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discedo_ooc2012-01-21 07:21 pm
Game Survey
We have a survey about the game we'd really appreciate it if you guys would participate in. Same as usual, please only vote with one journal if you have multiple journals in the game and you do not need to vote in all sections. If you have no opinion on a section feel free to skip it entirely.
discedo is a very different game now than what it was when it started or even last June. There has been a lot of in-game development, changes in the playerbase, broadening of themes the game was originally meant to encompass and we've been making continuous changes since the end of last August to bring activity back to the game. Now that we feel we have the mod side of the game in order we would like to figure out what direction to take the game in. So, what better way than to get an idea from the playerbase what you like and dislike in the game?We'd also like to clear up a few longstanding game mechanic issues which will be explained when you hit those questions in the survey. To everyone who participates, thank you for taking the time to fill this out for us! We'd also like to encourage everyone to use this post to discuss the issues in this survey, both with us and with your fellow players. For this week we will enable anonymous and turn off IP logging to allow anonymous for this post. Please don't abuse it.
Open to: Access List, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 26
Discedo is...
my main game
8 (30.8%)
one of my games and receives an equal share of my attention
13 (50.0%)
a side game I play in outside of my main game, low on my priority list
5 (19.2%)
The things that motivate me to play in the game are...
my CR
26 (100.0%)
player plots
10 (38.5%)
game events
15 (57.7%)
finding out the story behind game plot
10 (38.5%)
exploring
9 (34.6%)
the survival theme
11 (42.3%)
the slice-of-life setting between plots
18 (69.2%)
If I had to choose one theme for the game to focus on I would prefer:
survival
9 (34.6%)
slice-of-life
7 (26.9%)
horror
5 (19.2%)
exploration
5 (19.2%)
I like game events best when...
they offer strange effects for my character to react to (turning into monsters plot, seven sins plot)
20 (80.0%)
they give roles or tasks for my character to fulfill (dementor plot, pet plot)
10 (40.0%)
they leave a lasting mark on the game afterwards (scientist arrival plot left words written on the walls of Spero)
12 (48.0%)
Other reason I will detail in a comment below
0 (0.0%)
I don't find the game events interesting
0 (0.0%)
How would you feel if Discedo switched to a regulated "experiment day" set-up? This would mean either at the start of the month we would put up a calendar with a list of effects/events that would be in effect on various days (basically like [http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/3388/calendarexamplei.png] but with more of a horror/survival theme) OR we would have the 2nd and 4th weeks of every month be for lowkey plots with the occasional larger overarching game plot replacing one of those.
I like things as they are now
6 (25.0%)
I prefer the calendar set-up
8 (33.3%)
I prefer the alternating weeks set-up
9 (37.5%)
Other preference I will detail in a comment below
1 (4.2%)
How do you feel about the survival theme in the game?
I wish it was enforced more
6 (24.0%)
I wish more was done with it plot/setting-wise
15 (60.0%)
I like things as they are now
9 (36.0%)
I never use it and wish you'd get rid of it
2 (8.0%)
Other preference I will detail in a comment below
1 (4.0%)
Currently we're looking to streamline the chip system so characters aren't required to snag a Doctor character to regain their powers. We have two ideas at the moment. The first one is moving the chip location and putting it in a new location that any character would be able to remove it from if they knew the location without any serious repercussions (ex. beneath the skin of the left forearm). Our other idea is replacing the chip with a power-nerfing bracelet instead. It would be impossible to remove without entering a code into a touchscreen display it would have. Once the code was known in-game characters would be able to pass it around amongst eachother to remove their bracelet with no need for assistance from another character.
I like the current Doctor required set-up
12 (46.2%)
I'd like the chip moved to a location all characters could remove it from
4 (15.4%)
I like the bracelet with the passcode idea
10 (38.5%)
I have another idea I will detail in a comment below
0 (0.0%)
How do you feel about the idea of Discedo having an endgame either in December of this year, some time early 2013 or December of 2013? PLEASE REALIZE THIS IS JUST TO GET A GAUGE OF THE PLAYERBASE'S GENERAL OPINION ON THIS MATTER AND WE WILL MAKE NO DECISION TO HAVE AN ENDGAME WITHOUT A FORMAL DISCUSSION AND POLL AMONGST THE GAME.
