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October Midmonth
| Midmonth Mod Post: October Hello, Aefenglom! Here's your monthly midmonth mod post. First, as always, some reminders. They're pretty brief this month:
•Our activity check also begins on October 24th! While we'll have the requirements on the activity check itself as a reminder, here they are right now so you can start figuring things out: 10 comments minimum from you across two threads OR one network post/log made by you with at least 5 comments from you and a second, separate thread with at least 5 comments from you.In addition, players are allowed to take a strike if they have at least half of the necessary activity; Inbox threads and personal overflow threads also work - they just have to be from the current month! • The calendar has all these dates as always, so check it out! The Aefenglom Journal It's been an eventful end-of-year for Aefenglom. We are proud to welcome refugees from Dorchacht into our fold, and we thank all the citizens that have given up their time and cunes to help them settle in and become part of our fair city. So too do we thank the Mirrorbound for assisting during that mess over the days of the full moons. The perpetrators using experimental alchemy to torment our citizens have been brought in and are being held until trial. The Coven and Parliament together plan to crack down on the illegal trade of goods that allowed such mischief to occur in the first place. We face difficulties, but we pick up and move on. Preparations for Samuin at the end of the month continue as scheduled, alongside clean-up efforts. There is much to make amends for now, and it's best to do so before the end of the year, lest it poison the next. When Samuin comes and the moons wane, the use of magic is still greatly discouraged during the celebration, as it is during all holidays. The well of it is much stronger, and the draw to use it is more potent. Those who fall to its temptation will be pelted with balls of seasonally-appropriate colored paint. Make sure to catch the fireworks display on the eve of the 31st, and hold your loved ones close. May the new year be bright! OOC Updates
• In response to some of your suggestions, as well as our own notations of growing casts, we'd like to ask your opinion on canon and franchise caps! Our thought would be 10-12 per canon, and 20-24 per franchise, so let us know what you think below. • For those who've been wondering about switching their roles, from Witch to Monster and vice versa, there will soon be a way to do so implemented ICly into the game! More information regarding this will be given going in November. • Lastly, we are looking for helper mods to assist with list upkeep and activity checking! For the first, you'll be in charge of keeping the Taken, Player Contact, Reserves, and Quest Board updated. The same with the activity mod: You'll be in charge of checking through AC at the end of each month, and only that. We'll be assisting with both so you're not all on your own about it, but it really would help us. For those interested in either position, please PM the mod account! Feedback We're here again to offer everyone the chance to give some feedback, if there's anything that you've noticed or would like to possibly seem implemented! Talking Points:
• Quests. In general, what kind of quests would you like to see more of? How can we improve with these? What's working, and what isn't? • Plot investigation feedback. We've gotten quite a few good investigations, and honestly it's been fantastic seeing what everyone does with their information. • Events. What type of ones would you like to see, what ones are working, what aren't? • General feelings on: the game, the timing of posts, how events and such are set up, etc. • And more! Tell us what's on your mind. |
no subject
As someone in a bigger cast, I'm actually all for a cast cap! I love castmates, but there is a certain size point that casts get pretty unwieldy to keep up with and keep up with cross-canon CR that I also love.
My question is there a clear definition between what's a canon and what's a franchise? Like do they have to be separate universes that never interact to be considered franchises (ex: MCU Spider-man vs Comic Spider-man), or could they be in the same universe as long as the bulk of their canon material comes from their own independent series (ex: Netflix Daredevil is technically in the MCU, but he's mostly doing his own thing independent from the Avengers). Or will it be decided on a case-by-case scenario?
Just mostly wondering because Trails is one of those same-world franchises with occasional crossovers between the different series (ie: Lloyd Bannings is the protagonist of Zero/Ao and most of his storyline takes place there, but he appears in Cold Steel as a minor character), so it'd be good to know where we stand when it comes to our cast cap.
ETA: Edited to say I personally don't have a strong opinion on the matter of how franchise vs canon should be decided and am okay going with what the mods go with. Just wanna know the guidelines.
no subject
The reason for a franchise cap for some canons over the individual cast cap is theoretically to keep one large franchise with several individual canons within from becoming overwhelming. Just in Marvel alone, you've got 616, Ultimates, MCU, Netflix MCU if you count that as a different canon, the X-Men movies, the Sony Spider-Man movies, probably more, and if you had 10 or 12 characters from each of those, you quickly bloat the game up to being half Marvel, which can be intimidating and seem unfair to everyone else in the game.
Again, nothing is currently set in stone and we're absolutely willing to hear arguments for or against, but initial thoughts: things like Trails, Final Fantasy, Fate/, the Fire Emblem games, the Persona games, Marvel, DC, Pokemon, we would likely consider 'franchises' and would have a larger, but still reasonable total cap, whatever we finally decide the numbers should be. Each individual canon within a franchise would also not be allowed to exceed the cast cap. If you had a cap of 10 MCUs, and the franchise cap was 20, you could also have say 6 comics characters app in, and 4 X-movie characters, and then Marvel's franchise cap would be hit.
