GAME HMD #1

[acatamods]

I ▫ main IV ▫ premise       XI ▫ applications XIV ▫ activity II ▫ logs V ▫ rules VII ▫ bestiary   IX ▫ canon updates XII ▫ taken XV ▫ drop/hiatus III ▫ ooc VI ▫ faq VIII ▫ setting   X ▫ mods XIII ▫ reserves XVI ▫ players game hmd. Hi, everyone! After receiving feedback and constructive suggestions from our playerbase, we have decided to institute a regular Game HMD. This is intended to give the modteam feedback about the game. We also plan on posting a Game HMD at the end of every world jump, to gain specific feedback about the world itself. That doesn’t mean your criticism has to be focused on the world jump! If you see something about Acatalepsy that needs improvement that doesn’t necessarily have to do with our world jump, you can leave it here. Please note, this is not the space to leave private player complaints -- comments here are going to be screened temporarily and will be made public to the entirety of the game. If you have a complaint that you want to remain private with the modteam, please visit our mod contact. Those comments remain screened permanently and will remain private. Here are a few points the modteam would really love feedback on! This is not an exhaustive list, so if we don't mention it here and you want to talk to us about it, please do! (1) Game Mechanics: We know the group mechanic in the very beginning of Akvos was not a popular mechanic. Our intention was to prevent the regularity of "oh no, we arrived in a new world again!" and to encourage new CR among different people. This had the opposite effect for a lot of people, and had a jarring start to Acatalepsy with our new players. However, we would really love suggestions on the mechanics themselves -- such as the world interactions, the plotting posts, the structure of the logs, etc. Additionally, if you have any suggestions for "fun mechanics" on the world jump logs, we would really love to hear that too! Do you like logs for the worlds, or would you like network posts instead? We like to try new things, and while this new thing wasn't necessarily a success, we want to keep experimenting and making Acatalepsy a great game for some time to come. (2) Player Interactions/Engagement: In a similar line with Game Mechanics, we would love to hear suggestions on how to better serve the playerbase in terms of interaction and engagement. What would make threading in Acatalepsy more engaging? What about the current game structure is exciting, or frustrating, to you? Do you find yourself being able to interact with the world jumps, or do you struggle with how to get involved? (3) The World: What about Akvos did you like, or not like? What would you suggest we had done differently? Additionally, if you were present during El Minha (World #1) and Struxta (World #2), what did you like or not like about those worlds? What do you like or dislike about them in comparison to Akvos? (4) Pacing: Our worlds last roughly six to eight weeks incorporating two bigger "events" in that time. Akvos ran a bit longer than that! How many events/logs per event is enough? Do you want more, or less? (5) The Game Writ-Large: We have a lot of plans going into 2019 with the new mod-team, including a world directory and ensuring all the lists/setting pages are up to date! They are already really hard at work. What else would you like to see Acatalepsy incorporate? What are we missing? What would you like to see? Again, this isn’t an exhaustive list! This is simply what Dai and Chelsea got together, thought about, and really wanted feedback on. If you know of anything else, please drop a line and let us know! We really want to hear from you. :) Thanks again, and here's to the next World Jump! - Acatamods.

Comments

[intoningly]

hi mods, first and foremost i wanna say thank you so much for all the hard work that you do! the reason i joined this game was because i'd heard nothing but good things about the mod involvement and i've gotten to witness myself how much you all care about this game and how much work you put into it.

this was my first world jump and i had a lot of fun and got some great cr development out of it, but i will be honest and say i definitely had some issues getting involved and feeling engaged on an ic level.

i want to say re: the separation plot element, that it wasn't the fact that we were separated itself but rather when the separation happened. i know for me and some of my cr, we were very disappointed to be separated because we'd already been separated during the cave plot and had mostly had only slice of life plot elements to work with for threads for two months prior to akvos. we were really looking forward to getting to do more action-y things with one another and the separation element put a wedge in that after weeks of hoping for more action packed threads with each other. i know a lot of newbies were also disappointed that they couldn't carry out a lot of the things they'd reached out to people for from the cr meme.

as far as game mechanics go, i wasn't exactly sure how to get involved. the stuff rune team did was really fun to watch play out, but as a new player who'd never gotten to see a world jump happen in game i wasn't quite sure what questions to ask or what was available to me based on how the world jump itself and the segment for player interaction was set up. that being said i absolutely don't want this to come off like i'd want to be spoon fed plot because naturally that ruins the fun and surprise of the discovery element, i apologize for not having more concrete thoughts because i'm fully aware that its a difficult to strike a balance between a bit of mystery and making sure players are aware of what they can and can't do.

plot wise it didn't feel like icly we had much of an incentive to even really take a side? naturally it makes sense most of the characters sided the way they did based on their experiences in akvos (in that the queen was hospitable to the circle and the king's side seemed like a legion of the Big Bad) but even that was sort of a lukewarm loyalty, and honestly that in and of itself isn't even a huge issue since sometimes that really is the case in conflicts like this! but going forward for future world jumps it would be nice if icly there would actually be more reasons for circle members to pick sides and be more loyal to them (if there are sides to pick). the main problem i had with this situation in particular it just felt like there was a huge difference between part 1 and 2 tone-wise in a jarring way and i think that created some issues in terms of being able to get involved setting wise. to some extent it felt like both parts belonged to two entirely different plots. by the time part 2 rolled around it just felt like icly the circle didn't really have much of a reason to get invested in this whole conflict aside from the fact that a war broke out around them.

again thank you all for your hard work! i know all of this is kind of rambly so if you need me to be more specific or clarify please let me know.

[acatamods]

Aw, thank you so much! We do our best to make a fun environment for our playerbase, and we’re excited for you to join us. And also thank you so much for your input, and we’re very glad you got some good cr out of this world.

We certainly hear you with regards to the separation. It seems that while the mechanic itself is something we wanted to try out, we realize now that doing it so closely to the beginning of the world jump when new players are still getting settled, it can provide some difficulty for CR to develop the way that is easiest for players. Thank you for offering why it didn’t work for you!

As for interacting with the plot, we are brainstorming ways to make it more accessible and have shared ideas about jumpstarting player interaction. We do realize that sometimes the open ended worlds can make it more difficult for newer players to know where to begin.

When it comes to factions, we will take these ideas into account! We want to make sure players have the opportunity to understand the different sides presented, at the same time we want to make sure it is obvious that you do not necessarily have to take a side. There will not always be a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ side to take, and everyone should proceed with what makes sense for their characters.

Tone difference between plots is something we will absolutely take into account moving forward, Thank you again for bringing this up!

Finally, we are going to be posting our suggested solutions in a subheading below -- please don’t take this solution as anything finalized! If you have further ideas, please let us know.