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Comments & Critiques
Please tell me if this is all going too fast, too slow, too confusing, too straightforward - whatever you want to say! I still feel like I'm flailing about, so any comments on this sort of stuff is more than appreciated. I won't freak out on you for critiquing me, I promise. I want to make this enjoyable!!!
Also, Dani has contacted me asking to have Alex killed off, due to her hectic work schedule not giving her time to play as much as she wanted to. If anyone would kindly step forward to be the murderer for this round, please either PM this account or DM me on twitter! Thanks!
Also, Dani has contacted me asking to have Alex killed off, due to her hectic work schedule not giving her time to play as much as she wanted to. If anyone would kindly step forward to be the murderer for this round, please either PM this account or DM me on twitter! Thanks!
OoC
First of all: I'm loving Yuri and the mystery about him and Roma and the way you set things up and... well, just everything! You're doing a great job as a mod.
I have a few suggestions, though!
First the pacing, which you already mentioned. It's difficult to figure out when people will be busy and when they'll have ample time to play, so I definitely understand how troublesome that is. That said I felt as if the first murder came so soon - they could have spent one or two more days befriending Tony so it might have been all the more of a shock - but I understand that you, Meaka and Mari wanted to kick off some action, and the suddenness made it just as shocking in the end. Also right now night time was skipped; did you do that because it could be assumed that after the exhausting day everybody would just sleep? Because I can agree with that, but perhaps you could still post the announcement and just wait less long until it's morning announcement time again? On future occassions, I mean. That way people who do want to do stuff at night can go ahead.
Somewhat related to that: The latest announcement had everybody in their own rooms to react to the threat; having them pick the envelopes up in, say, the kitchen or the gymnasium or some other place would have made it easier to interact while they are still in shock! Now most of them try to let it sink in alone and don't seek out others. This isn't too much of a problem, especially since quite a few of them would surely have retreated to their rooms otherwise too, and of course now they can just go and knock on each others' doors, but it would have helped to, for example, include the information that the second floor has opened up (and maybe give an overview of the rooms there) to give incentive for exploration! Perhaps you can make a new, separate announcement for that to encourage them to leave their rooms? I feel that in general a description of each new area would be great! Maybe you could open each new (Ab)normal Days post with that (perhaps in combination with the morning announcement) from now on?
The last point concerns our current lack-of-a-murderer problem. I feel as if people are having difficulties because Alex didn't really get to develop a relationship with anybody, which a) would derive the murder of personal drama, which is often a lot of fun to play out, and b) makes it harder to find a sensible reason for anyone to target him. A suggestion I have would be to either have him die through an accident or suicide (though of course that would be Dani's decision; she may consider it OoC of him) or treat his disappearance as a drop instaed of a death since Dani really could only play so briefly.
Don't feel like you have to implement any of these things - they simply came to my mind, and despite having had a bit of a general inspiration slump I'm very much looking forward to how things will proceed among these doomed kids!
Re: OoC
Also, the pacing this time seems so much slower than the pacing before. I get that some people are busy, but some were then too? Also, night time never came, and the (ab)normal days entry has been up since I was at AX, which is a huge difference compared to how it was before I left for LA.
I also found it hard to interact with people when the envelopes were found in their rooms. I know they could just knock on each others doors, but right now they hardly know each other, so it's difficult to do that.
I also agree about those options for Dani. It seems weird for someone to suddenly kill Alex, even with a motive behind it, mainly because of the lack of interaction from Alex's part...
Basically, I agree with Schmitt ;3;
Re: OoC
But I actually completely forgot about the second floor UH. Sorry about that...!! I'll post it up ASAP once I have things written out.
Also, IRT concerns about the recent envelope thing - would it be best to, well, re-do that and have everyone pick them up at the auditorium/cafeteria/etc (since only a few people have replied), or should Yuri just make an announcement that the second floor is open and move on as it is?
Finally, as for Alex - Since Alex only had a few threads with a small number of people and wasn't around for the trial, would it be better to simply have him "drop" and treat him as if he was never here and move on with a different murder victim for this round? I'll ask Dani about it, but I wondered about everyone else's feelings, too, I guess.
Eia here
(Anonymous) 2013-07-15 10:36 pm (UTC)(link)Uhm, I'm not sure. I think maybe having a night without murder is fine? Then let them find the notes and freak out together.
It would be nice to make the day/night move forward without murders, though I can see how that could become a logistics problem. My issue is I haven't been able to build up enough tension to take very many actions. The threads stagnate because we can't move forward because time is stalled, if that makes sense?
It's going to take more time because we're operating on the assumptions that they were all strangers before now.
And me again
(Anonymous) 2013-07-15 10:40 pm (UTC)(link)Re: And me again
Also, I've spoken to Dani, and she's cool with Alex being dropped as-is. So now we're looking for new murderer/victim etc \o/
OoC
For now I think it'll be fine to just make a new comment about the second floor. Some people can go exploring there while others can still tag around in the envelope thread, and that can go on for a few days, depending on how much time to play everybody has. Once the next victim and murderer are decided they can tell you if the murder will happen at night, in which case you can make the new nighttime announcement. Does that sound reasonable?
ooc
But I think the important thing is for updates to force people to be together in the same space so they can't hide away and use that as an excuse to not contact people, since that increases the tension and might give more motives!
OoC
So, we've been having quite the activity low, and I think that needs to be remedied! Of course the main point of the game is that everybody has fun, and "SRS BSNS" measures like activity checks probably seem out of order for such a quaint little AU, but if people just gradually stop playing the game will die, and that would just be sad. Therefore I'd like to propose some things.
1. Regarding the current case
Everybody would help the story along a great deal by showing up now during the Abnormal Days and especially at the School Trial! Getting to see your character's thoughts and feelings, conclusions and suspicions after a murder would be important, and it would help a lot to have everybody assembled for the trial so that they can answer questions and exclude themselves from the group of suspects! If many people are missing at the trial the class has a low chance of finding the actual culprit.
If you can't make it to the trial a testimony given during the investigation period can save the day, but without either your character may well be branded as the culprit, and, well...
okay, this would actually be an amusing end. But still.2. To speed things up after this case
Now, to everybody who has not or barely been playing lately: do you not feel inspired anymore? Are you no longer excited about mutual killings? If that's the case: you shouldn't feel like you have to churn out tags if it's an obligation instead of an enjoyment. I know that all kinds of things come up - vacations, sicknesses, other obligations -, but I guess this is reminder for everybody to consider making your character one of the next victims/killers, ideally without letting too many in-game days pass by without any interactions happening! Even a double murder or such would be more beneficial for the game than having it slowly meander along - at least if there are only one or two threads meandering at a time. Many deaths at once would shorten the story, that's true, but the resulting dynamic gameplay would make for a better murder mystery than a drawn-out, seemingly incomplete story with many inactive characters!
We initially agreed that the players with more than one character are prime candidates for losing one of theirs first, but I don't think that needs to apply any longer if single-character muns are less inspired to keep playing.
Now all this sort of sounds like I want as many people as possible dead... and maybe there is some truth to that, ahaha. But most of all I just want to see investigations and interactions and how these kids react to all the horrible stuff! For the record, if anyone wants to make a plot with little Yakakka here as the victim or killer don't hesitate at all to contact me!!
Just don't think I'll stop breathing down your necks once he's dead. I'll still want to see drama and action happen between the others!