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cosmoooc2016-08-19 01:45 am
wearethecrystalmods) wrote in cosmoooc2016-08-19 01:45 am
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Announcement: new TDM, brand-new info pages, and some other stuff!
Hello again, Gems! We've got a couple of cool new announcements for you, as well as a...kind of mini-"How's The Game" where we'd like your opinions on some possible changes to Cosmo!
First thing's first...
☆ New Test Drive Meme
That's right! There's a brand new TDM up over this-a-way. And from here on out, we're planning to put up a new one every two months, using prompts from the last event and/or any other cool things that may have happened over those two months.
☆ Infopage Overhaul
The road to getting a new TDM up involved fixing up Cosmo's info pages for new players' sake, since they'd been around for quite a while and we'd been made aware of some contradictions and outdated information on them. When we dragged them out for what we thought would be some light touch-ups, we found...way more that needed fixing than we thought.
There were a few reasons for that. One was that the pages were simply disorganized in a lot of ways - information was distributed arbitrarily across pages that didn't need to be separated, while some pages combined unrelated information for reasons unknown. We've rearranged it into two main pages - one for OOC information, like rules, appable characters, AC standards, and other mechanical doodads, and another for IC information, like what Gems are and what characters see upon waking up - with a few peripheral topic pages, like locations, fusion, and powers.
The second reason was that there was a lot of information from the original modteam that players simply weren't using, either because it was written early enough in Steven Universe's run that it conflicted with canon (like monsters being part-human), or because it was less interesting for RP (like the Temple having one door that led to everyone's room instead of dormitory-style halls). In these cases, we tried to rewrite it according to the world our players have actually been playing in and the rules they've been playing by.
The third reason was a lack of detail in some places that really called for it. In spots like the locations page, we've added descriptions and explanations for things that already exist in Cosmo but have been left vague, with the hope that providing detail will spark creativity and encourage players to use aspects of the setting that might have been forgotten. Check out the new section on the Temple on the main Locations page!
The fourth reason, and a more minor one, is that the metaplot has undergone some drastic changes behind the scenes as the game has changed hands and information about the game's original direction has vanished in the process. There are some "retcons" in the new information pages, and we strongly encourage reading them over to get a handle on anything that might have changed. Our goal was that no players would have to do any outright "retconning" of their own, but if you have any problems with anything on the new information pages, let us know and we can help you reconcile it.
☆ Excursions?
We're still working on them. Getting this organizational stuff out of the way took priority once we realized it needed doing, since it makes up the core of the game, and the core needs to be solid before you can add flash. The good news is that, besides week-to-week maintenance stuff, this was pretty much the only thing besides Excursions that needed doing, so they're now the main project!
☆ Some Future Possibilities
Your mods have been discussing sundry aspects of the game, based on player feedback and our own observations, and we'd like your thoughts on some possible tweaks to OOC aspects of the game.
We want your feedback! Let us know what you think about any of the above, right here. We welcome feedback from those not in the game but planning to app in, too.
Thanks for your time!
First thing's first...
☆ New Test Drive Meme
That's right! There's a brand new TDM up over this-a-way. And from here on out, we're planning to put up a new one every two months, using prompts from the last event and/or any other cool things that may have happened over those two months.
☆ Infopage Overhaul
The road to getting a new TDM up involved fixing up Cosmo's info pages for new players' sake, since they'd been around for quite a while and we'd been made aware of some contradictions and outdated information on them. When we dragged them out for what we thought would be some light touch-ups, we found...way more that needed fixing than we thought.
There were a few reasons for that. One was that the pages were simply disorganized in a lot of ways - information was distributed arbitrarily across pages that didn't need to be separated, while some pages combined unrelated information for reasons unknown. We've rearranged it into two main pages - one for OOC information, like rules, appable characters, AC standards, and other mechanical doodads, and another for IC information, like what Gems are and what characters see upon waking up - with a few peripheral topic pages, like locations, fusion, and powers.
