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Midmonth Mod Post: January
Midmonth Mod Post: January
Hello Aefenglom!
First off, thanks again for all your patience and understanding over the last couple of months, and thank you to everyone who has left feedback on any of the midmonth posts and through our survey in December. We got so many responses! Thank you for taking the time to give us your ideas and help in making Aefenglom better. We were overwhelmed by how much you guys love this game and want to see it succeed. We’ll be counting on your continued feedback and enthusiasm in the coming months to make the kind of game we can all have fun in as much as possible.
Due to the amount of feedback across so many parts of the game, not everything can be addressed right away, but we’ll be starting to implement some changes as soon as we can and working toward bigger change in the future. For ease of reading, we’ll go through everything in the sections below.
But first… an introduction! (Welcome to Aefenglom to all new players!) Or perhaps a re-introduction, as the case may be. (Thanks for sticking around, everyone else!) Your friendly neighborhood modteam is as follows:
- • Plot mods, the folks in charge of quests, events, and other such: Nekky, Lena, and Mchan
• List mods, the folks who keep everything looking tidy and organized: Mchan and Kim
• Information organization and maintenance: Peace and Bella
• HTML Wizard: Shuu
Now, onto the stuff you’re probably waiting for… Aefenglom in 2021.
Wow, can you believe this game has been running for almost two years? Time is fake, etc etc, it’s pretty mind-boggling-- and also really awesome! We’re looking forward to another year ahead! Let’s go over some feedback and plans being enacted in the coming weeks.
- Game plot, pacing, and events:
Since it first opened, many aspects of Aefenglom have evolved and grown with the playerbase. As many of you know, the original mods started the game with a certain vision, but since the game has been turned over to a new team and has also grown significantly in number of characters, some aspects of that original vision have also evolved with the new situation. Part of that is plot. Though first envisioned as a plot-centric and fast-paced game, with real-world current events making life unpredictable in many ways -- and also in keeping with feedback we have gotten -- we’ve decided that it’s best for Aefenglom to officially be what it has been for some time now: a game focused on exploration and adventure in the large, vibrant world so many of you have helped flesh out. There will be ongoing plots and events, and some overarching and recurring elements that are a major part of the premise, such as the Cwyld, but for the purposes of making sure everyone’s expectations are on the same level, we want to emphasize that there will be no single, long-running plot for characters to uncover. This is an opportunity to allow the game to grow and change in different directions and respond dynamically to player feedback, as well.
As for the game’s pace, your feedback largely indicated that the current pacing or something a little slower is preferred. We also feel this is most realistic for the mods’ schedules. In order to give more breathing room to mods and players, we’ll be posting mod-led events every other month, and on event-heavy months, there will be fewer quests. We’ll also try to have at least one quest leading into the event either that month or before as a sort of teaser and exploration opportunity (to be marked with a star on the quests page). The off-months will continue to have quests as usual, and will also include a meme or a smaller player plot, perhaps a festival or other light type of event. The goal is to have downtime between larger events to allow for backtagging and to give mods some time to plan out and write the next event.
Relatedly, we are also going to be changing up the way events and event plotting are posted. Instead of doing a monthly pre-event OOC plotting post including a summary of the event, we will now do one of the following, depending on the month:
- • An OOC post that goes up on the same day as the event where players can plot event-specific things and ask questions; since it’s going up in tandem with the IC event post, it will not include a summary but rather a link.
• A “plot with me” meme or similar OOC meme encouraging CR building; we are happy to take suggestions from players for memes they’d like to see.
We also wanted to share with you some of the results from the survey, particularly the genre preference responses. We’ve left out the “other” responses from the chart for clarity and anonymity (though they were all read and have been noted, thank you again). These results are a very helpful guiding factor in choosing future events and “flavor” for the game, but are by no means exhaustive. Please feel free to continue suggesting events, quests, etc in whatever “genre” you prefer. This is only a snapshot of responses so everyone can see. (click to enlarge)
Most of you expressed that you would be interested in a place where everyone can brainstorm and build off each other’s ideas for player plots. Aefenglom is full of amazingly creative players, and as mods we would love to facilitate your ideas and help the playerbase actively flesh out the game and propose plots and events. We would like to help build a community-based game experience where everyone feels a part of telling this world’s story together. To kickstart this, we’ve set up a sticky post in the OOC comm here, where players can post their ideas, brainstorm with one another, and collaborate.
