saveyourselves | A FEW ANNOUNCEMENTS, 2 QUESTIONS & MOD APPLICATIONS

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A FEW ANNOUNCEMENTS, 2 QUESTIONS & MOD APPLICATIONS

Hey, Earthlings! You have no idea how happy I am with our first week. That's what I call an explosive start.

A few announcements, mostly about clean up and clarifications across the game;

• Our FAQ has updated a little to explain a few things. If you think there are questions replied to in the comments that should be on the page proper, tell me and I'll do so. If you have other questions you think should be in there, ask them.

• I have added an expiration to reserves. I personally think it's pretty generous and might shorten it later if it proves to be too much so.

• We now have an info post guide. Take a look, there are some aspects I have made mandatory (but I think everyone in game put them in there anyway).

A couple questions for yah.

• I want to test the waters on a matter that has been brought to my attention. Specifically, challenge apps. I've never been in a game that allows them (or if they did, I never noticed/have forgotten) and I wanted to ask player opinion of them. At present I'm inclined to allow them once I have other mods to discuss challenges with and only in unreserved applications. Opinions on the issue are most appreciated. I'm not opening a poll on it as such, but I want to see some potential angles I may have missed for or against I might have missed. Thanks!

• As many of you know we have a test drive community,

saveyourbrain. It hasn't seen much use yet, but I wanted to see what people thought about having a regular date for a meme to go up to encourage its use ~~and enable people, knowing you lot~~. I'd probably do it in pairs, an IC meme setting up a scenario of some sort and an OOC meme for asking advice or getting feedback on ideas. Good idea? How often would you like to see it?

• Speaking of other mods, goddamn my respect for mods has increased at least two million percent just from setting this game up and one week. I am pooped! In a couple of minutes I'm going to open up applications for assistant mods in a separate post so that they can be screened. It'll probably involve an informal interview and everything, because I've gone mad with power. I've been really impressed with player involvement so far, so I doubt I'll be disappointed. At present I am looking for two more mods to ease the workload or a number of deputy mods and there's a good chance that later seasons will require (more) deputy mods to keep this boat afloat, because I promise it's going to go crazy.

Peace out, Earth.

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I suspect the reason most games don't use challenge apps because it's a huge shitstorm waiting to happen. At least with the reserve/first-come-first-served system, there's no possibility of bias-whinging.

I'll have to wish you good luck with the mod issue, since although I really want to contribute more, I'm loving the plot so far and I don't want to spoil myself XD; Can I suggest though: putting a day or two (not any more than that though) between OOC plotting posts and the actual initialization of plot might help ease things up a bit and make it not quite so hectic when stuff starts happening. Just a suggestion, though!

You do have a point. I am hopelessly naive and prefer to give the entire DWRP community the benefit of the doubt re: shitstorming but it's a hefty concern.

Anyway, re: plotting posts. I was actually going to mention I planned to be better about that in this post but then decided 'nah, I'm just going to do it.'

Well and some people have the capacity to weather that kind of thing and not let it affect them. AND this is still a small game with awesome people so it's probably not a concern but... I dunno, if it was me, well, I like things simple. Just my two cents. :>

Heheheheheh. Excellent. I'm super-stoked for all the plot shenanigans to come... I can tell already this game is going to be so sweet.

I don't think it would hurt to have the policy re: fictionalized historical figures in the FAQ proper, although I admittedly have a lot of historical fandoms so I may be coming at that from a slightly biased position! But it's often one of the first things I find myself looking for in game info.

Re: challenge apps, I'm...of two minds about it, really. On one hand, I've always felt like apps for games are less about finding THE BEST (so-and-so) EVER and more just "does this person meet an acceptable standard to be here," which could make it feel like kind of a kick in the teeth to be good enough, have yours in first, and then whoops someone came along the next day whose writing is a hair better, sorry and better luck next time.

But on the other hand, I used to have really weird hours because of my job that meant I was coming late to everything, so I have great sympathy for the feeling of missing out on your chance at something you really wanted because someone else happened to be around when sign-ups/reserves/etc opened during peak internet hours and you didn't. Because man, that is disappointing as hell.

Were I in a modly position, I'd be inclined not to do challenge apps just because of the potential shitstorm, as mentioned above - but if you feel willing to take on that risk, power to you! I think there are fair points in favor of both allowing them or not, so it's really something I think is fair to go either way on.

