discedo_ooc | (no subject)

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!mod: announcements

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Alright, kids. Just a couple of things today. Oh goodie!

THE CHIP LOCATIONS HAVE BEEN CHANGED. I'm about to process the applications, so all of the people that come in after this post are going to have them in the new locations. We are NOT going to disclose any of the new locations, either - they will be revealed through plotting. Don't ask the mods if you can find any of them, either; we'll deny you! Additionally, if ANY character dies after this post, they'll have them in the new locations too. Again, we're not revealing a thing. Sekrits are fun, right?

And the second thing. THE APPLICATIONS HAVE BEEN SLIGHTLY REVAMPED. And by "slightly", I mean one thing. The first person sentence minimum has been upped from SIX to TEN. Hopefully, this should eliminate the constant need we're finding to ask for additional samples. That's all we're going to change for now, but we'll keep you posted if there's anything more.

Thanks, guys ♥

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\o/

I thought that said the applications had been vamped, and I was very excited.

We're going to steal your soul, not your blood. 8D

Not our BRAAAAINS?

/done.

.. well, those too. 8D

Also randomly, the ad for your comment in gmail was: Pass the Praxis - www.praxis-success.com - Download & pass the Praxis Pass the Praxis guaranteed

which is ironic all considered. /done.

She is a test you cannot fail! Unless you're Torn and then you fail ALL THE TIME.

... hilarious mental images, get. XDDD

I think that test really IS a vampire. It ate up two months of my life. D8

Don't you think this whole chip thing is getting to be a bit much? I mean, I can understand wanting to have people struggle without their powers. It provides room for interesting character development. But now you're taking it to such extremes that it seems to be beyond the point of character development. And while that can be cool, it can also take away from the RP too. We've got all sorts of monsters running around, many of whom need more than a few bullets to kill, and there's plots going on where you're pretty much dead unless you DO have powers or serious physical training of some sort. And on top of that, there are some situations where not having powers would either actually benefit someone or cause way too many problems to make it worth apping that character.

I guess what I'm saying is that maybe there's another way to go about it? I can see the appeal in making it difficult to get powers back, but making it impossible is just annoying.

Actually, it's not impossible - at the moment, it's far too easy. There are too many characters that have means of easily finding it within their own bodies, even if they resort to ripping themselves apart to find it. It's not as though we're going to withhold the information for four months, like we did at the beginning of the game. But we feel that this is the only way to make things harder.

Seriously, things in Discedo? Apart from the recent murders and killings and things? Are way too easy. And it's just a matter of someone posting to say, "hey I want my chip out now! >|" and people will fall over themselves to help.

We changed the chip locations before, and it was handled well enough. We aren't going to go changing them every five minutes or anything like that, but we feel it's our fault as mods that the locations were so easily given out in the first place, and thus... well, pretty much everyone's getting theirs out after the two week waiting period.

If you have any suggestions as to how we can go about it, you're more than welcome to suggest them.

The problem is that I don't really know what would FIX it for good. |D I-I mean there are some ideas, but they all create other problems that would have to be addressed, and I doubt that you'd want to get rid of one problem just to have another. Though if you still want to hear them, I'd be willing to share.

If the players are so unhappy with this, then we'd like to hear feedback on it.

It's not "far too easy" to get a chip out right now because you hardly accept any requests once the new location is finally figured out.

The scientist-characters like Weaver and Stein put a lot of time and development into the process of discovering the new location, and then before they even made it fully public, OH HAY REMOVAL REQUESTS ARE CLOSED, which kind of discourages realistically slow legitimate research processes.

Additionally, the status of these OOC requests sometimes screws things up IC. Example: As soon as he had seen a removal from the underarm location performed, Stein would have removed Spirit's immediately, as they fight together as partners in canon. Spirit hasn't died or anything, so his chip is in the same location and Stein is fully capable of removing it, but LOL OOC REQUESTS NOT BEING ACCEPTED so he can't, which is forcing him to act out of character and is just strange and not easily explained.

It's also just frustrating when at this point in the game, many of the characters who've been here longer have their abilities back -- which is well and good, they should, of course, be the first to have regained them -- but newer ones who have been here for a few months still can't, thereby making them relatively useless compared to established characters in a lot of recent plots and making it hard for them to ever get involved in the game in the first place.

Finally, responding to a player's feedback with "If the players are so unhappy with this, then we'd like to hear feedback on it" is kind of unhelpful and not especially diplomatic. I mean... what do you think you were responding to? I understand that running a large game is a lot of stress and that it can be really difficult to keep up with the various issues everyone has, but I feel that the response to concerns here could be handled better as of late.