The second reason was that there was a lot of information from the original modteam that players simply weren't using, either because it was written early enough in Steven Universe's run that it conflicted with canon (like monsters being part-human), or because it was less interesting for RP (like the Temple having one door that led to everyone's room instead of dormitory-style halls). In these cases, we tried to rewrite it according to the world our players have actually been playing in and the rules they've been playing by.
The third reason was a lack of detail in some places that really called for it. In spots like the locations page, we've added descriptions and explanations for things that already exist in Cosmo but have been left vague, with the hope that providing detail will spark creativity and encourage players to use aspects of the setting that might have been forgotten. Check out the new section on the Temple on the main Locations page!
The fourth reason, and a more minor one, is that the metaplot has undergone some drastic changes behind the scenes as the game has changed hands and information about the game's original direction has vanished in the process. There are some "retcons" in the new information pages, and we strongly encourage reading them over to get a handle on anything that might have changed. Our goal was that no players would have to do any outright "retconning" of their own, but if you have any problems with anything on the new information pages, let us know and we can help you reconcile it.
☆ Excursions?
We're still working on them. Getting this organizational stuff out of the way took priority once we realized it needed doing, since it makes up the core of the game, and the core needs to be solid before you can add flash. The good news is that, besides week-to-week maintenance stuff, this was pretty much the only thing besides Excursions that needed doing, so they're now the main project!
☆ Some Future Possibilities
Your mods have been discussing sundry aspects of the game, based on player feedback and our own observations, and we'd like your thoughts on some possible tweaks to OOC aspects of the game.
Mandatory/Prompted IC Inboxes
- What? In many games, characters are expected to have a post on their journal that serves as an "IC Inbox", where other characters can contact them directly instead of making a post to the entire game. Though they're called "inboxes", they're not just for email or phone conversations, and can be used for any kind of one-on-one interaction. These would be made "mandatory" in the same way that the Stats/Permissions posts are, by prompting players to make them when they submit to the Taken Characters page, and threads from them would count for AC.
- Why? Simply enough, we think that these posts encourage players playing with each other. Some players are shy about arranging locked posts and like having a more "private" option for one-on-one tagging, while others are more likely to thread out one-on-one interactions if they have a more "spontaneous" option. If these posts are something people like to play on - and by their use in other games, this seems to be the case - it's only fair to make them part of our system and eligible for our AC.
Character Cap Decrease
- What? Paring the character cap down to four.
- Why? Six characters is a lot of characters. Also, since we're trying to evolve Cosmo into a game where there's more things to do and more ways for individual characters to influence the game world, we feel that four characters might come out to the same raw quantity of RP that six characters would have before.
AC Increase
- What? Doubling our AC requirements by requiring two "proofs", where we currently require only one.
- Why? Cosmo's AC is really slim. While we know the low AC is a draw for some players, we're also concerned that it enables character squatting. We're open to suggestions on ways to encourage activity while keeping AC pressure low.
Game-wide HMDs
- What? Regular "How's My Driving?" posts where players post their characters and others can let them know of any considerations, concerns, or praise they might have. May be either mandatory or optional; if mandatory, our HMDs would be locked to the game's players. (If optional, our HMDs could still be locked to the game's players.)
- Why? First, because these are important to RP and always have been; having a designated time and place to raise criticism helps diffuse tension and keep communication open. Second, because they give us mods a more regular schedule for "How's The Game"-type announcements and feedback requests, instead of springing posts like this on the comm when nobody's specifically expecting it.
We want your feedback! Let us know what you think about any of the above, right here. We welcome feedback from those not in the game but planning to app in, too.
Thanks for your time!
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Otherwise, I'm also down for optional HMDs and don't feel like paring the character cap down would be too big a deal.
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AC: Fine with this too. Right now you really could pass AC with 3-4 tags total in a month if not fewer and if people can't do even twice that in a month regularly they are probably squatting and should probably reconsider things a bit.
Cap: Can't say I has an opinion. Do we even have anyone with 6 chars?
