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riverviewooc2017-06-08 05:42 pm
mod post: monthly state of the game
Hi everyone! Welcome to June's State of the Game post! There's quite a bit going on this month, so please read through all the information in this post!
activity point system upgrade
A couple of weeks ago I put up a feedback post about some upcoming changes to the Activity Point system. Looking through the responses, it looks like there was a lot of support for option 4 (1 point for all comments, keeping bonus points) and the rest of the feedback was in support of option 3 (1 point for short tags/2 points for long tags, keeping bonus points). Having read through the reasoning and thought processes of everyone who gave me feedback, I've decided to go halfway between those two options.
Going forward, point-per-comment values won't be changing, and the bonus points for special content will be remaining. Regular comments will be 1 point each, with the option of word counting to get one extra point per 150+ word comment. There is no requirement to word count unless you, as a player, prefer to put in that extra effort for the extra points. Bonus Points for special content will earn the same point lump sums they always have.
I have updated the ACTIVITY POINTS AND REWARDS PAGE with more in-depth explanations of what counts for bonus points, and have included text boxes for submission of threads and bonus content, complete with an example submission.
If anyone has any questions, feel free to post a response to the Questions thread below, or PM or Private Plurk me and I will provide a step-by-step walkthrough of how to use the new system.
riverview meme community??
Following a player suggestion, I have decided that we will be adding a meme community to Riverview! While memes will still be relatively sporadic, and posting access will be limited, I thought it would be nice to keep memes all in one easy-to-find place. As of now, only two journals will have posting access in the meme community - the mod journal and one of Rianne's journals. Rianne has generously volunteered to do regular meme posting, since memes are not my forté. If any other player has an idea for a meme, feel free to suggest it to Rianne for posting or to send a PM to the mod journal with a rundown of the meme and a request for posting access and you can post it yourself!
I will be creating the meme community on the evening of Sunday, June 11th and the first meme will be posted then! Going forward, all Test Drive Memes will also be posted on this community.
And why, you may wonder, am I not linking the new community for perusal? Because, dear players, I would like you to name the community. Please comment in the meme name suggestions thread, and other players can vote (one vote per player!) on their favorite name.
Voting will close and the name will be finalized on the afternoon of Sunday, June 11th and a very quick mod note will be posted on plurk and the OOC community so everyone can follow and keep an eye on the community in anticipation of memes!
communal apartment mingles
Just a very quick note that, due to yet another wonderful player suggestion (thank you Omi!), starting with next month's intro post, I thought I might add a mod-posted subheader where players can post top-levels for floor-specific group mingles so new players and old can meet new roommates.
Feel free to leave any feedback or suggestions about this in the comments!
misconceptions about game tone
This particular section is on a sort of subjective topic, but one that I wanted to discuss since I've seen it crop up a few times with each batch of new arrivals so far.
Historically, a lot of jamjar games have functioned on a few general assumptions - often, the characters were kidnapped from their homes and brought to the game's setting, where they are held against their will by uncooperative or even malicious NPCs. In a lot of cases, there is also a very distinct us-vs-them atmosphere, where NPCs are native to the setting and are hiding things from new arrivals to prevent them from going home.
But, when I created Riverview, I created it as a game with exploration as a plot focus, rather than a grand conspiracy that needs to be solved in order to go home. This was done in order to ensure that players can interact with heavier plot aspects on their own time and at their own pace. To that end, I decided to make the Government and NPCs completely benign so the focus could stay on exploration. This is something I have been upfront about since I posted the first ad, and the game summary states clearly that the Government has characters' best interests at heart.
Suspicion on a character's part is perfectly natural. However, while I have no problem if characters are naturally suspicious of the transparency and the way they are treated, since every character has a different personality and will react differently to this kind of situation, I wanted to expand on and clarify these points because I have seen characters base that suspicion on assumptions that are 'normal' in the sphere of jamjar games, but contradicted by Riverview's game information.
