srwuga_mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
srwuga_mods) wrote2013-11-23 09:24 pm
srwuga_mods) wrote2013-11-23 09:24 pm
Planned changes for UG3
Here's a list of changes to the rules that we may implement for UG3 (official beta name: SRW Unity). The list is not set in stone, just because a rule is here doesn't mean it will actually make it to the game, or in the form as it is written here.
This is why we want your input. Give us your opinion about the list, and if you think something is missing from the list, then say so as well.
Anon comments are allowed, all comments are screened by default. If you want yours to be visible, set the tag subject to "unscreen".
Planned changes:
1. Activity Check
This comes in several variations
a. Relax the "must write a post/be on a mission" requirement. Posts and missions still count as 5 tags, so if you make a post you only need 15 more tags.
b. Make the activity check bi-monthly (that is, one AC every two months, not two ACs per month!), roughly doubling the required number of tags per AC.
c. Both of the above. That'd mean you need 35 tags every 2 months to make activity, with every post or mission counting as 5 tags.
Why we want to do this: Activity is something that should come naturally to players who are at least decently, well, active. Not something you should have to spend time worrying about.
2. Human-sized character application rules
A human-sized character (whether canon character or OC) needs to check out these three requirements:
I. Must fit thematically in a SRW game, that is a game with regular combat missions where you can expect at least one (and more often than not, both) side of the conflict to employ giant robots. This isn't about whether the character or their canon "is /m/", but characters like Superman or Goku fail this requirement anyway even if they fit the other two.
II. The character must be powerful enough to engage mecha-sized opponents and be able to win. If the enemy is a mook, then defeating them should be relatively easy - just because your character can defeat a big robot after an epic struggle, equivalent of a boss battle (while the same robot would be one-shotted by a Gundam without its pilot breaking a sweat), doesn't mean the character passes.
III. A mirror reflection of the point above, the enemies from the character's canon must be powerful enough to be a credible threat to mecha-sized opponents. Of course there is only so much that mook units can do, but if the most dangerous the canon has to offer is non-super powered humans with human-scale weapons and equipment, then the canon fails. In general it'd be good if the canon had mecha-sized enemies for mecha pilots (which is most of our characters) to fight, as opposed to having exclusively or mostly human-sized foes.
Why we want to do this: We're not opposed to human-sized canons, but we want them to mesh well with a Super Robot Wars game.
3. Original Character application limits
You can have only two OC Lone Canon Warriors (LCW for short - that is, the only character from their own canon). If you have two or more, you won't be forced to drop the extras but you won't be able to app more until that number goes down.
Characters whose canon have already ended or who have no canon missions do not count as LCWs.
Why we want to do this: SRW is about seeing how characters from already established canons (anime, video games, etc) interact with each other. A number of OCs is fine and makes things more interesting, but they cannot drown out non-OCs numerically. Also having too many OCs may turn potential new players away.
4. Lone Canon Warrior active canon limits
If you have two or more LCWs, then only two of them can have canons active at the same time. Others' canons are on hold - no events happen in them until they become active. The characters are still in the game and participate in missions however.
Of course this doesn't apply to characters who have no canon events for one reason or another.
Why we want to do this: To ensure fairness - if one player has 2 characters and another has 6, then the second player's canons (and characters by proxy) receive 3 times the plot importance and attention. Some people may feel hurt by that, or think the game pressures them to app more characters to be relevant even if they are comfortable playing less.
IMPORTANT NOTE to the two above: pressuring other players into app'ing characters to your own canons (to make them non-LCWs so they don't count towards the limits) will be punished severely. Our players should app characters from canons they like and feel like playing, not because they are forced to.
5. How's My Driving posts
We will not make HMDs mandatory but we will encourage players to have them and offer them a way of setting up one if they're not sure how to do it themselves. There will also be a general HMD for how the game itself is run, as well.
Why we want to do this: So people talk more about problematic behaviour of other players, as well as the mods if you think we screwed up somewhere. That way we can all learn from mistakes and create a better game together rather than bottling it all in and becoming frustrated.
6. Story arcs
Technically we had those in UG@ already but they were criminally under-utilized.
Basically we'll ask players to group events in their canons up into arcs, and events (either missions or logs) in a single arc happen close to each other, in terms of timing. By default each seperate event is its own single-event arc - the option for longer arcs is there but no one is forced to use it.
Why we want to do this: Because it makes much better storytelling. Also, criminally underused.
This is why we want your input. Give us your opinion about the list, and if you think something is missing from the list, then say so as well.
Anon comments are allowed, all comments are screened by default. If you want yours to be visible, set the tag subject to "unscreen".
Planned changes:
1. Activity Check
This comes in several variations
a. Relax the "must write a post/be on a mission" requirement. Posts and missions still count as 5 tags, so if you make a post you only need 15 more tags.
b. Make the activity check bi-monthly (that is, one AC every two months, not two ACs per month!), roughly doubling the required number of tags per AC.
c. Both of the above. That'd mean you need 35 tags every 2 months to make activity, with every post or mission counting as 5 tags.
