avalonooc | Event Result Notes!

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Event Result Notes!

Hello everyone! The log will go up shortly, but we wanted to make sure to deliver the poll results and information so you have it. Please click on the cut below to see the points breakdowns, results, NPC info, and bonuses.

Total characters: 235 (main comm membership -mod journal -unprocessed drops counted from inbox)

Percents are rounded UP to the nearest percent to be as kind as possible.

Avoid extra tragedy: 15%
Minimum percent to succeed: 20%
With unlocked bonuses: 25%

STONE GIANT = MISSION FAILURE
24 participants
6 qualifying threads x 3 points = 18 points
-1 player disruption
Total points = 41 / 235 = 19%

Result Notes:

As the party catches up with the stone giant, the leaders of the ritual (who will have come with) will tell people how to activate their spirit guardian: hold their hand out before them, palm up, and cast their most powerful spell before them. As the spell casts, recite "Use my life to strengthen yours" and give the spirit guardian a name. It may come to you at that very moment, as if it is a part of you. The tattoo will then burn and glow as if magma on the skin, and the spirit guardian will climb out of it as if it is a portal allowing it into this universe. It is a shadow creature, and may take a meaningful form to the character (their favorite animal, the silhouette of someone important to them, a cool character that deeply affected them in their childhood, up to you!) Those who did not go this route can find out how to release them later.
Those who released their spirit guardians to help fight will be thanked by the spiritual leaders who had been prepared to lead the Fall Equinox Ritual, and be rewarded with a vial of water each. It is said to be ancient water from the time of the Stone Giant before he was originally laid to rest. Placing it on the lips of someone will draw life back to them no matter how long they have been dead without ritual or locating the person's spirit. (leicesters, colchismagecraft, mayoninofukucho, silky_bearing, tantailizing, and impostersyndrome receive. Others provided no evidence of tattooing in threads.) Though they did not succeed in stopping the giant, their trials in receiving and growing the guardians and being brave enough to bring them to fight are worth rewarding.
NPC Notes: Archimedes will meet the party halfway there with horses to speed their journey to try to catch up with the huge steps of the giant. Characters who fought this route will be allowed to keep their horse if they so choose as thanks for their bravery, so long as they haven't shown cruelty to animals in the past. You do not need to feel obligated to take the horse if you do not think you can care for it, Archimedes is happy to take them all home.
NPC Notes: Morganna is displeased. She is likely to ask higher prices on those who find her summoning spell for the time being, and unlikely to assist in soothing things over with the fairies...
...Many of which are also displeased. The reason why will be revealed by those who went to Celliwig.
The stone giant kneels down in the middle of the Forest of the Felled and, once the spirits are completely consumed, let out a loud, ground shaking yell. The glowing stops and he ceases to move. The spirits appear to be gone now, and the forest travelable.
The Forest of the Felled will be added as a location at the end of the month.

DRAGON = MISSION FAILURE
29 participants
14 dragon slaying experience x 1 point bonus = 14 points
-1 player disruption
Total points = 42 / 235 = 18%

Result Notes:

Celliwig is burned to the ground. Survivors will be making the trek to Camelot, making Camelot overcrowded between both Celliwig and Lestari refugees. Space will be strained; characters may be asked to room together with other people in order to make room for more people.
The dragon flies away once his job is done. There has been a fair amount of damage done, so he is injured. Location is unclear, we may find out more later!
The last person to fight the dragon is (but fails to slay): Feral Hawk (@notquitetamed) - Can invite any other players to do this thread with you. However, since it was a failure, you can choose to pass it to the next person if you do not want your character to take that role. Please let us know ASAP if you choose not to do this and we will pass it down to the next person selected via RNG. However, the dragon reveals the following information: It is the necromancer's fault, and therefore Celliwig and Camelot's for waking Kymbyr, that the Stone Giant was awakened and its home was destroyed. Now Celliwig's home is destroyed in turn. It doesn't stick around to attack after that.
Authorities and players who attempt to find Kymbyr will find them with one arm around Yanira, broken out of jail thanks to wonderful participants in this month's dark web quests. They say the following: "You woke up a great Necromancer to clean up a hells gnarly forest. You're welcome. We're skipping town. I'm totes thinking Miami. Not telling when or where, but you guys are going to save eeeverything, so I'm thinking it's just another long nap until we're free." (Bonus not unlocked, so Kymbyr and Yanira get away.)
Celliwig will be archived in a comment as a former location. Ruins of Celliwig will be added as a location at the end of the month.
NPC Notes: King Arthur will have been present and attempting to help with slaying the dragon.

