woodswitch | Suggestions

Hello,

I had intended to leave an anonymous comment regarding your application template (namely, that I believe the [br/] tags should be removed because that format is difficult to write around and they will end up being removed regardless, and it is especially needless considering that the apps are emailed in) -- however, when I went to comment, despite what the post says above, this happened. So now I have to dig up a less used account in order to point out something other than what I originally came here to say. Can you please take care of this and have the commenting abilities match what is advertised above? I was mildly annoyed before, but now I am feeling rather uncomfortable with the game altogether.

I'm sorry for the inconvenience; I hope I didn't keep you waiting for too long! I realize now I just forgot to turn it on (there are only two of us and the turnout was much larger than expected, so we're a bit frazzled, we'll get it under control), but the mistake's been corrected, and I'll fix up the templates as well.

Hi! This is the smallest thing, but would you mind relocating the copy/paste text box with the reserves code to the top of the reserves page? I'm sure people would appreciate not having to scroll (particularly when there are a lot of reserves) to get to it.

Thank you! c:

Yes, that makes sense! I'll take care of it right away.

Just a thought but...will you have any list up for where characters work? It'd be easier than having to look through everyone's journals to see who your co-workers are.

Because Koriko is a large island with an equally large variety of places to work - for example, just saying your character works at a tea house when there are might be fifty tea houses isn't helpful - we're considering the best way to compose a directory. We also do not want people to feel compelled to pick the same spot to work, although they could. There are simply so many places to work that co-workers might actually be rarer compared to "people who share the same occupation".

But because it would be useful for plotting purposes as well we are discussing the best way to handle such a thing.

I was looking around, and I've checked all your posts on the matter, including the FAQ, but I came up with nothing. So I'm wondering, do you have any plans on making a calendar that shows what dates events, AC, and everything else that might be dated happens? As someone who likes to keep a track of things, that would be a very good thing to have.

Will you be opening mod applications? I've seen you talk about how the turnout was bigger than expected, so maybe another helper mod or two would help? I for one would love to help out, and if there was one person dedicated to keeping all the lists updated, that would leave the rest of you guys free to focus on the plot and take a break.

I swore I responded to this, I'm so sorry, goodness.

At any rate, with both of us busy with life outside the game and bound to get busier, we'll definitely be opening apps for helper mods in the near future. We just need to figure out what all would go on that sort of form.

On the applications page, I would love to see when applications close in a more clear format.
"11:59pm EST" instead of "midnight" would be so helpful - I know this is a super silly request, like get ahold of your times/timezones, girl.
But it would rEST MY NEUROTIC APPER MIND if it was say, "July 28th at 11:59pm EST" instead of "July 28th at midnight".
Because I start doubting that it's the 28th and think oh shit maybe it's the 27th or maybe it's the 29th JESUS I'M GONNA' MISS IT.
... I'm so sorry, but please and thank you, I'm embarrassed for myself even on anon.

That makes sense! Don't feel embarrassed - we sympathize, actually, but we didn't want to screw up our dates too much. We'll start using 12:01am EST as opposed to midnight from now on as a compromise!

THANK YOU SO MUCH, you mods are angels -- thank you for all your hard work, you guys are doing fabulous for such a crazy influx

Hey, mods. Would there be any chance to reconsider establishing some kind of real network? The note system is neat and I can see the potential, but it hasn't been put to use ( plus I don't even know if the characters are ICly aware of it). I've spoken with a few others, and apparently there are also those who love the idea of the game, but are turned off from actually apping in because of how heavily log-based it is. The game has been open for almost a month, now, but honestly still feels incredibly slow. I feel things would really pick up if a network were brought in (maybe it could be something The Witch decided to do, to keep better track of everyone?), not to mention put more life into the game during the downtime between plot things such as the intro mingles, events, and the various tiered challenges.

That, or perhaps we could try to emphasize note-passing, bulletin board posts, and encourage others to try that way of networking as well. I think this could optimize the adorable potential of this game, as a whole; it'd bring the community together more, as I know some people who find logs intimidating at first.

And just replying to this one to make sure you don't miss it: if you have suggestions for how we'd encourage others to make use of the bulletin board, we'd be very happy to hear them! We don't want to become a network-reliant game as tends to happen with the introduction of networks, but we don't want anyone to be intimidated by heavy amount of logs, either.

Oh my yes, I would love to make suggestions!

