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AMENDED November Update - Please Read
Truly when we posted the announcement about this, we didn’t foresee the concerns overwhelmingly listed on the previous announcement. We never meant to cause anybody any strife when it comes to playing their characters ICly. These were not issues that we anticipated being so widespread. We do apologize that the implementation was not up to snuff, and so we are pulling the swap mechanic in order to reassess and come up with something that will be more feasible for a larger portion of the game. The information in the previous announcement no longer applies and will be revised as such:
During the Samuin fireworks, a witch finishes an experimental ritual that transfers his witch abilities to the Mirrorbound Harpy Four, and changes him into a Harpy in turn. Nessie is quick to catch on, as one of the ingredients for this ritual is a near-extinct flower found only in her gardens, and the Coven moves swiftly to keep it contained and quiet - Nessie personally takes custody of all the Witch-turned-Harpy's research. Such a magic has never before been seen in Aefenglom’s history, and thus the information is not released to the general public. It is possible for Mirrorbound characters to hear about what happened, especially if they know Four, but it’s just as likely that the happenings on Samuin remain a secret.
Any other Mirrorbound who do hear about it, and approach Nessie to switch with a witch or a monster are denied with a concerned frown (unless where explicitly worked out OOCly between the player and the mod team). It’s still highly experimental magic and not safe - not to mention, she’s been cultivating these required near-extinct flowers for years, and has very few left alive in her garden to show for it after the theft. She will not risk someone’s life and risk fully killing off this species of flower, which is also currently part of a line of Cwyld cure research, on a whim - it is exceedingly difficult to cultivate, even with Faun magic and Witch magic combined. They’ve tried.
Characters may notice security around the Coven is increased after Samuin, especially around Nessie’s private garden, and anyone speaking too loudly about not liking being a witch/monster are given the side-eye by higher up Coven witches. They don’t give Mirrorbound too much of a hard time but what happened with Four and her now-Harpy “friend” are a bit of an open secret just within the Coven walls. Most of them don’t approve of such antics, especially after the mist, due to the inherent dangers.
This means that your characters can generally go about their days not hearing about the possibility of swapping at all, if that’s easier for you, or they can be denied directly by Nessie if they pursue it.
However, if you are truly having trouble playing your character in their current monster or witch form, please PM the mod journal and we will offer you the same opportunity that Four’s player received, to work out a feasible swap on an individual, one-on-one basis.
Swapping into a dragon or fae is still not allowed. If you truly want your character to be a dragon or fae after all, you’re welcome to drop and reapp them as one come January’s round. We will allow memories of Aefenglom to be kept upon re-acceptance.
We will not be currently implementing swaps on a widespread scale until we’ve had a chance to re-assess and work out a better direction for it, and we appreciate your feedback on the matter that helped us come to this conclusion.
We knew this would be an unpopular decision. Caps are never fun but we feel they have become necessary in a game this size. While we did read and take into consideration everyone’s opinions on the October Mid-Month post, we also have to take into consideration the concerns expressed to us through private channels. As mods, we have to give everyone’s opinion weight when making our decisions - not just the opinions posted in public. This sort of decision ultimately has to be made by the mod team based on what we think will be best for the entire game. We do apologize for any disappointment or negative feelings this may cause, and we don’t do this lightly.
Currently, we are sticking to our decision on the numbers, though we may re-assess these in the future as the size of the game and makeup of the taken list change. Individual canons will be capped at 10. Franchises will be capped at 24 total. Fandom OCs are capped at 3 per canon where applicable.
Franchises are not determined by whether or not the worlds in each individual title cross over ICly or not. In order to be fair across the board and not give any one franchise special treatment or ‘extra slots’, we determine what a franchise is based on titling, branding, if it can reasonably be called a ‘series’, etc. Based on OOC information, not IC information, essentially. We do consider each on an individual basis but we have to have a consistent reasoning behind it.
