avalonooc | How's My Driving?

it's a dog at the steering wheel. dont worry, his seat belt is on.

Welcome to

isleofavalon's "How's my driving?" post! Now before we get started, let's go over some basic ground rules so that we may maintain a respectful environment on this participation-optional HMD:

1. We will not be allowing anonymous comments on this meme.

2. You may comment with either compliments or criticisms

constructive in nature

Here are some examples for your reference:

UNCONSTRUCTIVE COMPLIMENT: You're cool, I get good vibes off of you.
◉ WHY? It's a nice compliment, but it's not adding anything to the conversation. It doesn't really speak to any level of RP or really say anything meaningful about the person you're replying to.

CONSTRUCTIVE COMPLIMENT: I love how you manage to use vocabulary unique to this character without abusing it like it's an obnoxious catchphrase. Your restraint makes the character feel realistic and more relatable in the setting, which makes it easy to get CR with them.
◉ WHY? Specifies something you like that the player does specifically and why that stands out to you.

UNCONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM: I don't like how you play your character. It doesn't feel right. Your icons aren't 100x100 and it don't know how to describe it besides ew.
◉ WHY? Provides absolutely nothing that the player can do differently, really only gives them a way to feel shitty. Icons also don't really have anything to do with anyone's ability to RP, so while you may personally feel that way, you're not being helpful. If it really bothers you, maybe just offer a link to some icons that you found for the character and offer it in private instead of making someone feel bad because they either couldn't find preexisting icons and don't have the time/patience/skills to make them or just didn't think it was that important.

CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM: Hi there. I wanted to say that I think the way that you play your character is interesting, but I feel like you're emphasizing their obsession with cleaning way too much. It was only in one scene in the series and an off-hand comment about a room being dusty, not their entire character. I would really love to see you bring out more focus on the character's drive to achieve their goal, and how that goal has changed in Avalon's environment.
◉ WHY? This comment points out a specific problem behavior that's causing the character to seem out-of-character. It offers a note to tone it down, as well as emphasizing an action they could take instead to make the character feel more interesting and closer to their usual, core behaviors.

If you aren't sure if your comment is constructive, run it by a mod or don't share it.

3. If you receive a comment you do not like or agree with, do not start a fight or argument with the person who said it.

Okay, now without further ado, here are the instructions:

• Comment with the character name, series, and your character's username for each character that you play in a single comment.
• Reply to other peoples' comments with constructive statements.
• If you have criticism for the game moderation (NOT how mods play characters within the game, as they reserve their right to optional personal threads as well), you can click here to provide it.
• Learn from the suggestions and profit!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Please try to be constructive and mindful of time constraints and effort, as moderators are volunteers and people too.

One thing I've wanted to comment on for a while is the way the game events and plot are structured. I've seen other players comments that they're frustrated by how often it seems like one calamity follows another and it leads to a rather dark feeling game when that wasn't what was promised on the tin. When I think back over the past year I've been here I also feel like there have been very few instances where characters have had a great success at the challenges they were trying to surmount. It usually results in either crushing losses or moderate wins that still don't feel like something to celebrate.

On one hand I do think the system in place is a good one at it's core. I like that things are left to chance and participation with avenues for player involvement and for players to voice their opinions on how things might happen. These are a great way to up the feeling of engagement. One area that I think really hurts us is that polls are structured against a percentage of the entire game, rather than the population who actually votes. Another thing that might be nice to see is a situation where maybe we're guaranteed more of a win but the poll just determines the overall level of success in a way that still feels like our characters have achieved something to give the sense that progress is being made.

Again I want to reiterate there are a lot of things about the system here that I think are set up really well and these are just some thoughts I've had about ways that could bring the mood up or tip things in the character's favor a little more often. As always thanks for everything you guys are doing regardless!

Hello! First of all, thank you for your comment. We agree that the game has gotten a little darker and are hoping to remedy that soon, hopefully to create more balance. We are definitely going to be taking this feedback seriously and hopefully will improve in the way that is expected.

However, we would like to note that no polls have been calculated that way since the September 2021 event after we received similar feedback the first time, so if you could please provide some clarity as to what you are referring in regards to the polls, we would appreciate it so we can take a closer look at the situation. If you are curious/interested, I can provide a breakdown of how we've gone through each poll and player-inspired action since so please let me know if that's something you'd like more information on.

Thanks again for your feedback, please let us know if there is anything else we can do.

Thank you for the reply all of this is great to hear! I actually wasn't aware of the changes to the polls. Not sure if it wasn't entirely transparent or I just didn't make the connection that it was a permanent change rather than a different style of event or something but I'm happy to hear that's been adjusted as well :) I trust that you guys are always trying to evolve things to keep improving the game. I'll definitely be looking forward to how the changes play out in the future!

This is going to be partly a repeat of the Love Meme, but I still wanted to give a little more feedback even though I'm late!

Besides the evident effort and care that goes into bringing to life the world of Avalon (not only through the detailed world-building in the TDMs, quests and events, but also through things like all the interesting creatures in the bestiary, the weather forecast in the monthly update logs, the unique rewards, and more) I love how actions have tangible consequences in the game! As the probably most outstanding example the destruction of Lestari and Celliwig had a huge impact on the situation in Camelot for months on end, influenced the quests at the time, etc. (though I also see and second Hitoya-mun's point above about how it's been a pretty grim time for everybody as a result of how the voting participation was weighed and calculated at the time).

In a similar vein I love how open the mod team is for outlier opinions/actions (see: Ardyn's stunt in reviving the Fisher King, given that he could rope in enough supporters). Usually it can be very hard for "villains" (in the broadest sense) to sway the popular vote, given that there's usually a majority of "heroic" (again, in the broadest sense) characters in most games, so this is really a neat differentiator!

Another differentiator is the option of requesting audiences with NPCs (or MPCs - mod player characters?) and gaining special positions (such as the outworlder ambassador), as well as the occasional option of interacting with the NPCs informally when they pop into events or hold AMAs!

In general I feel that you guys work hard to make players feel involved and like their character can make a difference (also through player plots that likewise result in consequences for the instigators), which I realise requires a lot of work, so thank you for everything you do for us! ♡