HMD: Eh. Having one is fine but in my experience, HMDs rarely bring up problems vs PLAYERS by way of crit and so on, just vs mods. Otherwise they are usually big cuddle-fest ur awesome replies if any at all and there's plenty of cuddly memes already. Requiring players have a HMD post on their journal, and then do a regular mod-announcement/feedback request sort of thing might be better, and encourage people to use them.
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Characters right now have pretty easy access to the internet which is functioning as a lowkey network but we love how much in-person action happens in Cosmo and we'd hate for that to change.
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Part of the reasoning behind a mandatory, on-comm HMD is that it can solve two different problems that on-journal HMDs are known to have. One is the issue of harassment, and the second is players potentially ignoring crit. Having crit happen in a place where mods can...well, moderate it, allows us to be aware of and deal with both/either of those things if they occur.
Not any particular response to/argument towards you, your post just reminded me of it and it's worth throwing out there as part of our thought process.
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A mandatory HMD would be a bit of an extreme way to solve this and likely wouldn't be the best way to do it but throwing these ideas out is how we get feedback from you guys, which is always appreciated o7
At this point, having it be optional but gamelocked is what I'm leaning towards but obvs the final word will depend on what y'all let us know is good for you.
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k good night
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I am a little iffy on mandatory IC inboxes since most of the games I've seen them be mandatory in also have an established "network/communication" system which Cosmo doesn't (this is also something I like about Cosmo that sets it apart from other games). But if they're mandatory in the same way the Permissions Posts are (with room for customization or making them as basic or detailed as one pleases) and counted towards AC that's not unreasonable. I can also see the advantage to it for players who frequently do one-on-one type things with other players but don't want to flood the main comm with logs nor lose the AC.
On the subject of AC though, I actually really really really like that Cosmo's AC is very simple and varied compared to other games. I think it suits the "open and laid back" atmosphere that comes with a Steven Universe-inspired game. I'm also concerned that doubling the AC will make it a far more stressful game to play in, particularly since events only happen bi-monthly and new CR (particularly if you've been in the game a long time and have threaded with most people at least once) can be hard to come by without forcing it somehow. Granted that does leave post making and comment threads for additional proofs but I'd rather not have people be forced to make last minute Open Logs purely just to get the AC credit for them if they're stuck for "AC length" threads. People should make Open logs when they have ideas for them! Not because they have to in order to stay in the game.
I think if there are, or have been, issues of character squatting that should be handled by any cast-mates in-game going to the mods if they suspect a player of squatting to then discuss it between themselves when it happens, or if mods notice a character just squeaking by with AC each time, to perhaps poke them about it. It seems a little unfair to force responsible players to double their RP output, even if it is to encourage more activity in-game.
If the main concern is more about promoting in-game activity than avoiding character squatting, I personally feel a better way to encourage that would be to offer "rewards" for making more than the minimum amount of AC. Many games now use "rewards" or "tokens" or what have you as incentive for players to go above and beyond the required amount of AC. For Cosmo's, perhaps this could be in the form of extra regains or upgrades (since Event participation is the only way to get those right now) or some other kind of in-game reward, like a room in a unique part of the Temple or the ability to link their rooms with other characters. I'm sure there's a ton of possibilities that could be thought up!
As for the game-wide HMDs, "optional" is always my preference (HMDs can be really stressful for some players and I think at heart it's important to remember that this is RP, not a job XD) but if it were game-locked that wouldn't be too bad, so long as anon was disabled for it. I've seen games destroyed by in-game anon crit. T_T
I can definitely see the advantage of them though in terms of regular feedback/announcements for the Mods/Game in general as well as helping players avoid harassment on their personal journals.
In any case, the new Info pages all look amazing! Much more tidy and infinitely more detailed. Thanks so much for all of that hard work!
I did have one quick question about the new rooms situation with regards to the Temple and the main door. Can players in-game still instantly access the Heart room via the main Temple door (or any other door in the Temple as worked previously), and/or go from the Heart Room to the exit/outside in the same manner? It's a useful in-game mechanic if say, a character would like to immediately get outside or would otherwise like to avoid people for some reason as they exit from the Heart Chamber but if it's not feasible I totally understand. I'm just curious if it's still a thing.