Maybe things like odd-jobs postings and "help wanted" ads people can reply to, petitions against and for certain things would be hilarious too. Also, pen-pal events could be pretty adorable too. Pair random as hell people up like a Secret Santa event without presents, have them send letters to each other, maybe because a particular spirit or two feel neglected as postmen and want to feel validated by deliveries...

20 questions type games could be fun as well, even little things such as anonymous riddles and the like; I'll definitely be trying some things on the network to make it fun, too!

These are all way too adorable; definitely consider them taken into consideration! We'll be doing our best to implement things like this to make the network more appealing to use.

Awesome! Thanks so much, darlings. <3

A network isn't out of the question for the future, but for the time being we would prefer to be a game that emphasizes face-to-face interaction, hence the limited network - the logs don't necessarily have to be prose-heavy or wordy, so long as they're face to face.

But you and Anon above me are definitely right to say that logs can be sort of intimidating! We'll be working on thinking of a way that we could encourage others to actually make use of the bulletin board system; if you have any suggestions for that, we'd be very happy to hear them.

That makes sense. I'll definitely hit this up again, too, if I come up with any ideas. Thanks for such a speedy reply.

Just throwing a suggestion out here. I think it'd be a good idea to put timestamps from the emails for apps. I can't tell if the app page has been updated or not, so timestamps would help.

Not a bad idea! Not doing so was a bit of an oversight on my part; apologies! From here on, you should find a "last updated" date and time at the top of the page.

(Additionally, the page is up to date as of this writing, so if your app is missing, please give it another send.)

I know inbox threads don't count towards activity, but what about threads that eventually leads into actionspam or face-to-face interaction in the inbox post itself?

I'm only asking because I'd hate to clog up the main community with closed logs after closed logs, especially when it's between just two characters.

That'd be fine! We hadn't thought of it (somehow...), but if your inbox thread lead to face-to-face interaction, then you could count it. Just make sure it's labelled appropriately when doing your activity.

I'll make sure to edit that in! Thank you for the heads up.

it's been a week since i asked a question in the faqs but haven't received a reply. please tell me if there's any kind of problem. thank you!

No, it just got lost in all the notifs! Thank you for informing us; we'll have an answer for you ASAP.

haha so that's what happened. THANK YOU SO MUCH

Hey mods, I just had a few ideas/suggestions!

1. Would you guys be open to setting up an account just to post memes? The username and pw could be made available to players through the Player Contact page.
2. Do you guys have any plans to make a monthly or bimonthly HMD? It doesn't have to be mandatory, but a regular one might be a good idea. With the gamewide account for meme, it'd also make this easier to happen because anyone could be posting the meme instead of just the mods!

1. After discussing it, we don't see the harm in that idea! We'll talk about it in the next announcements post.

2. While we don't have any plans, if someone interested would let to take charge of that (or several someones!) then we'll gladly post them to the announcements and plurk when they go up. That will be something we'll bring up in the next announcements post as well.

Thank you very much for the suggestions!

anon below: this seems like a really silly idea! there's a meme comm that's open, so anyone can post!
& hmds should be posted by the mods only so they can keep a closer eye on it/whomever has access to a possible meme account won't be able to do as they please.

When you put it that way, that is also true. We'd been thinking of it from the perspective of everything going into the mod email, but it's true that anyone with the account would be able to freely edit the entries. We may have to dump that, but we'll still address the issue of a monthly/bimonthly HMD in the coming days.

Thanks for the input; it's always good to have other perspectives on things.

hey, there! i just want to suggest that you link the test drive (via the tag, http://moneytree.dreamwidth.org/tag/test+drive) in the game profiles? if it's mod run and not a meme put up by players and will be a regular thing it would probably be helpful for people who don't actively use plurk, anon comms, and aren't already in the game!

Smart! I'll take care of that in a moment; thank you!

Hi, there! I was just reminded of this by a friend and you all seem so receptive that it can't hurt to say something here.

It seems a lot of the more action, adventure, exploration, (fetch) quests, and so on sort of events seem to be limited to either the intros or test drives and don't as frequently show up on the monthly events and debt quest lists! The game is obviously still fresh and new and you're working out what is popular, unpopular, works, doesn't work, and so forth so I figured it couldn't hurt to give my personal feedback on this.

TL;DR, I'd really love to see more debt quests or events of this nature, though not necessarily gamewide or unavoidable since I know it's not everyone's cuppa.

