HOW'S THE GAME?

[paradisamods]

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 on for this round. Sock journals are still allowed.

Please feel free to bring up any game-related topic you'd like to discuss. All topics will be linked in the main post.

➜ HOW'S THE STAFF
➜ CHARACTER COMPLAINTS
➜ ACTIVITY CHECK
➜ PLOTTING 101
➜ AGING IN PARADISA

Comments

HOW'S THE STAFF

[paradisamods]

Our current staff includes Valerie valerie, TF teeff, and Ashley frisky as mods, with Jenn superheroine and Ruru plonks as helpers.

How do you feel the staff is faring? As always, we welcome and encourage any questions or comments you may have for us. All feedback will be greatly appreciated!

[(Anonymous)]

I can't claim to know how the workload is divided up behind the scenes, but I am questioning the amount of work I seen done by the mod staff. A lot of the time, it looks like the work is unevenly divided up. Maybe there's more going on behind the scenes, but a few times now I've seen plots meant to be ran by Valerie or Ashley get the ball dropped and TF or other muns having to pick it up - so I can't help but feel like its not just "they're working behind the scenes". A few times, it even killed overall excitement of the plot because people didn't know what was going on or a lot of plot ends got dropped.

So what's the deal? I don't have anything against the mod staff, but this trend seems unfair to me and it hurts the game. I know some of the staff has busy schedules, but surely some arrangements can be made right?

[valerie]

Can I ask which plot(s) I've dropped so that I know what to work on with regards to future plots?

CHARACTER COMPLAINTS

[paradisamods]

We currently run on a two strike system for complaints. A complaint is given and it is brought to the player in question for discussion. If we have a repeat complaint after the player is supposed to have worked on the things the complaint was based on, they will have their character removed from them.

Do you feel this is fair, or would you prefer a thee-strike system, giving players another chance to fix their characterization before having their character removed?

Re: CHARACTER COMPLAINTS

[lonenoble]

Personally? I don't see how adding a third strike would really hurt. And it takes a little stress and gives a real chance for improvement without the "oh god I'm getting kicked next time someone complains" pressure the current count has.

You see three strikes policies in a lot of games anyway.

But I don't really feel that strongly about it. This is just observation.

ACTIVITY CHECK

[paradisamods]

Now that we have had a month of the new system, how do you feel it is working? Do you feel that having a solid number has improved the system? Please give us any feedback that you may have.

[uncurse]

After re-checking the activity changes I have one quick clarification!

When providing comment links for those who do wind up needing to provide linked activity, are backthreads that have been tagged during the current month allowed to contribute to that total, or only threads started during the current activity period?

PLOTTING 101

[paradisamods]

As always, we'd like your feedback on any plots you'd like to see in the future. Perhaps you have an idea but don't know where to begin writing it up yourself, or maybe you have a question about something you'd like to try but aren't sure how it would work. If it's related to plots you'd like to see happen, it goes here.

PLOTS ON THE BURNER

[teeff]

So, I always have a few plots waiting in the wings, and I’d like to judge player interest in them, and listen to players comments on them and so on. So the ones I have that I’m working on right now are:

Jumangi Yes THAT JUMANGI. If you haven’t seen it (it must have been nice, living under that rock) basically a magic board game attached to a jungle world brings things FROM that jungle world into the real world with every roll of the dice. Characters would have to deal with monsoons, stampedes and psychotic hunters to name but a few. I’m still working on trying to make the ‘player’ aspect of this plot more accessible to Paradisa at large, as each action does require the roll of a dice. SUGGESTIONS ARE WELCOME!

Sky High - Based on that movie. A high school plot with super powers! Characters would become teenagers (or remain as adults and teach) and get super powers. I’m hesitant with this one because I think we have a Hogwarts plot that’s been submitted, so if this one does go down it’ll be a while off.

Powered and depowered - Residents with powers will wake up to find their powers have gone, Not only that, but residents who DON’T have powers will suddenly find they have the powers their fellow residents once had. I remember hearing that players wanted a way to encourage others to train and learn new skills and the like, and I thought this might be a good way to try it out. The residents who have just lost their powers will have to train others how to use them, and in turn they will need to learn how to deal without powers from the residents who are used to not having powers. There could be a monster or a world change to add to this, to create the urgency in learning these skills, hopefully encouraging characters and players to learn more skills and develop their characters this way in the future. We could even have fighting skills and the like swapped. ALL THE COMMENTS FOREVER ON YAYS OR NAYS OR THE LIKE.

How to Train your Dragon
Based on that dragon movie. Characters would reside in the land of Berk, where they can have Viking-y adventures. Some may even become dragon trainers. STILL ON THE FENCE ABOUT THIS ONE I JUST LIKE DRAGONS.

Any comments at all you guys have on these, I'd love to hear them!

