Van has explained most of my complaints pretty concisely. But I wanted to add a few more thoughts.
"We would like to emphasize that we cannot control, and have no intention to control, how players disseminate information on their own plots."
I think it's ridiculous that you are blaming this on the players who come to you with ideas. If things such as the flower shop raid, Tamamo bombing Shuten, and the infiltration on Kaberou's office are the result of player plots, as you seem to be implying, then it is not up to those respective players to tell us. You are the ones setting them in motion and integrating them into the main plot of the game about Iron Bear; especially with the bombings, it is your job to tell us what's going on and how this has bearings on the rest of the story, not chalking it up to the player to explain a section of a mod post that was not explained.
If incidents are being incorporated into a larger plot, such as Tenkohime intending to hamper the entire Shuten clan, this is something one would logically think the higher ups of Tamamo should be privy to. If rank is not about receiving plot opportunities (which I agree should not be completely closed off to people with no rank in fact), and it's not about actually being informed in what is going on in the clan, or having a say in what is going on in the clan, then I'm not sure what it's for. The higher-ups of a clan ICly being told information that is kept from the non-ranked characters seems perfectly sensible to me, and then the higher-ranked ones could tell people as they wish, but OOCly everyone would still be on the same page. I especially don't know how this game can be said to be steered by player actions if they're not being allowed to have any influence, or being given any information to influence with.
Besides that, you haven't mentioned a single word about mod favoritism in who is getting plots and information, which I know some people have brought up to you as a problem. People have asked the right questions, had rank influence, and have still been told nothing while others are handed that information, the example with gyokuto and the bomb during this plot being praticularly brazen. You wanted to keep information close to your chest because it would be revealed in a later post, but as far as I know the gyokuto's elixir of immortality plot point has never come up, and the only thing Toraguma revealed about the bomb was that... it was definitely Tenkohime and Tamamo that did it, and not Iron Bear? Which the playerbase had already been led to believe because of Kate's role in the bombing, and the plot post already saying it was not Iron Bear. Effectively all it means is that mod NPCs got to be the ones to tell Shuten about Tamamo, rather than a player character who was actively trying to be involved in the plot.
It's gotten to the point where I have personally felt like it would be useless to even try and get involved with the plot, because I legitimately couldn't figure out how; on top of that, I know I'm not alone in thinking it would be useless to ask mods questions, whether that be because I know it would be useless, or because I was scared of how the mods would react if I wasn't one of their favorites. This problem with tone has contributed to me and others thinking we could not get anywhere, when apparently according to you all I had to do was ask a question differently, and it's my fault for thinking something has been a dead end?
no subject
"We would like to emphasize that we cannot control, and have no intention to control, how players disseminate information on their own plots."
I think it's ridiculous that you are blaming this on the players who come to you with ideas. If things such as the flower shop raid, Tamamo bombing Shuten, and the infiltration on Kaberou's office are the result of player plots, as you seem to be implying, then it is not up to those respective players to tell us. You are the ones setting them in motion and integrating them into the main plot of the game about Iron Bear; especially with the bombings, it is your job to tell us what's going on and how this has bearings on the rest of the story, not chalking it up to the player to explain a section of a mod post that was not explained.
If incidents are being incorporated into a larger plot, such as Tenkohime intending to hamper the entire Shuten clan, this is something one would logically think the higher ups of Tamamo should be privy to. If rank is not about receiving plot opportunities (which I agree should not be completely closed off to people with no rank in fact), and it's not about actually being informed in what is going on in the clan, or having a say in what is going on in the clan, then I'm not sure what it's for. The higher-ups of a clan ICly being told information that is kept from the non-ranked characters seems perfectly sensible to me, and then the higher-ranked ones could tell people as they wish, but OOCly everyone would still be on the same page. I especially don't know how this game can be said to be steered by player actions if they're not being allowed to have any influence, or being given any information to influence with.
Besides that, you haven't mentioned a single word about mod favoritism in who is getting plots and information, which I know some people have brought up to you as a problem. People have asked the right questions, had rank influence, and have still been told nothing while others are handed that information, the example with gyokuto and the bomb during this plot being praticularly brazen. You wanted to keep information close to your chest because it would be revealed in a later post, but as far as I know the gyokuto's elixir of immortality plot point has never come up, and the only thing Toraguma revealed about the bomb was that... it was definitely Tenkohime and Tamamo that did it, and not Iron Bear? Which the playerbase had already been led to believe because of Kate's role in the bombing, and the plot post already saying it was not Iron Bear. Effectively all it means is that mod NPCs got to be the ones to tell Shuten about Tamamo, rather than a player character who was actively trying to be involved in the plot.
It's gotten to the point where I have personally felt like it would be useless to even try and get involved with the plot, because I legitimately couldn't figure out how; on top of that, I know I'm not alone in thinking it would be useless to ask mods questions, whether that be because I know it would be useless, or because I was scared of how the mods would react if I wasn't one of their favorites. This problem with tone has contributed to me and others thinking we could not get anywhere, when apparently according to you all I had to do was ask a question differently, and it's my fault for thinking something has been a dead end?