announcements + game HMD

[ceoqueen]

Hello, Outsiders! We’ve been open just over a month now, and I hope everyone’s enjoying the game so far! There’s still plenty we can improve on, though, and this post is the place to let us know about it.

First, a couple of announcements:

φ We’re going to have our first AC this weekend! Don’t worry -- we’re not checking for activity yet! All you have to do for this AC is link to your acceptance notice, Of course, if you already have activity that meets the requirements, feel free to link that too. We’re just using this as a headcount and to get an idea of how the game pace fits in with our AC requirements.

φ We’ll have a player HMD near the end of the month. We plan on running these every other month or so, but we’ll let you know the exact dates as we get closer. As we require all players to have a HMD post in the journal of each character they play, this isn’t a mandatory HMD -- though we certainly encourage it!

φ Look out for a test drive meme next week! Again, these will likely happen every couple of months, depending on interest.

GAME HMD

We’re still a new game, and we’re definitely still going through growing pains. We’ve set up the game in the ways that made the most sense to us, but just because we have it one way doesn’t mean we can’t do it another way. We want you guys to have fun here, after all, and we’re very open to feedback.

We’ve set up a couple of threads below with topics we’d like feedback on, but feel free to post something else if you have it!

If you’re not comfortable leaving it here, feel free to use the mod contact post to leave us feedback, or contact a mod privately. Otherwise, please use the comments below to let us know what you think.

Comments

APPLICATIONS

[ceoqueen]

We are definitely still ironing out our app process, and we know it’s caused some confusion among prospective players. We recently added a note to the setting portion of the app to try and make things clearer, but we’d really like to hear what you guys think. Our goal is to make the app process as straightforward as possible.

Re: APPLICATIONS

[millenia]

I am having difficulty understanding why ME OCs are kosher, but OCs from other canons are not. I freely admit I have not played ME, so maybe there is a difference I'm unaware of, but it seems to me like crafting a ME OC is not unlike crafting a D&D character. Or probably closer, another MMO character from a character creation screen. You are given a world to work in, you make your character and then you go make your place in the story - big or small.

I totally get the restrictions you put on ME OCs (not related to canon characters, etc) and why they are needed. So why can't you just subject other canons to those stipulations?

Can you please explain?

[ceoqueen]

This is actually something we've discussed about implementing. It's not something we wanted to open up the game with, since we wanted to take some time to figure out our application processing, but now that we've got a few rounds under our belt it's something we're looking at more. We started with Mass Effect OCs since we're obviously familiar with the canon and setting, but as you said, we can extend this to other canons. Of course, if we're not familiar with the canon at all, it's a lot harder to judge an OC, so we'd like to take the time to figure out how it'll work on our end before implementing it.

[millenia]

Ahhh. Okay, that all makes sense. I figured it was something to the effect of "we are a new game, and this is what we know." I just wanted to be sure I wasn't missing some other point. And I'm glad to hear you're seriously considering expanding it!

Though one thing: y'all allow straight-up OCs, right? I would argue that you definitely don't know those "canons", and unlike a canon-based OC, there's not any info you could look up really quick in order to get a general feel, so wouldn't that make them even harder to judge?

[ceoqueen]

Yep! That was the exact discussion we had when we talked about it. So we're definitely taking it into consideration, and we'll let you guys know when things change up.

PLOT + NPCS

[ceoqueen]

We recently had our first plot! We’d like to know if you have any feedback about it, positive or negative. Events are something that are going to take us some time to iron out -- we know what we want to do, it’s how that’s tricky! We’d also love any feedback about the NPCs here.

As a note, though, Outsiders is foremost a proactive game. While we do have a metaplot we’re working with, this isn’t a game meant to have long stretches of slice of life between mod plots. We’re more than happy to work with you to get your character involved in the setting and talk to you about player plots! You just have to talk to us.

[mathemagician]

I think having a post for general character plotting in the OOC community every month or two weeks, depending on player need, would be a good addition. The player base is spread out over a lot of communication mediums and time zones, so it can be difficult for some of us to be online at the same time for quick communication.

The setup would be a lot like the post was for the adjutant event: Each person posts things they'd be interested in their character(s) doing for the next month/two weeks (depending on the time frame selected) and other players can comment. It'd give players access to a lot of options for their character at one time without having to contact each player individually and provides the opportunity for the player who suggested the plot to get input that would help generate more interest in their thread.

Of course, it wouldn't be required and people can still post on their own, or arrange plots in private, but I'm also mentioning this idea because a few generic open logs have had some trouble getting tags. The plot thread wouldn't be used for anything huge, but it would help for minor plotting and potentially inspire bigger things.

[millenia]

I've seen a lot of games do similar things, calling them Player Plot Posts (PPPs for short - lolol so cute. /snort!) It worked very, very well. So yes, +1!

[ceoqueen]

This is a great idea! We'll have to figure out the timing, but we will probably do something like this to help foster plots. Thank you for the suggestion!

Re: PLOT + NPCS

[tradecraftdude]

How about a post-event summary OOC post? I think it might be helpful to put up a post with some notes about how the event wrapped up, as well as any lingering issues that might be used as minor plot hooks until the next event. Maybe also a section for players to post a brief CR summary, for stuff that got played out or is being handwaved/backtagged so that it's easy to skim through and get a quick look at what happened during the event and how things have changed on the station as a whole. I don't really have the time or energy to thread-stalk nearly as much as I want to, but I do like knowing what other characters are up to!

[mathemagician]

I'll second this, especially with players being able to find out what played out in threads they weren't involved in. That way, things can be referenced if it was something that would have ended up affecting a large amount of people / an area / anything like that to help tie CR/world development together.

