takamagahara | July Activity Check + HMD

Welcome to another Activity Check + HMD!

The AC will run from July 25 through Aug 1 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 July in order to count. That means anything from July 1st through July 31st 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 July:

○ For All Other Characters:

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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

While I enjoy the setting and the CR is always interesting and entertaining, I can't help but notice that things are tended to slowly. There are lists and things that need updating, links that need to be swapped. Regains, requests, notices that should only take a few moments of consideration for approval or denial seem to take much longer than they should. Which leads to stalling and holding up game play because people are left waiting for said approvals.

The plots have also have been feeling rather clichèd. There's nothing really special about them that makes them stand out as an event, and they read as if they only took a short time to write without being re-read for errors. Combined with the failure to respond to requests in a timely manner has left me and some others feeling like the mods do not care about the game enough to do their basic duties of modding, and when they do, it does not seem to be neither non-biased nor efficient. It's a big problem in this game, and is slowly killing it. I worry the game won't last that much longer if some of these issues aren't addressed.

i feel that the mod team meets their basic duties as well as can be expected of a group that navigates differing timezones and schedules. things here can run slowly but i've never found it to be to the point that it's a significant hindrance to gameplay in the lengthy time i've been here.

that said, i think that it'd be a good idea for the mod team to mention an ETA on requests, regains, etc, on the game pages, something that works well within their own limitations and time constraints. setting aside specific dates for regain processing and updating lists and marking them on the game calendar might help things, too.

as for the game plots, i haven't had any problems with them. they leave a lot of room for player agency and there's opportunities to follow up on them through the mission system. i like this approach a lot more than regular event structures one might see in other games.

On the other hand, they took a long time on the few requests I've had. Also even just looking at the last page of requests, the first one took 18 days to get a response. A lot of people had to wait around ten days. Some people only waited one.

The canon updates also take around 10 days for a lot of people. Considering how much some people plan and plot for these things, waiting around for a third of a month can throw off a lot of player plans. Adding a few specific dates might help things for everyone, so people can plan around a date, rather than not having any idea of when they'll get an answer, and the mods can pick a convenient time for them.

And there's missions, but since I've gotten here, the plots themselves as presented seem very one dimensional and have felt like slight variations on various tropes without offering all too much in the way of a hint or hook into something deeper.

Also, there doesn't feel like there's a more general follow up on events, like in the 'Hunting for Clues' you got exp or followers, but no kind of clues. You had to request the NPC and that was the only time you got something successful. It would have been a great chance to offer more plot hooks to interest more people into missions by offering other clues as well.

I haven't had enough issue to leave the game, but I'll admit I've been a little disappointed. It hit me hardest when a while ago I checked the prayers requests and noticed that some of them had expired a year ago on the list. It has been since fixed and generally looks better.

I also am disappointed in the prayer options. An option for a god-specific prayer would be nice.

July Activity Check + HMD

Mods

no subject

no subject