Hey, thanks for taking the time to leave your feedback!
1) Mirror Barge-esque events: Large events that tie in more deeply to the game’s setting and history happen on average once per calendar year, and the one planned for 2021 just hasn't materialized yet (as you say, what with times being as the are), but we hope to have it coming down the pipe before the year is out! We do have ideas for several more events that break the port-event-breach mold, but as they’re typically longer-running and require more planning than the usual monthly events, we’re more careful about when we set them.
2) SOL during breaches and ports: With a few exceptions (ex. this month’s Hallmark breach), we usually do intentionally try to set a good mix of SOL and more action-oriented options (day to day day to day cowboy + kidnapping blood gangs, day to day newspaper + alien monsters, day to day London + magic fear circus), and if that’s not coming through well or if the non-SOL portions feel too tacked on/tangential, we apologize! You mentioned that the flat-out disallowance of successful escape attempts during the prison train breach was frustrating; you’re actually not the first person we’ve heard that feedback from, and it’s something we’ve kept in mind since. On the flip side, the government suppression aspect of the San Fran breach was not intended to be any sort of mod-enforced limitation on character agency, but we can definitely see how it might have played out that way in practice, given that (as you point out) nothing in the write-up allowed for characters to try to prevent the eventual alien attack. We can absolutely plan on including more breaches where the AUed characters have more chances to affect the setting beyond their own personal lives, as well as breaches where the ending/general course of the breach isn’t quite so set in stone.
If there’s anything else you feel we haven’t covered here, please do reply back; we’d love to have an open dialogue with you!
3) The writing of event posts: Having reviewed a few recent flood posts, we do notice a tendency to emphasize the scope of whatever effect is going on, generally with the intention of making sure people who wish to opt out (either out of the event as a whole or out of a specific portion of it) have room to do so - and in defining that scope we tend to primarily list limitations. It can sometimes read as a list of 'don'ts' and we'll work on being more careful with that balance.
4) Player-suggested plots: If a plot suggestion is envisioned as a port, breach, or flood, players generally submit a bare-bones idea (“a Star Trek port set on a space station!”) and we flesh it out ourselves if/when pick it for a given month. That said, there have been times when players have expressed interest in doing some or all of the event-writing themselves, and we’re always open to receiving submissions from people eager to run them!
5) Game tone and info pages: The general tone of the game is harder to respond to, as it is of course set by the day to day activities people want to engage with. There have been a fair number of murders lately, but not many people interested in apping hard-line wardens that would be more likely to strictly enforce the prison dynamics you mention. We'd be happy to see some, as all of us enjoy the conflict (both warden-inmate, and lax warden-traditional warden) that that can cause - but maybe the consistent ebb there is a sign that we need to undertake another edit of the game info page.
Finally, we do want to reassure you that we don’t see you as a killjoy for writing up this feedback, and should in the future we throw up another event that you just aren’t feeling, we won’t see you as one if you decide to hiatus through it, either! I think we’ve all had events that have made us go “eh, not into this one; hopefully the next one will be more up my alley”. We’re sorry that so many in a row have been like that for you, and we hope that that will change! To allow you the teeniest of sneak peaks and hopefully some amount of reassurance, the port idea we’ve been bandying about for July is exploration and survival-based, with far fewer options for SOL than usual (sort of the anti-Hallmark, if you will).
no subject
1) Mirror Barge-esque events: Large events that tie in more deeply to the game’s setting and history happen on average once per calendar year, and the one planned for 2021 just hasn't materialized yet (as you say, what with times being as the are), but we hope to have it coming down the pipe before the year is out! We do have ideas for several more events that break the port-event-breach mold, but as they’re typically longer-running and require more planning than the usual monthly events, we’re more careful about when we set them.
2) SOL during breaches and ports: With a few exceptions (ex. this month’s Hallmark breach), we usually do intentionally try to set a good mix of SOL and more action-oriented options (day to day day to day cowboy + kidnapping blood gangs, day to day newspaper + alien monsters, day to day London + magic fear circus), and if that’s not coming through well or if the non-SOL portions feel too tacked on/tangential, we apologize! You mentioned that the flat-out disallowance of successful escape attempts during the prison train breach was frustrating; you’re actually not the first person we’ve heard that feedback from, and it’s something we’ve kept in mind since. On the flip side, the government suppression aspect of the San Fran breach was not intended to be any sort of mod-enforced limitation on character agency, but we can definitely see how it might have played out that way in practice, given that (as you point out) nothing in the write-up allowed for characters to try to prevent the eventual alien attack. We can absolutely plan on including more breaches where the AUed characters have more chances to affect the setting beyond their own personal lives, as well as breaches where the ending/general course of the breach isn’t quite so set in stone.
If there’s anything else you feel we haven’t covered here, please do reply back; we’d love to have an open dialogue with you!
3) The writing of event posts: Having reviewed a few recent flood posts, we do notice a tendency to emphasize the scope of whatever effect is going on, generally with the intention of making sure people who wish to opt out (either out of the event as a whole or out of a specific portion of it) have room to do so - and in defining that scope we tend to primarily list limitations. It can sometimes read as a list of 'don'ts' and we'll work on being more careful with that balance.
4) Player-suggested plots: If a plot suggestion is envisioned as a port, breach, or flood, players generally submit a bare-bones idea (“a Star Trek port set on a space station!”) and we flesh it out ourselves if/when pick it for a given month. That said, there have been times when players have expressed interest in doing some or all of the event-writing themselves, and we’re always open to receiving submissions from people eager to run them!
5) Game tone and info pages: The general tone of the game is harder to respond to, as it is of course set by the day to day activities people want to engage with. There have been a fair number of murders lately, but not many people interested in apping hard-line wardens that would be more likely to strictly enforce the prison dynamics you mention. We'd be happy to see some, as all of us enjoy the conflict (both warden-inmate, and lax warden-traditional warden) that that can cause - but maybe the consistent ebb there is a sign that we need to undertake another edit of the game info page.
Finally, we do want to reassure you that we don’t see you as a killjoy for writing up this feedback, and should in the future we throw up another event that you just aren’t feeling, we won’t see you as one if you decide to hiatus through it, either! I think we’ve all had events that have made us go “eh, not into this one; hopefully the next one will be more up my alley”. We’re sorry that so many in a row have been like that for you, and we hope that that will change! To allow you the teeniest of sneak peaks and hopefully some amount of reassurance, the port idea we’ve been bandying about for July is exploration and survival-based, with far fewer options for SOL than usual (sort of the anti-Hallmark, if you will).