It could also be pretty handy for mods as a quick reference of what happened with characters, so they know how NPCs can handle end results or react to them, as well as how events may influence the next plot.

Re: PLOT + NPCS

[herewegoto]

I agree with this completely. We were given option on how to end the plot, but I'm still not sure how it fully went down.

[anarrowtotheeye]

I'm late, but I have some food for thought.

I'd like to suggest having more NPC mercenary interaction with the players? It doesn't have to be about plots but just having the mercs listen in on what the characters are saying or watching the players do something and then reacting to it. At the moment a lot of that is being handwaved but I think it might make things a little more interesting and keep characters slightly more on their toes if the mercenaries and the consequences of having good/bad relations with them, have a more significant presence in their lives. Plus, I'd like to see the other mercenaries pop up more often. Blood Pack mercenaries have been mentioned the most in logs and entries, but very few mention the other three groups.

Lastly, I'd like to ask what happened at the end of the Adjutant event as well. I don't know if the scientists were allowed to escape or not because there was a mix of paragon and renegade actions. Maybe we could have an NPC or Aria address the community at the end of each event to provide some sort of conclusive ending?

Thanks for hearing out what I had to say.

[ceoqueen]

Thank you for your suggestion regarding NPC interactions - and we are currently working on a way to bring together the end of the Adjutant plot in an OOC post that will go up in the very near future. We have been planning on this post for a while now and it is taking longer than we thought to bring everything together in a way that would benefit the players most, especially with how their characters chose to end it.

We thank you for your patience regarding this matter, and thank you again for your suggestion!

GAME SETTING

[ceoqueen]

We know that not all players here are familiar with the Mass Effect universe. While we’ve done our best to explain everything, it’s hard for us to judge how much or how little information we have since we already know it. Please let us know if there are things you are confused by, and we’ll add things to the game pages from there.

Re: GAME SETTING

[tobeahero]

While I am familiar with the setting myself, I think a rough map of Omega station would be good. A side view with highlighted areas like they show in the ME2 loading/travel scenes with just a few labels for various districts and where they are in conjunction with each other. This would help with figuring out how far Mordin's Clinic or Aria's club is from Zeta District, etc, etc.

Re: GAME SETTING

[tradecraftdude]

Seconding this; I'm canon-blind and I'm handwaving a lot of details since I just don't really know stuff like the layout of the station or what things look and feel like on a civilian level. What sort of shop NPCs are there? What's the spread of races or race relations? Are some races more prevalent in some areas than others? How big and populated is Zeta district?

I like that there was a link to a video of a relevant part of the playthrough to show the adjutants for the event, and I think it would be helpful if the settings pages had links to videos that also show that kind of stuff. I'm leaning a lot on the ME wikia and hoping I'll get lucky finding the right clips on youtube, but without being familiar with the setting, it's hard to know what I'm looking for.

[ceoqueen]

Thank you both for the suggestions! We'll see about making the immediate playing area more accessible, as well as give a reference for the station as a whole. We'll also provide links to videos that give a better idea.

This will probably require us to build another info page, so please bear with us as we get everything pulled together.

[mathemagician]

I'm not sure if this should go under Plot or Setting, but I'll put it under here. A quick reference of all of the capabilities of an omni-tool or a description more thorough than the one provided by the ME Wikia would be really helpful. I believe a mod answered an inquiry that a map of Omega is provided and accessible on the omni-tool, but many characters may not know about it. It's been awhile since I've played through the games, so I've forgotten most of the other features it may have (or more thorough descriptions than the list.) Since the omni-tool is such a large part of the character's life while on Omega, it may be beneficial to do a write-up on it.

I'm curious about the potential for military-style modifications to character omni-tools and if this would be a possibility in the future. (Such as omni-blades and the class variations along those lines.)

Also, there have are some (so to speak) player-created locations. For the sake of things overlapping and being more connected, I suggest having a place where these can be provided and listing characters important to these locations (such as workers). For example, with Kengo's job approval, Ariake Technologies is now an active business and Kengo will be working there as an assistant technician.

[ceoqueen]

Regarding omni-tools: this was something we meant to have done, but it got lost in the shuffle of many to-do lists. Thank you for the reminder, and we'll be sure to make this information available.

As far as locations go, we definitely want the players to be a part of the worldbuilding process. Omega may be a setting taken from an existing game, but there are a lot of little details missing that allow us to flesh things out. In the short term, we could have a page for players to post locations and organizations their characters are involved with to more easily foster CR and development. We'll work on this for sure.

OTHER ISSUES

[ceoqueen]

If there are other issues, let us know here or in the main comments of the post. Thank you!

[mathemagician]

I'd really like to see insiders utilized more. Maybe a meme every Sunday/every other Sunday/something akin to that, depending on player activity? A thread could be put up somewhere for player input on ideas for future ones.

I think it would be nice to have a "Requested/Wanted Characters" page as well, where we can suggest canonmates we'd like to see in the game.

Also, I'm still a bit unclear on the tagging system. Should we be adding tags only for the logs/network posts our character starts, or any of the threads our character participates in?

[ceoqueen]

Both of these suggestions sound like very good ideas! We will have a discussion and see what we can come up with.

As for the tagging system, any character participating in a thread - whether they were the one that made it or not - is welcome to add a tag. Whatever is easiest for the player to track their activity, but it's not required that you tag every post you participate in.

[mathemagician]

Also, this isn't relating to the game as a whole, but I put in an item request two weeks ago and was wondering what the progress was.