I'd like the game to keep going until it peters out no endgame please
7 (28.0%)
I feel the game is going strong enough we shouldn't be thinking of an endgame at this time
11 (44.0%)
I wouldn't mind December 2013
2 (8.0%)
I wouldn't mind some time between January to March of 2013
2 (8.0%)
I wouldn't mind December of this year
3 (12.0%)
The 7 hour train ride between Spero and Discedo is a large in-game hassle we're looking to overcome. Would you prefer...
It was left for players to have their characters fix (by working to speed up the train, create an alternate form of transport, etc)
12 (48.0%)
The 7 hour ride is fine as is don't do anything with it
8 (32.0%)
Mods ran a plot to lower the travel time (unlike the scientist arrival plot characters would not have to work on anything for this plot, the issue would be resolved by outside forces)
5 (20.0%)
How do you feel about the monsters in the game?
I'd like ones that were more suited to the slice-of-life aspect of the game (more farm animals, silly or easy to defeat monsters)
12 (48.0%)
I'd like more horror monsters
9 (36.0%)
I'd like tougher monsters these are too easy for my character
5 (20.0%)
I feel the current roster is fine the way it is
8 (32.0%)
I'd like monsters to continue being added and removed from the game once a month
14 (56.0%)
I'd like more reaction events with the monsters (ex. the current fighting in Dissimulo between the thestrals and the cybernetic horses)
12 (48.0%)
I never use the monsters and wish you'd get rid of them
1 (4.0%)
no subject
If I had to choose one theme for the game to focus on I would prefer:
I picked survival and I see that some others did too - my favorite time in Discedo was when it had a healthy mix of genres, and was not focused on just the horror/depressing stuff. It had horror, but it also had silliness, sadness, slice-of-life stuff, etc. So I guess I feel like out of the choices given, I would say focus on survival - sometimes it's bad and sometimes it's good, but in the end it's just about the characters trying to make it through.
I like game events best when.../How do you feel about the survival theme in the game?
Like I said above, I think the survival aspect is the best focus for the game (leaving room for both happy and awful things to happen), but that said I....I'm worried that it will include the prohibiting of any progress the characters try to make. This was one of the big problems we had several months ago - that is, that I felt that nothing my character could do would change anything, so why should I even put effort into it - and I think it's an easy trap to fall into for these kinds of games, since you want to keep the difficulty of living in-game. I think this has improved lately, so I'm not saying you guys are doing it wrong, but I also think it's important to keep in mind, haha.
How would you feel if Discedo switched to a regulated "experiment day" set-up? This would mean either at the start of the month we would put up a calendar with a list of effects/events that would be in effect on various days (basically like [http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/3388/calendarexamplei.png] but with more of a horror/survival theme) OR we would have the 2nd and 4th weeks of every month be for lowkey plots with the occasional larger overarching game plot replacing one of those.
I chose "other" because I am unsure of my thoughts on this. (ponder) I guess I feel like it depends on the effects. Also, if it were the calendar set-up, does that mean that effects must last all the way through the designated period, or that they can start and end at any time within that period?
Currently we're looking to streamline the chip system so characters aren't required to snag a Doctor character to regain their powers. We have two ideas at the moment. The first one is moving the chip location and putting it in a new location that any character would be able to remove it from if they knew the location without any serious repercussions (ex. beneath the skin of the left forearm). Our other idea is replacing the chip with a power-nerfing bracelet instead. It would be impossible to remove without entering a code into a touchscreen display it would have. Once the code was known in-game characters would be able to pass it around amongst eachother to remove their bracelet with no need for assistance from another character.
I know/agree that it can be difficult to get ahold of a doctor character sometimes, but frankly I think it's the best way to do things. A bracelet would be way too easy to deactivate, and that's one of the parts of the game I would like to see kept somewhat difficult. Maybe you could also have an NPC who would remove the chip for special (somewhat difficult) favors?