LESTARI = MISSION SUCCESS
44 participants
23 healers present x 1 point bonus = 23 points
Total points = 67 / 235 = 29%

Result Notes:

The majority of participants went to Lestari, meaning that a significant chunk of the population was saved. Survivors will make their way to Camelot, making Camelot overcrowded between both Celliwig and Lestari refugees. Space will be strained; characters may be asked to room together with other people in order to make room for more people. (Players may determine if they choose to play with this.)
NPC note: Merlin will have come with this party to help with some of the heavy lifting of debris and trying to save as much life as possible.
Survivors explain some of the rumors around what they heard the giant was: The Stone Giant is an ancient beyond ancient being laid to rest long before the age of men and gods that would swallow deceased souls and pull them into the River of Lost Souls, where they would slowly lose themselves until they cease to exist as separate entities and become nothing but energy to be put back into the universe. In essence, those souls no longer exist and do not go to any promised afterlife. They are just Gone.
Unlocked bonus: The dragon is fleeing, so he will not be coming back for his hoard, and treasures are therefore available to anyone who wants to spend the time excavating them.
Unlocked bonus: Along with a fair amount of technology recovered before it was burned, including technomagic spells such as informative holograms, video games you can project your consciousness into, and blueprints/prototypes of cyborg flesh they were working on (technomagic-based prosthetics that react to your magic to act like a normal arm). These technologies will be made available in Camelot.

Please note that October, November, and December are going to be much chiller so this will be the last "heavy" event of the year. (December will be a free AC month as well.) Think of it like the season 1 finale. We don't intend on overwhelming anyone during the holidays.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Echoing all of this!

To add my own two cents: I really appreciate the effort to provide so many different ways for characters to get engaged in events, but this one in particular feels like two events forced together into one. I understand that both of these idea rely heavily on the season, and I think separately both would be fun to play around in, but especially in light of the poll results, the tones of the two prompts are completely different. I personally struggled a lot with figuring out what to do for the second prompt, both from an IC and OOC standpoint, and found myself feeling odd for wanting to lean into the first set when two days later in game but in the same post shit was gonna be hitting the fan. I'm not sure what the best solution for this would be, whether it be reducing the scale of events or making different posts for things that happen on different days with drastically different tones, but that's just what is going through my head right now.

I hope that makes sense...!

Thank you for all of this and a general +1, but also...

I do my best to diligently read all ooc info, roundups, quest board, etc, but I could find nothing about the guardian tattoos. It's in the TDM only, and current players aren't allowed to toplevel in the TDM. This means that a major component of bonuses was reliant on 1. checking the tdm, 2. tagging into a toplevel with a prompt that would get your character a guardian tattoo, and 3. threading far enough to be able to safely assume (??) that your character would have the tattoo in time for the event. Maybe I'm just old fashioned but even TDMs that are considered game canon have never had game-breaking plot components tucked away in a TDM prompt.

The walls of text are absolutely daunting, the amount of setting color completely buries the actual relevant mechanics, game info, etc. But on top of that, I've noticed the tendency to have things in there that would potentially be relevant to the game at large - and in this case, literally causes an event to fail due to lack of player participation - only located in a post that is technically optional and that a lot of players can't get around to even looking at because we're focused on our tag load in the actual game comm. In a smaller game, I could see where participating in a tdm-only mechanic coming back to affect the game as a whole would be a neat, if frustrating, gimmick. In a game this size, it's not a good idea. The mods can put whatever they want wherever they want but it feels really inconsiderate to hinge game-breaking bonuses on a mechanic buried in the TDM, which established players can only access if someone toplevels using that prompt or a wildcard where the existing player essentially railroads someone else's TDM to try to gain this bonus.

