paradisaooc | HOW'S THE GAME?

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HOW'S THE GAME?

It's time for another round of Game Discussion, also known as

HOW'S THE GAME?

Here we come together to discuss the game, its plots, the settings, and just about anything we can think of that we'd like to talk about, expand upon, improve, change, etc.

This is not an HMD for players and their characters; this should be about the game's function as a whole and not the people in it. If there is something you feel is absolutely necessary to address that involves a specific person, please IM a mod first to discuss it. We can be reached at valawie (Valerie), fan of todd (TF), or never die ftw (Ashley).

Anonymous will be left off for this round. Sock journals are allowed, but you will have to request comm access to post with them.

Here are the sections that we've come up with. Add your own, and we'll edit it into the list. :)

➜ HOW ARE THE MODS DOING?
➜ HOW IS THE ONE-MONTH APP RULE WORKING?
➜ APPLICATION PROCESS CHANGES
➜ ACTIVITY CHECK
➜ HMD
➜ PARADISA BEYOND
➜ PRISON & PRISONERS

PLOTS
➜ ARE WE READY FOR DARKER PLOTS AGAIN?
➜ WORLD PLOT
➜ MINI EVENTS/PLOTS
➜ WHAT PLOTS DO YOU WANT TO SEE?
➜ WORLD PLOT HIATUS PLOT PROPOSAL

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It seems as though recent rounds of HMD have been very quiet. In the last post alone, 29 out of 54 players received feedback of any kind. It does raise a little concern as to whether or not the post is being utilized, or if it's at all necessary.

Is HMD too frequent? Do we still need a game-sponsored HMD? Is there anything in particular that you feel is causing a low response? Let us know what you think.

I know I've been majorly slacking at this the past few HMDs, mostly due to time constraints. Although maybe there's a way for it to be restructured to encourage feedback? Like broken into categories for people to respond to specific areas without having to think of them as a whole... The frequency doesn't bother me, but it would be good to get more conversation going!

I'm not sure how that would work, but it's an idea.

I personally feel like HMD is way too frequent. We're having them, what, once a month? Every two months? Most people's playing just won't change that much in that short of a time frame. I can't see an honest need for an HMD more than once every three months, max.

There is one other thing in regards to HMD that I know stops me, personally, from participating: it doesn't seem to be that effective. There are a couple of factors to that (people who don't know your canon, etc etc), but a really major one that we've seen happen several times in the past year is that people become really defensive to honest construct criticism, and it just gets ridiculous and drama-filled, and then they don't heed the advice. The only HMD concrit that I've ever seen pay off usually has to do with activity, rather than anything productive.

A second factor to the drama issue is, I think, the loss of anon. Most people in such a tight-knit community don't necessarily feel comfortable speaking out. I know we've had anon issues in the past, but lots of people don't want to bother making socks, and the vast majority aren't going to go against the grain with popular players. This isn't new information, but I really think it bears repeating.

Idk, it's kind of a tough issue, because even when you take out the drama and the fear of confrontation, you're dealing with a lot of people who don't play from well-known canons. And as one of those people who pretty much never gets crit on an HMD due to that, it's not helpful to hear that no one knows your canon, but they love your playing!!! That's great, but it doesn't tell me if Molotov is OOC, you know? HMD is fantastic if you play from a big or well-known canon (Harry Potter, Homestuck, Dr. Who, MLP, anything in the Whedonverse, etc), but it's pretty much useless for people who play out of any other canon. But that's all a problem that I have no idea how to solve.

/ramble over

We currently have HMD every two months. Yeaaaars ago, it was monthly, but that was also when they regularly hit 1200+ comments and we had fewer players with more characters each. It dropped to bimonthly not because they slowed down, but because it was felt that you couldn't see much change or development in a month to "check in" with the person later. There are a number of guesses I have as to why HMD worked then but didn't now; for example, the game used to be like 75% animanga characters, and the vast majority of the players were actively involved in animanga. Now, I feel like the game is more evenly split, which means players know fewer canons outside their "range". Or maybe it had something to do with turnover; characters stay a lot longer than they used to, so HMD is over and over and over again the same faces, whereas before many characters were gone by time they'd gotten their "I love __ so far!" and first critiques. Also, people were a lot more comment-spammy back then; maybe the amount of crit really hasn't changed, it's just people did a lot more random throw-away comments like "U SUCK LOL jk I love you :)" and stuff. Here's March '09; it doesn't seem to have much crit, either, and instead of being relatively serious like we are now, everyone is literally just keysmashing and <3ing and tilde-ing all over the place. Was HMD ever effective? I recall more individual cases than I do HMD's success as a whole.