And that was a lot of tl;dr I am so sorry Mods. XD; Again, thanks so much for all of these touch-ups and updates and all of your hard work! It is truly truly appreciated.
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Concerns about network/action split is actually why we went for inboxes over something like a log comm. We felt a log comm didn’t really fit the way y’all play and set up posts in Cosmo, so an IC contact post would basically be there to allow for more one-on-one contact between characters without you guys feeling like you’ve either gotta set up a new log every time or potentially handwave something because you don’t want to miss out on the AC.
On the subject of AC, I think there’s a little confusion as to what we mean by two proofs. We don’t mean that we’ll be asking for one of each, but rather two of any that we currently ask for. So, for example, this could be something like two AC length threads, two new CR threads, a new cr thread and an event thread, a post and an AC length thread... you get the idea. With Excursions and the potential of IC inboxes, you guys would have way more venues for getting AC proofs but even without then, I think most of y’all regularly do even more than double AC as is.
(i had more i wanted to say to this but work is hella busy so I’ll just post this and nyoom away to come back later)
why you gotta judge me so harshly honkers T.T XDXD
As I throw another at you gjkdsFor the IC inboxes, I guess I can see the advantage there, although it does still seem strange to me to make them mandatory when Cosmo really only has (and needs) the one IC comm. I think Adachi-mun a couple top-levels down below actually summed up the remainder of my concerns about IC inboxes however, and also went into better depth than me. XD
I am definitely all for IC inboxes counting towards AC though regardless of whether they are mandatory or just encouraged! I actually had a thread idea a while back that I was waffling on whether it should be a comm post or to just inbox it but since IC inboxes don't (?) count for AC just yet, I went with a comm post.
And oh, yep! I did get that part about the two proofs. My apologies for making it sound like I thought otherwise (this is exactly why I need to be more concise with my wording...and maybe not type out walls of text at 3 AM lol).
I guess I'll just lead with the fact that my main concern about doubling AC is that it will make gathering AC that much more stressful? Regardless of what proof you're going for. For example, I know I make double AC regularly, but that's because I want to! And I have ideas for things to toss at my characters (and have the advantage of a muse that IC-ly likes to involve herself in stuff). But if I was obligated to make double AC in order to stay in the game, then it becomes less something I want to do and is instead something I have to do, if that makes any sense?
My other concern was that, in order to gather the requisite two proofs, players would feel forced to make what I'd call "filler" open posts on the comm in order to get a second proof. I could see this happening especially in months where there were no events (which are bi-monthly) and no viable new CR (which, I noted is harder to come by when you're a senior player that's threaded with most people already in-game and whatever new players coming in may not have presented an opportunity for new CR). That would leave them with the option of two comm posts, two 15+ threads (for a total of 30), or one of each. And I've seen in other games that, rather than worry about getting two threads to "AC length", players are often tempted to default to tossing out an Open log. And then when AC rolls around we get lots of people making these Open logs in order to stay in the game? I'm definitely not saying this would happen, and it's not specifically a problem, but it is something I've observed in other games and I feel like it doesn't result in the desired effect you all want? Which is people more invested in the game and encouraging activity throughout the month (as opposed to just when AC rolls around), I think.
And I also just personally feel a light, easy, and varied AC fits the tone of a Steven Universe-inspired game better.
That's why I suggested the idea of "rewards" of some kind for players who go above and beyond the minimum required AC, which in turn helps the game by encouraging other players to do just that in order to get cool stuff! They could work like Regains where players submit the additional qualifying "proofs" to the mods and then earn tokens or flat rewards based on what they've done or what they want.
I much prefer the idea of positive reinforcement when it comes to encouraging a playerbase to be more active in a game than raising the bar for everyone. But that's just my personal preference. And I also understand that instating a "rewards"/"tokens" system might be more work for the mods. ^^;
(Anyway I shall eagerly await any further reply in that case then ^_^ I hope the rest of your shift went smoothly!)