[uncurse]

The Event Horizon plot was really cool and I'm forever sad that I wasn't here for it but I loved stalking it. I'm really looking forward to the Jurassic Park plot being similarly awesome.

In general, idk if I'm the only one, but I have a huge preference towards those plots where there's room for characters and players to influence things and really DO something as opposed to curse/loss-type plots where it's just a wait it out kind of deal, and so it's good to see Paradisa introducing those types because I know when I left last time it had a huge preference towards the wait-it-out kind of plots. (I hope that distinction makes sense akglrsjg.)

[wilder]

I still want an Angry Birds plot where some residents take some eggs they find on an expedition, and then have to face the wrath of attacking projectile birds out for revenge.

Come on, it can totally work.

...

I'd also settle for a Plants vs. Zombies plot.

EXPEDITIONS

[encryptedlock]

Now that we have a more detailed map available to the general public (thanks Zelos!) and hopefully we can get some vehicles to help us out, I know I for one would definitely like to see some more exploring going on. One of the big complaints with expeditions is the time needed to get anywhere we haven't already been, which is why I've had York try and help with this problem.

Obviously I like these and don't have a problem running them, but if there's anyone else who has any ideas or wants to run one that would be lovely as well. Places I'd like to visit or see visited include:

-Winchester and Fairfield: the villages from the Old West plot, this would be a good destination since they're actually quite close to the powered zone. Basically just to check them out, no specific goals in mind.

-New York City: Obviously York is burning to visit this one. If the ships from the pirate plot are still chilling in that big lake that could get us a pretty long way fairly quickly.

Where else would you guys like to go? Any ideas?

REALLY ROUGH PLOT IDEAS HERE

[heloise]

I haven't had time to research/think these through but it would be great to gauge people's interest and what they'd want to see if we were to do these here plots?

FINAL FANTASY IX WORLD CHANGE PLOT
I'm thinking we can either do it just in Lindbulm before the Festival of the Hunt or let characters spread around in a few cities and react to events when the Mist momentarily disappeared (before coming back with a vengeance!). This would probably be more of a lighthearted and action-y plot with characters turned into one of the Gaia races. Oglops anyone?

ROME/FLORENCE WORLD CHANGE
Can be modern time or renaissance time ;) I can have it revolve around an event so players have something to do, maybe Christmas in Rome or the Carnevale in Florence or the Jubilee in Rome! If it's oldies/renaissance time then I might be able to mix in some politicking or threat of war to spice things up. Any preferences and suggestions would be great!

Trials!

[thraxios]

Okay, so. Here's something Pel and I have been throwing around while sitting around in diners, and I'd like to see if it's something other people would be interested in.

The Trials of Heth-Eskaladen (generally just referred to as the Trials) are a religious holiday, sort of the equivalent of a Leap Year's/New Year's celebration, in Mélusine in the Doctrine of Labyrinths books. They occur over a five-day period in the equivalent of mid-September in our world and are a big celebration for the Lower City. (The upper echelons don't celebrate because, to quote Monette, "too, too plebeian, darling." Lol.)

Our idea is to bring the Trials to Paradisa sometime in the fall (exact timing is not important, lol). There'd be two main components, so that players could choose to involve their characters in fluffy funtimes, darker horrortimes, or ignore them entirely.

Fluffy funtimes would be the actual Trials celebration. What we know from the books is that one of the major entertainments is a curtain maze you can walk through. We'd plan to port in other entertainments common to festivals during the Elizabethan era, such as plays (morality and otherwise), food, dancing, maybe a bonfire. You get the idea.

Darker horrortimes would be the presence of a serious business maze, a full-on fucking labyrinth akin to the one that Felix, Mildmay, and Mehitabel walk in The Virtu. It's creepy as shit and full of mikkary, booby-traps, and general unpleasantness. (For instance, there's a point in The Virtu where Mildmay can hear his brutally murdered girlfriend calling to him from just beyond a stone wall. Without Felix and Tabby there to pull him away, he would have been there 'til his fingers bled and he starved to death, trying to get to her. Needless to say, that would be coming along with this maze, lol.) And there's something in the center that has to be dealt with. Characters would have to walk the labyrinth and lay the thing in the center to rest.

And since none of this would be a full-on immersive experience (just out on the grounds close to the castle), it would be completely avoidable if your character wants to skip it.

We don't have anything solid written up, but it's definitely something that's been percolating, as evidenced by all this tl;dr. SORRY IT'S SO LONG LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK

Old Vegas World change

[lord_wizard]

I've brought this up before but haven't had much time to develop what is basically a reconstruction of Vegas as it was in the early 50's (I have a whole folder of reference sites and nothing else). Outside of that task, I've been going back and forth on the idea of whether or not to include a plot. The older world changes had them, though I never experienced them myself, and I tend to enjoy plots with a bit more structure as opposed to a total sandbox. A sandbox, however, would be easier to run.