Hmm. Good idea. I'll do just that.

An angle I hadn't thought about, the weird hours. I know I keep them and I can feel the pain just thinking about it. I have always had an attitude regarding quality that is essentially identical to what you've outlined, so I can see that point too. Food for thought, thank you.

That's less of a problem when reserves/apps are open indefinitely, though, right? There's no "apps open right now, get 'em in!" rush in a game when they're always open. If we had app rounds or limited times in which you could place a reserve, this would make sense. In a game with no limits n when you can reserve and apply, it's simply not as much of an issue, I'd think.

That's my two cents :3

This is true! And something I was not thinking too hard about earlier. Games without app rounds are less common to begin with these days, so I guess I'm used to thinking about it from the angle of having them. (Though gosh I love that we don't, the wait period usually drives me up the wall once I know I definitely want to app someone!)

I love not having app rounds, too. My other games have open-applications, which is really really nice. It's just only feasible in small games, I think, or else mods get overwhelmed XD

If we moved to app rounds rather than open applications, I might support challenge apps. At the moment I just think they're unnecessary.

I think the purpose of challenge apps in the first place is mostly so that people can try for characters who have already been reserved. If you're only allowing challenges to unreserved applications, you might as well not have them at all unless you also plan on instating a minimum waiting period between submission and accepting applications, which would just be... silly. ^^;

Relatedly, a month + potential two weeks is a long time for a reserve to be viable, in my opinion, especially if you're barring other people from trying for those characters reserved. As far as I know, a week is usually the norm, with a few days to another full week as an extension by request. :|a Any longer seems kind of overkill.

My personal suggestion would be:

1) The long reserve period of a month + the option for challenge apps. People have a month to get their reserved app in, with any challenge apps for the same character being put aside for judgment until the reserver's application is submitted, the reserve is withdrawn, or the month is up. No extensions because... come on, a month should be plenty of time to piece something together. 8|

2) Short reserve periods + no challenge apps allowed. People have a week to get their reserved app in, with the ability to request an extra week if they really need it. Once the reserve is expired, there's a waiting period of a week or two before that person can reserve that character again, to prevent people just... you know, basically squatting on a character without even being in the game.

AS AN ASIDE, I HAVE ANOTHER QUESTION. Do you think that maybe it should be that people can also tag the posts they have responded to in addition to the original poster? I was thinking about this a day or two ago in relation to the activity check, in that it'd be a lot easier to find your activity if everything was tagged... and you know, easier for people who are interested in stalking a particular character if they already know which posts to look in. |D;;

I've always seen reserves used as the way to avoid challenges when I've seen them. I mostly put reserves up so I could monitor game interest before we opened and because... well, everywhere else has them. So I've no idea what their original purpose is.

Anyway, those are good options. I'll chew on them for a while, thanks.

ON THE OTHER QUESTION! Another player brought this up and I was thinking on it before answering them, but I'm currently leaning towards disallowing it. Because every game I've seen do this gets ridiculously messy. Not everyone does it, or does it only sometimes, or does it a different way to everyone else and it's difficult to police without expending endless amounts of time on. I'm open to persuasion but those're my reasons.

Reserves are basically like... putting in your intention to app a character, without having to worry about someone else swooping in before you while you're still in the process of writing your own app. Without reserves, you could have two people writing an app only for one to go find that the other already got there two hours beforehand... and now they've wasted however long writing theirs for no reason. Challenge apps/reserves are kind of the same thing, in that you can still get a shot even if you've been swooped by another person reserving. If that makes sense?

Challenge apps allowed or not, there's kind of the potential for ~drama~ either way- people who are upset that they lost a challenge (especially if the first person wasn't expecting it... or if people disagree with the mods' pick), and people who get upset if they intended to app someone but then get reserve-sniped. Frankly, there's much lower legitimacy in the latter though, because at this game so far, apps are always open and if you want to play someone you should... go ahead and reserve, yeah?