There are sections for player plot ideas, where you can post about an event you would like to organize, and also for mod-led plot ideas, where you can post suggestions for future events to be considered by the mods. There might end up being some overlap in these, but that’s okay! The goal of this post is to have an informal place where everyone can visit and drop an idea when inspiration strikes!
FAQ and game info:
We got a lot of feedback about the huge amount of information in the game and how it’s confusingly spread out. We hear you. There are a number of pages that need updating and a lot of FAQ answers that are difficult to sift through. Considering how much info there is overall, we would like to start organizing a game wiki. Thank you to the players who suggested this! In November, a few of you mentioned you would be interested in volunteering to help with FAQ sorting and/or information upkeep.
In order to make the wiki a reality and a place that can maintain up to date information, we would definitely need to rely on a few volunteers to assist the mod team in sorting through game information and writing up entries. This will take some time, but we hope the end result will be a much more accessible, easily searchable set of information gamewide.
If you can lend a hand, please respond to the header below. Firstly, we’ll need helpers to sort through the current game info and separate it into articles that can be translated to a wiki. If any of you can also help with wiki upkeep, please let us know. Thank you again!
Investigations:
As many of you know and have noticed, the plot investigations system set up at the start of the game has become untenable for the current mod team. We apologize for the frustration and for any disappointment the slow response time from mods has caused. After considering player feedback and discussing what is realistic for our team, we have come to the conclusion that there simply isn’t a way for us to maintain investigations as part of the game in the way they were originally intended.
Regarding outstanding investigations, you should receive a response from the mod team in the next couple of weeks closing the investigation and wrapping up any information given.
As for past investigations, we will unscreen them so all players have access to the information therein. Other characters can also act on information given out in past investigations where relevant, and you can assume the info got out via rumors around the city or something along those lines.
Midmonth posts:
In the future, midmonth posts will be entirely OOC updates. We will no longer be writing up an IC monthly post from the Aefenglom Journal. There are some months where a midmonth post may not be necessary due to a lack of mod announcements and therefore skipped. If you’re looking for a place to leave feedback in between these types of mod posts, please don’t hesitate to use the mod contact page!
Phew! That was quite a lot of information all at once. Thank you for reading, and again for all your feedback. And thank you in advance for your patience as we begin to make some of these changes.
There’s just one last order of business. It was previously announced, but just in case anyone missed it, this is just a reminder that Activity Check requirements are halved this month. It’s been a rough holiday season leading into a rough January for lots of folks. Please, take care of yourselves.
As always, feel free to leave questions and feedback below! Happy Friday and have a great rest of your week.
VOLUNTEERS TO HELP SORT FAQ & MAINTAIN WIKI
Re: VOLUNTEERS TO HELP SORT FAQ & MAINTAIN WIKI
Time zone: EST - But wildly free during the day and night. And also can arrange to meet at a more convenient office hour if needed.
What kind of help are you volunteering to provide? Organizing FAQ and Maintain Wiki. I am super into the idea of this happening! Apologies. I should add I also have experience handling mediawiki and editing skins as well as just general data input.
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Would you be okay working with our group through discord, or do you prefer a different platform?
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Re: VOLUNTEERS TO HELP SORT FAQ & MAINTAIN WIKI
Time zone: CET / CEST
What kind of help are you volunteering to provide? I've got experience in both information organizing and upkeep so I can help with both.
I have also some experience with actual wiki software (dokuwiki, mediawiki) so if the mod team decides to go with this technical solution I can help with set up too. There are also other solutions more geared towards specifically worldbuilding and role-play.
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Would you be okay working with our group through discord, or do you prefer a different platform?
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Re: VOLUNTEERS TO HELP SORT FAQ & MAINTAIN WIKI
Time zone: Pacific
What kind of help are you volunteering to provide? Either sorting through information or writing up entries would be fine by me! I know the FAQ pretty well (as in, i've read through all those pages... many times... god) and at one point I was working with some fellow players to try to sort info using Trello. Unfortunately, I've heard that Trello doesn't work for all players, so I don't know about the viability of using it to sort info... But it's been really handy to be able to search something up and find any comments about a particular topic!
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So, back to the question itself. Would you be okay working with our group through discord, or do you prefer a different platform?
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Re: VOLUNTEERS TO HELP SORT FAQ & MAINTAIN WIKI
Time zone: PST
What kind of help are you volunteering to provide? I can help with organizing info and upkeep, since I've had experience with documentation and help systems
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Would you be okay working with our group through discord, or do you prefer a different platform?