● NPCs always assume that new arrivals want to be here. Everyone who lives in Riverview Quarantine has come from somewhere else, and they are all refugees from dying worlds that the Quarantine was created to help. NPCs will generally be shocked to hear that any new arrival wants to go home, as they genuinely believe that the portal only brings people who come from dying worlds or realities, or who were about to die. Remember: The game premise and ad specifically state that the portal only selects people who feel displaced or like they do not belong in their homes. Even if that's only for a few minutes and their feelings change, they are not brought unless they felt that way.
● When NPCs are made aware that any character does not want to be here, they will immediately and genuinely apologize, and the character will be put on a list of people who wish to go home. From the moment your character says that they want to go home, the Government of Riverview will be actively working on accomplishing that. Any delay is only because of the difficulty of doing so. (I have adjusted the wording in the game profile and premise to clarify this point.)
● If new arrivals ask questions, those questions will be answered without hesitation. Anything that is available to players on the information pages can be easily looked up in the Library or will be volunteered by an NPC upon being asked. If it's not on the information pages, send me a PM and I'll tell you what your character would be told.
● Characters are not confined to the city or told they can't go outside the walls - the walls are for the protection of the people inside the city, not to imprison them. There are gates that anyone can use, and while the guards at the gates might warn a character about how dangerous the forest is, they will not stop anyone from leaving unless the character is an unescorted child. Characters are actively encouraged to explore the moon.
● As mentioned previously, every NPC who lives in Riverview Quarantine came from somewhere else - another planet or another reality - and anyone who came as a refugee is only quarantined for 5 years before moving on to a new home, so the NPC residents have generally been here less than 5 years. There is no suspicion or fear directed at new arrivals from other worlds. Nearly everyone in the city is a new arrival from another world.
● While this hasn't been posted in the game information, I have mentioned to a few players in the course of planning plots that there are freely available public records of each new arrival (including NPCs) with where they are from, whether or not they have asked to go home; there are also records of everyone that has already gone home (including dropped characters). Also, anyone who wants to walk up and examine the portal is free to do so at any time - please PM me for any information your character would find out should they choose to do so. I will add this to the game information.
If your character is naturally suspicious and wants to look into the Government and probe to make sure that there is nothing shady going on, by all means, please contact me and we can plot that out. It's completely understandable. But please be aware that the usual tropes of being 'kidnapped' and 'trapped' by clandestine unknown forces is not something that is present in Riverview and that the overall tone of the NPCs is a very earnest desire to form a community, help each other, and share.
no subject
Is the game's network also accessible to other misplaced NPCs? As in, would they too be able to access it and post there (I'm not expecting that to actually happen, so I'm curious if they could, in theory).
Another question is a list of people here. Like you said, there are freely available public records of each new arrival - can we assume that if someone asks "hey have you seen my friend" in a post, our character can just direct them to a list of names of the people currently living in the Quarantine?
And finally, does the government know about the people they've saved (or misplaced), their powers and nature? I'm giving my boy as an example: when he arrived, would they know Kaneki was a ghoul, or would he have to tell them about it? And if they do have some record on the arrivals, would these records be free-for-all or would it be kept a secret (in other words, would Kaneki's nature as a ghoul be public?).
no subject
Characters have access to what is essentially the internet in Riverview, and the in-game network is essentially a subforum or subreddit on a popular government-created forum site catering to people who came from other realities. There are other similar forums for people from other planets or with other issues. Long story short - the in-game network is a small part of the internet they have access to, and it is accessible by other NPC characters who may have come from other realities, but likely not often since most NPCs are from different parts of this reality.
The list of people in the Quarantine is definitely available to be referred to new arrivals. It would be accessed similar to how someone could access census records, online or in person. Records about who's gone home would have to be accessed at City Hall.
When new arrivals show up, there are no records of their names or who they are, and part of the orientation process is to share their identity and who and what they are. When they do bioscans they would find out any non-human physiology but if the new arrival wanted that kept confidential it would be. Characters are welcome to lie about their identity, but please let me know if they're going to do so!