Anyway, I don't think I really put in an opinion for which option I think is better here already, but for the record I don't think challenges are really necessary here unless you intend to keep that long reserve period. So far we seem to have managed to dodge bandwagon syndrome (THANK GOODNESS), and we're kind of diverse and different in premise enough that I don't really see multiple people itching to get in the same character being too big of a problem. The one game I was in that had always-open apps had the second system I suggested and as far as I know it always worked even before the year and a half or so I spent there. Systems with challenge apps in them seem to work best for those hugeliekXBOX games that have app cycles and where it's possible people have already been working on apps and/or making plans with other players before the reserves/apps open up.

/TAKES A BREATH

I'd really, really like to be able to tag the posts my character has been in, though. I know some people don't care, but I do like to be able to go back and find things my characters are involved in without searching through archives or going through another character's tag (after enough time, you may not remember exactly which character it was who was asking about favorite soda pops, but you'd like to go find what you had yours say in response). I don't think there's any need to police it- the main reason is just to make it easier for people who want to find a certain character's threads. When we get to AC I promise it'll make things a lot easier for players to find links if they just have to go to their character's tag and pick out from there what they want to use, rather than scrolling through everyone's posts. Not everyone is anal enough to keep tracking posts full of links and stuff.

Plus you have people like me anyway who tend to check and tag-up posts even if there's no reason to as well. 8|b In fact, I can go back and do it myself if you decide it's cool- the game's new enough that it wouldn't really take too long.

Ah-hah. Examining it from that perspective really does make things a lot more clear. Everything I've seen that has actually explained why they have reserves has always used the 'negates challenges' reasoning so I was somewhat lost. More food for thought. Gathering all I needed to make an informed decision was proving to be the most difficult part of this issue, so I appreciate it.

You and Gail do make a compelling argument. My arm, she is twisted... and in the most pleasant way. I'm thinking of implementing this but with a second tag for replies as opposed to actually the post maker. Like [r]:character name or something like that. With Gail's volunteering and you mentioning you do it sometimes, would you consider undertaking this as an official little job between you two? Because if you're going to do something, we should do it right.

Haha I'm glad my five million words at least make things clearer! And I really appreciate you're willing to take a look and think on it- not just with this but with all the stuff that's come up so far in this rather oddball game, fff. :)

The main tag + reply tag sounds fine to me-

exsilium does this on their network with a ~ before the character's names so that the reply tags come after the OP's, so maybe something like that? And making sure posts are tagged is something I can definitely do too! Like I said, it's really no prob at all.

ETA: If you decide to go the route of two tags per character and then decide later that you'd prefer just the one, DW does actually allow you to merge two or more tags together! Just a thought.

Edited (omg anduin stop doing that emote it always breaks things) 2013-04-08 03:02 (UTC)

I really appreciate the appreciation. Having such a supportive playerbase has made this easier.

Beautiful. All things considered it seems a there's no reason not to at least try it out.

Anyway, I like the idea of a symbol instead and having done a little more research it turns out that there's only like 4 characters that go after letters in alphabetical order. So our options are { } | or ~. I'm fond of {character name}. Like our tag system is giving a character a loving cuddle (or has put them in jail).

LOL THAT IS THE CUTEST. Yes, good.

And, I assume you mean {canon: character name}?

Edited 2013-04-08 23:32 (UTC)

The trouble with reply tags being different than main body tags is that suddenly, your tag list is double and it gets messy hellishly fast. I find it's best to have both replies and posts have the same tag. Takes a little more scrolling to find just the stuff you posted, but it saves a lot of scrolling through the tags list.

Also, if you really want to find just your posts without mucking around with the rest, there's something you can append to the URL to see that!

(http://commname.dreamwidth.org/?poster=username, if anyone wanted that for future reference.)

I can see where you're coming from and I agree in part, but I think for now we'll go for two tags per character and as Anduin pointed out, we can merge them later if it looks gooey.

I just like having the capability to find character specific posts right away, and although I'm aware of the username option, tags are a bit cleaner.

i'm actually with bakura mundane on the preferring them to be under just one tag. it minimizes clutter and i also like only having to click ONE TAG when im searching for specific threads. its a minor issue though so i don't care if it goes one way or the other.

either way I'd also like to volunteer to help with tagging, as. I actually kind of enjoy keeping things tidy in the comm :)

I think we'll go for a two tag system for now and potentially merge the tags later.

Excellent. Another tag tidier sounds useful.