Thanks for your time and consideration, guys!

We see what you mean! We're considering an overhaul of our debt quest style in general (nothing huge! We'll still be doing them), so your concern should fit right in with the things we have to address in October's announcements. It's really wonderful to hear from our players, so if you have ideas for event types you think would spice things up (such as things more like our intros or test drives), please keep them in mind in the upcoming days!

Thanks for your feedback and kind words!

I'm not bored or disinterested or anything, you guys are doing a fantastic job and never cease to have something to do. I'm honestly surprised that you still have so many great ideas!

Thanks for listening and I look forward to seeing what's up for October! Halloween, in particular, is my favorite holiday so I'm super-psyched!

hey mods! at the moment i'm a little confused about how the cr meme works - if it goes up at the end of the month, but next month's announcements aren't up, it kind of limits our options in what we say the plans for the next month are.

would you ever consider putting up the cr meme and announcements at the same time instead, for optimal plotting time?

We totally agree, which is why we've actually always done it that way. Our CR meme is set to go up at the same time as the announcements.

Hi, just bringing up a concern about the amount of characters in a cast right now. I am speaking of Undertale, since it's the biggest cast this game has.

I have nothing against the people who play from it or the game itself since I'm a fan too but there are 11 in the game and more in reserve. The amount of characters in this one cast seems overwhelming, and I would still feel the same way if they only had one or two characters and another cast instead had the same number.

May I suggest a cap for characters in a cast? Many games have this implemented to keep casts at a manageable size, and if there is an overall character cap, then it keeps casts from growing too much and locking other players from other casts out if the overall cap is reached.

I understand that this game has no character cap so the latter would be pointless, but I do think it would stop many casts from "taking over the game" as some would call it, or simply being intimidating to other players, especially newcomers from other canons. A lot of people can be turned off by the game due the size of a few casts they're not in, especially if they're not interested in those canons.

We understand the concerns about large casts in general and our Undertale in specific. However, most games with cast caps that the mod team knows of cap their casts at 20 - which Undertale is extremely unlikely to reach, due to the number of appable characters, so in this case it would probably be pointless to institute the cap.

We also feel that since Forest Covered isn't a very large game, that a character cap is unnecessary. We don't often get explosions of interest in a cast like this - this is the first and only one. If the cast were cliquish and only threading within themselves, that would be another matter, but just one large cast shouldn't pose a problem.

Thank you for your input!

would you guys ever consider making hmd mandatory? i notice most games, more often than not, have mandatory hmd. a lot of newly opened games also have mandatory hmd. personally, i would love to see hmd become mandatory, as i have heard, in the past, that optional hmd is a bit intimidating for some players. by making it mandatory, it makes it more of a "everyone is doing it and open to it" kind of thing, which makes it a little less scary for those players.

Thank you for your suggestion!

The mod team discussed this, and while it's not a bad mechanic and has advantages, it feels a bit misplaced for what is ultimately a slice-of-life game. Mandatory HMD is most useful in plot-heavy games, typically, and feels out of place in a game like Forest Covered.

Hi mods! I had an idea that the 4th wall events the game sometimes has could be made more regular. Every two or three months, it could be really good for the game to get an influx of player characters who come as patrons to the island. I feel like the service part of the game is slightly lost as all of the people being served are NPCs; this could serve to bring it back into focus, but not so often that it becomes standard. More like a lull and then a rush season, perhaps?

It could function like a regular fourth-wall where people don't have to app in or have their characters give up their names. They could get a taste of the setting without being involved in the servitude aspect, and if they wanted they could have a potential meeting with the witch as their reason for coming to the island if they did decide to app!

We as a mod team feel that making fourth walls happen quite that often would make them feel less special and fun, and make Forest Covered feel more like a musebox to pop into occasionally than a game to app into.

However, we do agree that we could have fourth walls happen more often than they are currently! Biyearly fourth walls (July and December) sound good to us.

Hey, mods! What do you think about the game getting a revamp or something? Maybe bring something new or, I don't know. It seems like everyone is losing steam and interest because the game stays on the same track, every month, and I'm afraid that it might lead to the game puffing into dust. It makes me sad.

A makeover of image and ideas might help. We hardly get apps or interested players anymore. The fourth wall last month was very tiny compared to the other ones we've had. What do you think about it?

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