takamagahara | November Activity Check + HMD !

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activity check

November Activity Check + HMD !

Welcome to another Activity Check + HMD!

The AC will run from November 23 through December 1st ending at MIDNIGHT EST. If that's confusing for you, just look here.

In order to pass AC, you will have to provide TWO proofs of your activity. What counts as a proof of activity? Simple! Any one or more network threads consisting of ten (10) or more comments from your character OR one or more log threads consisting of five (5) or more comments from your character. To make AC easier for you, we've created a nice little flowchart for you to follow. Remember, comments must be from November in order to count. That means anything from November 1 through November 30th will count towards AC.

There is now an additional requirement to passing AC!

Everyone is sent an approval email when their application is approved! We now require you do ALL of the following items from your approval email as part of your first month's AC with a new character.

1) Reply to the mod approval e-mail with the username that you will be using

2) Request to join these communities: thenearshore, thefarshore, takamagahara

New characters will not be granted access to the comms without having completed step #1

3) Fill out these forms and post them on your journal: permissions, god/shinki info

4) Make an inbox for your character and post it to your journal

5) Your application is posted on your journal as well

6) Reply to the Taken Character and God/Shinki Info pages, as well as the Tag Request post

Please copy the appropriate code, fill out the necessary information, and paste it in a reply to this post.

○ For Characters Accepted In November:

○ For All Other Characters:

This month will also have our mandatory bi-monthly HMD.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I was wondering if there was any chance of reconsidering the 3:1 day ratio in the game. I get that the 3:1 ratio some how makes it easier for the mods to work. I also understand that TFS kind of brands itself as a slower, smaller, and more relaxed game so it makes sense for the game to operate on a bit of a slower schedule. I’m not entirely sure how the game being 3:1 helps the mods but I’ve personally, really been struggling with it.

With the game being 3:1, I’m doing either one of two with my character(s): doing entirely too much in a short period of time or waiting for weeks or even months for something to happen ICly.

In the first case, I play a really active and social character (Urashima) who likes to get out and do things. When I’m responding to logs/network posts, I constantly have to check myself because it’s really easy to have him doing too much. For the most part, I can handwave and be vague with these things because most things aren’t too important but there are times, especially around event logs, when things just begin to overlap and conflict with each other where it doesn’t make sense. I find myself doing this constantly to the point it’s really hard to keep track of my character and CR development.

On the flip side, when I’m not dealing with too much happening within an IC week because of the 3:1 days, I find myself sitting on my hands a lot just waiting for the IC calendar to catch up the times I need. I have this problem with Sakura who is working on clinic things. ICly, I want to say it takes about a month just to get things started but with the 3:1 ratio, one ic month ends up being like, 3 months. That’s a really long time to hold off on something that I know other players are interested in getting their characters involved with. I’ve tried to scale back and say it’ll take about 2-3 weeks instead but that still ends up being between 1.5 and 2 months. I’m also having this problem with Urashima where I’m just waiting for winter to start so I can do a log and canon update him but it isn’t even going to be November in game until next April.

Tl;dr: I’m struggling with the 3:1 days with either doing too much with my characters because events are actually happening very closely together OR dragging things out because I’m just waiting for a couple of weeks to pass in the game.

I’m not asking for the game to go 1:1 but is it possible to please consider going to 2:1? That way, the game’s IC calendar could progress a little closer to real time while still being slower. This game is really backtag friendly too so I don't think speeding the game up just a bit would hurt too much... I’m only talking about my own personal experiences here but I know I’m not the only one having these problems. A couple of my friends have actually dropped because the 3:1 deal just burned them out trying to develop their CR naturally and I can feel myself going in the same direction, tbh.

We wanted to let you know that we've heard your concerns and are in the midst of an extensive discussion between the mods about what, if anything, we can do to address them.

As a side note, specific to Sakura's clinic, we wanted to offer our assistance. We realize that this does not address the broader situation, but we would be willing to work with you on how to make the clinic happen faster than 3 OOC months. For example, perhaps a custom mission to get any supplies or permissions sorted out, perhaps an NPC's blessing, etc.?