And as far as socks go, I feel like if people really, honestly had crit to give and didn't want to do it under their own name, they would make a sock account, because it doesn't really take that much effort. Then again, I also feel that making the actual sock account or giving crit isn't the part that deters people: it's the inevitable "I'm not going to be taken seriously anyway" feeling. I've had more than one sock express to me that they feel it's fruitless to try when they won't be taken seriously, but commenting logged in would mean harming friendships, which most people don't want to risk for obvious reasons.

Additionally, I feel like people often go "I'm going to crit them when HMD comes around!" but not get time to do it, or feel the problem has dried up by then. HMD becomes the someday-that-never-comes, for a whole variety of reasons, when maybe we should be encouraging a community that calls out problems the moment they arise, rather than waiting and letting things fall off the back of the wagon.

But personally, for me, I've stopped seeing the point in it entirely. Maybe it's just because I don't think I've received playing crit in well over a year and a half, but what do we even do HMD for? What is the motive behind it? To help people improve their writing, or to check in that characterization is going well? No matter which it is, whether it's one or the other or both, it just isn't effective, and like a lot of things in Paradisa, I'm starting to feel like it's time to stop giving HMD mouth-to-mouth and let it die, and possibly come up with a replacement system. Do new things, instead of desperately trying to resuscitate the old. What that new system could be, I have no idea, but at this point I think HMD is just about worthless.

I guess the only difference of opinion we have is on anon! I personally just don't think most people want to create socks, particularly because using a sock is also dependent on having a mod let you into the community, and making sure you're logged into that and not a different account, etc. Added to the feeling of futility, I know that I personally would rather just not bother. An anon comment is quick and easy, and doesn't feel like you wasted time if it goes unheeded/become dramatastic/whatever. Idk, all I can say is that I personally don't feel like the sock-only rule is necessary anymore (does anyone even use anoncomm anymore? That's where the drama came from), and it does stop some people from offering honest crit.

I'm not sure if it needs to be done away with entirely, but I really feel it could be massively scaled back. It's surprising to me that it's every other month, because it honestly feels far more frequent. I wouldn't be disappointed if we only had it once every six months.

Having it as often as it is pretty pointless tbqh. I think every 4 months might be easier. It's 3 times a year then, but also an adequate length of time.

Don't bother bringing anon back btw. Idk I feel like the socks get things done without a lot of shitty anon stuff like someone pretending to be more than one person or w/e. People wanna go anon so badly they can take it to the player's anon enabled HMD posts if they have it... and if they don't they probably won't tag the gamewide HMD anyway.

On another note I've found that when people had a question or comment to give to me about my playing they went straight to my hmd post in my journal anyway, meanwhile no one's ever said shit on my comments on the game wide hmd except in the form of reassurance (which I very much appreciate because I'm the kind of person who has a lot of silly worries over EVERYTHING). So IDK, I guess food for thought.

Edited 2011-12-10 22:06 (UTC)

I don't think there's a possibility of anon being turned on again any time soon. It seemed like there was a pretty even split about its fate, but when it comes down to it, it's a lot harder to monitor/manage anon comments than it is to ban a rowdy sock journal.

Yeah, that's how it looks to me too. (easier to deal with I mean) Sorry I just saw another comment bring it up and that reminded me of my thoughts on it ffff.

I really, really don't want the gamewide HMD to be eliminated. Every two months may very well be too frequent, and it seems completely reasonable to scale it back to once every three or four months, but I still feel like it's important to have.

In my experience, my private HMDs rarely -- if ever -- get used. I've always gotten more feedback from the gamewide HMD than anywhere else, even if that feedback was just reassuring me that I was on the right track.

Running out the door, so I don't want to get into anon vs. sock right now, BUT YEAH THIS HAS BEEN PI THOUGHT THEATER.

I was going to put up a comment about this, but you've said everything I wanted to say. Seconding this completely.

I think it's important to still have that open discussion setting, especially for people who might not have a castmate or friend they feel they can ask for specific advice. And I have seen the HMD generate positive changes, so I don't think it's something that needs to be done away with entirely, or made much less frequent. I don't see having it every four months as opposed to every two fixing the problem, which is that people just don't seem to be commenting around and giving feedback where it's been requested. And if the HMD is no longer a place where someone can ask, "How can I fix this?" and expect even one tip or suggestion, then it isn't doing it's job very well anymore. Maybe it's in part due to the way it's structured? With 50+ muns just leaving a comment with their character's usernames and hoping for the best, it's very easy to miss when someone has a specific crit request they want to discuss.