Of course, we still welcome feedback from anyone on if this system seems fair, what the final numbers should be for both casts and franchises, if we should actually do something completely different, etc. We want to consider all sides before settling.
no subject
I totally understand the logic of wanting a franchise cap! Because yeah, some franchises have so many titles that they could easily dominate a game. If anything, I think it's a great compromise rather than just shoving an entire franchise under a cast cap.
As for the initial thoughts - I think that sounds great! I particularly love the part about the canons within the franchises having cast caps, because that is a concern with Trails! Trails have 3 distinct "individual canons" (Sky, Zero/Ao, and Cold Steel) and all are fantastic - but Cold Steel tends to be the most popular RP wise. So it'd be good to have that cast cap in there to make sure Cold Steel don't take all the extra franchise slots cause Zero and Sky need love too.
So yeah, all around my own thoughts is I think this sounds great and fair! I'm glad to hear the clarification since yeah, deciding what's a franchise and what's a canon varies so much from case to case. Maybe someone else will have different thoughts, but so far it sounds fair to me.
no subject
While I dig the idea of a cast cap a lot, I'm a bit more concerned about a franchise cap for canons that don't cross over. Final Fantasy has a ton of popular titles in it and I'm worried when the remake for VII comes out we'll have people fighting over limited spots between XIV and VII since they're popular at the moment. It's not fair to people who, say, want to app from XV or IX who then have to contend with an extremely lopsided cap and zero chance of canonmates. Crossovers are also non canon and rare outside the mobile games.
I definitely see the case for both, but 1. I'm not sure two caps are necessary and 2. I remember all the hurt feelings from franchise caps at previous games, where people literally got fridged out of casts for not apping from the current fad. With XIV there's also a worry that this could happen with ire being directed toward OC players for taking up a franchise cap spot. (I have modded a game with a franchise cap before and player behavior was a Problem.)
Game bloat is a super legitimate thing though. It feels a little like no one wins here.
Thank you for all your hard work by the way, and for being as transparent as possible.
no subject
I'm personally against a franchise cap on top of a cast cap largely due to the issues pointed out above me from Saffy, but I also wanted to add other canons that could have the same problem Final Fantasy would have. Fire Emblem and Tales, for example, rarely have any direct sequels, and most of those titles are stand alone worlds. They don't have any crossover in those titles, other than in easter eggs, DLC, and mobile games.
Then there's also the question for series such as Drakengard and Nier. Nier is an alternate universe of Drakengard, but its titles are extremely different from Drakengard's world because of it being a spin-off from one of its endings. The same is true for Shin Megami Tensei and Persona.
I think that casts such as MCU and Marvel Comics could be put under a general umbrella when they're all connected and canonical. With casts like those, perhaps that could be when a franchise cap would be put in place, and have a higher cap because of how MANY possible canons someone could app from. The same can be said of Pokemon and any other direct sequel games, such as Tales of Symphonia and Tales of Symphonia 2, or Tales of Berseria and Tales of Zestiria.
This also begs the question about OCs. Will they have a cap? And do canon OCs, such as the Warrior of Light in Final Fantasy XIV or characters created from World of Warcraft or tabletop RPGs, count towards a franchise cap on top of that cast cap?
I also wanted to thank you guys for opening the floor for an honest discussion about all of this, and for taking the time out of your day to listen. ♥ It's so, so appreciated!
no subject
Examples:
A) Peter Parker from MCU and Miles Morales from Spider-man: Into The Spider-Verse app into the game. They come from alternate realities and different canons, but fall under the Marvel Franchise cap because their universes share enough in common that they'd see each other as castmates.
B) Tidus from FFX and Fran from FFXII app into the game. Despite being both Final Fantasy, they don't fall under a franchise cap because they come from two different worlds (Spira and Ivalice) with no real connections so it'd be very unlikely they'd ICly see each other as castmate unless they go super conspiracy theory over chocobos. However, if more characters from the Ivalice-based FFs app (FFXII, FFT, FFTA), they may fall under a franchise cap together as they share a world.
Does that make sense? It'd have to be a case-by-case decision by the mods since some canons are not so clear cut (hello Kingdom Hearts), but that could be the general basis. Idk just throwing my own ideas out there.
no subject
The numbers will be a bit trickier, given how franchise sizes can vary drastically. For example, Kingdom Hearts and Marvel Comics vs Final Fantasy X / X-2 or Final Fantasy XIII.
no subject
To me personally, the biggest issue about big casts/franchise casts is not about "oh no how dare this franchise be popular" and more that characters with similar canon worlds have a tendency to team up and if there's a lot of them - it can overwhelm plots. I remember being in a game where we had 20+ superheroes characters from various comics/movies/shows, and it was hard to do things in plots because good luck competing against all those superheroes working together like one big cast. So in situations like that? I'm all for a franchise cap to help keep that in check.