I'd prefer that if something that is going to be used to affect the game is in the TDM, that means it's also somewhere else, like the quest board. Yes, there is a note that you can use TDM prompts in the main game comms, but if you don't have time this month to even look at the TDM, these mechanics come as a complete surprise after it's too late. Right now the TDM is basically a third event, behind the monthly event and the quest board, and it's just too much to keep up with.

+10000

GOOD. FUCKING. POINTS.

All of this, too. I admit the presence of major events in the TDM is hard for me get my head around sometimes since the TDM by its nature is not always canon. It's hard to reconcile doing something that is a canon event with the fact that the tagging partner might never join the game officially and even if they do they might opt out of using threads as game canon. Then you have to handwave it as maybe something your character did with a NPC or not at all.

Maybe events posted to the TDM can also be posted to the main community with the understanding that there will be no log post for them. Just use it to point out that there are things happening in the setting that players can form their own logs and CR around. This post can also be linked back to the TDM to give prospective players more traffic.

Edited 2021-09-22 19:27 (UTC)

Honestly, I liked the way ITN did it, where the TDM prompts had at least one and sometimes two that related to current in-game events, so that the TDMers could really get a feel for the game tone and event style without the rest of the game missing something if they happened to be unable to get to the TDM that month.

The mods here have a LOT of great info and ideas, but it's getting to where too much is being crammed in all at once, so maybe if they took a step back, incorporated those cool TDM ideas into the game events, and then made a TDM prompt that tied into the game event, it would ease the pressure on them as well as players.

Having the TDMs tie into current events rather than BE current events is certainly a thought too.

But in the short term cross posting the info would be welcome.

Aye, i would really like to see TDM plot elements integrated elsewhere since I legit do not have time to engage with both TDM plot happenings and whatever's rolling up for ingame stuff
And i know it's like that to entice us to engage with prospectives in TDM but [gestures to salient points about walls of flavortext and the 200 things we all gotta try to keep on top of to stay relevant otherwise our characters turn into idiots who don't know anything even if we need a chill month]

I agree event plotting being posted a bit earlier would be key to solving the problem. Maybe not every months, but on months when stuff that has severe ramification to the game plot and the setting happens. The timing is especially unfortunate as I know a lot of people on my timeline are on hiatus or slowatus due to September being a generally busy month for everyone.

Another thing that could help is maybe better advertising of the severe consequences character involvement will have in the events? I didn't imagine the missions failing could have that dire consequences. Maybe some flashy red text that says "it's important" or something.

If I may hop in here, it would have been a bit kinder mechanics-wise if players would only have needed to confirm if their characters got a spirit guardian tattoo with no proof required. I'm mainly thinking of scenarios where people either didn't get to that point in their thread yet or simply couldn't find a partner to thread it out with.

I believe most players really care about this game's world, and being able to influence the outcome of events so greatly is exciting, so being unable to attain a bonus that could have turned the battle around (and a really cool reward!) for reasons out of one's control is a bit of a damper.

I like this idea a lot regarding people actually voting they didn't participate. It would be nice if that were clear since there is a potential that characters who were there could have to deal with people blaming them for failing. While it could be great for development, it definitely would be good for us to know IC what happened. Without that, it leaves us assuming they didn't participate even though us players know that may not be the case.

And there's definitely ways to have included a low key option for each prompt along with something in Camelot. The two fighting groups could have had people on hand to care for the wounded with first aid or do stuff like fighting fires in Cellwig. There could have been an effort to prepare housing for Lestari refugees in Camelot and Red Springs. Characters could also have tried to lead an evacuation of Cellwig residents. All those are good potential low key options that could be handwaved for those with less time for participation.

Edited 2021-09-22 21:46 (UTC)

It's in the TDM only, and current players aren't allowed to toplevel in the TDM. This means that a major component of bonuses was reliant on 1. checking the tdm, 2. tagging into a toplevel with a prompt that would get your character a guardian tattoo, and 3. threading far enough to be able to safely assume (??) that your character would have the tattoo in time for the event.

