(no subject)

[unborn-of-this.livejournal.com]

DISCUSSION TIIIIIIIIME
Hi, guys! WORRY NOT, just checking in to ask how y’all are doing. We’ve been throwing a couple of events and plots your way these past few months, and we were wondering how those’ve been working for you, what else you’d think it nifty to see, etc.

In particular, we’d really like to know (but obviously, don’t limit yourselves to just this XD):

O1. What bigger-scale plots would you like to carry out? However wild the idea, just put it down! Specifics really, really help with this kind of thing, so tl;dr away! Maybe there’re other people who’d love to see it in action, and we’re definitely here to help with the mechanics!

O2. Are there any worldbuilding instruments (new areas, items, creatures, etc) that might help with plotting and that you’d really like to see in the game?

We were also wondering whether there were any administrative issues that have been giving you any kind of trouble lately, or any suggestions that you’d like to make in that direction! There’ll soon be a poll as to whether the community at large would like to see anon comments restored on HMD (though the result won't affect the February HMD), and the FAQ was updated a little while ago... anything else?

All thoughts welcome, so don’t be shy! We can’t promise a solution to everything, but we really do want to know what is and isn’t working for you at Poly! Our only request is to please keep in mind that different strokes work for different folks, so even if someone’s suggestion doesn’t do it for you, please be polite in engaging that opinion.

Thanks in advance!

Comments

[wishgrant]

IDK IF THIS COUNTS AS WORLDBUILDING BUT

Would it be possible to get some layouts for the housing? For the individual rooms, I mean, and not the apartments as a whole. Just a basic "this is what one person ones are like, the two person, etc."

[signatures]

I'm retarded and want a school au curse. I heard we did this pretty recently already, though? ;; I think ~au~ stuff like that is really fun in general, and it at least gives some more ~material~ for my kid to work on for trying to figure all this shit out.

And though there'll be a poll already, I always think anons should be allowed for HMDs, just because some people don't feel comfortable giving crit to others regardless of need. Granted, if it gets to a ~trolling~ extent that particular thread could always get frozen.

But I think City-wide events (things that change the mechanics of the City itself in a way? Spruces it up and makes it different?) are A+? The memory thing was great too, I just couldn't think of what I in particular wanted to get rid of, so I didn't participate. But yeah. FLIPPING THE TABLE OVER type events, just to disturb any sort of normalcy or comforts characters have had by settling themselves in? Changes in setting? Zombie apocalypses? GLADIATORS? Idk.

I am so unhelpful.

Sexual favors will of course be granted as ~inspiration~.

[arachnidism.livejournal.com]

I always thought that people could come up with those on their own but I think it might be fun to do a couple of templates if people'd like? Maybe a player (maybe I'll do it >> <<) would like to?

[deadly_legacy]

I'm happy with things plot or not plot wise and world building wise.

For administrative all the comes to mind is:

I have always wanted a map so I could see where things were in basic relation to one another.

It seems like I keep noticing old entries on the taken pages. So, maybe that system should be looked at a little?

[bequiet_hescreamed]

I like plots! But do not often find the time to participate in them to the extent that I'd like.

This is probably a me problem, not a game problem.

And so this is the most fail reply ever.

/spam

[esotaria.livejournal.com]

IDK how feasible this would be for y'all or if this was tried before and failed miserably, but it'd be a lot easier for me, since I comment around more frequently than I remember to post, if comment threads could also be used to count toward activity. Like, you could make activity with either two posts or with a post and a comment thread of at least 10 comments or something. I know the mods can't check on comment threads themselves (oh lord that's a nightmare to even contemplate), but I've seen other games that do an activity check in instead -- a post goes up and each player must comment showing they've met activity (linking entries or threads of the required length).

Anyways, just a thought. ROCK ON, POLY! o9

[laszlo-jamf.livejournal.com]

Oh that map... Hi, I got this one.

So, a while back, one of our Poly alums made a City map and it was great. Some time later, I said I was going to update the map and I began collecting information on where everything was in relation to everything else and got all set to make it... And my computer died.

And, after being out of commission for more than a little while, I had a lot of things to catch up on, and the map got pushed to the back-burner. Where it stayed for far, far, far too long.

tl;dr: a map would be awesome, and I'm going to pick that thread up right where I left off. In the meantime, we do have poly_places, which can give some idea of where things are in relation to other things, but it's not the same as a really awesome map. So! Map, get!

[deadly_legacy]

+1

[deadly_legacy]

♥

[hislastandbest.livejournal.com]

PLEASE, THIS. I would've raised this suggestion myself, but I'm glad someone else took the lead. I can be a follower on this one. Especially for characters that are too sneaky or prone to simply trolling instead of sharing their thoughts and such, this is easier! It would be such a dream, and also, it would save some of us with those types of characters having to reccur to curses all the time to meet AC, when there has been more than enough commenting on others' posts to show for activity that actually exists.

twocents into that thought, poly!

[laszlo-jamf.livejournal.com]

We've really left this up to players thusfar--maybe in part because each of the 12 main apartment buildings have infinite floors and infinite rooms, which allows for a lot of messing around and a lot of really interesting architecture (eat your heart out, Inception).

But it can be nice to get an idea of how rooms fit together, especially when logging. So! If you (or someone else, like a certain someone just above this comment) might like to come up with a few sample templates for fun and/or profit for other players to use, that's excellent! I, for one, am weirdly fond of blueprints and building layouts--I'm not kidding.

[veritaphobia.livejournal.com]

This is basically all of my feelings! I tend to find games with activity requirements with at least a partial base on comment threads to be an easier sell, too. |D So, yes.

/seconds like a house on fire

[unborn-of-this.livejournal.com]

Laszlo as an Interior Decorator.

