mod post: mini state of the game poll

[riverviewmod]

mini state of the game: a poll

Hi everyone! This is just a quick poll!

I just wanted to reach out to everyone and ask which aspects of the game players are most interested in. Considering Riverview's playerbase has gotten smaller over the past couple of months, I've been debating on lowering the gamewide cap and shifting the game focus going forward. This would mean more mod-directed plot related to the aspects of the game that players are actually interested in rather than low-maintenance broad sweeps that cover more bases. This would allow me to more directly focus my attention on the things that players would really like to dig into in the setting and allow me to cut down on detail for things that are enjoyable but not high-priority for players.

In the comments, there are a couple of comment threads with major "themes" of the game that I am interested in delving into with more depth. Please respond to the headers with your vote, or hit up the suggestions thread with other ideas or thoughts.

Thank you for any feedback, and I'm looking forward to hearing from you!

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Comments

SUGGESTIONS

[riverviewmod]

Any ideas for game themes that you would be interested in digging into, or that you feel are underused? Want to get involved with something but aren't sure how, and have a suggestion for how to fix it?

Let me know here!

For more general gamewide or mod feedback, please hit up the mod contact page.

[shoplifter]

Hello mod! First off, thank you for all the hard work! I would definitely suggest not adding a cap to the game; if anything, I'd suggest lifting the cap until you feel the game is back to a certain amount you're comfortable with, and then implementing it again if it feels the game is getting too big for you again. It leaves a better sense of having open doors for fresh faces, so to speak, and it's important to keep the game friendly and open when you need that revolving door aspect for leaving and joining players, especially in a game that is very relaxed and is at a choose-your-pace fashion.

I'm not gonna act like I have an insane amount of experience as a mod — I only modded for less than a year at one point, toward the endgame of a very old/long game — but I will say I think it's important to keep most of the core elements of your game when doing big changes to change things up. Two of the games I've been in (one modded for a short time) changed up the setting/plot/etc drastically, which is not such a bad thing when you're feeling the playerbase is stagnating! But also, it may turn off current players who enjoyed the setting and core concepts, and that could lead to a bigger dip in players/characters. You wanna reinvigorate your current roster of folks before waving that new activity around for people seeking new games.

(Not to say drastic change is what you're planning, I just figure I'd throw that out there while you're sorting through your plans for the game, since I've seen two games fail to thrive from dramatic shifts like that.)

I recommend definitely keeping what you've got going here because it's worked for over a year fairly well, but altering it more frequently to include different scenarios. I enjoy that there are monthly festivals a lot because it leaves revenues for activity from players, but I think a big reason for the drops lately is because people have been in the game long enough that they stagnate on the festivals and feel they've ran out of ideas to put into them.

I would suggest somehow implementing those test drive scenarios into the festival bulk if possible, maybe leaving enough room between the SoL festival stuff to have more issues and things to take on. I feel a lot of the really juicy bits of plot get lost in the quaranmeme posts because they get forgotten, as none of them are on the main comms. I think there's a feeling that TDMs feel detached from the main game, and people feel weird using them; I know for me, I actually got confused at one point when I saw [x] thing happened in a player's open log, but didn't see it in any of the main comms, only to learn later it was a TDM option. I try to keep up with the TDMs but between quaranmeme, riverviewlogs, and riverview networks, sometimes things slip through.

I wouldn't know exactly how to combat this, and I know it's in place to generate more TDM taggers and new blood, but it's something I wanted to bring up! I'd love to see more expansion or in-city conflict. The kidnapping plot was absolutely a blast. I know you cut down exploration logs to once every two months, iirc, but those are actually more engaging for me than a lot of the festival stuff (as they're presented now anyway).

This is so all over the place and maybe not even useful recs, and I've got myself a headcold so I don't know how logical I sound and I know I'm rambling at this point, but I mainly just wanted to throw some food for thought out there. Sorry for blabbering!

[riverviewmod]

Hi Ashlee - Thank you for your feedback. I'll just quickly address a couple of your concerns.

1. I don't intend at all to drastically change any aspect of the game. Essentially, when I created the game, I didn't anticipate writing exploration mingles, as I had thought players would use the missions on the exploration page to engage with that aspect of the game. The missions are very low-maintenance from a modding perspective, while writing an exploration mingle and curating gamewide plot is much more labor-intensive. My idea for the game going forward is to put that labor into the aspects of the game that players are more interested in and have the other theme be more low-maintenance.

