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grid_lined_ooc2014-02-02 11:00 pm
namesram) wrote in grid_lined_ooc2014-02-02 11:00 pm
Entry tags:
Finally, THE ANNOUNCEMENT!
And here it is. \o/
Going forward, grid_lined is upgrading to full game status. We're not going for a continuity reboot, but enacting various changes to make it a better playing environment. Conditions on the Free Grid may change more -- maybe even drastically -- over the next few months as we find our footing and tool it to its present and potential player base.
Here are some of the things we will be instituting:
Bimonthly (every two months) player/character check-in.
This will not include an activity requirement, but will ask that you're honest with yourself about how many characters you have active. Players are, as before, strongly encouraged to create IC reasons for the absence of a character who must be hiatused for a long stretch of time, and to post hiatuses here when needed, using the "hiatus" and "de-hiatus" tags. Characters who have not been played for two months will be considered idled out, though they can return any time the player wants to bring them back.
Characters who are dropped without specified fates or who idle out of the game will be considered to have been returned home by the Portal.
That way everyone knows whether a particular character is on- or off-Grid, providing closure for both characters and players. The Portal programs will know this and be able to inform anyone who inquires after them. An idled-out character can be returned to the game any time the mun wants to resume playing them, with any arbitrary amount of time having passed in the character's universe (even, if desired, practically no time at all). Alternatively, a dropped character can be disposed of at the mun's discretion, such as by moving to another universe voluntarily, dying, or changing to background-NPC status. (This last only works if the character can plausibly fade into the background and not affect future characterization or plots.)
Death no longer works on the Grid.
This will be an in-game change implemented directly after the upcoming event (which is planned to last three days in game-time and ideally a week in realtime). From then on, anyone who dies or is killed on the Free Grid will be rerezzed by the Portal under five minutes later, unless the mun desires otherwise. For the first few months in-game after the change, death won't happen at all, after which players may begin to use the whoops-tragic-malfunction-of-the-normal-state-of-things option if they wish.
Addendums to this:
A character's-daily-occupation post.
Though there can be exceptions, most of the characters on the Free Grid, Basics especially, are probably not milling around in holding patterns all day. The Grid is a system. Systems need upkeep. What is your character's day job (or is there more than one)? Can other characters join? How does it bring them into contact with other player characters? (None of this, of course, bars characters from meeting up outside working hours, but character occupations will ideally put them in contact with other PCs, even if only to deliver reports.) If your character doesn't have a mandatory taskset, what do they do all day, and what might bring them into contact with other PCs?
A coherent timeline hitting the high points of Free Grid history.
This will be both a reference for new players and help to keep ourselves up to date. It'll probably be a gdoc -- a post here could only be edited by whoever originally posted it, making upkeep difficult -- but it would be linked from the sidebars here and on the main comm. This is one thing I know we'll need help with, both in judging scope and simply in compiling it.
There might also be a map. I'm not sure how to institute that, though, without a large amount of update work every time anything changes. (That's one the reason the location post was vague about things in the first place, the other being leeway for people to invent cool things.) Ideally, it'd be something players could edit. Gonna have to think about that.
Limits on high-powered characters and experimental AUs.
Up till now, individual players were in charge of adapting high-powered characters to the setting. From now on:
More events.
We're going to start an event tomorrow, and plan the timing of further ones after seeing how this one goes. Ideally, there'll be a healthy mix of "zomg NPC virus hunt", "what is the Sea doing this time", "gridbug swarm nopenopen0PE", and "highly debatable info-dump from one of the User worlds" kinds of events, with off-the-wall stuff like "suddenly everybody has wings for a week" being rarer but fun on occasion.
Further changes and the issue of Team Orange
While the above changes should prevent future stalls like the one we've been having, opting to preserve continuity still leaves us with some hangups to take care of. I believe they can be solved organically, and we'll be working to deal with them as this week's event unfolds. Team Orange's situation is going to be discussed with its remaining representatives, and I strongly hope to come to a solution this week; I just didn't want to put this off until everything was resolved. Perfection is unknowable, yo. >_> Tomorrow, also, I'll be back in the feedback post. Everyone, including those I didn't get a chance to answer yet, was extremely helpful in building the direction of this metamorphosis.