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Ultimately, my hope with an IC Contact sort of thing was to encourage more one-on-one activity without players feeling like the goofy stuff you can get on with in your inbox was worth 'less' in Cosmo because it's not eligible for AC. But you and Lynsey both raised some good points re: the drawbacks of making them mandatory (tho this was more from your talk about AC lol) so it's definitely something me and Holo will talk more about before anything gets put into place.
I'd also really, really love to be able to go carrot over stick with AC but I also worry that offering rewards and bonuses for more AC would take us to the problem we had back with the old power system. Given that Excursions, when they're in play, will also offer players these same kind of rewards I worry that an additional reward system will give us the problem of flooding players with too much of a good thing? Effort should definitely be encouraged and rewarded, yes but the how dos of going about it are sort of ??? to me right now. BUT WE'LL SEE WHAT WE CAN DO i've got buddies who are playing/have played in games that have this kinda system so I'll quiz them and see what worked about it for them.
This still hits on the underlying issue that Cosmo's AC right now is very easy to pass. And that's fine! Cosmo right now is a super chill game and not everyone has a character who's gonna get in on everything. But it also means that every other month, players essentially have a free pass on their AC so long as they make a comment somewhere on the event post. This means that six out of twelve months of the year, it's possible to pass Cosmo's AC with a single comment. And that's kinda broken! I don't want to make the game less chill and relaxed because I LOVE the atmosphere of the game but I want to fix that imbalance, too.
Any increase on AC is gonna be a bit of a hop, so my thoughts right now are setting a minimum comment length on the stuff like new CR or event posts -- something like, "a new CR thread with a minimum of 5 comments" or "at least 5 comments from anywhere in the event". That sort of thing. We'll natter about it some more and see what shakes out best. Maybe if we do ask for two AC proofs, we even out the comment numbers needed across the board.
(thank you again for all the feedback! these comments have seriously given us a lot to chew over and they've been incredibly helpful in letting us know what works best for y'all from a player's perspective)
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I can definitely understand concerns about people getting too many powers or stuff at once if they were offered them via additional AC. In that case, perhaps AC proof rewards could be something different from powers/regains and more like "perks" either in-game or OOC-ly. Things like having a room in a different part of the Temple (now that all the rooms are sorta dorm style in one place) or the ability to link a room with CR (like how Amethyst and Pearl's rooms connect within the Temple) or perhaps giving the options of the character coming across something important to the overall meta plot? I fully admit I'm not quite sure how rewards work outside of what I've seen from other games so your friends who have direct experience with it will have a way better perspective on it and whether it'd work or not for Cosmos. ^^
I am going to echo what Foomin said below though and say I haven't noticed character squatting to be a huge problem here? I can definitely understand the whole idea of "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" but I'm also gonna just go ahead and say that I personally don't think players tend to character squat maliciously?
In other games whenever I've observed somebody doing what I would call "character squatting", it's almost always because they either 1) have CR in the game already that they're reluctant to lose and/or force their CR to deal with the loss of the character they play or 2) have a muse that they were excited to play in the setting that just isn't clicking for some reason so they keep holding out hoping to find their "stride". I may have just been really lucky with what player-bases I've been a part of but that's been my observation.
In cases like the one you outlined above where a character is consistently scooting by every other month with a single comment (or a similar situation) I think it'd be far better for the Mods to just...contact that player in that case then? Because that, to me, would indicate they're having troubles with the game/setting itself in some way, especially since the whole point of RPing in a game is to interact with other characters and have them interact with yours (and if you're just setting down a single comment every other month that can't possibly be a lot of fun XD;). Mods could then work with the player to figure out where they're having trouble and offer suggestions? And if it turns out they're doing it purely to just hog the character, then the Mods could act as necessary.
