AUGUST ANNOUCEMENTSWelcome to Vertiati's third month!
Thank you for your continued interest in the game! Here are this month's announcements:
DROPPED CHARACTERS
⬥ 2B (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) apatheia), Deuce Spade (pursuit), Jacob "Styx" Graves (tothemetal), Kainé (prevail), Power (meowy), Rei (flowerclips), and Zeke Jaeger (ape) have been dropped from the game and have been converted into NPCs. They will remember general interactions with PCs, but nothing in regards to the app.
EVENT + GAME FEEDBACK
⬥ Now that we are three months into the game, it's time for feedback! What do you think is working or not working in Veritati? How is the structure of the events? Is there anything you'd like to see or no longer see?
⬥ Please comment to the appropriate top-level for your feedback. Thank you!
AUGUST 3 - EVENT LOG #1
⬥ This month's first event log will go up on August 3.
⬥ With the defeat of Nier's Shadow, Vitae has mostly returned back to normal. Mostly. The following day, NPCs slowly begin to repopulate the city and get it back up and running. When questioned about the gap between their disappearance and reappearance, they'll just comment on how time sure flies, huh? They don't suspect anything out of the ordinary, but there definitely seems to be... less of them.
⬥ The NPC population has been cut down by 20%. Missing posters cover various bulletin boards in the city and search parties are organized on a near-daily basis.
⬥ During this time, the weather will be cloudy until mid-month. The news forecasts that they won't be seeing any proper sun for a week or two. It's depressing, but it keeps the summer temperatures down.
⬥ All characters, including new arrivals, will have a bracelet attached to their left wrist. It will now act as a second access point to the network, so if you have a habit of blowing up your phones, don't worry. You got a permanent watch now.
AUGUST 16 - EVENT LOG #2 [SHADOW AKIRA]
⬥ This month's second event log will go up on August 16.
⬥ It will be hosted by Ghost, our Akira player! They will be posting details about the event within the next few days, so please look forward to it and enjoy.
AND THAT'S ALL, FOLKS
If you have any questions, please comment below and I'll get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks! c: |
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![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
berus2021-08-01 10:09 pm
questions.
event + game feedback.
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On that topic it would be nicer if we could positively affect the setting in some ways, as my character gets frustrated at the lack of progress and investigation. Maybe we can get into letting the characters know about why and how the setting comes to be like this soon.
But!! I am enjoying my time here being able to thread with friends in a closed game, so I'm really thankful for all the time and work that has been put into creating and running Veritati. Thank you Ichi for giving me a place to play in o/
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re: missions
I have been thinking about changing how missions are provided in the game. Rather than writing up something generic for each month, I think I'll make them tailored for each individual if it is requested? So, if someone wants to do something plot-related and do a mission for it, they don't have to choose any of the monthly ones. They can just approach me and get one made for them. What do you think about that? Do you think that will make it easier to do plot-related things?
re: positive setting effects
I will be taking note of this! I'm not sure if I can incorporate things right away for this month due to the Shadow event, but I will definitely do my best to include it.
Once again, thanks so much for your comment! I will do my best to make this game more enjoyable for you and everyone else c:
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I tried to do this in SF myself, and I found that to keep it manageable, the playerbase cannot be too big, but I don't think it's an issue for Veri so far. Maybe giving several anomalies in the event post, then having players comment to you saying what they like to investigate, then you reply to them with what they'll find? The amount of threading needed to get to the 'reveal' shouldn't be too much (like less than 20 comments per player) cause I feel like dwrp as a whole is slowing down a lot due to the pandemic.
positive setting effects
Maybe the shadow events could also give clues or explanations for the state of the world? It has been 3 months, so I'm sure the PCs are getting kinda antsy/anxious about it as well
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But anyway I have a few things I'd like to just talk about for a bit if that's cool.
DAY RATIO
I know the tdm/fourthwall had a 2:1 day ratio for a bit! But I think in the future it might be better if we keep it to 1:1 just so it's easier to keep track of overall.
