@Arkandel I love to leave questions for players to chew on, or clues to hunt down. Unfortunately, people don't seem too interested in a follow-up plot.
Players: 'A monster thing! Kill it!'
Me: 'clues to origins, hints at More To Come'
Players: 'It's dead now, whatever. No follow up.'
I always leave things a little open ended, but have never really had someone go digging into those loose ends.
shakes magic 8-ball
No. Still doesn't look like it will play well with others.
Late to the Square party. Maybe it's because I got mine right when they rolled out, but... $20 to open a basic checking account and I got my small card swiper for free. If they've changed things, cool, but my experience? They really didn't require anything out of reach.
I'm curious, though. Are homeless people not allowed to have a $50 smartphone with a monthly activation card? (aka, cheap ass burner phone). Are they not allowed to have had a bank account they keep a few bucks in to keep it open?
Hell, I kind of applaud their creativity if genuinely in need of help. Most people I know? Don't carry cash. Being able to shift their panhandling to fit with the current trend of not carrying cash just seems adaptive to me, not necessarily exploitative.
A couple of the things that came up was using a 1-10 instead of 1-5 scale. So each jump is smaller, and there's more jumps to take. The other was a cap. So it isn't 'every square can go to 10', it's 'this square has good water supply and caps at 7, but starts at 2 because it isn't the cleanest and needs a lot of work'.
Another thought was having food and water erode every week, so those need to be maintained, and make it so people need to pool together to really make progress. It'd also make owning multiple territories really hard.
Death's been sick and working all the hours, so it's been tricky to get everyone sat down to chat about it and solidify what's what.
I definitely want population to tie to blood. I want food and water to influence population. I want shelter and security to matter, too, though these will have a more subtle effect. For example: high food/water/population, but low shelter means people are eating well, but could be more prone to sickness or theft. Low security might make it easier for someone to sneak in and feed unnoticed.
Update!
We are 3 grid room descs, and two codey bits to fix away from opening (Notes and Conditions are wonky, and we can't figure out why).
+ic/+ooc code and meetme code would be awesome, but I can't seem to find either of those a pre-made widgets. This makes me sad.
If anyone wants to come in and pre-app, offer suggestions, pitch ideas, and be part of a 'please don't hurt me' soft-ish open (By soft I mean, there's more code I want but we have the bare minimum in and the wiki needs work still, but all in-game helpfiles are in.)
No BG's required, though once we get the notes system up and running, there will be an option for Defining Moments, so tracking these things for yourselves will be encouraged.
Woo! Minor code victory: Managed to recolor and rename the map, as well as get the tracking brackets and 'You are here: _____' working again. My brainmeat feels like it went three rounds with a blender, but I did it :3 Tomorrow, I'm working on the layers for the two Praxis (Praxii?) and building the submaps for the different neighborhoods.
It's not what I had in mind to get done, but this is a pretty big victory for my code-dumb self. (I didn't even break anything. Woah!)
In before rumormill:
Yes we banned someone. It was @Sovereign / Rex / Angelo / That rapey harassy guy. reasonably certain we got him before he had a chance to be gross on any of our players.
Update:
We're adding mage, and Gehenna is taking on custom goodies.
I... maybe just totally had this mental image of Theno as the hottest girl in the strip club with all us MU*ers waving ones at him. It was glorious.
My crazy brain aside, I think that alot of the changing expectations can be managed (somewhat, with the rare and elusive 'reasonable person') just by communicating. 'Hey, this is being a pain in the butt and will take a bit longer.' or 'Wow, that wetn easier than expected.'
Something else to consider might be just setting up a paypal with an 'ish' of the sort of tip you would like to see. Some folks can pay more, some maybe less, but it'd be cool, cause I bet there's a LOT of folks that have benefited from the ThenoCode that'd toss a fiver in the pot, even if they aren't running a game - just because he's one of a handful of coders that have done a lot for us as a hobby in general.
@Thenomain - That's why I suggested google wallet. Not just that they don't charge a percentage or fee, but that PayPal is known, but now there are other options :3 It's easy to set up and painless to use. It all runs off one of your emails, so you send to someone using their email addy, much like Paypal does.