In conclusion: here are some changes, and there'll be more changes coming that I can't foresee yet, because they'll be based on what happens as we go through this week. Whatever happens as our event unfolds, it's going to be interesting.
The player check-in, event post, and plot-with-me posts will be going up momentarily. Thank you, all, for your input, your tenacity, and just for being you.<3
Going forward, grid_lined is upgrading to full game status. We're not going for a continuity reboot, but enacting various changes to make it a better playing environment. Conditions on the Free Grid may change more -- maybe even drastically -- over the next few months as we find our footing and tool it to its present and potential player base.
Here are some of the things we will be instituting:
Bimonthly (every two months) player/character check-in.
This will not include an activity requirement, but will ask that you're honest with yourself about how many characters you have active. Players are, as before, strongly encouraged to create IC reasons for the absence of a character who must be hiatused for a long stretch of time, and to post hiatuses here when needed, using the "hiatus" and "de-hiatus" tags. Characters who have not been played for two months will be considered idled out, though they can return any time the player wants to bring them back.
Characters who are dropped without specified fates or who idle out of the game will be considered to have been returned home by the Portal.
That way everyone knows whether a particular character is on- or off-Grid, providing closure for both characters and players. The Portal programs will know this and be able to inform anyone who inquires after them. An idled-out character can be returned to the game any time the mun wants to resume playing them, with any arbitrary amount of time having passed in the character's universe (even, if desired, practically no time at all). Alternatively, a dropped character can be disposed of at the mun's discretion, such as by moving to another universe voluntarily, dying, or changing to background-NPC status. (This last only works if the character can plausibly fade into the background and not affect future characterization or plots.)
Death no longer works on the Grid.
This will be an in-game change implemented directly after the upcoming event (which is planned to last three days in game-time and ideally a week in realtime). From then on, anyone who dies or is killed on the Free Grid will be rerezzed by the Portal under five minutes later, unless the mun desires otherwise. For the first few months in-game after the change, death won't happen at all, after which players may begin to use the whoops-tragic-malfunction-of-the-normal-state-of-things option if they wish.
Addendums to this:
- If a character is killed by another character, or dies by falling into a pit of spikes or the Sea or off a building, the Portal will rerezz them on safe ground; distance from the danger is up to the player.
- Characters who notice this and start jumping off buildings for fun will be rerezzed with dark circuits after the first couple of times because the Portal programs don't need these shenanigans. Circuits will still feel and behave the same way as they always have, except they'll emit no light and resemble Bostrum tattoos more than anything else. (Cue an oh-so-edgy dark-circuit counterculture, except the appearance actually isn't all that interesting so eh.~) Circuits will begin to light up again a few days after the character stops dying for fun.
A character's-daily-occupation post.
Though there can be exceptions, most of the characters on the Free Grid, Basics especially, are probably not milling around in holding patterns all day. The Grid is a system. Systems need upkeep. What is your character's day job (or is there more than one)? Can other characters join? How does it bring them into contact with other player characters? (None of this, of course, bars characters from meeting up outside working hours, but character occupations will ideally put them in contact with other PCs, even if only to deliver reports.) If your character doesn't have a mandatory taskset, what do they do all day, and what might bring them into contact with other PCs?
A coherent timeline hitting the high points of Free Grid history.
This will be both a reference for new players and help to keep ourselves up to date. It'll probably be a gdoc -- a post here could only be edited by whoever originally posted it, making upkeep difficult -- but it would be linked from the sidebars here and on the main comm. This is one thing I know we'll need help with, both in judging scope and simply in compiling it.
There might also be a map. I'm not sure how to institute that, though, without a large amount of update work every time anything changes. (That's one the reason the location post was vague about things in the first place, the other being leeway for people to invent cool things.) Ideally, it'd be something players could edit. Gonna have to think about that.
Limits on high-powered characters and experimental AUs.
Up till now, individual players were in charge of adapting high-powered characters to the setting. From now on:
- Incoming Users and Clu-level programs (including data-wraiths and advanced programs from future Grids) will only be able to perform physics hacks and edit others' discs with permission from the Grid's Admin, which they must ICly negotiate for. This means they won't be able to access all their powers when newly arrived.