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i understand the reasoning that was given as to why: to allow the game to grow in different directions, but can we get a bit more clarification as to what you mean by “no single long-running plot”? after reading it initially and a few times over, it gives the impression that the game no longer has a certain plot/story line to follow, that answers questions such as “why are the mirrorbound here? what is the cwyld’s origin and is there a cure?” among others that i can’t grasp off the top of my head. are past events that could have possibly pointed towards an overarching plot being scrapped, as well as some investigations? many of us have lost a certain sense of direction when it comes to character development due to not having an “end” so to speak, to solve. is that what you mean or have i misinterpreted?
+1
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It turns out our definition of "overarching plot" was slightly different than what it seems players have taken this to mean, and we apologize for the miscommunication. Please don't hesitate to ask if you have further questions!
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We apologize for the miscommunication. We didn't realize it was so unclear -- probably one of those things where you know what you mean, and then you realize some terms haven't been defined exactly for all parties to be on the same page! Sorry about that, and thanks for bringing this mix-up to our attention.
When we say there's no single, long-running plot, we mean simply that there isn't one pre-determined plotline to discover and follow in a linear fashion, and no end-game already decided on. Instead, it will be more of an episodic experience. Think of it as a "mystery of the week" type show vs a heavily plot-driven drama. This may be an imperfect analogy, but something along the lines of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where there are arcs around fighting different villains, but the overall premise of the show always centers back on Buffy being the Slayer and there are always vampires around to fight.
As stated (though not clearly enough, we realize now), the Cwyld will remain a major part of the premise of the game. Characters and NPCs are still seeking to help drive back the Cwyld, understand it, and rebalance the world. Many events will still center around this premise, and that part of the game is not changing.
When going through the feedback, there was clearly a desire (understandably!) from players to understand what kind of game this is going to be from now on and how much "plot" will feature in it. Working off the understanding that a "plot-based" game is one that features connected events, all leading to one specific end-game or answer at the end of the line, we decided this doesn't really fit with our vision for Aefenglom. Instead, we plan to have more episodic, shorter plots driven by the state of the world and featuring different aspects of it. Characters can absolutely still have an effect on the world itself, the Cwyld, the people, etc. There will still be a sense of continuity. Any potential end result in the future will be heavily influenced by how characters interact with the world as a whole. Again, sorry if the announcement made it seem that was no longer going to be the case!
Regarding previous events and investigations, we will be making an effort to incorporate them into the overall world discovery, especially when it comes to the Cwyld (which is also why we plan to unscreen all investigations once outstanding ones wrap up). We know investigations were an exciting idea for many players, but on top of the issues with delays, we are also aware that it has been difficult for some characters to disseminate information, or sometimes players drop and the investigation fizzles out for ooc reasons, etc -- logistically, it was a game mechanic that just didn't work out. The information brought up in events and investigations, however, is not being scrapped or retconned. The overarching premise and impetus of the game has always been tied to world exploration, but we felt the idea of a plot-driven game was confusing and led to certain expectations that weren't part of the original intention of the game. It seems in trying to define it more clearly, though, we created more confusion, which was absolutely not what we meant to do!
In summary: the premise of the game remains the same as it always was, and the Cwyld and restoring balance to the world are still the major driving factors. Other than that, there will be smaller and less overarching plots within that basic premise, which will include player plots such as the one running now.
We hope that answers your questions! Please don't hesitate to ask for further clarification if needed. We welcome the discussion and want to make sure everyone is on the same page. Thank you!
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This is just my experience, but I thought I'd share my thoughts! I prefer having an understanding of the event to come before it happens so I can plot in advance.
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This isn't to say that one way or the other is inherently better, and we completely understand your concerns. Since there are merits to different methods, we thought it might be a good idea to change it up. If this isn't useful to the playerbase as a whole, we are definitely open to changing it.
Please give us some time to consider, and thanks for your patience and for bringing this up!
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Even if a plotting post went up just a few days or a week before an event, I'd personally be okay with that. Thanks for considering my thoughts anyway; I know everyone has a different style of plotting and engaging with events, so that all makes sense.
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I also feel like CR memes make more sense to have as a general game plotting, not event-specific plotting. And honestly, I would prefer those to be less frequent than monthly, too. (Like maybe every other month?) I feel like I don't typically have enough to say from month-to-month, so I only sporadically end up posting on them or checking them out.