2. The idea of incorporating the TDM prompts into the monthly mingles is a great one, and something I'll definitely be considering going forward. I'll give some thought into how to keep the TDM interesting but incorporate some of those aspects into the monthly mingles.

[madeupnames]

1. Oh, for sure! That suggestion is mainly in case you do have any kind of plans like that — and even then, I can't say I'm an expert at drastic changes, anyway, haha. I'm happy to hear that things won't be changed up too intensely, because I do really love the set-up you have and how open it is to people doing their own things in the city.

2. Sounds excellent! Even if it's literally just a c+p from the TDM, it'd be an amazing addition to the mingles. That way you're not piling into your workload, but there's a place for current players to see these without losing track of the TDM. :)

[jolting]

I'm going to comment here since I like both of the two "themes" you have for your other threads. What I like about this game is that it's both slice-of-life and has down time for character building, as well as exploration and expeditions. Both of them offer a good chance to gain CR and I'd hate to see one of the aspects fade away.

I would agree with the above comment that if the TDM threads are to be considered in-game canon, they need to be implemented in the monthly mingles/exploration logs a bit more. There are so many cool ideas introduced in the TDMs and I barely see them used in the game.

I would also suggest mixing up the monthly events a bit more. I know thinking of something every month can be hard, but it feels like a lot of these festivals have been too similar. When I'm thinking of displays for work I go to calendar events for the month. The Teacher's Corner has events from the moon landing to Grover's birthday listed. Maybe you can build a monthly thing from that.

You're doing great work, mod. Thank you for your dedication :)

[riverviewmod]

Hi Kacey - Thank you for your feedback. As I mentioned to Ashlee above, I like the idea of incorporating some of the TDM prompts into the monthly mingles and am going to be putting some thought into how to do that while keeping the TDM itself interesting.

With regards to the monthly mingles, my concern at the moment is less to do with a lack of ideas and more with regards to the level of modwork required to write multiple involved mingles per month and curate gamewide plot. When I created the game, I did not anticipate writing exploration mingles, as I expected players to engage with exploration via the missions on the exploration page (which are very low-maintenance from a modding perspective), and for the holidays to be setting-cohesive and the same each year to provide a jumping-off point for new players and slice-of-life plots.

At the moment, my focus is finding out which aspects of the game most players are more interested in so I can invest the most effort into those aspects and find a way to make the other themes more low-maintenance.

[jolting]

Believe me, I know how much work goes into these things. I've been a plot-runner and a mod in games before and I know it's hard. I honestly still think having more variety would help, even if it's just making a list of things that would be going on that month.

Maybe you can do a compromise, like having one month more dedicated to exploring and have another more for slice-of-life. Lots of mods make December a more relaxed month because of holidays, for example. Something to think about, anyway.

[riverviewmod]

I do like the idea of going back and forth from month to month. With the exploration mingles being bi-monthly that may be a good idea to take into consideration.

[tempredmental]

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.

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.

[riverviewmod]

Hi Sailor G - Thank you for your feedback! I've definitely heard from a few players that the holidays are getting a bit repetitive and that the TDM prompts get missed by the main game, and I completely understand. That's definitely going to be one of the main things that changes. As of now, my plan for the monthly mingles is to do a quick rundown of the holiday traditions with a link to the previous year's mingle for further information along with a new prompt for each month, and to incorporate the TDM plot with an additional prompt to pull it into the new month, just to throw some action into the midst and make the TDM missions more accessible to accepted characters without taking that action away from prospective players.

For your question about continuing network threads into action, there's really no rule about that! It's actually the main reason I chose to go with a word count for AC comment counts instead of whether the tag was a 'log' or 'network' tag - so people could be as flexible as they wanted with where they threaded things and still get credit for longer tags on the network posts.

I'm still a bit up in the air on the idea of a cap - the reason I'm interested in instating one is mostly because if the focus switches to more curated and intensive plot, I wouldn't be able to handle 175 characters, which is where the game cap is at right now. Most likely, the cap would be lowered to 125 or 150, which would leave room for expansion from its current size, but keep it from getting bigger than I can handle.

Thanks again for your feedback, I hope I've addressed your concerns!