark Metal?
I'm a rodeo clown.
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@tragedyjones Deja vu!
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Shit a glitch in the Matrix.
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I must stress because I know it's going to be lost, the glamour/turn reduction now also applies to the amount you can gain per turn.
Dropping Mask now means something.
There's a lot to like in this update.
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@Thenomain said:
I must stress because I know it's going to be lost, the glamour/turn reduction now also applies to the amount you can gain per turn.
Dropping Mask now means something.
There's a lot to like in this update.
Yes! I like that very well. The Dropping Mask is quite cool - I'm not sure I really like the new Lunacy-alike thing they've got going on, but I can roll with it. And I love that it opens doors to the Hedge and puts a giant HUNT ME sign on your back, as well as the bonuses it gives. There's a lot of potential fun there.
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Really, except for the new kith and seeming setup, and some CoD mechanics changes, this looks like a fixed version of Lost. Mind, I will probably get more bitchy around Dreamwalking. We shall see.
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One thing I think would be great for BITN is for each Faction to have a basic reason for people to leave. Maybe they get sent on a mission or whatever. Just give people who want an out for their character that isn't death a reason to disappear for a while. And maybe write in that if a character doesn't log in for an amount of time--say a week straight--they are automatically assumed to have been sent on a brief mission somewhere--until they come back.
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@Coin said:
One thing I think would be great for BITN is for each Faction to have a basic reason for people to leave. Maybe they get sent on a mission or whatever. Just give people who want an out for their character that isn't death a reason to disappear for a while. And maybe write in that if a character doesn't log in for an amount of time--say a week straight--they are automatically assumed to have been sent on a brief mission somewhere--until they come back.
That all makes sense to me. I've always thought that incentivizing retirement of some sort would be a good idea for a MU*. Give people a reason to let an old character's story END, rather than them just hanging around forever, getting progressively more powerful, and having increasingly little to do with the setting. (In general, I'd like to see more positive reinforcement of desired behaviors, rather than punishment of undesired behaviors.)
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I thought this was going to be American Horror style, where the players may be the same, but there are new characters for each major theme rotation.
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@Misadventure said:
I thought this was going to be American Horror style, where the players may be the same, but there are new characters for each major theme rotation.
I think you mean a different game? There's a horror game that was just advertised here that has exactly that premise, but it wasn't my read of Bump in the Night. I could be wrong, though!
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@Pyrephox said:
@Misadventure said:
I thought this was going to be American Horror style, where the players may be the same, but there are new characters for each major theme rotation.
I think you mean a different game? There's a horror game that was just advertised here that has exactly that premise, but it wasn't my read of Bump in the Night. I could be wrong, though!
No. You're right, @Pyrephox.