You're not allowed to top level but the TDM prompts have always been allowed to be used outside of the TDM. Players are free to organise things with other players already in the game if they don't think they can commit to tagging into a TDM prompt / make their own open logs using those prompts. I get where you're coming from with the rest, but established players are not limited to hoping someone in the TDM provides a top level.

EDIT: I'll also reiterate that while the tattoo bonus was nice, it wasn't essential to the outcome of the plot. It was very much a bonus, and several more untattooed (or at least, players without links to tattooing threads) would have also been enough to make that part of the event a success.

Edited 2021-09-22 21:59 (UTC)

Exactly. I was under the impression that I couldn't even vote in the poll until I had that proof, and then the poll was closed and I wasn't able to do anything. So while I can easily just say that my character participated, it's like his participation had no effect on anything in the game, and that's kind of frustrating. Not to mention that a lot of people clearly wanted to do the tattoo thing with the giant, but only a few actually fully met the needed requirements to get the in-game reward. That feels a little off-putting to me, too. I also waited even longer on doing anything with the poll because I had a question once I read more deeply into the info posts, and it took a while for an answer to come back that was greatly influencing how my character would have decided where to go. It was just a very steep hill for me to figuratively climb, and I'm frustrated and feel a little like I got walled out. I'm not saying that I did. But if I'd had better time to prepare and had gotten more information sooner, then I know I would have been able to do more with this instead of just handwaving the fact that my character did something that ultimately had no effect because it wasn't able to be calculated into the results.

Hello, just to quickly address this since AC is coming up this month and I don't want anyone to panic if they see this comment:

Our AC policy has always been that threads started in the last 7 days (1 week) of the previous month are submissible. It is posted on the AC hub page under "AC Directions" and on every spreadsheet.

I will address the rest in a larger comment once I am able to read through everyone's responses and get a general idea of points so everything is consolidated, but I wanted to specify that that has always been the policy.

I had originally suggested something to HIGHLIGHT elements in the TDM that could potentially be used in the game-wide plot so that we had the option to engage.

I actually do read everything and find that I am falling behind. There's so much going on I think that there definitely needs to be SOMETHING that acts like a big neon sign that says "HEY YOU SHOULD PROBABLY PAY ATTENTION TO THIS" regardless of if it's quest, event, or TDM.

You definitely articulated what was rubbing me the wrong way about this event and how it was executed.

When I read the results today, I was completely disheartened. I honestly felt like we were shoehorned into failing one or even both. Did we really have adequate time to process all of this information and make a good, solid choice?

I, for one, was one of the people that did not get to vote in time because I was at a convention. However my characters were absolutely going to participate some way. It kind of sucked that I wasn't able to really get the time I needed to get my vote in and digest that information.

I want you guys to know that I 100% love this game. I love my threads. I love the options that you give us. The TDM prompts are great and the quests are lovely. There's so many wonderful things here and the worldbuilding is excellent. Everything really does feel fully fledged out and thought out. So please don't think that we don't appreciate you guys and the game that you're giving us.

It's only that I really want to engage in this world that you guys are giving us that I express some concerns.

To a lot of this and thank you Fru for putting this up because you know I just waffle around.

A lot of these points I have expressed on my plurk the last couple of days and to friends of mine in game. Again, I want it to be known that I love this game. I love you mods and the playerbase. There are so many good things going on here and it's amazing! 235 characters? Goodness! I can't imagine what modding a game of this size would be especially with the explosion of people that you got.

However, I think the game does suffer from pacing issues. You guys are giving us so much that it's almost overload. We need a little time to be able to really engage in the world you're giving us so that we can keep it going. I literally took a hiatus this month so that I could focus on my threads here and get them wrapped up because I keep loading myself up so that I can keep pace with the game - because my character would and I just want to participate that much. If things were slowed down just a little or spaced out better, I think that there would be more participation. Many people I've talked to just feel lost and overwhelmed. If you miss one event you're completely lost and have no idea what's going on.

