mod announcement

[theearth]

Good afternoon, Save the Earth!

Last week, we announced that several changes would be coming to the game's OOC structure, pending mod discussion. Those discussions are now completed, and we'll be implementing several new features.

MOD CONTACT PAGES

We changed this last week without an announcement, but we'd like to publicly announce that there are now two updated Mod Contact pages: one screened and the other unscreened. This is in order to give players the amount of privacy - or public accountability - they feel they require, and allows for players to discuss plotting or concerns without revealing everything to their fellow players.

PLOT CALENDAR

The plot calendar post is now live. Mod posts and plot posts will be linked in the calendar after they are posted, and generic events like "Trouble in Locke" will be edited to something more exact after they are officially announced.

Included in the plot calendar post is a form for players wishing to add a player plot officially to the calendar! Fill that out up to 30 days before the plot is intended to occur, and it will go up on the calendar.

PLOT SUGGESTIONS POST & NPC APPS

A plot suggestions post will be going up by the end of the week, with a new concept: non-PC plots. Many players in the game have ideas for reincarnations of characters that they don't want to use a character slot for, or who would be difficult to run for long periods, especially villains or antagonists, and we'd like to offer an opportunity to run player plots involving those kinds of characters. Thus, NPC apps will be shorter applications (requiring only a history link, a shorter reincarnation history and personality sections, abilities, and a single sample) as part of a player plot subject to mod revision or approval in order to fit it into the game's plot. These plots are not intended to be playercest or echo trigger extravaganzas, benefiting the player apping the NPC and no one else, but rather ways to add to the game world and, hopefully, have some fun. Think Elsa from Frozen as a short-term Guest NPC, covering Locke in more perpetual blizzard until stopped, or Simon Skinner of Hot Fuzz terrorizing a Las Vegas neighborhood as the newly-murderous president of the neighborhood watch.

The implementation of this system will be, at first, experimental: we're doing our best to give you an easy system to work with, but please bear with us as we perfect the process.

Changes to applications and Echoes

Applications are currently being processed by the modteam to the best of our ability. We understand that consistency has been a point of concern previously, and are working on an official rubric. We didn't want to leave the current applicants hanging or close applications entirely, and are doing our best to reflect consistent standards without a rubric. The minor application form edits, re-app rules, application standards for same-franchise characters from the same player are still being drafted and discussed, and will be presented ASAP. Echo rules are also in the process of being clarified in order to make things clearer for everyone, and we'll be editing and adding to the Echo FAQ.

Everything else

We do want to note that we know things have been fairly slow on our end plot-wise, including most particularly the Las Vegas Vermini-infested animal/Vermini swarms incident sign-ups. The timing on those has been decided for May 19th through June 4th.

The characters chosen from the signups are:

1. Russel
2. Jonas
3. Lily
4. Marina
5. Claire
6. Alex (Xerxes)
7. Alex (Allelujah)
8. Kari

Obviously, this list allows for multiple characters in a single encounter. We won't dictate those groupings, so feel free to do so among yourselves! A log for these encounters will go up shortly.

The FBI has been somewhat quiet for several weeks now, and we realize that this probably sounds like radio silence, especially to players whose characters are reliant on plotting with the FBI. The FBI is working on establishing a reincarnates division, like SHIELD but involving the Numbered, with the opportunity for Numbered characters to eventually join. This is not an immediate change, but we want to be clear that the FBI is working behind the scenes, and opportunities are coming. We will be approaching players with characters most directly affected by/reliant on the FBI at this time to see what they need in order to get the best experience out of the game. (You're also welcome to approach us, instead!) We welcome and encourage anyone interested in planning for the future - and the present! - around the subject of the FBI to come to discuss it with us.

The next plot post is May 24th as we finish getting our ducks in a row this week. May has been a quiet month IC - but June is going to be much busier.