Why we want to do this: Activity is something that should come naturally to players who are at least decently, well, active. Not something you should have to spend time worrying about.
2. Human-sized character application rules
A human-sized character (whether canon character or OC) needs to check out these three requirements:
I. Must fit thematically in a SRW game, that is a game with regular combat missions where you can expect at least one (and more often than not, both) side of the conflict to employ giant robots. This isn't about whether the character or their canon "is /m/", but characters like Superman or Goku fail this requirement anyway even if they fit the other two.
II. The character must be powerful enough to engage mecha-sized opponents and be able to win. If the enemy is a mook, then defeating them should be relatively easy - just because your character can defeat a big robot after an epic struggle, equivalent of a boss battle (while the same robot would be one-shotted by a Gundam without its pilot breaking a sweat), doesn't mean the character passes.
III. A mirror reflection of the point above, the enemies from the character's canon must be powerful enough to be a credible threat to mecha-sized opponents. Of course there is only so much that mook units can do, but if the most dangerous the canon has to offer is non-super powered humans with human-scale weapons and equipment, then the canon fails. In general it'd be good if the canon had mecha-sized enemies for mecha pilots (which is most of our characters) to fight, as opposed to having exclusively or mostly human-sized foes.
Why we want to do this: We're not opposed to human-sized canons, but we want them to mesh well with a Super Robot Wars game.
3. Original Character application limits
You can have only two OC Lone Canon Warriors (LCW for short - that is, the only character from their own canon). If you have two or more, you won't be forced to drop the extras but you won't be able to app more until that number goes down.
Characters whose canon have already ended or who have no canon missions do not count as LCWs.
Why we want to do this: SRW is about seeing how characters from already established canons (anime, video games, etc) interact with each other. A number of OCs is fine and makes things more interesting, but they cannot drown out non-OCs numerically. Also having too many OCs may turn potential new players away.
4. Lone Canon Warrior active canon limits
If you have two or more LCWs, then only two of them can have canons active at the same time. Others' canons are on hold - no events happen in them until they become active. The characters are still in the game and participate in missions however.
Of course this doesn't apply to characters who have no canon events for one reason or another.
Why we want to do this: To ensure fairness - if one player has 2 characters and another has 6, then the second player's canons (and characters by proxy) receive 3 times the plot importance and attention. Some people may feel hurt by that, or think the game pressures them to app more characters to be relevant even if they are comfortable playing less.
IMPORTANT NOTE to the two above: pressuring other players into app'ing characters to your own canons (to make them non-LCWs so they don't count towards the limits) will be punished severely. Our players should app characters from canons they like and feel like playing, not because they are forced to.
5. How's My Driving posts
We will not make HMDs mandatory but we will encourage players to have them and offer them a way of setting up one if they're not sure how to do it themselves. There will also be a general HMD for how the game itself is run, as well.
Why we want to do this: So people talk more about problematic behaviour of other players, as well as the mods if you think we screwed up somewhere. That way we can all learn from mistakes and create a better game together rather than bottling it all in and becoming frustrated.
6. Story arcs
Technically we had those in UG@ already but they were criminally under-utilized.
Basically we'll ask players to group events in their canons up into arcs, and events (either missions or logs) in a single arc happen close to each other, in terms of timing. By default each seperate event is its own single-event arc - the option for longer arcs is there but no one is forced to use it.
Why we want to do this: Because it makes much better storytelling. Also, criminally underused.
unscreen
I don't know what anyone else may strongly or collectively believe around this, because any such people haven't expressed those beliefs to me. Until now, your comments on this post were the only thing I'd heard about this idea, and if there was any other discussion of the idea that might have generated rumours in response I wasn't privy to any of that.
My reply meant only what it said - I wanted to voice agreement with the reservations expressed by the mod in the first reply, and add the observation that there seemed to be a more fitting way to accomplish what you described as your goal. If those two replies are what you're describing as being jumped on, I can assure you, for what it's worth, that such wasn't what I intended at all.
And on the main point, I didn't think, and don't think, and wasn't arguing from an assumption, that you had any sinister clique-based motive here. I think your idea would encourage cliqueiness, would lend itself to the creation of cliques, and would make the game look more cliquey to people both inside and outside it; that's not something unique to it, was one of multiple problems I saw with it, and has nothing to do with your intention in making it - only its effect in practice. (Honestly, the transcript thing would probably bother me more.)
I expect UG3 to have a tricky balancing act to pull between real-time/chat and asynchronous/journal modes and the advantages and disadvantages of each, and your suggestion may well fit in to that. Its advantages are clear, but its disadvantages also need to be considered. That's genuinely all I was trying to do here, and it's not at all based on suspecting anyone's motives.