I still say that game important information needs to be more accessible. Streamlined. If there is something that could affect the game and the players, then that needs to be highlighted. It doesn't matter if that information is in the TDM, quests, or the event. There needs to be something that tells us "hey this could be important on down the road" or "hey pay attention to me."

With this event, with the severity of it, more time to plot and plan things out should have been provided. Then in addition to all of this... We have 3 chill months? It definitely feels like "oh these heavy things happened now it's relaxy chill times" when that's not really what's going to happen. There's going to be fall out and aftermath to deal with alongside of "well what next" as we head into the holidays. I do feel as though it had been a bit rushed instead of everything being given time to percolate and fester and build. Like we just got Celliwig and now it's gone? We weren't really given enough time to really enjoy it and do something with it before it's gotten taken away? So all of the work our characters have done to try to get on their good side means nothing? ...That's kind of how it felt reading that post today.

My filter isn't working real well right now ( lol treatment reviews at work today ) so I don't mean to be rude if I'm coming across that way. But again thank you for everything and for taking the time to listen to us. It really does mean a lot.

I had one in and one out because RL got busy and I didn't get time to figure out what was happening with the second one. So I figured others were also feeling disappointed in that regard. It's akin to having a choice made for you because you didn't respond in an arbitrary amount of time, and no one comes away from an experience like that without feeling a little sour about it.

But to make a finer point, since I've seen this mentioned heavily in the other comments: Even simply adding more time to the poll doesn't erase the demoralizing nature of how it was set up. 100% participation in a poll is never going to happen, even if you do increase the amount of time we have to respond. Tying OOC participation to IC ramifications is a recipe for grievances, unfortunately. No one likes choices being made for them. No one likes feeling like others aren't stepping up.

It's effectively the Group Project of RP; and the only way (that I've found) to resolve it is to not tie a decision to the whole of the game, but rather to whatever sample chooses to respond. At that point, the poll becomes representative of the whole community, rather than an absolute number. Maybe one person didn't respond with A like they wanted, but another probably didn't respond with B, and another didn't respond with C--so the percentages even out.

If the poll had been structure that way, I think the percentage of people who Didn't Help would have been closer to 20% (or less) rather than 57%, and that would have shifted the rest of the numbers a great deal, and given a much different impression of the off-worlders ICly.

Probably bears mentioning that DW polls allow players to modify their votes up until it closes so it was doable to vote and add the proof later. I know a lot of sites don't so it's easy to forget that fact and worth noting. I did notice the poll didn't mention when it would close (it was only on the bottom of the plotting post) so maybe a suggestion here would be to note the date and time it closes on the poll post itself (preferably outside of any cuts) along with the fact that players can modify their votes up until it closes so everyone is on the same page here in the future!

Like we just got Celliwig and now it's gone? We weren't really given enough time to really enjoy it and do something with it before it's gotten taken away?

Just want to say, this is also how I felt about Lestari. I think the destruction of both cities could have had a lot more emotional impact if we were given more than 3 months and 1 month respectively to develop emotional ties with the setting. But that goes along with the pacing issues that others have mentioned, so I don't want to expand on that more than to say "Please let your setting breathe!" You have a lot of good lore and interesting places, and they deserve some time to be appreciated.

This comment addressed my biggest issue with how the poll affected the event.

To add on to this, I think it would be important to have the option for those choosing not to participate to be recorded as an IC choice, and then run the numbers based on percentage of responses with people going to various places (or opting not to go).

I have no issue with things failing - conflict and failure can lead to interesting IC developments sometimes! But OOC non-responses shouldn't result in IC consequences. OOC non-responses shouldn't impact the numbers for what happens ICly at all.

-----

That being said, I do appreciate all the hard work and imagination the mod team puts into this game. It's clear the mod team does care about having a good game that's enjoyable for the playerbase to be in.

So to start this off, I want to let everyone know that we have heard a lot of feedback and have gleaned the following points from it on the recent events result post. We want to state that we have also seen a lot of positive feedback in other locations, such as the event post itself, plurk, discord, and private conversations. To this end, we want to make certain that it is not only the loudest voices being heard before we make changes. (Especially since the mods have jobs and other obligations, so some of these changes may be subject to availability.)