The franchises currently represented in game are as follows: Fate/ series, Fire Emblem series, Final Fantasy series, Marvel, Persona series, and The Legend of Heroes: Trails series. Other things we would consider to be franchises are DC, the Tales Of series, etc.
Original Characters will not be capped, including DnD and tabletop OCs. We apologize for that confusion - it was bad wording on our part, and we fully accept the blame there. Critical Role and The Adventure Zone, and similar canons, despite being DnD based, would be considered their own separate canons and would have the cast cap of 10 applied for each.
We did consider a game cap, but instead we settled on something we feel was missed from the October Mid-Month post: we will be implementing an application round cap going forward. January will be the last uncapped round, because we promised that in the poll as a compromise for closing applications in November. What this cap will be is yet to be decided - we will determine what it should be based on the size of the game after January’s app round, and it will be announced well in advance of March’s application round when it will go into effect.
We appreciate everyone’s feedback, negative and positive both. We always want to take player opinions into consideration where we can, but unfortunately, sometimes we have to make the hard and unpopular decisions, as with caps. As far as the swapping mechanics go, we see now what kinds of problems it could cause implemented the way we were going to - please consider all of that from the last post scrapped, and refer to this announcement instead.
We haven’t replied to everyone on the previous announcement post and likely won’t individually (it’s a lot, guys, we’re sorry!), but if your concern or question was not covered or clarified in this announcement, please let us know, here, or on the Mod Contact post if you prefer to air it in private.
The CR Meme for November will still go up today at 3 PM EST.
QUESTIONS - Swapping
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Second, this is less of a question & more of a suggestion, but I think in order to completely deal with concerns about characters getting fixated on the switch who shouldn't, there may need to be a deterrent attached rather than just limited information & a limited resource. Not hearing about it only lasts so long as players can keep their characters playing dodgeball with encountering any discussion of the idea, & limited resources that are heavily protected only restrict things insofar as the character wouldn't come up with a way to steal another flower.
Obviously Four's change can't be rolled back, but there were some good suggestions (esp Joysweeper's) on the previous post of ways to handle things so it quickly becomes apparent the ritual worked once (or a couple more times, if there are already characters in the queue to swap right now) but is no longer working, even if the right materials are used. That would offer more freedom to retool the mechanic instead of being bound to "this ritual, those ingredients" going forward. It would also mean anyone who has a character who'd get locked into pursuing a switch doesn't have to constantly dodge hearing about it because there's nothing they can act on if they do.
+1
EDIT: Also if people start getting denied by Nessie only for other people to be allowed for OOC reasons, that could foster a lot of ill will towards the Coven/Nessie for stuff that wouldn't be focused on IC reasoning.
+1
for me, this would be pretty miserable to play out and verge on making giorno unplayable. as a result, i'm going the (honestly improbable) route of giorno never hearing about it simply for my own sanity. again, i don't expect a mod response and i can find a way to work with this even if it's fudging the ic/ooc lines. that being said, i did want to voice that the above is correct on all counts and it would be helpful for it to be taken into account in the future.
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We do ask that players be mindful of each other and try not to bring it up in threads if the other doesn't want their character to deal with the knowledge of it in the meantime, though.
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ICly, she will explain to anyone who seeks it out that they have no idea if it even can be recreated or if it could have side effects like the Mist - it's too risky, more research needs to be done, and she only trusts a couple of her closest and most senior witches with something so serious, please understand and let them work on it.
If this isn't sufficient, we'll consider other options but it'll take some thought and we won't have an answer immediately. We do ask that players make it easy on each other for those who want to ignore that the swap happened at all by not mentioning it to them ICly if it can be helped.
