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

[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. :)