To start off, we've made a summary of points brought to our attention and would like to present them to the players as well as any thoughts we may have had on them. At the end of this post, we will include a list of changes that we will poll the community on to see what the community at-large would like to do.

1. "Wall of Text" events- there's too much going on in every event, or it takes a long time to mentally work out plot-heavy posts.

Our events aren't actually that much longer than most when compared to other games. However, it's been brought to our attention that our layout makes it harder to read and parse through. We're happy to consider finding a better way to break it up and display events. Bear with us a little while so we can figure this out.

2. Not enough time to start a thread before the result of the poll.

No one was able to start a thread before the poll. The poll is closed before the log goes up. This has been the case for most polls, so that we are able to determine outcomes for players to understand where their thread can head on an OOC level. This is why we post plotting posts ahead of the game, to allow players to discuss OOC what they want to do with their characters during the events and decide ahead of posting their threads. The only thread that was asked for was for bonuses, so players could be like "Hey! I participated in that prompt, I can help extra!" It was not a duty or requirement. That is why it is worth 3 points as the highest bonus because it is the only bonus that had required action. We recognize that perhaps the concept of bonuses had not been properly explained on our part and will seek to reword in the future.

3. Events start in the middle of the month and so it's difficult to get AC:

Monthly Updates - posts right before the start of each month; setting-related small things, not necessarily prompts but ideas you can form your own prompts with)
QuestBoard - posts right before the start of each month; prompts for do-gooders and a separate set for morally gray and villainous types; completely avoidable if you don't want to use them, posted before the TDM so that newbies can use these as additional prompts if they don't see anything that interests them in the... It should be noted that these are not considered events at all and are not going to host game plots.
Test Drive Meme - 1st of every month. All prompts in the TDM are considered game canon (as in, these things ARE happening in the city, whether or not they're with characters people do or don't app in end up counting) and have been clearly labeled as such since day 1. TDM prompts are frequently used to set up or lead into events. The only limitation that we ask is that new players are the only ones to top level on the post; all players may use the prompts for logs, network posts, inbox threads, or anywhere they want really. This has and always will be the case.
The Monthly Event - Plotting on 18th and log on the 20th was actually decided by player vote to see what the best spacing and format would be. Bear in mind that apps only close on the 14th and thus would leave no adjustment period for new players (and also potentially heavily stress the mods out due to lack of time between apps and writing). Pushing it later would force it to overlap too heavily with the TDM, Questboard, and monthly updates which are all at the start of the month. Additionally, on the mod side of things, we are also attempting to process activity checks and rewards and update setting info, manage hiatuses, and more.

4. Trouble keeping up with the storyline/important plots:

game progression

5. "The next 3 months will be chiller" does not absolve the heavy hits we already took over the last month. I phrased it as feeling like we get to dance on the rubble.

That statement was not intended to absolve anything, it was to let people know that we have no intention of forcing a heavy plot on anyone during the holiday months, which are often the busiest months of the year for most people. The whole format of Avalon is based on player response having control over the situation, and the consequences that follow. We're not just going to pretend like nothing happened, but we still feel obligated to inform our players that they can expect things to lighten up going forward for a few months. Sorry for using the word "chill" that is just how I talk and it was late at night for me. I apologize for typing informally, as it seems to have caused a misunderstanding.

6. People weren't aware that threads were required to participate in the poll.

That is because they were not. A bonus of 3 points was offered to anyone who did participate in the TDM prompt. It should be keyly noted that this is a BONUS, not a requirement. It was only ever intended to be a bonus to help even out the number of busy people during this month. We considered delaying the event, but it only ever gets less convenient during the holiday for people. Anyone can thread any prompt they want even if they do not participate in the poll. The poll is just used to determine outcomes.