I'm not a fan of challenge apps, personally. While people might be upset at character-sniping or reserve-sniping, that's not going to poison a person to a mod or a game. You can be annoyed, but you can always pick another character, or just not play. Having your app deemed "not as good" as someone else's has much more potential for pissing people off and causing drama. Plus, it puts the onus on the mods to make that decision, and I think that's extra stressful.

I also don't think a month is too long for a reserve, I've seen games that have a month-long reserve period as standard. I think one week is too short, because some people are slow at writing apps. If there's no consensus between the two, perhaps a standard two-week period and a possible two-week extension? Best of both worlds? ^^

I'm with Lightning-mun on the idea of tags. They're easier to find things with that way, easier to follow certain important characters to your character, and it just feels odd to tag into a scene and not add my tag. I'd even happily volunteer to be tag-police to add in tags that players don't put in themselves :B I do that unofficially in my other game, already, so going through the comm every couple days and adding in tags that others miss isn't really a hardship.

ETA: Oh, right, second question. I like the idea of plotty posts regularly in the test drive comm (which I somehow didn't know existed until today, so I just joined >.> ), though I likely won't participate in many IC memes. I simply don't have the brain-power for most of them. Plotty posts, though, I've found, are a great way to get up more player plots and participation. I'd say every two weeks is an okay time frame, once a month also do-able.

Edited 2013-04-07 22:17 (UTC)

Thanks for the input on those. Very good points.

On the tags, between you and Anduin I have been convinced. Since you've volunteered, I'm more than happy to give you the job of keeping them tags flowing. If you're happy to do it, I'm happy to let you. I would prefer a slightly different tag for repliers, just to keep things as neat as possible.

Oh hay, okay then ^^ Once I get caught up in my various games, I'll go through and do some tagging, then... everyone in-game right now has a proper tag at this point, right? I can poke Lightning-mun about it on plurk to coordinate :)

Tag for repliers: I like your suggestion up above, using the [r], though I might also suggest using [re:] since that's good email parlance :: grins ::

Excellent. I think we'll in fact go for {character name} because I think it looks pretty and is then behind all other tags.

Sure thing then :) Do you need to make the tags, or should we go ahead and do 'em as we go? I'm not sure on modly vs player community permissions.

I'm gonna be nay on challenge apps. It's a lot less complicated not to have them and things have been panning out well so far.

As for the test drive community, putting up regular memes is good. We should probably put one up whenever ATP is happening. It'd be nice to have ATP/Enable Me memes within the game as well. Just need to know when they're up via the OOC community since I don't think a lot of us joined the Test Drive Community.

As little complication as I can manage is one of my goals, so that is a good reason.

So noted!

I'm for a regular meme date and HEAVILY in favor of challenge apps! Even challenges on reserves should be ok in my opinion? Seems like your trying to make this game really welcoming, so I dunno if it goes with the feel of the game. But anyway, if you want our opinions I just think first come first serve is the worst policy.

while were talking about comm things, i was wondering if we can make the font size of entries in the comm a bit bigger? text in different fonts shows up REALLY TINY for me when i scroll the comm and it is a bit difficult to read it :C

For a quick fix:

http://saveyourselves.dreamwidth.org/?style=mine

Slapping on the ?style=mine at the end of any com will apply your theme over the chosen one. There's also the button for it on the DW toolbar in the right hand corner.

thanks dude :]

I would... but this current set up was donated by a player and I don't know my arse from my elbow when it comes to this stuff. I'll look into it-

But in the mean time, as Fran has said there's the quick fix and for a more permanent solution if you go to your account settings, 'Journal Pages: Shown to You' and pick 'in my style' it'll do it automatically.

I'm enthusiastically in favour of challenge apps, personally. I think having a reserve should just mean that you're guaranteed until the duration of your reserve is up to get your app looked at; that seems sufficiently fair to me. I'd much rather give people the benefit of the doubt about being able to act like adults about someone else's app getting in over theirs than not allow something basically useful on the off chance that someone might kick up a shit – plus, you know, the majority of the time the person who got rejected won't actually be in the game, so they can sulk all they want but ultimately it's not really the game's problem unless they're the kind of colossal wanker who's willing to get all grudgey about that kind of thing ... in which case they're still better out of the game than in it, really.