How do you feel about the monsters in the game?
MONSTARS :E
no subject
We've been pretty lenient on the survival aspect aside from the usual "it will take you so much time to build a giant robot/learn how to re-arrange peoples intestines into funny shapes/clear this building of monsters and fix it up/etc". We are definitely not looking to tear down any work characters do which I remember being a large complaint from before.
Mostly I've been hesitant to run plots involving dearths of food or bad weather or no one can use the water supply for a week because some jackass tossed a barrel of glitter in it and so on since in my time in the game I haven't seen anyone do much with those kinds of plots. (Though I will not lie I am mostly thinking of the blizzard from the beginning of 2010 here which I think everyone felt ran on too long). Jenna does have some ideas though, which I haven't gotten from her yet because I wanted to run this first, but if everyone's interested in having more survival plots we'll do our best to be creative beyond having the weather wreck everyone's legos and monsters out to eat everyone because it's winter.
Calendar Schedule
We'd basically have it where there would be four to five events every month. Two to three of them would be small ones like for X marked days water in Discedo and Dissimulo will be too muddy to drink and if players wanted characters could have the option of going to investigate in the sewers for the cause and for O marked days characters find mysterious teddy bears somehow always watching them and at 6pm for every indicated day they make one cuddly attempt on your character's life before returning to being inanimate bears. The first one would be something that applied to everyone, the second one would be something you could opt out of, start or end whenever you wanted.
And then for one specified week we'd have a larger scale plot of some sort.
Chips
We have been thinking if characters asked the Scientists to deactivate their chip for them the Scientists might give them a task to do before doing so (or well I think we discussed it, this came up more a few months back in September or something). One of the Scientists is out to help the characters in the game so this isn't actually too far-fetched. It'd be strange to have a sort of formal announcement of that IC though and honestly the characters don't really ask the Scientists much besides to bring back characters or send them home. If players would like to opt-in for a Scientist request with a task though we could always do that and add information about it being an option on the chip removal page.
no subject
Haha the glitter in the water would be funny XD I think some survival plots, as long as they were more creative than just weather or monsters, would be cool (not that weather and monsters aren't cool but after a while it gets kinda boring). Like I said earlier, I think a good mix of serious and funny plots will work. The one silly plot that sticks in my head is this one - I don't think you were there for this so I will describe it to you: one time we had a Yzma (from The Emperor's New Groove) and she put potions in the water supply so that everyone got animal parts for like a week. It was just plain silliness, and it let the characters facepalm at something other than stuff being wrecked or eaten and stuff. :D
Calendar
I see....kind of....(might also be a little slow today XD) Those sound good, although four or five seems like a lot for Disc's current size? But I am not sure. I like the optional ones, although of course I would like mandatory ones too so Meryl can't just lay around and be super lucky, haha.
Chips
Getting it out ICly would be a bit of a problem, but I do think it'd be better than the bracelet idea or than making it super-easy to take the chips out. One of my other games actually has a similar system where the characters can do tasks for an NPC in exchange for things they'd like/need. :D
no subject
We are going to be broadening the plots to not always be CRAP IT SUCKS TO LIVE HERE, though with the horror/survival theme this is a bit hard. The majority of the funny and happy plots in the past were actually player plots, like Yzma's plot (I actually came in just as she was finishing that up). Which, we frankly haven't had large scale player plots for a while. There have been some attempts, like Naruto and Sakura went around as Santa Claus last month, a few characters have started building projects, I usually try my hand at some sort of exploration team when I have the time, but there just isn't much participation.
We can broaden events to have silly/happy plots outside of holidays in which case we'd probably have things like everyone has to sing week or everyone's stuck in someone else's outfit for the next three days. At that point though we most likely wouldn't be a horror game though. Which is fine, that's a large part of what this survey is about, seeing if we need to reclassify just genre this game is.
Calendar
Honestly it'd depend on what the events were for the month. Like if one were just "everyone feels paranoid on these days" we'd probably have an extra effect day in to give everyone something to feel paranoid about.