Thanks! I'll look forward to your decision.

TBH that's something I wanted to do but the last time I approached you guys with something, it was handled pretty poorly. I get that you guys are busy and I figured that's what it was so I never really brought up how I felt about all of it. I figured I could just resolve the problem myself by just keeping mod involvement to a minimum with my future plans. And I'm not saying this to be difficult or mean but it honestly really frustrated and stressed me out at the time and I don't want to repeat a situation where I'm waiting for responses so I can do things...

Maybe things are better now in which case, I'm willing to give it a try if you guys are really down to help me make things work out because I really don't want to wait three months for something that shouldn't have to take this long OOC. (´ｰ｀) ; ; Y'all have me on plurk and my private message are always open if y'all want to to plot something out.

I'm going to +1 the request for a better time ratio. It is so easy to lose track of time with the 3:1 ratio and so hard to actually do anything because why bother? It'll still be September in two months, you can do it then. I pretty much have to completely ignore the time ratio for CR because otherwise nothing gets done. (Example: when Leo and Niles were at odds, ICly that was only maybe a two months? OOCly it was six or close to it. That is an absurd amount of time to drag on that sort of character angst, but ICly it was almost too short.)

I honestly don't understand how a 3:1 or 2:1 or really any ratio helps anyone, but I understand that may just be me. Needless to say, Iwould personally prefer a 1:1 ratio with some heavenly time shenans to boot us to the correct month, but I understand if 2:1 is as far as the mods want to go because correcting the timeline would be a bit convoluted.

As someone that dislikes 1:1 games, I can share how it helps me.

The biggest draw for a game with a slower ratio for me is that it's less stressful. In 1:1 games, it feels like there's never enough time to plot or play out important character development as fully or deeply as I would like to. There's a lot more pressure to come up with plots, responses, answers, etc, on the spot regardless of what life is throwing at me at that particular moment. If this demands that I have to take a hiatus within the game's guidelines, there's more to catch up on when I come back which is time I could spend playing instead. I also find it easier to be much more creative in slower paced games because I have more time to think things out more clearly and thoroughly so they go off more smoothly in play.

Different players (and the mods, too) mentally process things at different speeds for a variety of factors and I think it's important to accommodate that variety.

That said, I like the 3:1 pace more often than not though I understand how some players can find it frustrating or limiting. But I think if it's feasible at all and doesn't interfere too much with current maintenance tasks, 2:1 would be a compromise worth trying if the mods feel up to it.

I'd recommend that if this is a option, the mod team takes a poll first to get a clearer picture of what the playerbase as a whole needs and wants.

I agree with the poll. I actually dislike 3:1 ratio and would prefer 1:1 bc of all the reasons listed above. It’s hard to naturally move forward ICly when OOCly everything takes too long and you end up waiting a long time for anything to progress.

2:1 would be my preference. I have dropped most of my characters because the 3:1 has made it impossible to get anything done with super active characters, but 1:1 might be a little too fast for some people, especially with such a fluctuating player base. I've been in this game for well over a year and considering leaving entirely because the 3:1 ratio is just too slow to get anything accomplished.

A poll would be a good way to do this, I agree.

I think 2:1 would be a great way to meet in the middle. While I understand the pros to 3:1 for mods and some of the players I know of quite a few that thought it would be fine and then dropped because of it. If you're waiting for a season or certain day or amount of time it really drags. I mean the game started back in feb

I've also dropped my more active chars because of it. Protags that like to every little thing, at least for me, dont have enough to do or so low slow to accomplished with how 3:1 works. Other chars work great for me.

+1 to the poll idea and 2:1 idea.

While I'm fine with 1:1, I can definitely see why it would be off putting for other people. As someone in a bit of a wonky timezone, 2:1 is actually what I prefer. It means I can keep up most of the time but if I fall behind, I'm not backdating as much as I would be with a 1:1 ratio. The game is really relaxed and backtag friendly so I don't mind being a little behind because I can still catch up.

3:1, 2:1, 1:1 each have their pros and cons and it looks like we players on different sides so a poll would be a great idea.