(I can get on board with what you said about apping being less "who is the ABSOLUTE BEST" and "are you good enough for this ok then that'll do", that is a perfectly sensible approach – but sometimes you get a really mediocre app that technically meets your standards of good enough and you ask them for revisions and yeah okay they did it but it's still kind of meh and you find yourself wishing there was a better one you could turn it over for because there is no real concrete reason to reject it but it's just kind of unengaging and you sigh heavily as you reply with the acceptance message) (you get me)

I think a month for reserves is fairly decent, although, blaaahh sorry to bring this back to challenge apps again but if you're not allowing them then I'd say it's too long, just because of cases where someone will reserve a character and then just never bother apping, thus putting that character effectively on lockdown for no reason for an entire month.

Regular test drive memes sounds good – I'm a wee bit leery just due to past experience at games where every time a test drive meme went up everybody would immediately abandon whatever in-game threads they were doing for several days where all anybody would do was tag the test drive meme, often with characters they had no intention of apping, but given the nature of this game I wouldn't anticipate that being quite so much of a problem just because it's more effort to work a character out and you can't really just fling them in on a whim? Plus there are definite huge benefits to having the chance to test characters out in a game where you have to basically AU them!

Query, though – is

saveyourbrain going to be exclusively for test drive memes, or will it host other kinds of memes as well?

PS WHILE I'M HERE i think you are doing a great job on the mod front, the plot stuff is amazing and you've generally come across as really accommodating and helpful from what I've seen – thank you for running this game!

GOSH IM SORRY THIS IS SO LONG I GUESS I ... AM PLAYING THIS CHARACTER FOR A REASON ...

Edited 2013-04-08 01:37 (UTC)

Some more good points. Collecting as many as possible is very useful for making my decision.

Mmmhmm, the basic reason I chose to have a community for it was because of that fact that it takes a couple steps more than other games and trying out a few things beforehand is always a good choice. It was Mayfield and one other, I think, that had a community for testing that had no memes at all and I liked that idea so I stole it. But, since it seems out of fashion now test drive memes have become common a best of both is fine by me.

On your query- This. I never intended it to be used that way but it's as good a place as any for memes to go. I'm not going to penalise anyone for using it that way and I'll just let that do as it will for now.

Thanks. The appreciation is much...appreciated. I need a thesaurus.

I am going to vote no on challenge apps (well, not that is up for a vote, so rather voicing my opinion, I guess). As someone else mentioned, it really does open to the door up to way too much drama and drama is definitely something I'd rather avoid. I'd also say I'd limit reserves to two weeks if they're going to be "binding", that is, no one else can app the character until it's expired, with perhaps an allowance for a few days' worth extension.

And although you already seem to have decided, I also vote yes on tagging entries with the people who've participated in them in addition to the OP. I have a feeling this game is going to get large, eventually, so IMO it would be even messier without such a system.

I'm biased in favor of memes as I used to live on bakerstreet, so I'd love to see some up on the test drive comm. If only so I can play out some fluffy, light shenanigans I wouldn't get to do otherwise in-game.

Aye, food for thought.

GET LARGE I CAN'T- Anyway, yah.

Another nice advantage. I think it's pretty much a universal thing people want it, so now I'm just picking how often and what not.

A good thing to keep in mind is that, working off of some of Anduin's logic here, having no challenge apps but a shorter reserve period means that people won't be able to "squat" on a spot for very long. I can also foresee issues arising from judging which app is the supposed "best". In some cases the choice is obvious, but in others it isn't, and setting out guidelines for this might prove difficult and more work for mods in the long run.

I'm personally of the opinion that a month is too long and a week is a bit short for reserves; I think two weeks hits the sweet spot, and I've seen other games use the same time span to reasonable effect.

I will also second what Robyn has said on the FAQ page (~~I swear I have original thoughts most of the time~~) and strongly advocate for HMD, app-this-plz, and plotting posts on the OOC comm. Just to round us out, nice and professional like.

HMD: voluntary vs. mandatory is a whole 'nother can of worms, but definitely a topic that should be discussed at some point (I'd vote later on since we have plenty to chew on already, just something else to file away for future reference).

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A FEW ANNOUNCEMENTS, 2 QUESTIONS & MOD APPLICATIONS

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