In the future, more research may be done by the Coven ICly to work around however we eventually decide to retool things
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QUESTIONS - Caps
Re: QUESTIONS - Caps
everyone's opinion wasn't considered. there needs to be a gamewide poll for a decision like this. and to be honest, i'm not even that bothered by the decision, despite also playing in a large cast. i just feel like this is a very hardline solution to something that may not have even been a huge issue for the game, at least not for the players themselves.
and if it's an issue of modwork, i also strongly recommend just bringing on more mods to do said work. i've been in y'alls shoes, i am very sympathetic to feeling like the game got too big, too fast, and the problems that creates in terms of keeping things moving smoothly.
but i don't feel like a cast cap actually helps that. game caps, app caps, sure, but cast caps resolve player issues more than mod issues, and i'm not convinced this is something the entire playerbase feels as strongly about as the supposed private comments you've recieved.
a poll for the entire playerbase is probably best in this case. if you're really concerned about not starting inter-player conflict, there are features in dwrp that can hide who votes for what option in polls. but moving ahead like this without doing so feels like a mistake.
+1
I know modding a big game is difficult and stressful and I appreciate what y'all have done and continue to do, but this isn't really a solution to that.
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Unfortunately, caps are not a matter that we feel we can flex on. Our opinion is that it needed to be a mod decision.
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While I do not disagree with the idea of a cap in general and do agree with it even, I believe that going with not one, not two, but three caps without so much as a poll (like the one we did for the decision to close apps till January, remember?) is excessive.
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We put up the poll about applications because we announced closing them very suddenly, at the end of a round, and realized we had messed up in that. There has been plenty of notice and opportunity to air concerns in this situation.
Ultimately, with regards to caps, we decided on what we feel is best for the game as a whole.
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While it hasn't been officially announced, we are in the process of onboarding two new helper mods and restructuring things on the back end to provide a smoother, more immersive experience with regards to the plot and events.
We will not be opening the matter of caps to a poll, we're sorry. We feel that it needed to be a mod decision.
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"We have read every comment that has been posted or sent to us privately on the subject of caps" - i understand this, but for a decision that impacts the entire game, you can't just take into consideration only the opinions of those who commented. if this is the truth of the situation, you cannot actually say everyone's opinion was accounted for. it wasn't. the few that commented had their opinions accounted for. not everyone who has an opinion on this issue has commented about it.
"considering that ultimately, the work falls on the mod team" - cast caps do not ease mod work. they don't. a massive game with 100 different casts represented will be just as big and difficult to manage as a massive game with only 20 casts. they have no real impact on the size of the game or its function. game caps and app caps do, but cast caps do not. they resolve player issues, not modwork issues.
i am glad to hear more mods are being brought on, because i've been there and know that even just one or two extra bodies to spread the work around can help immensely, but i still strongly disagree with the decision to not poll the playerbase about these cast/franchsie cap rules.
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App caps are already on the table beginning after January. Cast and franchise caps are to keep large, popular casts from making others from smaller casts or LCWs feel overshadowed and like they can't get involved. At least one of us on the mod team has seen it happen personally from the other side - as someone in the large, popular cast. We didn't make this decision out of nowhere.
Apologies, but we'll have to agree to disagree on this matter.
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because from the outside looking in, it looked like a solution to a problem that didn't exist that no one got to have a meaningful say in. it honestly still does, but at least this gives some perspective on how this even came up.
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I don't have a good solution to this. But please consider how this comes off before posting it.
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I haven't seen this happen which doesn't mean it doesn't, but if some players are bullying others into not sharing their opinion that's really concerning to me. At least that's very much what it's coming across based on how you've put it.
Everyone should feel comfortable being able to present their point and I'd hope that if a player is putting people down to make them feel like they always have to agree, the mods would step in and deal with that! Like that falls into just treating people with respect.
+1
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I'm not going to beat a dead horse with the cast and franchise caps. Mostly, I would like clarification on a couple of casts and franchises, as well as raise my concern for fandom OCs with a possible compromise?
