towerofjamjars | How's My Driving?

animusmods

[OU] America

colonial | HMD

[OU] Anise Tatlin

forhislegacy
[OU] Sheba

seekinganswers

[OU] England

keepscalm | Axis Powers: Hetalia | journal HMD

Edited 2013-07-01 04:41 (UTC)

[OU] Xion | Kingdom Hearts |

attheclocktower

I also have an anon-enabled private HMD on her journal if you prefer.

[AU6] Terra | Kingdom Hearts

earthshards

[AU5] Saber | Fate/Stay Night | this journal

[AU9] Claudia Hortensia (

sicharia), Fate/etc
[OU] Nue Houjuu (

undefines), Touhou Project
[OU] Shinji Matou (

looselips), Fate/Extra

Catch-all HMD here.

[AU1] Dr. Richtofen | Call of Duty: Zombies |

doctor_dismemberment
[OU] France | Axis Powers: Hetalia |

silencetoreason

there are also anon-enabled, non-IP-logging HMD entries on both of their journals, if you'd prefer it that way.

Edited 2013-07-01 05:00 (UTC)

[AU1] Jin Shirato

morituramfides | Persona 3 | journal HMD
[AU1] Jade Strider

reddeadvirtuoso | Homestuck | journal HMD
[OU] Fado

lookmanostrings | Legend of Zelda | journal HMD

[AU3] Archer/Gilgamesh | Fate/ series (Fate/Prototype) |

bowandblade

[OU] Tohko Amano-Bungaku Shoujo-tohko_amano
[OU] chaos-Xenosaga-lightofhumanity
[OU] Raphael-El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron-godheals
[OU] Yotsuba Koiwai-Yotsuba!&-sunflowerfairy
[OU] Jasmine-Pokemon Crystal-mineralgirl

[OU] Fon Master Ion (original)

fonlines
[OU] Raven (Elsword)

unkindnessof

Raven also has a journal HMD if you'd prefer; alternatively, I have a universal HMD here. They both should be anon enabled with IP tracking disabled.

[OU] The Spine | Steam Powered Giraffe | Journal HMD

[OU] Naoto Shirogane | Persona 4 | Journal HMD
[OU] Czeslaw Meyer | Baccano! | Journal HMD

A few things that I've had on my mind for awhile now:

The plot has grown and changed a lot over the past couple of years. This makes it hard for new players to catch up on and to get into, especially when first joining the game. I'd really recommend that the mods make a comprehensive guide on the plot so far and possibly a list of important threads--a player has made both, so perhaps the mods could build up off of that? Additionally, I think it'd be good to have it included in the premise/main links so it's easy to find.
A lot of people seem to be having trouble getting into the overarching plot. It puts a lot of responsibility on the main players involved (see: Pandora) and I think that's really unfortunate and unfair to everyone involved. It'd be nice if the plot developed in a way that encouraged characters to create smaller groups and more opportunities to dive into the overarching plot without feeling restricted to one or two central groups.
The most recent events. I don't think they've been handled particularly well lately. There's been this growing trend of limited sign ups that again, puts a large amount of responsibility on a few players and requires them to remain hush hush about their involvement in it. I honestly feel like it's been rather limiting all around, both in terms of involvement and plotting and OOC communication. I'm a little more wary of saying this one because I honestly don't know how others feel about it, but it's made things a bit difficult for me.

That said, I understand it on for the overarching level, but for minor events which last a few weeks at most, it's a bit much to expect people to unravel everything both OOCly and ICly while only throwing out bits and scraps of information. Once again, others might enjoy it, so I don't want to necessarily say this has to be changed and I even feel like it's been an interesting way of trying things, just that I in particular have struggled with it. The last event in particular made things difficult because it was impossible to ignore, but not particularly interesting unless you were directly involved, and even then the requirements of it meant it was limited to skilled fighters (i.e. people who could kill the monsters.)

Essentially, unless you were involved in the event (and even then, only if you played a character capable of actually killing the monsters--badass norms need not apply,--) there wasn't anything to do but get killed without making any real progress and the novelty of that wears off pretty fast, which is a shame because I absolutely adored the concept of this event! It was really fantastic and I'd love to see more like it. I just think it could use a bit of fine-tuning.

That said, the mods of this game have been wonderful. You guys are doing a fantastic job and I really adore the direction that the plot has been going and the efforts that have been made to get grand reveals out to everyone who's not in the know (for example, Ruana pointing out that WHOOPS YOU GUYS BROKE IT or the soul reveal a little while back.) I've been really pleased with that, so really, at most I think the system needs a few tweaks rather than a complete overhaul!

[OU] Diarmuid Ua Duibhne (Lancer) | Fate/ |

oathshackledbird

As always, I have an anon on, IP logging off HMD post here for anyone who would rather post there.

I was on hiatus most of the month, but don't let that stop you from voicing any concerns you might have from the past or for the part of the month I was around for!

