I'm going to kind of sit here because I like having both options, but I can see how it might be difficult to manage two sides like that.
I think, maybe reduce the amount of effort on the holiday stuff, because those are going to be the same each time that month comes up, but focus more on the actual events and exploration aspects of the game. The holidays are a nice backdrop, but don't need a huge amount of attention, I'd think. However, having it there as maybe an OOC info post instead of a full-size mingle. This will give the non-adventuring characters something to do, or give the adventuring types a chance for down-time and slice-of-life CR if they want it. But, I've been through an entire calendar cycle, and repeating the events for the holidays again, while fun for some of the events, is a little stagnant for others. So, having a big giant focus on it feels dry, and difficult to come up with new ideas for.
However, expanding the map is kind of part of the main premise, right? And rediscovering the history behind the fallen city, so I feel like that would be something to create a bigger focus on. Just a thought. I'm not sure how much of that is already planned out and how much is player influenced, but it's a nice thing to have people find this stuff.
As for the cap, at this point, because we're worried about waning membership in the game, maybe removing altogether temporarily, and seeing what happens? If it gets too big, we can always reinstate it just above the membership number, and then let it calm back down again. Or, if we wanted to limit things, I know Drift Fleet uses an invite system. It's a fairly loose one, but you have to know someone in the game in order to join.
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I think, maybe reduce the amount of effort on the holiday stuff, because those are going to be the same each time that month comes up, but focus more on the actual events and exploration aspects of the game. The holidays are a nice backdrop, but don't need a huge amount of attention, I'd think. However, having it there as maybe an OOC info post instead of a full-size mingle. This will give the non-adventuring characters something to do, or give the adventuring types a chance for down-time and slice-of-life CR if they want it. But, I've been through an entire calendar cycle, and repeating the events for the holidays again, while fun for some of the events, is a little stagnant for others. So, having a big giant focus on it feels dry, and difficult to come up with new ideas for.
However, expanding the map is kind of part of the main premise, right? And rediscovering the history behind the fallen city, so I feel like that would be something to create a bigger focus on. Just a thought. I'm not sure how much of that is already planned out and how much is player influenced, but it's a nice thing to have people find this stuff.
I personally keep forgetting about the TDM and the missions and prompts posted there. So, perhaps making the TDM part of the main comm might be nice. It's hard to keep track of a lot of comms for a lot of people, and I don't know a lot of games that still separate their action comm from their network comm anymore other than this one and Recollé (but I could just be out of the loop here). I like having stuff all in one place and easy to find, though. Also, because a lot of network posts turn into action posts, I've wondered several times if I should just continue the thread there or create a action post for the continuation... though, I'm likely just overthinking that! LOL
As for the cap, at this point, because we're worried about waning membership in the game, maybe removing altogether temporarily, and seeing what happens? If it gets too big, we can always reinstate it just above the membership number, and then let it calm back down again. Or, if we wanted to limit things, I know Drift Fleet uses an invite system. It's a fairly loose one, but you have to know someone in the game in order to join.