Edited 2008-08-18 04:49 (UTC)

alright, i don't mean to steal anyone's thunder, but i'll confirm that everything said regarding stein--one of my own characters--in this comment is one-hundred percent true, and things i have said myself. i'll use 'you' as a catchall term for whatever moderators involved in this decision. that said, you are stepping on a lot of toes by pulling this kind of stunt. i understand the change in locations, but to process removal requests so slowly, or deny or close them outright, seriously hampers in-character actions.

i don't mean to act like outsmarting the scientists is a god-given right, like finding and removing the chips isn't meant to be a serious task, but i received confirmation for stein's chip removal three days ago. the removal was scheduled to occur ICly on august the first, if i'm remembering correctly. the doctor removing his chip was given permission to find it the same day.

that leaves two weeks of wondering. i assumed after not receiving a response in two or three days that it didn't require confirmation, and rolled with it in-character regardless.

in addition:
>And it's just a matter of someone posting to say, "hey I want my chip out now! >|" and people will fall over themselves to help.
do you have examples of this? because i don't.

I'm gonna third the awkwardness involving the lengthy waiting period ,and being not allowed to remove a chip OOCly when everything could be ICly set up and ready to go. Something like that is really hard to explain in-game, and like the others have mentioned before me, makes it even more difficult and strange when characters for are close to each other, whether it's from their series' canon, or as a result of their interactions in Discedo.

As far the actual change in location is concerned, can't say I'm all that pleased about it either. I figured it would happen, yeah. But... not nearly this early. The 2nd location has just recently been found and already that information will turn obsolete? Kind of discouraging to find out.

All I can really suggest at the moment, and this is only how I feel, is to either: make improvements on whole "Chip Requests" deal (which is flawed to begin with), toss it out entirely, or...

Go back to how things used to be, and permanently take away all of superpowers.

fourthing here.

i, personally, don't have any characters that need their chips removed as of now, but i do have a character who is fully able to remove chips from others (VAVA) and if there was any reason why he would desire to remove someone else's chip (either from one of his few friends or as a favor in exchange for something he wants) there would be nothing to stop him from doing it. if i had placed in a request, however, or, even going by this new set up? how could i properly explain VAVA taking his time to remove the chip? or not removing it at all? ICly, he wouldn't take his time, nor would he let anything stop him, so what do i do then?

as for other suggestions to fix the problem, perhaps eliminate the need for a mod request and instead have a catch-all post for people to reply to once their doctor character has ICly discovered the location of a chip? players could post their proof to this post as a documentation of sorts, labeling it by which location they have discovered and when they discovered it. for example, VAVA discovered the chip location in the back of the neck from Bit a while ago ( months ago, to be exact ). this could be placed on the post in a format like this:

CHIP LOCATION DISCOVERED: neck, arm, stomach, whatever the fuck
TIME DISCOVERED: time of discovery would go here, probably month/day/year
PROOF LINK: link here, etc

and this way, people could get their chips removed in a more natural, IC-friendly way and simultaneously remove the waiting period and potentially jeopardize their character's IC-ness. I don't see how this would make more work for the mods, either, considering that in chip requests, you ask for a proof link, anyway, so. it's the same thing, without the wait and without making people lose their chips too quickly, but not slow enough to make a character act OOCly.

as for jon's suggestion for no more powers at all, if you do decide to do something to that effect, then it'd probably be fair to dumb down some of the more common monsters, just to balance it out a bit more.

Edited 2008-08-19 02:58 (UTC)

I pretty much covered everything else in the other comments, so I'm not repeating it here, but I think that the idea of the catch-all post would be a good idea. As I mentioned before, we're revamping how we go about it, so we'll see what we can do to make it more efficient.

Check my responses to the others regarding the other points.

I... don't think we've ever denied a chip removal request, actually, unless a character was jumping the gun a little in terms of finding a new location - and we've always come up with an alternative with them so that it's fair. Like I explained to the other person, we have definitely been slow on processing the requests, and that's simply due to RL issues/hiatuses/losing a mod, etc. We're trying our hardest to keep up to speed with everything, but like I mentioned before, players who are wondering about the status of their requests can always ask a moderator.

I've pretty much been on hiatus all month, so I personally haven't been able to do much on the mod front. We're going to revamp the removal application process so that it's more efficient, and hopefully cuts down on the misunderstandings and delays like this. I apologise for that.