I wish I had a specific suggestion about what to do, but as someone who's been frustrated with the HMD's lack of real functionality the past few months, I couldn't go without expressing something.

Honestly, the only one ever critting me on it is myself, making note of what habits to work on over the next month or so. I have a couple friends very familiar with Alleyne's canon who, if I feel unsure, I can run stuff by them first and they keep me in check. Her voice is rarely, if ever, rocky and the canon is niche enough that I never expect to get crit on her, at least not outside like basic technical rp habits.

I know others feel this way. I keep posting to it anyways just in case, but always expect nothing to happen. I have a private anon-enabled/IP log off HMD that's not been used once, either. I think lowering how frequent they are would be a good thing, and allow for longer stretches of time to observe anything off, as some mistakes could only be a one off and you'd need more time to check. If someone really needs to be crit, I think like everyone in game has their own HMD post or can be reached easily enough.

3-4 times a year really seems like enough with other avenues open.

I agree with maybe cutting down the frequently a bit, but definitely keeping it around. As one of the people who plays largely from obscure canons, I never really expect any crit from the HMD, to be honest, though it would be nice to get some idea of how others perceive my posting habits and general ability at writing. I would love to comment around more myself, but I honestly quite rarely have anything to say, because I'm just as canonblind to almost everyone else as they are to me.

This isn't a terribly well-conceived idea, but perhaps it would be helpful to provide a crit prompt for people? Like...a form to fill out or a list of ideas to help people think about areas in which they might be able to help their fellow players that may or may not have anything to do with IC-ness. Do you get what I'm saying?

Honestly, I feel one of the biggest reasons the HMD has been kind of ineffective in general is because of the focus on where the crit is coming from. The past several HMDs especially have all had this focus on who is allowed to post crit, where it can come from, etc etc. ... and not on the actual critique itself.

People are afraid to critique anyone, because they fear how the other person will react. People are afraid to get critique from an anonymous person and very often brush it off as someone not worth their time, but it seems to me like when they get critique from someone logged in, they immediately focus on WHO is giving them the crit, and not what the person is actually trying to say to them. In the end, it doesn't feel like it's worth it to the person who wants to give crit, because no matter how they word it and no matter what way they post it, it's still not going to get a good reaction. It's not going to fix the problem, it's just going to upset the other person and cause a potential rift. At least, this is what I have personally noticed.

Uuuunfortunately other than reminding everyone that critique is meant to be a civil and helpful discussion and not a witch hunt -- I'm not sure how exactly any one person or group of people can really spur any sort of change for the better here. I am all for spacing out HMDs more, or just having a bimonthly reminder with links to people's private HMD posts if it isn't going to be used for what it was intended for, though.

I do feel like crit can be helpful, but ... it seems like lately people have been too hung up on the technique and the source than the fact that HMD is supposed to be a place where people can not only GIVE suggestions, but ask for them. Personally, I always try to note what my problem areas are and look for feedback - but I'm looking for suggestions, too.

I won't lie, I shied away from posting in the last few HMDs because of two things: the lack of activity on them, and the sock journals. I'm one of the minority who doesn't agree with their use, but I've come to terms with the fact that they aren't going to change any time soon, and when it comes around again, I'll be in there. I do always make a point to comment around to anyone I have thoughts on, though. :)

I agree with a lot of what's already been said, I just have my own two cents to add in. I know that for me, personally, I haven't been replying to the HMDs for a few main reasons, getting next to no response, the negative crit I've given being brushed off and not taken seriously and the fact that a lot of times I can't tag into the post until a day or so later when it's essentially useless. I can tag around other people's posts, though I only do so when I have serious crit instead of "omgiloveyouman" but no one really looks at the last page after the post's been up for a day so I sometimes don't get any response at all.

I absolutely agree with spacing it out, more. 3, or even four, months would be better, I think.

I have this problem, too (big surprise since we're usually hanging out when this happens)... and not just with HMD.

Discussions on the game, memes, that sort of thing ... people who end up on the last page don't usually get as much attention as the people who are there RIGHT away. I know that's partly a by-product of the internet being such an "in the moment" thing, but... IDK, it'd be nice to see people who get the tail end of things like that get some face time.

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HOW'S THE GAME?

HMD

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Re: HMD

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+1

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+1 and general comments on "late to the party"