- Viruses will find players immune to severe viral effects. Less severe effects can be negotiated on a case-by-case basis.
- Experimental AU characters are awesome. However, when bringing one in, plan for a long-term stay rather than a "drop them on the Grid and see what happens in the first post" situation.
More events.
We're going to start an event tomorrow, and plan the timing of further ones after seeing how this one goes. Ideally, there'll be a healthy mix of "zomg NPC virus hunt", "what is the Sea doing this time", "gridbug swarm nopenopen0PE", and "highly debatable info-dump from one of the User worlds" kinds of events, with off-the-wall stuff like "suddenly everybody has wings for a week" being rarer but fun on occasion.
Further changes and the issue of Team Orange
While the above changes should prevent future stalls like the one we've been having, opting to preserve continuity still leaves us with some hangups to take care of. I believe they can be solved organically, and we'll be working to deal with them as this week's event unfolds. Team Orange's situation is going to be discussed with its remaining representatives, and I strongly hope to come to a solution this week; I just didn't want to put this off until everything was resolved. Perfection is unknowable, yo. >_> Tomorrow, also, I'll be back in the feedback post. Everyone, including those I didn't get a chance to answer yet, was extremely helpful in building the direction of this metamorphosis.
In conclusion: here are some changes, and there'll be more changes coming that I can't foresee yet, because they'll be based on what happens as we go through this week. Whatever happens as our event unfolds, it's going to be interesting.
The player check-in, event post, and plot-with-me posts will be going up momentarily. Thank you, all, for your input, your tenacity, and just for being you.<3
no subject
Clu1's powers are reasonable; he can keep them. (Not sure what 'death pits' are, though? Deep holes with spikes?) He's a hacker program with reasonable hacker capabilities. The kind of powers I'm talking about are much broader: ability not just to hack but to be allowed admin-level access without hacking, to bypass security measures and lockouts with little to no trouble, that kind of thing. Even Faux would have to work a little to break into some area that was really supposed to be secure, and guards wouldn't just let him in because automatic built-in access permissions.
Regarding David, I've been meaning to catch up with you on that and this is probably a good time. David's powers were approved when he arrived, and you did have various limitations on them; that was good. I'd like to go over those again with you before deciding whether he might get to keep those powers. But with or without powers, as I was thinking about your question I started wondering about a bunch of other things that seem to be preventing you from playing him.
David's last thread was in November 2012, apparently (unless there are others where he's not tagged), so this would be a good time to decide:
--Has he actually been on the Grid that whole time (or did the Portal port him out and then back in again later, to account for the long silence)? If he has been there, what's he been doing with all that time, aside from wandering around? What does he know about the Grid now, and what does he do with his life now that he lives here?
--How badly has been damaging other programs and architecture, and how often? If it was often enough, Security would logically have heard about it and tried to investigate. If that was the case, since David hasn't been attacked or locked up, how would he have hidden/explained himself/put them off the track?
--On that note, who's actually aware that he's on the Grid, given that he's an unusually powerful figure and his appearance is very unique? If key player characters aren't aware of him, why not? Has he been staying out of sight, or disguising his appearance, or something?
--Theoretically, if you'd want him to have retroactive CR with other player characters to give him a little foundation for whatever activity and mindset he has now, which other players would you want to ask about that?
Sorting those things out will make it a lot easier to decide what powers he should have to make him a character you want and are able to play here. Honestly, it isn't his power level that's the issue. It's that he needs more threads with PCs. "Nobody wants their characters to get beaten up by him, so he's been beating up NPCs in the background" just means NPC security would investigate and he might or might not get tossed in offscreen quarantine or derezz them and end up in an offscreen manhunt which isn't affecting anyone because it's offscreen and then... why? That would apply to any character with a hair-trigger reputation for breaking things that he didn't like.
I'd like to add, though, that if David and Faux did lose their powers, it wouldn't devalue them as characters, unless by that you mean you'd be less interested in playing them. Particularly in the case of David, whose powers might actually be preventing you from playing him as freely as you could if he can't ICly have a thread with another character because he's powerful and violent.) Characters with far fewer abilities are still valued additions to Grid life. A roleplay character's value isn't in unique powers or a unique appearance, but in their potential for character development and interaction.