As for examples of that, I can give some with my old character, Derek Stiles, who was a chip removal surgeon. I can go searching for particular examples if you'd like, but I know that I had him respond a number of times to posts asking for assistance with removal in the past, and that was that. No questions asked.

As a last minute thought, like it says on the removal request page, people have to get their doctor's permission too before we can process the request. Both players must comment before we can do anything, and sometimes, that is why it takes so long. Not in all cases, but some.

and i haven't witnessed a denial, either--figured i'd throw it in there due to the possibility of it having happened before i joined up. i apologize that you guys are having a hard time, but to be honest, it seems like you need to pick up a new mod in the former one's place, or consider accepting helpers for things like lists, etc., so you all don't have quite so much to get swamped by.

i really do appreciate the apology, and apologize myself if i flew off the handle at all.

.. w- wait, if that's something you've done yourself, can you really fault other players for it? aside from that, the current handful of surgeons capable of removing the chip--excluding, of course, walter and bad co.--have been keeping the information under wraps, and carefully discussing candidates for removal.

i know you're headed off on hiatus, so thank you very much for taking the time to respond to all of this.

It's everyone's fault including my own, not just other players. XD I simply used myself as an example, because back when I had Derek... oh, months ago now, I didn't think twice that it was too easy for people to get them removed. I just wanted to be helpful at that point. Also, back then, it got leaked via one character announcing it to everyone - so then it did become way too easy for others to get theirs taken out, and doctors no longer had control over it. I do believe that doctors should be able to have control - personally, I would prefer that - but it's not something we can really dictate.

And yeah, the moderator issue has been raised, and we've been carefully considering what to do about it.

You don't need to apologise! I'm just grateful that people are coming forward about this, instead of just being "k we'll say nothing". We appreciate all the feedback that we receive.

Removal requests were going to be reopened as soon as the new locations were figured out, which we've done, so I'm going to open them again after replying to these. It isn't as though it was ever going to be a long term thing.

We were never intending on having them closed long term, so the fact that they're closed isn't even an issue. It was simply for the time being. And what's stopping them from making it public, even if they were closed? Even though we closed them, people were more than welcome to submit their requests. There haven't been any in the past few days.

Yes, it's true that we have been a little slow with requests as of late, but that's simply due to the same reasons everyone's been hiatusing for. There was Otakon, and I myself spent the past couple of weeks preparing for and being with my GF. But it isn't intentional, and now that we're all back, we're planning on making them a lot faster. Additionally, if people are getting impatient, they can always contact a moderator. That's what their personal emails and AIM is for! We're human; sometimes, we just plain forget. And other people don't mind contacting us and asking us about the status of their removal requests. It's not like we're gonna bite people's heads off for the simplest reminders.

It's regrettable, but there's not much we can do, except for encourage the doctors to help out more - and even so they do a pretty good job of it. Another reason that we changed the locations is because it might discourage people from dying so much. Not to mention, at the current time, all of the chip's locations save for the ones in the newcomers are known by at least one doctor. We've been pretty generous with that information, I think, and people who have been here for a few months should have no trouble at all in having theirs removed. I know that Nozomi Weaver in particular is pretty willing to remove them as long as the person in question doesn't pose a giant threat to Discedo.

Again, I apologise. We have been a little slow and rushed with things lately, but they will be getting better as soon as we can. What was meant by it was that, simply, we prefer to hear ideas about how we can improve things and why people don't like it. Mod-player communication is very important to the mod team as a whole, and we want to make Discedo enjoyable for everyone in it. Not just a handful of people.

As a last minute thought, like it says on the removal request page, people have to get their doctor's permission too before we can process the request. Both players must comment before we can do anything, and sometimes, that is why it takes so long. Not in all cases, but some.

I assume that anyone coming in before the change still has them in the old/er place/s, right? I.e. Donald's chip is still in his arm? Not that it matters since he doesn't know where it is and I keep forgetting as it is, but still.

Yeah, anyone before the change still has them in the old place. :3 It's just a matter of if they die, or anything like that.

Thank you :3 I wanted to be sure I got things right.

Would Soren still have his chip in the neck or because of this event it's going to be moved?

It won't be moved if they were in the city before the locations were changed. If he still has it in his neck, he will until he gets it removed - and even then he'd have to die for it to be changed.

Okay! No, he has yet to get it removed.

Thanks for answering my question.

So does that mean that Kanta here will have his chip in an unknown place?

Yes, it does.

I don't think I ever heard back about Deidara's chip removal :<

Apologies. Consider it approved. I went over all the ones that were there the other day.

All right.

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FEEDBACK :Db

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Different character! Same mun.

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