Meanwhile I'm less worried about there being a lot of FF characters because good luck getting a unified front from the shared experiences of "yellow ostriches" and "Cid's a surprisingly popular name". That's just me at least.
no subject
Thank you for opening it up to discussion and listening to player concerns!
no subject
i myself aren't in favor of a "franchise cap", simply because it will probably create more problems than fixing them, especially because of how large some franchises may be. quite honestly, i believe that there is a decent variety in canons game, which balances out those "franchise canons" pretty nicely and i don't believe that there's a need to mess with that.
as for cast cap, i believe thats a bit better. it will definitely raise competition when it comes to reserves/apps, which is not something that most players will enjoy, but i think thats easier to manage than the former option. either way, i do believe that if you do decide to add any sort of app cap, that we take these two options to the polls, simply to make things easier to quantify.
no subject
Otherwise, I haven't had any problems with events or such? When I am slower or handwave for a bit it is more because I am busy ooc than me not being keen or interested in the events necessarily on my end at least.
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while i understand people's hesitation for the idea of a franchise cap, a lot of franchises have crossovers that end up raising the question of can they truly be considered separate entities: dissidia final fantasy, the avengers, persona q, kingdom hearts - fate/grand order alone pulling info from and referencing other installments all over. (honestly, the last in the list is why i'm definitely more inclined towards things being limited.) it's a tricky thing to navigate, but the mods mentioning a case by case basis seems the most fair in these circumstances.
no subject
I'm going to politely disagree with this point, as in the past I've seen many times from multiple casts the "competition" for cast slots turn into straight up bullying and harassment towards other players.
That is not okay and not easier to manage for players or mods. If something can be done to help avoid situations like that from happening in Aefenglom, that would be best.
no subject
in fact, by dividing it more by franchise, it would create even more competition, especially in large series such as fate/ where theres about a dozen canons. following that example, fate/grand order alone has almost like 100 characters and is one of the most popular canons of this franchise to play from (due to the variety in characters)-- wouldn't this be unfair for the other fate/ canons? this will also end up happening with the other large franchises, such as ff, kh, fe, etc. this would be especially noticeable when new canons of that franchise comes out, just like how everyone rushed in to app fe3h characters after the release of the game.
this is exactly why i believe that, once the mods have chosen the options, we need to take them to the polls
no subject
I definitely think handling it on a case by case basis would be the best approach to this, though, provided the mods are transparent about their decisions (I totally trust them on that front though!)
Not About Game Caps
I know this is like, 2 weeks late but I wanted to really be able to put my feedback together more concretely about certain aspects of the game, so that took a bit. It's for stuff that's pretty continual to the state of the game itself and I am gonna break into sections.
Investigations/plot
So it seems like the investigation submission post has fallen... totally wayside, which my understanding that's the place to look into things about the setting/enact actions that don't have to do with the event. IT seems neglected? I know at least one investigation is pending for months now which is pretty discouraging from a standpoint of wanting to look into the game lore and engage with it. If it's not in use anymore then I think something needs to be said for that and a different channel needs to be established, or it just needs more steady attention so players aren't left sitting on things they'd like to do.
Which, what quite a few players want to do is the plot! You have an amazing setting here and it says a lot that so many are interested in digging deeper into it. But it also feels impossible to leave any sort of impact from our actions in a way that doesn't fit a specific direction: such as the lack of flexibility for the diplomats and the limitations on what we could research and affect beyond helping the resistance. It doesn't seem like the Dorchacht tracker ended up being used for anything, and if it's longer term then at the time it didn't really feel like I could do anything except riot, because other avenues of Dorchacht were kinda closed up.
It's a big world and there's a lot of problems--Aefenglom relations, cities like Dorchacht, the mystery of the Mirrorbound, the Cwyld--to get invested in. And you've said you don't want to do big mandatory plots so... maybe it'd be better to retool the plot focus to encourage smaller group investigations into different things instead of moving the whole game in one direction? If the crux of the plots is player initiative/submission then people who'd rather just play in the city don't have the pressure to join the fight. I think the plot needs to be balanced in a way that's more manageable for y'all to deliver, but without taking away the character's ability to actually participate and leave their mark on it! Esp something like why the Mirrorbound are here and what's going to drive them to care, since the game's flavor text gives the impression it isn't an accident.