For the casts and franchises, I was curious to know if you consider the following either a cast or a franchise: Kingdom Hearts, and Drakengard and Nier. It feels like you can make a solid argument for both sides, and I just want to know how the team would rule on these two in particular. Kingdom Hearts especially is a title that's almost always popular.
The Fandom OC cap I do have a concern with. As I've mentioned to someone else, there's an increase risk to people apping into a cast or franchise with a Fandom OC being edged out or bullied into either not apping or dropping from the game to free up that slot for a canon character to take. I don't mind the cap at 3 per cast at all. I think that's great, honestly. My worry is it counting towards the cast's and franchise's cap. My thought to alleviate that concern was to keep that cap for any given canon when applicable, but not have it count towards the overall cast's / franchise's cap? Basically, something of a hybrid between OC and canon.
I don't know if this is agreeable to the team as a whole, but even if not, I'd like to know how such a possibility would be handled in the future. It can be exceptionally hard to prove edging out or people intentionally ignoring a Fandom OC to get them to drop. Even harder is reaching out to mods in the first place with evidence of harassment into dropping, especially if said harassment is coming in from private channels (Discord, private messages, HMD's, etc).
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+1
However--
I was in Prisma and there are pages of people on anoncomms ragging on the fandom OCs in the FF cast with zero provocation. Anons also sent players in my cast messages of varying politeness through private channels, making it impossible to narrow down what's coming from where.
A cap for OCs is fine. Pitting OCs against canon characters for spots makes me extremely uncomfortable, having seen the amount of vitriol directed at people that eventually forced them to drop. My point is that DWRP still has a grudge against OC players and making them part of the competition will only add to it.
I'll also add that I've only ever seen positive reception toward OCs in this game, but I don't expect that to always be the case.
ETA ETA ETA: also, thank you for clearing up the D&D thing. I was pretty surprised to see them considered as a singular franchise, esp given TAZ uses Monster of the Week and other formats, so!
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To answer your question in regards to the cast and franchise, we've decided that those three would be counted under the latter -- particularly in the case of Nier and Drakengard as separate franchises, versus having them paired together.
As for your concerns, we don't see it as fair to those without need for OC spots in the same way, many as they are versus the few that would have a need for them; essentially, it would give some casts 13 characters and others remaining at 10 characters. This is also our reason for including them in the cast and franchise caps themselves.
On the topic of harassment: We dealt with a player accused of harassing others privately and were given proof of such, even if it'd been done in those sorts of channels. We don't tolerate harassment whatsoever and do what we can to ensure the safety of those victimized by it, but we can only do something if someone steps forward and brings it to us in the first place. If you or others feel uncomfortable with something someone else does, and especially if it puts you in a bad enough place to drop out, then don't hesitate to bring it into our inbox.
Unfortunately, we cannot control what is said or done on anon comms, but ultimately that is on oneself if they look there in the first place.
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I don't condone crawling anoncomms or whatever but the harassment in Prisma was so bad that it was being brought into people's inboxes under sock accounts and such, so it's not completely avoidable, not always. I don't expect you to do anything about it (who can, really) but was using it as an example of very open ire towards fandom OCs in general-- to explain why I don't agree with the franchise cap.
We still have plenty of time to work on solutions and compromises to the game bloat problem, so I had hoped we could use the next couple months before the app cycle to do it. Not to mention we will have people dropping & no one to replace them until January which should cut down on a bit of the bloat in general. I hope you'll be more open to revisiting it then.
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We can revisit all of this in the future if the size of the game or the makeup of the taken list change drastically, or if a better solution presents itself. Few things are ever set in stone forever; we try to be flexible wherever we can and we're willing to make changes where necessary.
Sincerely we do appreciate everyone's feedback on this and other matters.
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Thank you and I hope you look after yourselves for the crazy holiday season. I know the caps aren't a popular decision and all, but I do feel a poll would make the choice less about resolving what back-end work could be handled and more about what's the popular choice, not the reasonable one.
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