7. It was inevitable that some of the missions failed.

8. Polls should be 1 week - 1 month long.

We are willing to move it to 1 week in the future. However, as the pace of players varies greatly, we are not going to hold a month-long poll. Every poll stops generating responses after a week's time when we've offered them longer than a week. We want to keep the momentum going, and all polls are based on intent of action, not dependent on the individual threads. (We literally only asked where your character decided to go, which can be decided via plotting without starting your thread yet.)

9. This event had no lead up.

It was set up over time, actually! The stone giant was mentioned as being present in Lestari's introduction. Though we called it “mechanical-stone” feet, for the sake of simplicity we began calling it a stone giant. Celliwig has been an intentional moral gray area and has also been notably established as having been isolated for hundreds of years, which limits their knowledge of current events or reliability of outside sources. As for Lestari, it was not on the map and was never intended to be added to the map. Additional fun fact: the word "lestari" means "permanent," which was like calling the Titanic unsinkable. The dragon appeared in the introduction of Lestari was stated to be dangerous and only calm so long as no one touched its hoard. Dragon-slaying laws have been brought up intentionally to state that they're illegal to kill unless certain circumstances present themselves (like the dragon burning down a town). Kymbyr is introduced as a necromancer and a well-known one, and was introduced as someone who could clear out the Forest of the Felled. At the start of the month with a dark web quest to break their friend out of prison, establishing them as more morally aligned to bad behavior than good. Celliwig from the very beginning has been on the side of bad producing results just as much as 'good' people can, and sometimes being necessary to move forward. (Such as through the Forest of the Felled.) It was all set up over time, though we do not intend on clearly labeling all foreshadowing of future events. We understand people like warnings of anything to change, but we do intend on plot twists in the future and now.

10. The summaries don't contain details.

We're going to try a different format for events soon to avoid the wall of text. Summaries will likely remain the same because if they contain details, they're not summaries, but we hope this new format will alleviate the text wall.

11. I didn't know the poll would be important / have consequences.

The format of this game is that player actions have a strong effect on the outcomes of the game. If there is a poll for IC action, that means that players have a strong effect on the outcome of whatever that poll is about. This is not the first time that polls have had drastic possibilities (see: Arthur's life was on the line in the Hall of Mirrors). This game does not have guaranteed positive outcomes. It is absolutely possible to get both good and bad routes and turns in Isle of Avalon.

12. The poll is unfair because we calculate out of the total number of characters instead of only the ones who choose to participate. People should have to opt in to not participate for them to count.

13. Pacing issues

It might have seemed to quicken up but it is the natural progression of the elements that have been set up coming together (as noted previously). Rather than having this all spread out over the holiday months, we wanted to wrap up the current bit then allow for the next few months be a bit of down time to both allow characters to ICly process events and for players to be able to not be burdened with more plot heavy things during a time where activity tends to be lowest. Our format is based on the principle that this game can accommodate non-combative/adventure characters so we always include one action/adventure prompt set and one more mundane/SOL prompt set, but we can see if people are interested in reducing the number of prompts under each and see if there's a little more focus possible.

LIST OF ITEMS TO BE BROUGHT TO A FEEDBACK POLL FOR THE WHOLE GAME SO EVERYONE HAS A CHANCE TO VOICE THEIR OPINION:

Reformat events to be easier to digest/locate key information and important details.

List, description, and intended function of the following game mechanics in the FAQ: Monthly Updates, QuestBoard, Test Drive Meme, Events.

Polls for player decisions should delay event posts for 1 week after the initial plotting post.

If the above 1 week poll time passes, would you rather: the plotting post be shifted earlier (to the 15th, which may strain incoming newbies by not allowing for an adjustment period), keep the plotting date consistent every month and move the event to 1 week later (23rd, which may make it harder to achieve AC for the current month using event threads, but will make AC easier for the following month using event threads).

Reduce number of options under each prompt set.

I think this was good discussion to have and allowed us to hear opinions, but in the future, we would appreciate constructive criticism be brought to the mod contact so that we avoid large pile-ons, as it makes it harder to read through and respond to in a timely fashion. That is what the mod contact page is for. Thank you!

Edited 2021-09-23 03:44 (UTC)

I wasn't sure what I could add to...like all this since so much had already been said and I already have long post issues (even my own lol) where a ton of reading is hard. So I'll add to sentiment here and try my best elsewhere.