We wanted to let you know that we've heard your concerns and are in the midst of an extensive discussion between the mods about what, if anything, we can do to address them.

Obviously, I can only answer for myself, but I have to say that the 3:1 ratio is something that does help me immensely and is probably the only reason I can keep up with the game.

The TL:dr version would probably say, a combination of work, life-commitments, and timezone makes it difficult-to-impossible to keep up with 1:1 ratio game.

The timezone might be the biggest reason behind it, true. Basically, during the time when I get back home, and can arrange some time for tagging, everyone is going to/at work/school etc. That means boomeranging can't happen and that with almost all threads all I'm able to give is at most one tag a day - and sadly it's not even that often, because I can't shave off time for tagging every evening.

It's something that did make me struggle in a game with 1:1 ratio, because realistically speaking most of the people weren't going to keep a thread going for that long, - new posts were made, new stuff happened and people moved to a more current plot. Which was the reason why the game instead of being fun, was being stressful. It was always a gamble "Will this thread reach the 10 comments length requirement and work for AC, or will it get dropped after a week, and I'll be left 3 comments short?". It also made actually finishing the threads, and getting anywhere in development even a bigger challenge.

This is where I want to preface there is nothing wrong with this playstyle. I do love boomeranging myself and wrapping up stuff quickly, even if it's not something I can do [ie timezone], what I want to show here is not that one is better than the other.

It's just that those different playstyles, may - and do - clash. A rare game with a slower ratio like TFS allows those like me, with more glacial speed, to enjoy a game and keep up with it. This time I play a fairly social character, so I'm really happy fact that I can lead all those threads with his, quite large CR network, to a conclusion, instead of dropping and handwaving what happened in it after a week or two.

That to speak, I understand the frustration of the development taking a long time. This is a completely valid concern, and I can relate to that. There are things I'm eager to have play-out, but because they require much more time development wise it will be few real-life months before it can happen. But then being busy with all the current in-game stuff makes it easier for me to not notice the time flying by.

Perhaps the 2:1 could be a compromise, and whatever the mods decide to do I will support them in their decision. And try to adapt accordingly. Unfortunately, I suppose that any change - or lack of it - is going to ultimately disappoint part of the player base. I have no good suggestion or solution for that.

I do also agree with some points made above - re. events happening in just one IC day which makes some characters do too much at any given time then it's physically possible - but that could be also worked around with having some events last longer than just one IC day [for example that heightened emotion stuff not going down after the festival night but continuing for some time ahead, maybe even requiring taking some IC action to make it go away, and thus giving characters reason to share the knowledge]. But that's a topic for different suggestion thread.

Thank you for your input. We are in the midst of an extensive discussion between the mods about what, if anything, we can do to address the other players' concerns while keeping playstyles such as yours in mind.

Wow, awesome! You guys are literally the best. Thank you for all the hard work!

I try not to nag you guys or sound impatient since I know you all have lives and some things would require discussion to give an answer, but for the two larger-scale plots I've run (the time travel/ageswap event and the upcoming one I'm currently working on) I almost always have to PM the mod account twice to get any kind of response back. This is kind of a problem if there's anything time-sensitive involved, and the 3:1 time ratio exasperates this since I only have 1/3rd of the timeframe to work with when making progress on things ICly. Waiting a few days or a week for an answer is fine, but the longest stretch I've had is two months with no update and that's a bit ridiculous. For my first plot I figured this was just a fluke, but this has been a consistent issue I've noticed with my current plot's planning stages as well. I really shouldn't have to wait two weeks and send a second PM to get a reply.

Would it be easier to have something like a dedicated post for submitting player plots or contacting the mods rather than PMing the mod account? I imagine the mod account gets a lot of messages in its inbox between all the different mod posts and AC and whatever else it might be used to track, having a separate post that can be checked without digging through the inbox might be a bit easier to work with. You could even just turn commenting on for the Mod Contact page and make all comments screened and it'd function almost exactly the same as PMs anyway.

Or if there's some other way you'd rather have people contact you for plots like this you should list that somewhere, because I don't want to end up turning into That Player who sends a new PM every day in hopes of getting a quicker response.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

November Activity Check + HMD !

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