I actually have a question that I don't think has been fully/officially answered or even specifically asked anywhere:
This game is set in 2025, with an emphasis on another tech boom and a building/megacorp facility called Salesforce tower, wealth disparity, etc, and the official Theme reads like something right out of Cyberpunk 2020... How 'cyberpunk' is this game going to be? What is the technology like in 2025 San Fran?
@admiral I took that to mean they would reopen upon hiring more staffers, meaning more resources to manage larger spheres.
Said this elsewhere, but wanted to say it again here:
SF has already closed up Mage and Changeling both, and will not be accepting new apps for those spheres. I think that's fuckin' great. It's obvious that these staffers are very hands on, very attentive, and very enthusiastic about telling great stories. Where other multi-sphere MUs tend to only close spheres when there is no TL present, and otherwise allow as many players to participate as are eager to join, SF has said, 'No, we know that we are capable of catering to this many people, we have the resources and energy to run stories and facilitate play for this many, if we allow more in, we won't be able to manage that'. Where other multi-sphere MUs rely on a sandbox atmosphere, or player STs (incentivized by XP rewards that I have seen abused out of control, and even abused myself as an ST that was greedy for ecks pees) to preoccupy their players, SF has said, 'No, we know that if we as staffers don't take responsibility for facilitating an enjoyable game, we will end up with a dichotomy of generic bar RP, and cliques of players telling stories for one another to essentially 'farm' XP, either of which might be enjoyable but neither of which are what MUs are really about'.
I genuinely wish more MUs would be willing to put their foot down, at risk of seeming 'exclusive', and not allowing spheres to get much larger than 20 players each. At a glance it seems bad, but I think that mentality is really good for the health of a game. This is yet another indicator that these staffers have their heads in the right place.
I think a Tier policy is not going to affect a game nearly as much as your staff culture and your XP gain rate will. Personally, I'm of a mind (at this point) that the best way to go is for everyone to start at around 100-200 (if its 1E), with a very slow XP gain rate. Higher XP rewards for STs, or significantly higher XP rewards for 'very deadly' scenes, made sense when I first started MUshing, but retrospectively they lead to the same problems. You get cliques of players/powergamers that are constantly running scenes for one another, and every one of those scenes includes someone taking agg damage and some monster hurling 30 die pools, and so the danger is 'real', but all the players are, again, powergamers. So then that clique skyrockets ahead of your average player on the XP roster. XP gain algorithms that cause low XP players to gain at a rate relative to the highest XP players are really goofy imo, because you end up with players gaining 50 or 90 XP a week. Players with 750 XP - especially if they are Sin-Eaters or Mages - are beyond unfuckwithable. They shouldn't even be player characters, they're incomprehensible. You might as well let folks play as True Fae, seriously. A 750 XP mage shouldn't be able to interact with other humans in any recognizable way.
Fear & Loathing's 'Guest Star' system was something different, and I caped for it for a while, because it did manage to create some cool RP and relieve pressure from the staff by effectively having players act as NPCs. Towards the end, I grew to dislike it, and in the weeks before it closed, I was turned off by the policy altogether, and urging for Paris/Stardust to do a relaunch without Guest Stars and focusing on a more level playing field with a more serious commitment to XP gain being staggered, and starting XP being raised periodically so new players weren't doomed to be trapped far behind dinos. Obviously, that didn't come to fruition, and the Guest Star policy is a big regret of mine, still.
San Francisco is interesting, because they are being a lot more mindful of XP gain than say, Fallcoast, and I won't be as derisive as Tempest but I have to say, the staffers on SF are much more attentive and invested in their player bases. Capping their spheres this early is an indicator of that. They don't want to be the biggest or most popular, they want to tell good stories, and be able to manage that, so they aren't overextending themselves or allowing a sandbox style environment do 'the work' for them. Those are the main reasons that I'm not totally put off by their tier policy; I mean, 400 XP mages at launch? Like, a third of the grid right now, in beta, is 400 XP mages. BUT, the gain rate is very closely minded, and the staffers are enthusiastic, and attentive. Do I think it would be better if their tiers were lower? Say, 100, 175, and 250? Yes. Do I think that their current setup, as it is, will damn them? Not really, it'll take more than just that.
I have a lot of good stuff to say about this place so far!
Despite the tendency of similar WoD MUs to frequently have staffers that are aloof, if not downright mean, my experience so far is that every staffer on SanFran is super friendly, super diligent, super helpful, and enthusiastic about creating a fun space to tell stories.
I was wary at first of the decision to allow Mage and Sin-Eater alongside templates like Vampire and Changeling, as I've seen the power disparity elsewhere make cross-sphere PRPs all but impossible. But so far, Xapham has made a lot of solid, common sense adjustments to various Sin-Eater abilities to 'un-break' them. Likewise, Azrael has made a number of adjustments to Vampire in order to make it a more robust, tough template, when the RAW end up delivering a creature that is inordinately squishy compared to most any other gameline. I'm really seeing the staff here turn the dials to deliver a level playing field, as best they are able, with a focus on amending template Advantages that already exist instead of tacking on a bunch of new rules in addition to what is there to begin with.
I do think Changeling and Werewolf will need for a couple of serious bones to be thrown their way to be brought up to speed with the adjusted vampires/sin-eaters, and I'm curious as to whether anything will (if it even reasonably CAN) be done to rein Mages in. That said, I have a lot of faith in these staffers right now.
The player base so far has been nothing but friendly and welcoming. That's not to say there's no chance of the usual MU melodrama eventually cropping up, but there's a good foundation here, right now.
If folks are looking for a good time playing 1E, mixed template, and if they've been turned off by similar projects for whatever reason, I think San Fran is 100% worth checking out right now.