unexpected absence & apology, along with poll

[supportadmin]

Hello everyone! This is Vi, and I need to start out by apologizing to everyone for the disappearing act I've pulled lately. March blindsided me with a series of real life obstacles that have finally stabilized over the last few days. With that, I'm pulling together here, and coming to you guys for discussion.

To begin, a question of interest! I'm finally back in a place where I can dedicate the time and attention this game deserves to the game itself. But as I've been out of it, I want to ask the simple, and hard, question first: who is, and isn't, interested in having the game continue? If you are, please keep reading below. If you are not, I want to thank you for the energy and time you've shared with everyone here, and wish you the best in future endeavors!

For those interested in seeing the game continue, I have a few questions.

1. What can I do to help make the game feel accessible to you and for you? As in, what are the kinds of tools or the type of information I can provide to make you feel comfortable with the game setting, and want to set up your own posts and reasons for interaction?
   
   A few items that have been in process include a facility map and/or sense of what the setting looks like in the Shatterdome, information on Valparaíso the city as a whole, cultural information on celebrations and other aspects of Chilean culture, etc.
   
   
2. What classroom activities are most beneficial and/or interesting for you to have your characters explore, or for you to actively thread within?
   
   
3. Would it be beneficial to have initial training last 8 weeks instead of 12, and allow participants who want to go for being a Ranger and not another portion of the PPDC be able to start PONS training after two months?
   
   
4. What kinds of outside events are you interested in having your characters deal with? In this case, are things like relief efforts and rebuilding efforts of interest to you, are festivals and cultural celebrations of interest, are outside competitions or challenges of particular interest?
   
   
5. What would you like to know about the overarching response of the world to events as they happen? Would anyone like to contribute to more in depth responses, based on personal knowledge and/or personal interest?

I ask most of these wanting to hear from everyone about what they feel is important for them to have in order to enjoy exploring and creating within the environment of this game's world. I want to be able to provide assistance as best as I can, and so I turn to you!

Thank you for reading, and I'll be here throughout to answer questions, ask more questions, and engage in dialog with anyone willing. i will also accept reasonable tomato's tossed at my head - regardless of what life's been pulling on me, I should have been making sure people here knew some of what was going on.

Comments

[fieldcommissioned]

I am still very interested in the game and I want to see things continue.

Info-ish: I think for the lessons, you might want to outline what happens in each so we can say with some certainty what it is our characters are studying beyond what it says on the schedule. Such as what kind of electives are available, the basics of what a cadet is learning in the engineering courses (is it how the jaegers are constructed, emergency conn-pod repairs...?), what the oceanography covers (mapping of the ocean floor, currents and typical weather conditions?), and if a student can pass through some of the courses and, if they do, what their responsibilities become during those hours.

Also, if a student isn't interested in piloting, if those classes would be replaced with others more tailored to that cadet's aspirations, or if they're taught to pilot just in case they end up highly drift compatible with someone. And what are the pilots doing besides general physical upkeep between drops?

Classroom-ish: We may want to have the videos from kaiju battles to analyse like sports teams do past games - maybe as part of tactical training? People in-universe have been watching the fights between jaegers and kaiju but maybe not with a thoughtful eye toward actually being in one.

Maybe some lessons on how to handle the press and PR?

I do think there needs to be some kind of obvious undercurrent in the game of the NPCs observing the cadets' behaviour to put together potentially compatible pairs.

Timing: I can see both sides of this question. One way has the benefit of both speeding up the game and adding a little quicker gratification to the players, but the other kind of has more of a feeling of having worked for something and achieved it. I can't really say which one would be better. Just that I can see how it would be a hard decision.

Events: I think rebuilding would be good for the cadets to experience, a bit of reality outside just the fighting, a chance to get used to humanitarian efforts and gain some hope in keeping the world alive, and festivals would, too - helping to foster the idea of everyone being in the same world. But also make some symposiums on the science of kaiju physiology or jaeger development ... not mandatory, but heavily recommended? I'm kind of pulling on my weird little college experience where specialised majors (which is what jaeger piloting is, really) had extracurricular requirements.

World response: In the movie, they had a few news reports, and I don't think it's something we'd need to go farther into than that. Just some headlines, maybe some soundbites. If we have a cadet from an affected area, then we might want to go into more depth, if that makes sense.

Basically, I really want to see this game succeed. I'm not sure what I can do to help other than toss out some ideas, but there are my thoughts on things!

[supportadmin]

Ideas are perfect! It's where brainstorming happens, and I think you're bringing up many good points for consideration. Outlining course contents is great, and setting up what electives are available is as well.

With NPCs, I have three on hand at the moment: Andrea, Diego, and Min. I can have them more actively involved and watching, though it may be easier with Diego and Min before Andrea. What kinds of ways would speak to you as seeing them obviously observing what's going on with the cadets?

I'm sitting on the fence for timing for that reason, pretty much. In Game, there may be a greater push for getting people to PONS sooner instead of later, but that doesn't need to be implemented yet, and may not at all depending on how things shake out.

Oh, yes! I like the symposiums idea. Going to poke through my brain a bit for those and consider what can come together out of it. Extracurriculars help foster that sense of being better rounded, too, which can be very important overall.

[secondtry]

The NPC activity I was thinking of wouldn't have to be anything overt or even anything specific. Maybe just a mention here and there of someone standing unobtrusively in a classroom with a clipboard or tablet, observing in kwoon, or even keeping an eye on the cadets during meals to see how they gravitate. Maybe have some of the Rangers observe from time to time to give them a reason to interact with the cadets and report back what they observed, what they think, if they see any obvious possible pilot pairs. And then maybe have the teachers push pairs toward each other subtly, like assigning them together for group projects.

The symposiums could be anything from 'here is an odd similarity we found between these wildly different kaiju' to 'if the kaiju are crossing from one universe to another, how many universes have they touched' to 'we have found another jaeger weapon that may change how we fight.' Where some things can be just as right as others are wrong. And maybe have a follow-up class where they discuss what was presented, whether they think the presenters were right or wrong just from what they've seen in the field.

Sorry, my brain loves this sort of thing.

[karearea]

Still here and still keen! Those few weeks without any updates to the lists or anything were scary; it looked like you were peacing out on the game which does not exactly inspire confidence.

I don't have too many ideas myself atm so I'm just addressing the questions where I've got an answer, but I liked all of Lyn's ideas above and wanna add a +1 to them.

1. The Shatterdome and Valparaiso information would be super helpful to have as a baseline/boundary - at the moment I'm unsure on how much I'm allowed to make up in the setting or what would be total no's. Also, I'm kind of curious about the number of NPC cadets/staff around the 'dome.

3. Would changing the training period also change the AC period? Because I kind of liked that OOC-IC matchup for players who apped in at the start.

4. YES. By which I mean all of the above are of interest.

[righthemisphere]

Here and still keen! Just hella busy atm so can't put my thoughts together but I will be back from a business trip in a week or so and will do so then.

Bust also a big +1 for all the points above.


I've not even been in a school type game before and while I'm happy to be positioned as I am and not a cadet I have no idea how school games run. I do know that some of them are very very successful, though. So I hope hope this can be done!

Big big big push on the PR side of things <----super important. x

[suicidemission]

Still here and still wanting to play! And honestly, everyone else laid out such nice points I have nothing useful to contribute and will therefore bow down to those that are more knowledgable than me.

[boomerangarrow]

I'm still here and willing to play.

I've also been hit by a truck ton of life lately.

But I'd just like to add a +1 to fieldcommissioned's suggestions.