How are you enjoying the game so far? Love it! I like that the game's cast is small enough to be really tight-knit and feel like the game all kinda knows each other, but not so small that it's slow or boring. And everyone is really funny and friendly!
Are you comfortable with the daily life/event ratio? For the most part! I'm gonna echo the sentiments that major events would be better spaced out to every other month or so, especially if they involve heavier themes. I've noticed the majority of the game goes hard on backtagging due to the slower pace and so I think holding events back to back doesn't work well for that. As for me, I spent most of the Mementos event basically just having Blue shitpost like an idiot because I had already had him spilling his guts during a lot of the memory event, and I didn't want to drag him down to such a depressing level two months in a row (on top of dealing with an important CR drop). I totally understand why you guys timed it the way that you did, with the Mementos regain being lined up in the queue, and I also have noticed that it appears you guys have started arranging the order of queued regains by what 'works' best in pacing and I think that's definitely the best way to tackle the potential pacing issue.
I will say that I definitely (with this particular character) prefer more slice of life events and that horror themes are something I would typically avoid with him, especially if they involve gore or violence. Due to the nature of the game premise you sort of attract every flavor of character so of course you're naturally going to have some characters who gel better with serious subjects and some who flow better with SoL. I think having some kind of opt out option, even if it's just one tossaway prompt for stuff that may get too heavy for some characters/players would be nice for events like that (as would having some sort of deeper subject matter for characters to ponder/investigate- say a revelation about the universe of the void- during months where there are big SoL premises!).
Are there any sorts of events that you’d like to see in the future? Honestly, nothing in particular! As above I like light-hearted stuff and I think there's plenty of wacky hijinx events that are fixtures of jamjar games that could be fun to have eventually for sure- I was just discussing somewhere that it would be funny if we had an age up/down event if, for example, any characters ever regained the concept of timetravel powers or time-control powers, only for them to go awry and the void to erm, misinterpret the idea of 'a person traveling through time'. Or something along those lines! I love deep character exploration like the memshare, but I also like just dumb, tropey events like that.
What are your thoughts on the imprint/influence system? I'll also echo some of what's been said that the points amounts are fine but maybe additional ways (maybe even a different bonus goal each month, as was suggested) would be great. Personally I felt a little guilty because it does feel like bigger casts like the Pokémon cast have a bit of an advantage, even though we can't pool our points together, to regain stuff from our worlds; for example there's already a couple Pokémon species, locations and concepts but other canons have maybe just one or two of those. So I think making it easier for everyone to regain things faster might be a good idea, with bonuses. (That'll also make it easier for you to space our regains out with other people's :P)
As far as the concern for 'wasting' points, it's great to know that you'll just give us the heads up on if something is going to be implemented anyway! That said I do think that it would be helpful to have a better idea- maybe a loose roadmap of sorts- for what you, the modteam's plans are for the natural progression of concepts a couple months out, since the points for major regains do take several months to gather up. We know it's based on what you see characters focusing on or discussing, but I think it's still hard to predict how quickly we may see certain things appear in the world, which in turn makes it a bit tough to decide what sorts of regains may actually be usable or useful in the world of the game.
Alongside that- I also really like the spirit of the organic regain system (I love feeling like mods are stalking our juicy threads), but I have a couple comments on that-
Are there any game mechanics that you think need more clarification? It's less that I'm confused by the organic regains and more that I rarely feel like the ideas that I think would be quickest to be naturally regained actually come up in on-screen conversation; for example I feel like it goes without saying that most characters have strongly noted the lack of a day-night cycle, or a monthly calendar, or even a sun or moon in the sky, but it may not actually come up in the threaded conversations (either because smalltalk like that is sort of boring to thread and threads usually end up centering on subjects about characters themselves, or because everyone has sort of taken it for granted at this point).
On the flipside, for anything I do have, I feel like none of my mentions of any possible concepts was particularly 'strong' enough to submit it (like just a tossaway in the brackets of an unrelated tag)- which is on me I guess, in the end, but I was pondering if perhaps there isn't some way, like a monthly/bimonthly player poll, that we can all collectively vote on concepts like that. Something like 'my character has most strongly been noticing 'x' or 'y' thing'.
What parts of the game setting would you like to see expanded on the most? (ie. building on existing locations vs. creating new ones, concepts, species, etc.) I think I would like to see a steady path towards at least the basic physics and logic of the world becoming a little more established, so that things don't need to be confusing or misaligned so often? As an aside- I am totally the type of player to worry about lore compliance and double triple check the SotW page a hundred times, but I don't think I've seen much worry about lore compliance between other players myself! But if there is then I do wonder if it's less that anyone is worried about establishing the 'wrong' things and more that it can make it difficult for characters to talk about certain subjects when the misunderstanding is on an OOC level and not just a matter of 'the universe is inconsistent' on an IC level? if this makes sense...! I know it's been said that we can just take these discrepancies as 'hiccups of the void' but it does cause tangles here and there when (for an old TDM example) one player is under the impression that fire *never* burns things and another is assuming their character will get burnt, and suddenly your tags are kinda talking past each other. (I haven't actually seen this happen but that's the scenario I'm imagining you guys are talking about?)