Alrighty! It ain't pretty, but it's done! So that means it's soft open time!
Theme and Setting information: http://thedescentmux.com/index.php/Setting
West Praxis: http://thedescentmux.com/index.php/West_Praxis
East Praxis: http://thedescentmux.com/index.php/East_Praxis
The wiki, I figure, will grow organically as things start to happen (plus, I'm still at a loss for what it needs, so I think of new things to add here and there as I go).
We'll wait a couple of weeks before we get the territory system going, in-game. This will give folks a chance to get settled into the theme and have a few scenes before adding in the mini-game for play-testing. Trying to avoid overwhelming with too many differences until we've had a chance to find a rhythm.
Suggestions are always welcome!
RL has been merciless, but the end is nigh. After being stuck in the hospital for 32 days, I get to go home tomorrow! YAY! But there's a catch: I'm still going to have a 2 week limbo of not knowing when I'm going back (when, not if).
To that end:
I apologize to everyone that has popped in or faded out. I really thought I'd totally have all the free time and brain power to run plots and do the things and carry on like normal. Boy was I wrong >.<
I know she looks dead, but as soon as I can, I'm going to go digging through posts and try to gather the strands of the plots I had (Diptheria, warring praxes, the neutral court to bring the wolves into the playing field as allies instead of enemies, and the like).
Hopefully, it won't be any more than 2.5-3 weeks before I'm home (again) and able to start doing the things.
ETA: I could really use another staffer to bounce ideas off of and do my jobs for me XD Mine sit and look very sad. I promise, I pay well (hah) and do not make much job mess.
Just to keep from derailing the SF thread.
Loosely set on doing Chicago as a modern, 2e nwod using the code base from TDM.
Wolf, Vamp, M/M+ is in. I think mage got ripped out/may need work.
I won't add/open mage unless someone reliable/sane wants to come run it.
Concepts I would like to keep:
Multiple praxes.
Cross sphere rp that feels like theme before template. Without the usual segregation that often comes on mylti-sphere games.
P.S. @Ganymede - You are a bloodline genius, and when the game gets that far (set city, theme, server up and rebuilding after deconstruction), I would love your input.
I'm thinking 'nesting neighborhoods'.
So, for example, you have
North Side
-> neighborhood within north side
-> * INSIDE that neighborhood.
No dogs in the fight, but: Thank you, @surreality something like this isn't easy, and it takes a lot to step up like this.
I am pretty similar, actually, in that playing helps me unlock a character.
Along that train of thought, what if the idea of the Defining Moments or Core Memories was one that could be added to?
Post-Approval Cliff's Notes of things that have happened that helped define the pc? Sort of like a bulletpoint journal to help staff and the player remember key events in a pc's life?
Also: bingbongbingbong. Why do I do this myself? Damn you, Pixar!
As a headsup: F&L threw 2 SIGSEGV's today, and the second one crashed it on the automated restart.
That thread should probably be updated so the instructions with the updates and changes are all in one post 
shudders Yeah, this is all him. I think he got banned from CoS in May or June, and it opened in November and he STILL logs on to make noise like some obsessive, gloating toad. It's really pathetic. Him and some friend of his generically known(?) as Kitty (she wasn't banned, but asked to leave until we opened cause woah). In fact those two almost kept the game from opening entirely cause if their soul-sucking bs.
From what I saw, it wasn't just the new game, but it was kind of a snowball effect. They cut ST xp, then overall xp, and announced the new game all within a couple of weeks. Seems silly to take away incentive to Do Things then tell players if they're going to Do Things, it's not going to matter in a little bit. Then be confused or upset when people Stop Doing Things.
This should be a lesson about the order of operations, I think.
If the game is shifting and changing, it seems like taking away activity incentives didn't help reassure folks that it'd be okay when the new game starts. And since the new game is only allowing X number of xp to rollover to these tiers, the xp gain wouldn't matter.
But definitely telling people that what they do from now til Miami opening has hurt them. It probably (hindsight and all!) would have been better to wait, open the sister-game, let people filter across, and slowly phase FC out over a couple of months so people have a /home/ to go to, instead of scattering everywhere.