I'm admittedly not a huge fan of the idea of minimum comment lengths on stuff like new CR/event participation either, mostly because it makes you even more dependent on other people tagging you back to a certain amount which sometimes just doesn't happen for one reason or another, but again that's just personal preference and that's probably easier on everyone than gathering a whole other proof.
I would also maybe put forth the idea of holding off on increasing AC, if that ends up being the decision, until excursions are up and running, as well as maybe polling the game with what they'd find most do-able or preferable in the event of an increase?
(Anyway you're welcome and thank you for being so open to feedback, even with my walls of text XD; Keep up the awesome work, Mods!)
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Extra powers make a great reward in a video game, where your ability to fuck up an NPCs day is a major part of what's fun about the experience, but in RP the powers your character has don't necessarily correspond with the amount of fun a player is having in the game. They make a great IC reward for moving forward in the IC narrative - be a Gem longer, do more Gem things, get more power - but OOCly, if something can be done with your character to make RP more fun, it makes more sense to me to have that available up front if anything. Better to have activity rising because people are already having fun than to gate more-fun things behind a certain quantity of sub-par fun.
With that in mind, here's a possibility that popped into my head - what if the, oh, six or so characters who submitted the most activity at AC got a little badge of some kind on the Taken Characters page for the next month? It feels to me like an OOC reward for good OOC performance - drawing player attention to the characters that have been active will encourage people to form CR with them, since they're known to tag back well. Having it be a few of the most active instead of "everyone above x amount" prevents it from taking on a...public shaming kind of tone. And, since it'd be based on activity submitted, participation is totally voluntary if players don't want attention drawn to them.
Haven't really sat down to mull it over yet, but thoughts?
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I don't think I've ever seen anything like that sort of IC/OOC reward system used before for additional activity but I guess it could have the desired effect of encouraging more participation? It's funny, and I don't mean this meanly at all, but it's basically "buttpats for additional activity" and the reason I'm laughing is because I just had my mind blown by the realization that that is basically what in-game rewards systems for additional activity boil down to, rofl.
That is a shame though that rewards systems like the ones in Ryslig and other games don't seem to work well with RP in your experience. ): They'd seemed pretty popular from the looks of that big DWRP census that went around, but if they don't actually work the way they're intended to, that's a bummer.
Speaking of that massive DWRP census though, I took a look at the results for it again and Cosmos appears to be right in the butter zone of desirable AC requirements based on responses from those polled? I think the preferred amount of AC was 10-15 comments and/or a post (and we offer the additional options of new CR and event CR for a more lax game). Just thought that was interesting!
Either way, just want to re-state how much all your hard work is appreciated and that it's so exciting seeing all these new faces on the TDM and apping in! :)
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After thinking about this since you replied, I wonder if it might be nice to have...some kind of "return from hiatus" plot option. Like, the very first game I played in, back when all games were spooky jamjars, was Luceti. In Luceti, you could opt to have your character kidnapped by the spooky overlords of the enclosure, and then come back with some kind of curse-style effect on them. This was helpful wrt hiatuses for two reasons - first, it gave you a reason to put the character down for the hiatus instead of having to juggle autopilot status. But second, it gave you something interesting to play with the moment you came back, which helped you reconnect with old CR, possibly make new CR, and generally get back into the groove.
In retrospect, that seems like a really nice thing to have when you're inactive and don't want to be. It incentivizes taking a break to recharge your creativity, and when you come back, you immediately have a plot device to pull you back into the more exciting parts of the game.
Gonna keep this in mind while working out player-run Excursions.
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Lots of interesting possibilities there for sure! I'd be very curious to see if you guys incorporate something like that later! :D
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Regarding the door bit: we weren't planning on it, mainly because while it would be convenient ICly for characters, we see people near-constantly using that walk from the Heart room to the beach as a way to force interaction, which turns out to be more convenient for players who want threads when their characters might not be seeking out conversations. It's simple enough OOCly to say "and then they got out fast and nobody saw them" that it didn't seem worth the tradeoff.