I need to see this.

[dude-imbatman.livejournal.com]

01.

The AU curses are fun. My favorite curse yet is still the Moulin Rouge Era France one. It's an amazing idea and it gives us a chance to play out entirely different settings and backgrounds. The problem with these, imo, is that plenty of time to plan is necessary, weeks even. I also think that while these are amazing, they have to be spaced out properly. Once every 2-3 months maybe? And I think they have to last several days to a week in order to be effective and give us time to really enjoy it before things go back to normal.

I'd also really love to see some more breakdown of the City as we know it. For example, I would love to see the technology in the City fail. All of it. Power, computers, devices, etc for a week or so. It'd be kind of equivalent to an AU curse. It's interesting to see what happens to people when things start crumbling like the memories.

I know there's an overall plot with the clock and the carousel. I'd love to see those move forward as well. Again with all the bigger scale plots I think pacing is important. Not too fast, not too slow and give us some time to breath between them.

That's asking for a lot I realize. You did want to be tl;dr'd at right?

02.

As someone who plays a couple of people who like hunting monsters and figuring out cases, I'd love to see some monster plots that over reach the entire City. A creature-tarium (is that even a word?) that lists out a bunch of monsters, their strengths and weaknesses, rough appearance, etc that tells us what we might find in the Underground would be amazing. That way we could do a lot on our own without worrying about over stepping bounds on what's vulnerable in the Underground and what's not.

As far as areas, new ones to explore are always fun but I think over all we've got a lot of areas in Poly that aren't used or that people just don't know about. Things that bring these areas to light would be fantastic. For example I didn't realize we had an Academy here for the longest time.

This relates a bit to plots, but items/clues that give players hints to how things work in the City would be a lot of fun. I'd also like some sort of rare, magical item(s) that might allow those without magic to enter Shadowland.

Administratively, I'm happy with Poly. The mods are great. The players are great. There's always something to do in Poly and I love that. The thing that is sometimes...tiring (for lack of a better word) is that there's little development toward things. The prisoners don't have any hope of ever getting out or any control of the City at large. There's only so much difference they can make and I understand that part of that is necessary. However it'd be nice if we could make a bit more difference and have a little more hope.

[laszlo-jamf.livejournal.com]

He has many skills. Many, many skills.

Against

[valentineluke.livejournal.com]

Too cliquey.

[protects-her.livejournal.com]

As a driveby addition, the old, un-updated City Map can be found over here (http://community.livejournal.com/poly_extra/745734.html).

Obviously, you have to take it with several grains of salt since a lot of the information on it is outdated, but as a general scheme/point of reference/starting place, I know I still refer back to it a lot myself. So I hope that's helpful, at least in the meantime!

♥

[deadly_legacy]

oooooh! I see, I see. Thank you!

Oh, hey, Euphie is near the lake! Who knew? <3

[bequiet_hescreamed]

Oooh, that would be sort of cool. Even as someone who no longer has a character who lives in an apartment.

I do kind of like the current arrangement where that stuff is assumed, though. When the MKR crew lived in one huge apartment with like THIRTEEN BEDROOMS, WTF I had a ton of fun drawing up a floorplan. Part of the point of the apartment buildings is that they shift and reorganize themselves as needed. If the mods came out with floorplans, people would feel like they had to stick to them. So, for example, someone couldn't decide that they wanted to have a studio with a huge terrace or something, idk.

On the other hand, floorplans make good suggestions. I consulted a lot of them when I was trying to put to paper the monstrosity that was the MKR apartment. My advice would just be to find RL apartments with floorplans you like and be like, "their apartment looks like THIS! :D"

[wishgrant]

I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to politely disagree with you there. Posting is just as cliquey, if the only people who ever tag the said posts are the OP's CR/friends/castmates, or they keep it filtered/locked to said CR/friends/castmates as opposed to making an open post.

[bequiet_hescreamed]

I am always up for an AU curse, yo. Especially the school one.

fjkdalfjklsaj OH MAN BUT BUT BUT I DON'T HAVE CLOW ANYMORE AAAA

/also unhelpful

YOU SAW NOTHING

[unborn-of-this.livejournal.com]

The prisoners don't have any hope of ever getting out or any control of the City at large.

Thaaaaaat is kind of one of those things that need to be balanced, because you're right: there's really no way to give the prisoners... real victory without ending the game (for them, or in general XD). But it's also not fun if characters lose motivation.

What kind of specific small victories / hope-raisers do you think might make a difference? For your characters or

[bequiet_hescreamed]

fdjkfjkla I have been wanting this for so long. I actually suggested it, but under a different banner - I was trying to argue that logs/participation in logs should count towards activity, too. Which did not pan out.

But, yeah, I definitely hear you - sometimes, especially when school's in, it's just so hard to get enough ideas together to make two coherent posts a month, but comment threads are more doable.

[bequiet_hescreamed]

Agreed, definitely. I don't even try to be cliquey, but nine times out of ten when I make a post my castmates are the only ones who reply. It's way easier for me to make the effort to tag posts from characters outside my cast than to get those people to tag mine.

[ignipotent.livejournal.com]

My two cents about this:

Two network posts a month requires a player to interact with the entire game. It would be easy, if threads were allowed to count, to just play with a small number of people, focusing on CR that is already settled and comfortable. This is only aided by the convenience of phone posts. I'm not pointing fingers at anyone because I fall into this trap too, certainly when I'm busy. I know that I could easily wrack up activity just by threading with my regular CR. However, I would be a bad roleplayer, as I would not be playing with the larger cast in a game that is distinctly panfandom. Requiring posts on the network gives new players and new characters opportunity to form CR. Removing the activity requirement for posts would definitely shrink activity on the network. (Which has already dropped quite a bit across the years.)