For a plot though, I'm just not sure what it would be or how to run it outside of it vaguely involving the residents in opposition to the mafia. It could be partially avoidable for those that want a more casual experience, but given that, how to make people participate at all?

Input? Help? Suggestions?

AGING IN PARADISA

[(Anonymous)]

I may be wrong, but I think Paradisa is the only game that currently does not allow their characters to age or grow. I can guess why; it's a Utopian setting in which everything stays perfect, but that's only a guess.

I'd like to propose the idea of allowing characters to age over time. This way, characters can grow with the setting.

[wilder]

I'm...not sure personally I'd be so onboard with it. Though this is more for the selfish reason that I'm playing a character with a genetic problem that well, if he started aging he'd be dead within a few months unless we did some deus ex machina for him. Then again I might be the only person with this problem so selfish crit is selfish.

[uncurse]

While I personally enjoy the notion of character aging, here's the thing: as you stated, Paradisa is (one of the) only games that has this feature. Everyone who applied to the game applied with the knowledge of it, and as mentioned below, it may be the only reason they can hold onto their character without some macguffin.

As such, despite the fact that I, personally, enjoy characters aging, I feel like it would be taking something away from too many players to shift that. It's something that draws many players with specific characters to Paradisa, and it's something unique that Paradisa has as part of its setting in contrast to other games.

[courageous_wit]

I can see where you're coming from on this, anon, but I agree with what most have been saying. And just because they don't age or grow physically doesn't mean they're not allowed to grow mentally. I know I personally try to make sure all my characters are growing like that during their stay in Paradisa.

So in a way, characters are already growing with the setting, even if their physical bodies remain the same :)

[whistles_the_blues]

I can't really say I'm for or against this idea. On one hand it would sooner rather than later force my character to find help and get himself fixed, but getting him fixed takes away some neat niches to use for him in world changes and build up to him eventually getting fixed/canon updating.

Another aboard the selfish train. I have no issue working around it, but I can't say I'm on board with it happening either.

Re: AGING IN PARADISA

[strangewonders]

I don't really have a horse in the race, but I don't really see how physical aging really matters that much? Your characters still grow with the setting, it's just mental growth, not physical.

It would probably have to be made optional, given the characters who would be adversely effected by such a change in rules, and besides, the game is on a one-to-one ratio, so unless you play a toddler, I don't think there's that much physical change any character is going to undergo, except in the cases where aging would be detrimental.

Re: AGING IN PARADISA

[deductiongeek]

The no aging is actually one of my favorite things about Paradisa. I've been playing around with it a lot with Conan, and its really created some interesting issues for him.

[therealrisette]

I'll add to everyone else already saying this and agree that, while Paradisa doesn't allow characters to physically age, it does allow them to grow and develop and mature as characters, which is really the more interesting part. Only the physical body doesn't change, and really that kind of makes sense for a castle that picks people up out of their timelines and drops them right back when it's done with them...

It's also the way Para's been for years and years already, so it'd be a sudden and drastic change that would only lose something unique that no other game seems to have. I don't really see any reason the mod team would be convinced to go that route...

[(Anonymous)]

Everyone's already echoed everything big I wanted to say. Games I've played in that allow aging usually end up allowing pregnancies too, unfortunately, and then you end up with those kinds of loose ends. I know I've apped a character or two who had time frozen for them and it was actually convenient, because otherwise I would have had to deal with a baby happening, or impending death/falling apart/fonon bullshit.

It's a feature of Paradisa that I actually enjoy because it's so damn weird. Also it saves me from having to redo icons and shit because my character had to grow five inches after spending the entirety of his puberty in Paradisa, haha.

If it is something that changed, I wouldn't throw a fit or anything, but it is a part of the game along with the creepy whispers in your sleep and that sort of thing. I've been here since before there were ACTUAL DAY CYCLES... but games change. It might affect how I app in the future, though.

[quadro_dent]

A lot of people have said what I've been thinking already but I'd still like to throw my two cents in.

With characters that are typical adults aging might not be a problem. But if you, like me, have a habit of playing children or old men (I played Kevin Flynn from TRON for a while) it becomes an issue. Sunny, for example, is only 2 years old and she comes from around the middle of her canon. If characters start aging it will drastically change my character in that she would have to age and grow physically. If she's played long enough it could potentially lead to what would amount to an OC since there is no way of knowing what Sunny would be like beyond the approximate age of 3 where the canon ends. I would have to do new icons every few months just to keep up with how rapidly children that age grow and change.

Now, I know that she's the youngest character in the castle currently and absolutely not representative of the population as a whole but it's something to consider. Alternately those who play older characters may have to deal with the possibility of them dying of old age. As someone who's played characters on both ends of the spectrum (including ages 2, 12, 13 and 70 respectively) I think that adding the aging factor would cause too many potential issues.