AND to echo what a couple of other people said- giving some of the less used locations more reason to be used in threads would be awesome!
tl;dr I'm so sorry
Love it! I like that the game's cast is small enough to be really tight-knit and feel like the game all kinda knows each other, but not so small that it's slow or boring. And everyone is really funny and friendly!
Are you comfortable with the daily life/event ratio?
For the most part! I'm gonna echo the sentiments that major events would be better spaced out to every other month or so, especially if they involve heavier themes. I've noticed the majority of the game goes hard on backtagging due to the slower pace and so I think holding events back to back doesn't work well for that. As for me, I spent most of the Mementos event basically just having Blue shitpost like an idiot because I had already had him spilling his guts during a lot of the memory event, and I didn't want to drag him down to such a depressing level two months in a row (on top of dealing with an important CR drop). I totally understand why you guys timed it the way that you did, with the Mementos regain being lined up in the queue, and I also have noticed that it appears you guys have started arranging the order of queued regains by what 'works' best in pacing and I think that's definitely the best way to tackle the potential pacing issue.
I will say that I definitely (with this particular character) prefer more slice of life events and that horror themes are something I would typically avoid with him, especially if they involve gore or violence. Due to the nature of the game premise you sort of attract every flavor of character so of course you're naturally going to have some characters who gel better with serious subjects and some who flow better with SoL. I think having some kind of opt out option, even if it's just one tossaway prompt for stuff that may get too heavy for some characters/players would be nice for events like that (as would having some sort of deeper subject matter for characters to ponder/investigate- say a revelation about the universe of the void- during months where there are big SoL premises!).
Are there any sorts of events that you’d like to see in the future?
Honestly, nothing in particular! As above I like light-hearted stuff and I think there's plenty of wacky hijinx events that are fixtures of jamjar games that could be fun to have eventually for sure- I was just discussing somewhere that it would be funny if we had an age up/down event if, for example, any characters ever regained the concept of timetravel powers or time-control powers, only for them to go awry and the void to erm, misinterpret the idea of 'a person traveling through time'. Or something along those lines! I love deep character exploration like the memshare, but I also like just dumb, tropey events like that.
What are your thoughts on the imprint/influence system?
I'll also echo some of what's been said that the points amounts are fine but maybe additional ways (maybe even a different bonus goal each month, as was suggested) would be great. Personally I felt a little guilty because it does feel like bigger casts like the Pokémon cast have a bit of an advantage, even though we can't pool our points together, to regain stuff from our worlds; for example there's already a couple Pokémon species, locations and concepts but other canons have maybe just one or two of those. So I think making it easier for everyone to regain things faster might be a good idea, with bonuses. (That'll also make it easier for you to space our regains out with other people's :P)
As far as the concern for 'wasting' points, it's great to know that you'll just give us the heads up on if something is going to be implemented anyway! That said I do think that it would be helpful to have a better idea- maybe a loose roadmap of sorts- for what you, the modteam's plans are for the natural progression of concepts a couple months out, since the points for major regains do take several months to gather up. We know it's based on what you see characters focusing on or discussing, but I think it's still hard to predict how quickly we may see certain things appear in the world, which in turn makes it a bit tough to decide what sorts of regains may actually be usable or useful in the world of the game.
Alongside that- I also really like the spirit of the organic regain system (I love feeling like mods are stalking our juicy threads), but I have a couple comments on that-
Are there any game mechanics that you think need more clarification?
It's less that I'm confused by the organic regains and more that I rarely feel like the ideas that I think would be quickest to be naturally regained actually come up in on-screen conversation; for example I feel like it goes without saying that most characters have strongly noted the lack of a day-night cycle, or a monthly calendar, or even a sun or moon in the sky, but it may not actually come up in the threaded conversations (either because smalltalk like that is sort of boring to thread and threads usually end up centering on subjects about characters themselves, or because everyone has sort of taken it for granted at this point).
On the flipside, for anything I do have, I feel like none of my mentions of any possible concepts was particularly 'strong' enough to submit it (like just a tossaway in the brackets of an unrelated tag)- which is on me I guess, in the end, but I was pondering if perhaps there isn't some way, like a monthly/bimonthly player poll, that we can all collectively vote on concepts like that. Something like 'my character has most strongly been noticing 'x' or 'y' thing'.
What parts of the game setting would you like to see expanded on the most? (ie. building on existing locations vs. creating new ones, concepts, species, etc.)
I think I would like to see a steady path towards at least the basic physics and logic of the world becoming a little more established, so that things don't need to be confusing or misaligned so often? As an aside- I am totally the type of player to worry about lore compliance and double triple check the SotW page a hundred times, but I don't think I've seen much worry about lore compliance between other players myself! But if there is then I do wonder if it's less that anyone is worried about establishing the 'wrong' things and more that it can make it difficult for characters to talk about certain subjects when the misunderstanding is on an OOC level and not just a matter of 'the universe is inconsistent' on an IC level? if this makes sense...! I know it's been said that we can just take these discrepancies as 'hiccups of the void' but it does cause tangles here and there when (for an old TDM example) one player is under the impression that fire *never* burns things and another is assuming their character will get burnt, and suddenly your tags are kinda talking past each other. (I haven't actually seen this happen but that's the scenario I'm imagining you guys are talking about?)
AND to echo what a couple of other people said- giving some of the less used locations more reason to be used in threads would be awesome!