Bonds
This seems like it's supposed to be a main mechanic from the game, but it's pretty light on it. There's a lot of IC insistence to bond but there's... not a lot of incentive or benefit to doing so besides your personal health. I think there could be a lot more here on witch and monster sides to create a balanced benefit besides survival. Something like maybe witches get a natural talent boost in the kind of magic that lines up with the abilities of their bonded, to spitball a random idea. I apped because I was really into the mechanic and I think, if it's something you also want to be strong in the game, there's a lot of potential in letting the bonds do more, to have more incentive for different characters besides not dying or going feral--make monsters and witches really need and benefit from each other.
Witches
It came up with the recent discussion over the new mechanic, but: There's no real downsides to being a witch the way there is being a monster. They can learn more forms of magic, there doesn't seem to be a strong cap on how powerful a witch's magic is versus a monster, they get less persecution--the pros and cons are just really unbalanced between the two.
On the OOC side, monsters have a lot of potential drama with the prejudice, Dorchacht, higher Cwyld risk, etc--but witches aren't a solid flip side to it. They don't carry particular power in Aefenglom, the average person only likes them slightly more than monsters it seems like so they can't claim or use any higher status. I've heard there are some things accessible to witches but not to monsters, which I assume is coven related, but it isn't so obvious right now from a story perspective what the hooks of being a witch are except for dodging the transformation aspect.
Aefenglom is a compelling setting that I really want to get into, it's just difficult right now. I think a lot of players are feeling it, at least I know of a few that are. But I really love what you've started here, Aefenglom was a game that had my eye when it was first announced and I'm glad to have gotten to join it, so I want to see it thrive! And I'm aware some of these are longer term solutions so like, I don't expect it fixed tomorrow. I just also don't want to see them chafe worse because they're noticeable when I and others are playing.
Y'all have been amazing about being open for player suggestions and really trying to address things and I'm really grateful for that. Idk how to put this in a way that doesn't sound silly but I do like the game, I've had fun and want to continue having fun and that's why I feel strongly and just leave my opinions lying on the ground here like laundry.
Thank you!
no subject
Investigations
We could bore you with excuses, but ultimately yes, the delay on investigations is our fault and we feel terrible for it. We have taken some steps to try and get back on top of things - we have two new list and AC helper mods as of the beginning of November to take over most of the administrative housekeeping, which means the rest of the mod team (we are still down a few main mods due to RL issues) can focus more on plot, investigations, FAQ questions, and anything involving worldbuilding and lore. We've been steadily working our way through the outstanding investigations and questions and this mod believes they're all replied to as of November 5th. If we missed someone, though, we ask that they drop us a PM or reply to their comment again to let us know!
In the future, we're going to try to be much quicker with replies to the Investigations post - it won't remain neglected! Going forward, anybody who doesn't receive a reply within 72 hours should PM the mod journal to let us know. We'll be more proactive in letting players know when an answer may take longer than that.
We do apologize that Dorchacht wasn't handled as smoothly as it could be as a whole. All we can really say is that it was a bit of a turbulent time for the mod team and we hope to learn from our mistakes and do better in the future. There will still be follow-up to the situation in Dorchacht - it's already planned out on our agenda for after the holiday season.
As far as smaller investigations go, we actually experimented with this a bit on a smaller scale during Fright Night - with the RNG'd groups receiving briefs of information to thread with. We're still deciding how that went but overall we think it was a positive step inspired by player feedback to Dorchacht, and we may use this or a similar approach in the future for targeted areas of larger plots. (There will also be follow-up/conclusion to Fright Night toward the end of this month.)
Bonds
We do still plan to re-tool the information page on Bonds when time allows. That, unfortunately, has also fallen by the wayside with everything else going on, but it's still on the to-do list. These are some great suggestions, though! We do love the idea of adding some more benefits to balanced Bonds, and really creating more reasons for Witches and Monsters to need each other and work together. There may be some additions when we finish up the reworked Bonds page!
Witches
You're right that the two sides aren't completely balanced as far as pros and cons. This is something we're aware of (but glad to hear it confirmed from a player! Our perspective on the game isn't always the same as the players' and we appreciate hearing about things like this.), and something we're looking to work on in the future. You're right that this is more of a long-term solution, but we're already thinking ahead to what kinds of things we can do and introduce in the new year (since the holiday season is a pretty busy time for players and mods alike with RL obligations, we don't want to heap too much on until at least January). We're using the time until then to get caught up ourselves and smooth things out on the back end in preparation, consolidate ideas, etc.
We really appreciate you taking the time to leave us this comment! I know we keep saying it, but we do. It means a lot that people care so much about Aefenglom. We do too, and we want this to be a fun and immersive game that people can really sink their teeth into, and we couldn't do any of this without our amazing playerbase. We've had some definite missteps, but we're hoping to learn from those and do better in the future.
- The Aefenglom Mod Team