While we don't always see eye to eye, and I +1 a lot of these things, I also +1 the thanks for all the effort regardless that sometimes it doesn't work out. I'd have left a long time ago if I didn't love Avalon. Even though a lot of the times I am a bit disheartened and confused when events come out, I also appreciate that we're listened to, even in a minority, and that there's tons of things you guys put aside, planned and did to make it happen. So thank you for that.

+1ing TL but replying here since I think I share similar views.

I'm kind've on board with the main big event being first part of the month, not the end where it's a rush to participate if that's what players like doing for AC. The TDM being end of the month and the quests either being the TDM or part of the TDM. Then incoming characters would be able to participate that way. Sometimes I feel like we need a wholeass Wiki and a Morgan Freeman voiced audio book of it to keep up. However, on the flip side, too much is also good in some ways, at least we get that too much and not "not enough". Alright that's enough from me lol. Going back to my hideyhole.

Aha this is coming in late and I'll likely bring some of these points back up again in the next feedback poll, but thought I could go ahead and chime it in for you guys to consider.

Firstly, these results just highlight the importance of players to put in their votes whether they actively tag into the event or not. I know I waffled because I wasn't sure, AND THAT'S ON ME that is not a mod problem. It might suck that the missions failed in large part due to not enough participants, but I think this was needed to highlight that—especially when a fair number of players, including myself, could have voted but didn't. We're the ones who need to be held accountable, not the mods. Things can always be improved, but it's still on us in the end. So it'll be interesting to see how things go forward in terms of participation.

My one suggestion here would be to clearly encourage those who are undecided on whether they will be able to actively tag on the log to vote anyway as it will eliminate any doubt for players. (Note: Important distinction between characters who would just not participate in the event and players who might not tag into it but have characters who would have done something.) I know I had that weird, "I don't know if I should vote since I don't know if I'll actively participate, but my character would definitely do this" moment. Still, I should have voted regardless! To offset the "well then so much stuff will be handwaved" issue, you can adjust the calculations to make it more difficult/appropriate for the higher number and request threads to offer bonus points. Which leads me to the next suggestion.

I think instead of delaying events, you should stick to the calendar and instead let the poll run a few days through the event. Granted, this runs into the problem of you guys needing to know what to do for the TDM, so an appropriate cut off would be needed (since no mod wants to draft three different endings where two of them won't even be used). I think three or four days could work assuming everything sticks to schedule. This way players can have more of a feel of what's going on and by then most "waffling" players will have decided what they're doing. Anyone who doesn't vote by then, well that's that.

I know some players request for additional plotting time, but I don't think it should be pushed up that far, honestly. Maybe a day or two, but the giant chunk that will matter for the polls will have figured things out, and allowing the poll to last a few days into the event will also help increase time. Although some players might feel a bit pressured, I think that's actually necessary for events with big impacts like this. The game is pretty chill for most of the time, having the occasional "Okay guys, we really need to bunker down and focus on this" isn't too much to ask for as long as it's made clear from the get go. Plus, sometimes more time doesn't always mean more preparedness as most people do their plotting fairly early on. Too much time is just dead weight.

And my final point specific to this event is that I think it would have been better if the results were posted near the end or after the event. I see what you're going for, but by posting the results now, there is a split focus between the current events and the aftermath. On the one hand it does give players more to work with, but on the other there's a clear shift in mood and some players might lose motivation, especially since it was a fail state. This would have been better saved and incorporated for October.

All in all though, I am very pro "we hit bad end" since things usually end up having good ends, so I'm interested to see how things go from here. For all we know, even if we had a more balanced number of participants vs. non, whatever adjusted calculations could have resulted the same.

And /grips mods shoulders. I feel you, and I'm always impressed by all the work you all put out. Whatever you guys do, do what works best to your schedule and means, too.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

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Event Result Notes!

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POINTS AT THIS WITH A NEON SIGN

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+1 to pretty much everything

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Feedback Response (To all above as of 8:35pm PST on 9/22/21)

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