Plot Fatigue Poll

[Dreams]

How would people feel about turns and rounds for header plots?

Basically like the combat code but slower and staff overseen. The end of each round would have the staff determine the results of the participants actions. New people can jump in at any time, but if you've acted in a round you'll have to wait until the next round to make another action. You would be limited to one action at a time, and your public action is automatically shared to all. Any behind the scenes actions could be added to a note. Reactions to actions another player has made cannot be done in the same round, but can be done in the next round, after staff have determined success or failure.

I think this could be implemented with the existing plot system, simply by staff opening a plot for each round for people to put actions against, rather than each person creating a new plot.

I think this sounds more like we'd be playing a board game or a tabletop, rather than an RPI MUD, but maybe I am reading it wrong.

[Taunya]

Sounds right. Haven't played tabletop myself though.

This is only for interacting with the staff headers. Things can still be RPed out on-grid, but stuff for staff review against the plot I think it seems fair.

[galaxgal]

A turn-based system feels like it's addressing a symptom (plot FOMO and stress of having to keep up with headers) rather than the core problem: huge slices of the game now happen in a costly play-by-post format nominally designed to handle interaction edge cases, and even the players of top-tier characters who have the resources to burn on regular plot interaction are expressing some element of powerlessness and frustration.

This isn't even accounting for players with new-ish accounts or unestablished characters and thus limited or no ways of getting their hands dirty with it, and limited or no ways of making connections because the established characters on grid are just so ding-dang busy doing what amounts to plot and leadership paperwork on top of trying to keep their established live threads of interaction going.

[Kuzco]

A turn-based system feels like it's addressing a symptom (plot FOMO and stress of having to keep up with headers) rather than the core problem: huge slices of the game now happen in a costly play-by-post format nominally designed to handle interaction edge cases, and even the players of top-tier characters who have the resources to burn on regular plot interaction are expressing some element of powerlessness and frustration.

This isn't even accounting for players with new-ish accounts or unestablished characters and thus limited or no ways of getting their hands dirty with it, and limited or no ways of making connections because the established characters on grid are just so ding-dang busy doing what amounts to plot and leadership paperwork on top of trying to keep their established live threads of interaction going.

.... what she said!

[galaxgal]

...As a post-face (..like a preface but in post? I do want to add an acknowledgement that Staff have been doing a bang-up job trying to address problems like pacing, timing, and communication, especially given the likely volume of submissions behind-curtain going on, and the past couple posts of criticisms aren't intended to negate that.

[Vee]

I agree with a lot that has already been said. This plot has taken over my character's entire life to the point that she had to cancel an event she had been working on since the end of Calm among other things (though that was the most publicized). She's also been neck-deep in this new political arena since the very beginning, working through plots behind the scenes and in RP on-grid. I can't tell you how many RP hours I've logged which revolved around nothing but political plotting, advising, bribing, trying to affect the outcome of this new succession crisis.

And then to be told that this first part of it was just going to be wrapped up without a lot of what has been leaving some of us on-grid in limbo seemingly being resolved was just very disheartening. It made it feel like all that RP I've been putting in and all those plans that were being made were for nothing.

I was really enjoying the plot when it first started. When staff started slowing down on the processing of plots (I'm assuming from being overwhelmed because a LOT of stuff was happening), it left several of us in limbo. Now, I have no idea what to expect, not having been here to RP through the last succession crisis. But I am personally feeling a bit jaded at the moment.

I also feel like this should have shifted to a staff-run header plot a long time ago. This is a big deal. The queen is dead. To me, the second Estella's plot went through, staff should have made a header plot to allow people who aren't just rolling in QP to get in on the action.

I don't particularly like the idea of "rounds," but what if in the future, big plots like this were broken into "chapters." We're telling a story after all. We players don't have to OOC know how many chapters there are going to be in a plot upfront, but we could be told that the current plot chapter will close on X date, giving us all a time to do as much plotting as is relevant during that time period. But, I don't know. Maybe there is no elegant solution to a plot of this size that affects the game in such a dramatic way.

