Mod Feedback Response SIX MONTH EDITION

[jigokumods]

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MOD FEEDBACK RESPONSE!

Our Modding Philosophy We're gonna start by re-iterating the most important thing; our approach to modding this game (mostly c/p'd from the last feedback post). This is the core philosophy we approach running this game from. While this is not carved in stone, it IS what we generally check what we want to do and what we can do against.

Our modding philosophy is to let our players guide the game. We give you the basic plot and direction, but ultimately, the power is in the hands of the players. We want you to have as much fun with this setting as possible. Outcomes change based on the actions of players and that’s what we want. We want players to feel like they’re a part of the plot.

For example, the entire Iron Bear plot has come about because PCs were taking actions that drew his attention. Sai no Kawara, the complex Underground, was built because of motions taken by PCs to forge a truce in the turf war. So on and so forth. We have plans for possible outcomes, but what outcome the game winds up with (even if it's something we didn't plan for), is entirely on the players involved to come to. This will continue to factor into the game's plot.

In that same vein, we also want to give you guys as much freedom as possible. This means not micromanaging everything and leaving it up to you to decide what’s appropriate for your character. This is why we don’t outline exact money numbers for raises and the like. We trust you guys. Everyone having fun is more important to us than exact figures. If you can come up with a reasonable enough explanation as to why your character can obtain something in the game, we're not going to fuss over the details.

Like, make it make sense, but you don't actually have to try very hard to make it make sense. A recent example, Billy's player asked if there were horses in game. We said "what would be funnier"? They then submitted three horse related businesses to the location page. That kind of thing is what we mean.

Another thing is that we’re not trying to run a unified storyline with all players in perfect alignment. There will be times when a common goal arises for players, but it's not really the point of the game. You’re welcome to branch off in any direction you find interesting to develop. Everything doesn’t need to be perfect, it just needs to be collaborative and with a good spirit behind it. You can’t ‘win’ this game, you can only enjoy it.

We should note that, with regards to the game's plot, we do not intentionally "bury" anything. A lot of things that come up in the question and response process with players would not come up at all were those questions not ask, and likely would not have become relevant. We do have basic outlines for plots, but a lot of the meat of them are improvised based on what the players themselves feel is worth inquiring about. Basically, a lot of it is serendipity at work, but we definitely know that it's important to link especially important plot developments where everyone can read them.

That being said, there are definitely dead-ends, and we will always be upfront with you if your character is heading down one. We don't want anyone to feel like they wasted their time.

We do not consider answering plot questions busy work. In fact, we kind of love it. We love what you guys come up with to ask about. At no point should you worry about being a nuisance, this stuff is fun for us.

What's more, no one should feel rushed to participate in this game at any pace but the one they're personally most comfortable with. This is a big part of why we do a 2 month cycle, and ultimately only one substory, and the event, actually drive the plot in those 2 months (sometimes it's more, if we're feeling indulgent, but never in huge measures). Everything else is choosing one's own adventure, and the pace they wish to explore that adventure.

Our ultimate goal is to create a game where our players feel liberty to just try things out and not let their dreams be memes, so to speak. If you've got a wild idea, let us or other players know, and we'll all work together to make it fun!

Okay on to the rest;

Activity update: So at the suggestion of a few players, we've decided to make our AC at least a little more backtag friendly. As a note, rewards threads are not held to the time constraints of AC threads. You could always use backdated threads for rewards. But now, for AC, we've eased up a bit and made some changes. We've already updated the Activity Check page to reflect this, but to summarize; you may now use a thread that was started in the previous month for one of your proofs. You can't use a backdated thread AND an inbox thread, because we still want our AC to be about being present in the current state of the game, but we hope this is at least a little nicer for everyone.

Question pages: So you've already seen this one, but in order to cut down on clutter on event posts, we're moving the OOC questions thread to their own post. Right now the mingle questions are on the substory post, and for the mini-event towards the end of the month (and the main event next month), those will have a separate, dedicated page. We also hope this helps people feel more encouraged to read over previous questions, to avoid repeating things.

Roster page: We have a Roster page now for the factions! It also holds functionality as being a place to post faction specific plotting opportunities. It's a good quick reference of who's who, who's what rank, etc. And speaking of rank...

Officer duties: Just like with IC jobs, we really don't police this kind of thing. Even if your reward prompt offers some structural suggestion from the faction leader, your character doesn't HAVE to follow it. For example, recently promoted Tamamo officer Robin was given an office in the Palace of Sai, but ICly he wants to stay working in Hemlock, and as mods we are perfectly okay with that. All we ask of players with ranked characters is to keep in mind that their character has responsibilities and expectations of them that don't apply to the unranked. At the utmost, these responsibilities are to their fellow Lost Souls.

The FOUR STAR rank that we're still hammering out will be a little different, though, but we'll talk about that when we get to it.

PVP Plot Elements: There was some concern over the game falling into a Big Bad problem, where the premise of the factions being undermined by them consistently uniting against a common threat. Like we mentioned in the philosophy spiel, this will sometimes happen, but we want to assure everyone that is not always the case. To be frank and a bit spoilery; the current plot will 100% have PVP elements to it, as the factions are going to compete for the bounty. That's part of why it's such an absurd amount of money, tbh. BUT YES, understand, we are definitely conscious and aware of losing the thread on the factions in this game and will never let them be completely united.

Player faction choice: We want to emphasize that while we do take care to listen to player preference on factions and encourage you to be frank about which factions you're for sure do not work for your character on your app, we cannot allow players to choose their own faction. This is mostly for a ton of logistical reasons, but also just for the integrity of the premise. Changing one's faction after being accepted is also not possible for these same reasons.

We strongly encourage players putting together apps for the game to focus on the faction suitability section as it really is one of the most important parts of the app. We will be adding some clarifying language to the app page at some point to assure there is less uncertainty here, as well.

Event plotting posts: It was mostly an accident that the plotting post went up after the event post in April, but we've found that format actually worked out very well for our players, since it allowed us to keep the major plot twists as such, without feeling a need to spoil them for the sake of a plotting post. We're going to keep doing this for now, but we're open to changing it in the future.

HELPER MODS: But! Growing pains are indeed a thing and many of you definitely took note of how much work is put into this game. At over 180 characters, we're starting to really feel that, Mr. Crabs. We've got options on the table on how to manage all of this, but the big one we want to clear first is asking for some help.

We are requesting helper mods for AC, for Applications, for Discord. If you're at all interested in helping us out, either comment here, send us a PM, shoot us a message on the Mod Contact page, however you want to approach it, and let us know!

Final Thoughts: SIX MONTHS. WE'VE BEEN AROUND FOR OVER SIX MONTHS. That's crazy, game! We didn't think this concept would catch on, and while we had a promising first app cycle, we had no idea we'd wind up becoming one of the most popular games on Dreamwidth. It is actually crazy to us that this game has had the success it's had, and we cannot thank you all enough for making it special and an honest joy to run. Genuinely, you guys are great.

We're gonna keep growing as a mod team as this game continues to truck on, and we're incredibly grateful both for your participation in this game and also for your patience with us, and understanding that we're all kind of learning together what the shape of Jigokucho is, even six months later.

Ganbatte, Jigokucho!