[OU] Fon Master Ion | Tales of the Abyss

fragileprophet
[OU] Quark | Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward

averytinyparticle

[AU1] Luke fon Fabre | Tales of the Abyss |

ambassadorasshat
[AU3] Riku Replica | Kingdom Hearts |

keywrite

Repliku's not been super active lately, but I'm trying to fix that. /)_(\

Edited 2013-07-01 05:13 (UTC)

Kyoko Sakura | Puella Magi Madoka Magica |

prayed
Ellen | The Witch's House |

suppress
Ennis | Baccano! |

conservative

Wow, I came along to post my comment I've been working on, but you've nailed a number of the points I was going to bring up. I'm going to go off of yours and comment again on how the latest events have been handled when it comes to limited sign ups.

It feels as though there's (once again) a lot of pressure on players to be the main involvement in these horror events. The monsters, the data gathering, these are two incidents where players had to work to include as many people as they can and in a game as backtag friendly as Animus, it may be too much for some of them. There have been numerous complaints against people who do sign up and are chosen for not including as many people as they can as well as not doing as much as others who were "denied" the chance would have done. This kind of attitude makes it a lot difficult to want to be involved in these events too.

I know it's a lot of extra work on mods to not go with these limits sometimes, but I would like to see more events where players are given the chance to plot with their fellow game mates with any option available to them. This is a horror game and players are more than capable at choosing the amount of horror their character should endure.

I might expand on this when I'm more awake, but while I think this event had a good concept behind it, in my opinion the fact that players of the monsters had to keep their identities a secret hurt its execution severely. I can understand why that route was chosen, but in this particular case it just made it difficult for anyone who doesn't play a skilled fighter to get involved, as mentioned in the comment above mine. I did manage to have Claudia kill a monster through the use of the Tower's environment, which was a viable option, but I think having the ability to plot something like that out with another person would have made the event feel a lot more accessible to a lot of people.

Similarly, I think it would have been a lot more satisfying to be able to plot out if, by whom, and how the identity of any individual monster was discovered; the kind of killing required to free the monsters was something that I know a lot of people would have enjoyed playing out. There's also the fact that the secrecy made it difficult for players of characters with weird powers (like mine) to make use of them in the context of the event; I couldn't check with the player of any given monster if they would trigger Claudia's diathesis, and then, after the monsters gained access to their abilities while transformed, I couldn't ask players of unaffected characters if they would have that effect, either. As a result, I didn't do much after the start of the event, even though I would have liked to get Claudia out more.

Again, while I loved the idea of the event in concept and think it had a lot of potential, the secrecy aspect just made it fall flat.

[OU] Sephiroth | Final Fantasy VII | HMD

Taking any and all concrit/suggestions - I know he needs to do more!

I was also going to write up something, but this pretty much nailed everything and said it better than I probably could have myself especially concerning the last two points. (You aren't alone in feeling this!)

I would actually second some way of allowing more groups instead of just one big group for the Resistance if that would be possible. That way the responsibility is less on those few key characters and if someone happens to have an OOC conflict with someone else (it happens, we all know it does), they don't have to feel like they can't be involved because the other person is. Of course, I have no clue if it would be workable or not. As it is, though, if you don't have close CR with Zelda, Enoch, or Tohko or someone close to them for whatever reason--be it you are a new player, your character isn't that social, or your character actually has no IC reason to trust or interact with those few key players--it is very hard to get involved. That is a lot of pressure on just a few characters! It might not have been so bad when the game was smaller, but now as large as it is that is a lot of people looking for CR with a very small number of other people.

I would also like to suggest--if at all possible--avoiding such a huge administrator event on top of a plot/endgame event. Player plots aren't allowed to overlap mod events and I really think--especially with how much stuff is suppose to start picking up now--that administrator events should not either. (And by overlap, in this case I mean come so close together they might as well be happening at once for the short amount of time the players have to react to them.) This is just my opinion, but it seems to me that endgame plot events should be the most important now and if that means that administrator events need to be cut back, they probably should be. Granted, some of those things might be linked together, but I don't think that is going to always be the case. Part of the reason I ended up on hiatus was that after the reveal I just didn't have time to figure out how exactly my character was taking everything. And then bang! Huge Ruana event lasting the rest of the month. And on top of that, an event that had impact on everyone and was pretty difficult if not impossible to avoid. I know this is a horror game, but sometimes too much is too much even if you like horror. (Or were warned this would be a bad month as we were.) People need time to plan, especially after such a huge reveal that might have very well wiped out any medium to long term plans they had for their character's development.

Let me be clear (since it's late and I might not be being as clear as I could be), I don't want to see administrator events go away. The monthly experiments are part of what makes this game what it is. However, I really don't know if they should last so long in the future, especially if there is something else important happening during that month.

[AU2] Rin Matou (

angramaintsu) || Fate/Stay Night

Have an universal HMD here if you prefer private matters. Please keep all trigger-related material to the private HMD if possible.

Note: I did absolutely nothing this past month in regards to the current event due to Rin's guardians being on hiatus, therefore she would have just hid out somewhere with them while they protected her.

How's My Driving?

no subject

Mel

BB/Britt

Cee

Gorse

Ranko

Random

Nyx

Naya

Plus

Athena

Livia

Mauyn

Tee

Chris

no subject

Neko Sandy

Danielle

Daimon

Fumika

+1

no subject

Amie

+1 To this as well...

Kattu