PLOT/MISSIONS/REGAINS
I like the idea of missions and regains. Encouraging players to make logs together and reward them for it is a good thing! If it's okay may I suggest having the option to potentially add things to the regains page? The ability to trade in threads ( or comments) for things like weapons, miscellaneous items, and magic powers that everyone can have access too? Just a thought !
Throws my two cents also thank you again for letting me host a player event!
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day ratio
Yes, I think we'll be keeping to the 1:1 from here on out for all events since it was kind of difficult to keep track of the previous event, haha. Thank you for confirming my suspicions!
regains
I have no idea how I didn't even think about characters regaining things that everyone has access to. I was concerned about normal characters being left behind when the answer was right there to just give them combat-orientated regains. I will add that to the bonus regain page very soon and make an announcement about it so characters can start getting things.
Again, thanks again for your comment! You are the best.
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!!!!
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The App, Metaplot, Missions
I'm also finding things really hard to engage with for a few reasons. It doesn't feel like characters have a lot of incentive to cooperate with the app except for threats (like the phone burning hot until they choose a name) which really runs counter to people willfully signing up for these missions. I understand competing missions was intended to be the big way to unlock the plot and jamjar characters have less options but AU characters have a whole ordinary life that decentivizes putting themselves in danger. Especially because we really haven't seen much in terms of mission results yet except the 2 weeks survival: and one of those was receiving a sim card which was at best useless for an indefinite amount of time and at worst a bomb. It feels like there's an internal conflict in the characters being trapped and unsettled and having enough faith to cooperate with something that's really just not friendly IC.
It also hasn't really revealed much about its connection to all the weirdness or what Vitae is/what's happening to it. I'm not sure where the shadow events fit into the lore. Since they're Player run it doesn't look like they're acting as vehicles for unraveling the mystery of what's going on which really is looking like it's most characters concern. Going into another shadow event has me wondering if we'll make month 4 of not making any progress for an explanation why all this stuff is happening to these characters or what they can do about it.
I'd rather most of that not unlock through bonus AC reward requests, but since those are an option I do want to suggest tailoring the bonus AC responses so that they're something the character can reasonably use. I ended up trying to pass Yuya's off to the game at large because it was just so completely out of his wheelhouse and I didn't want to sit on something he couldn't use. Since you can only request one a month it ended up feeling kind of wasted.
I do appreciate your work timing the game and I want to see it succeed!
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plot + missions
I completely agree with you on this. I've noticed the difficulty to engage with the overall plot and I will be trying to rework some things to make it easier. I was hoping that the missions would be an incentive, but since they're not working out, I will be coming up with other things. If you have any suggestions on what you'd like to see, please let me know and I'd be more than happy to test drive it!
player plot
The player plots do actually have a connection with the overall game lore, but I think the overall findings are a bit too... subtle? Or they're not enough to really start to piece things together. I'll be working with Ghost on the upcoming Shadow event to see how to get things more entwined with the overall plot and see where we can go to explain the weirdness and what Vitae is.
plot clues via bonus ac
Yes, I think I'm going to remove the limit on how many plot clues you can request in a month and tailor them from now on. I think what I'll start doing is contacting the player and discussing what exactly they'd like to do then brainstorm with them on some potential plot clues that they can get/discover. We'll see how this way goes and if it succeeds.
Thank you again for your comment, Ath! I really appreciate that you took the time to write all this. I definitely agree with all of your points and I'll do my best to adjust the game accordingly!
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I think the biggest sticking point in the missions for me is that they're voluntary, but characters haven't been given much reason to trust or want, to work with the app. So it comes into conflict between what they need to do to engage with the plot, and what they'd reasonably want to do.
The solution to that kind of depends if you want the app to be something of an ally, or a hindrance, or a threat, because that decides whether characters get further by working with it or by working against it.
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Overall having a great time in this game! Thank you for all the work you've done Ichi!
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Thanks again! I'm glad that you're having a good time!