Chips
Characters can actually ask Scientists for things. Dean just got his music library from Jacqueline and Kain has made offers in the past to people to give them things if they'll do something for her, but usually the reply is that characters deserve it as a basic right so no they won't be doing anything for her. We do still have the Scientist request system in place and well, honestly when the Scientists were more unresponsive and likely to say no there were frankly more requests than there have been with the current set. I don't want to introduce an entirely new set of NPCs for a function our current ones actually fulfill. It'd most likely be easier for characters to trust non-Scientist NPCs I know, but the Scientists are there to help in their own fashion, limiting them to only antagonization sort of gets rid of the point of having more than one or having them interact with the players much outside of plots.
And yeah, there's only so much we can do. I'm not certain how it looks from the outside, but we've added a lot of features that we run and upkeep on the modside of things that simply weren't in the game before or were never actually upkept despite being in the game. Without more help we're reaching the ceiling a bit of our current capacity. Which is also part of what this is about because if we scale back plots to being a more "curse day" like quality (right now we try to make sure there's actually reasons and things beyond just the Scientists wanted to lol at everyone for the day which is why there's been a lot of Scientist PoVs) it'd definitely make plot preparation easier on us and we've also felt that's sort of been the trend in the game more anyways.
no subject
A few years back when I had Ace in the game, even if the Blizzard ran pretty long for most, I got SO MUCH awesome story with it. Ace hadn't had his chip out yet and ran around giving people food he stole from another character (Who'd earlier gloated about having so much food and laughed at the others for starving) And he ended up getting hypothermia and had to be saved.
A-anyway that's just an example, not saying all survival plots should be extreme life or death but we often forget about supplies (OGOD WE RAN OUT OF TOILET PAPER!!111), water, ELECTRICITY, HEAT, PLUMBING??(do we even have that?) things I think a lot of players take for granted. And IDK if they're taken away temporarily for something plot wise(meaning they could fix it or get it back) then it would raise more awareness maybe? Or at least it would be an element still in game. (Among other survival stuffs)
Dean is a lot more likely to whine about human comforts (cause even places they squatted in had MOST things or they could at least GET things they needed anywhere (food, toilet paper, toothpaste, etc.) So just using my guy as an example it could easily get him active.
On that note, for what you said about asking scientists for a chip removal. I would be happy to volunteer Dean to set that idea in motion if we go with it? He's already successfully asked, had contact and received something from the scientists. I could easily see him speaking out to talk to them again and he could potentially ask about the chip and stuff!!
That is... if it's something you guys really want to do? DOESN'T HAVE TO BE ME of course, but it'd be fitting if no one else would like to step up and help with the idea? That way the Scientists don't have to publicly announce that they'll help, since you said that would be too far-fetched. If Dean talked to them about it and had his deactivated (though I'm not sure how he'd TEST that theory, maybe with the word fish??) he'd definitely spread the word.
As far as the plot calendar thing, I LIKE the idea of having all those little things and a big plot too, but I think doing it EVERY MONTH, let alone FIVE every month, is a bit much? I wonder if there'd be a way to spread it out more maybe? Unless that's what you meant by splitting it up every second and fourth week?
All in all I like the little silly things too. Like the Mistletoe and almost MEME kind of shenanigans happening to players. Again, back to the well roundedness of HORROR, SURVIVAL and FLUFF/CR/AMUSEMENT. Also, back to back horror, survival, dark and depressing plots get to be a bit much after a while. So backing them with something fluffy, funny or fun is always a good buffer for heavy, harder plot.
Endgame...
I'm not against it? I'm not supporting it either? I mean you guys are making some great progress so unless you WANT an endgame then I'd say keep truckin! Otherwise, if an endgame is something you guys want to do then I'm for whatever.
no subject
And well we list supplies on the settings page and the heat/electricity/etc is listed for every residential building on the rooming list. So that's half of what we can do right there. I know survival can lead to really fun things, but we can't make anyone play with it. Which same goes for fixing things. There just doesn't seem to be much interest in it. We've had two subway fix plots and Washu initiated a hydroelectric plant fix plot and there really just did not seem to be any interest.