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No problem then! That makes perfect sense IC-ly/OOC-ly. I just wanted to ask if IC-ly it were still a thing just in case it came up as an option in a thread
especially since Yang would totally take a shortcut if she could lol. Walking it is! XDThanks for the clarification!
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Yang made a bunch of pamphlets with Weiss a couple months ago that "sort of" detail what each flower in the gem garden does. Would it be possible to add that there's a small basket or something of them in there for characters to use if they want? And if they want to ignore it, it's probably easy enough to say the basket's empty or they just didn't see it or something. Yang's not gonna be regularly checking down there anyway.
And if not, that's fine!
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It's not even that I don't want crit, there's just this tiny lizard part of my brain that is constantly thinking if I put my characters into a HMD it will turn out that nobody ever actually wanted to thread with me and they were just being polite and yes, I know it doesn't actually work like that I just have badbrain about this one specific thing.
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It makes sense for games where the network is a big part of the game, to the point that devices are given to the characters as soon as they arrive (Ryslig and VR come to mind first). But Cosmo has never been that kind of game and it feels weird to make that mandatory when not every character has a way to access that sort of thing (and starting to give out computers or phones now would be bizarre). While it's true inboxes can be used for face to face interaction, saying "oh well it doesn't have to be used for computer/phone interaction!" is kind of silly to me? And honestly I don't think it's going to encourage one on one interaction the way you think it might. For some people sure, but for me right now in my current game I feel way too shy to hit up some characters' inboxes without hitting up the player first to make sure they don't mind. I feel certain there's others who feel the same. Not to mention forcing people to use them can also turn people off of them in a way that they wouldn't be if they had the choice to make them for themselves. Some people might just not want anything to do with them and that should be okay!
That being said absolutely make them count for AC. That's a great idea. I think the trick here is to encourage people to make and use them, rather than force them to. Letting them count for AC is a good way to do just that.
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this was a good perspective to get on it though, so thank you!
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Game-wide HMDs can be a good and bad thing. Good because it offers feedback and bad because as some others have said, it causes them anxiety and badbrain. I would stick with recommending personal HMDs but make game-wide HMDs optional for players, because of the various needs and wants of the playerbase. I myself have gotten pretty bad crit before and it's outright killed some muses, but I try not to dwell on this.. for more than 5 months. I would recommend having an optional HMD bi or tri-monthly, but don't make it a part where you must participate or lose your spot in the game like some others have.
The varied amount of AC is better for a player like myself who tends to bring a lot of characters to the table. And it still does recommend threading out with someone you haven't tagged before to GET the AC. I don't see a point in increasing it. That's just me.
I'm okay with lowering the cast to 4 a person. In fact I'm debating on swapping out someone I've stagnated with.
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But the issue here is that it's pretty possible to scoot by AC every other month which makes the system itself pretty unbalanced. Our hope is that an increase in AC would fix that imbalance but we want to do it in a way that doesn't make AC super hard or anything (which is where the idea of being able to use the same two types of proofs comes in).
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Perhaps something where you can knock on their door? Everyone is provided a room in the Temple, but then again, not everybody chooses to stay there.
Another option might be using the fact that we apparently have the power to speak to each other directly through our Gems, such as how Tiger's Eye called us to the last meeting. However, again, that runs into the problem that most characters don't appear to have figured out how to do that IC yet, and even if they're aware of it, they might react poorly to being contacted that way... Hmn.
I don't have any problem with the Character Cap Decreasing, though admittedly, that doesn't affect me, so my opinion doesn't matter as much.
I wouldn't mind a minor AC Increase, but again, I agree that one of the appeals of Cosmographia for me is the relaxed atmosphere. If there's been issues with character squatting, I haven't picked up on it, but that might just be me being unobservant...
As for the Game-wide HMDs, I like the idea of those being a regular feature, but have mixed feelings about participation being absolutely mandatory, and keep going back and forth about it. Trying to convince myself that it's not going to turn out nobody actually likes playing with me at all... stuff like that.
Thank you for working so hard on keeping the game going! Sorry that I can't offer much in the way of concrete ideas or anything...