Finally, I will agree with what Sibs said: this has just been a lot back-to-back. We had the Daravi and the cracks and the lightning storms and the NPC going crazy and attacking people in the middle of a long-planned PC-run event (Anteya's funeral), etc. And then the City Council was instructed that this Seneschal term would be spent negotiating a wedding contract and seeing the queen married. JUST KIDDING. THE QUEEN IS DEAD. HAVE FUN NEGOTIATING A POTENTIAL CIVIL WAR, CITY COUNCIL.

Which was great. Don't get me wrong. I actually remarked to someone OOC, "Give me regicide over romance RP any day of the week." Political shenanigans are why I play TI. Just back-to-back-to-back conflict can be draining for some.

TL;DR: Which is why I voted for let's keep this plot going, but leave it in the background.

[Voxumo]

I've already voted on this, but seeing some folks post about they feel their current efforts are for naught, and I can't help but be somewhat amused, in a good 'ha-ha' sort of way. Like if you feel disheartened, imagine the people who were actively involved in the prior succession crisis. Like all those months of rp and resources spent getting the queen on the throne, only for about a year, maybe a year and half later it being undone with the potential to have to do it all over again.

I definitely don't think my ooc sanity, and perhaps my characters ic sanity, could handle another full-fledged baronial council, so definitely voted for more in the background.

[Temi]

For a bit of context, this was not a staff-planned event. It was kicked off entirely by the actions of players, which we think is awesome, but we didn't have the luxury of deciding when it would happen or moving different angles into place for more people to grab hold of. When we create a staff-run header plot, it's with the understanding that we are committing to putting in as much time and effort as is required to process the plots, that we have a rough plan of action, at least for who among staff will be handling things. With something suddenly happening, not only did we not have anything prepared, but we also had several staffers who already had RL time commitments, including me being completely away for a week.

This was super important, which is why we have put so much effort into keeping up with plots and doing everything we can to let people be involved and respond as they have wanted to, but we didn't switch it to a staff-sponsored header plot, because, quite frankly, we just weren't ready. And there was enough to keep us super busy even with paying for plots that if we had made it sponsored and free, we just wouldn't have been able to keep up.

Now, however, we are looking at making this a staff-sponsored plot. And as we discuss the next moves of the NPCs, we're feeling very aware that this did happen right after another big plot and it has been sort of all-consuming at times. We know its been draining as far as QP goes, so that's less what we're concerned about, but more, are people still enjoying the high tension, super political RP, or are you ready to get back to your regularly scheduled programming? We're planning to wrap everything up, and we're planning to have a staff-sponsored plot to allow people to be involved who want to. But we could focus on wrapping things up - or we could escalate them further, or we could simmer them down and move them a little further away, maybe with some more escalation again once people have recovered a little more. Lots of options.

[Satoshi]

I do understand that this was started by player action, but staff had lots of forewarning that this would have been a possibility when a player submitted a request to possibly kill the Queen, and maybe it should not have been accepted and approved if staff knew they were going to have large time constraints coming up until they could handle the influx of attention this would bring? I know that sounds a little rude but I can't think of a better way to phrase it, honestly. This is totally something that could have been paused on both sides till staff would have been able to handle it, and give a little breathing space to you guys AND players.

That said, I know it being player motivated is what contributed a lot to some of the things--it happening so soon after the last staff plot for example, but staff in their responses don't seem to be addressing at all the fact that multiple people have said they put a ton of effort into this plot, resources and time and it has taken over their RP and feel like their efforts are not going to be taken into account in the mind of "wrapping it up because people are tired of the plot".

I think this was a very thematic and worldshaking plot, and that the timing maybe was bad for staff and players, and staff has so far done an amazing job keeping up with it despite that, but a lot of the issues are less in it happening and more how it happened and maybe that's something that needs to be looked at afterwards. If at least three guild leaders are saying they feel helpless when they are the most capable people to deal with this, a conversation should probably be had with those players to discover why a large scale plot would have that affect on the people MOST involved with it, since that's going to affect whether people want to simmer or escalate. Because if you feel like your RP and efforts don't affect the outcome why in the WORLD would you want to escalate it? Just my 2 cents hastily typed on my lunch break

[Temi]

Sorry if I didn't directly address that: the actions players have been taking are being taken into account and will have a huge effect going forwards. The actions players will still take will also be taken into account. We never just decide what outcomes will be, though we do try to have different possibilities prepared to be ready in the event of different paths players want to take.