I don't want to break the plumbing if no one wants to fix it for example. I know a year and a half ago it was different with the IC construction crew always popping back up somehow, but that's a year and a half ago.
Calendar-wise it'd honestly depend on what kind of events we had. If we had one event be ants are getting into everything and another insomnia would you not want any other events for the month? The alternating weeks thing is an alternate set-up we could also do meaning there would be a designated two plots a month and they would take place on those designated two weeks.
Far as game genre goes it was actually requested in the past that crack events be kept to holidays. So... I don't mind changing the game genre though so it's not horror/survival the majority of the time, though I wouldn't want to do it if the majority of the game apped in for horror obviously. That doesn't seem to be the case though so we'll probably be changing in February.
Endgame question was more because I know there are players in the game who want to stick with it till the end, but are frankly waiting for it to finally end. Also we don't seem to have any modding interest. I'm stepping down in March and Ash, Maresuke and Jenna all have lives. Currently I plan to cut down on some things to make it easier, but without some others stepping up all we can do is keep lessening what goes on in the game to make sure what the mod team does do is delivered in a timely manner.
FINALLY for the chip question I believe I came up with a way to do Molly's idea without the extra NPC, thank you though ♥
Sometimes my brain is slow I'm sorry
cough which is why we kind of cheated you guys this past time cause I had RL work that day my apologies.what is that icon
no subject
My home and always will be.
If I had to choose one theme for the game to focus on I would prefer:
I chose Slice-of-life but I'm also torn with that and Survival. I feel like Slice-of-life and survival could be brought together better and share a happy marriage. The kind with a white picket fence and a man eating plan, outside in the garden, among the green lawn. Honestly, I'm going to sit down and think more on this when it's not so early in the morning. I just feel a balance of the two would be realistic.
I like game events best when...
I chose "they offer strange effects for my character to react to" and "they leave a lasting mark on the game afterwards"
Though, I feel that leaving a lasting mark doesn't have to be distructive, since i know that was something in the past that kept happening and brought the game down. And the strange effects are always fun to work against since it puts a character in a random situation that wouldn't be available other places/canons. (Truth and Lie events haven't gotten old with me yet)
How would you feel if Discedo switched to a regulated "experiment day" set-up?...
This is something I've been meaning to bring up... and with the recent move and LJ crap, it's not been easy. However, I think every other week would be good, or even every three weeks. This is only because it's kind of hard to plan things for my characters. Even with the privlige of knowing upcoming plot dates, I still have difficulty planning times for things to happen.
It could just be me, but I feel like I'm not able to accomplish much ICly because of close plot timing. (Like having Cube set up meeting, Tatsumi killing people, ect.) As soon as my character recover and shake off what they've just gone through, I feel I don't have ample amount of time to plan anything before another plot begins.
All in all, I think either one low-key/optional plot per month and one other plot would be good.... or two lowkey/option plots a month and maybe the next month there be a larger-scale plot or one to do with backstory be best.
Currently we're looking to streamline the chip system...
This could be because I play a "doctor" character, but I like the way things are. I would like to see the chip location removed and- HEY! DON'T TOSS TOMATOS AT ME!! I'm just saying that it seems odd the location hasn't changed in a while. (ICly speaking) I know what kind of problems that would bring but I also believe perhaps some NPC assistance/plotting/input could make it for something interesting... maybe?
How do you feel about the idea of Discedo having an endgame...
SCREAM!!!!!!!
How do you feel about the monsters in the game?
I wuv them with all my heart.... somewhere.
I do wuv the changing out of monsters every month. It really keeps my interest in the monsters and also is refreshing in it's own way. I do feel that stronger monsters would be nice outside of plots. (Though, I really like to get monsters more involved somehow) I remember the days when most people would post about being in trouble on the streets because of monsters as their intro posts...
/snaps out of old-man mode
Uhm... yeah.
"That's all I've got to say about that."
All this +1!