HMD

[recollecters]

HOW'S MY DRIVING?

HMD - JULY Welcome to Recollé's quarterly HMD! Due to feedback from the playerbase, we have opted to switch from bi-monthly HMDs to an HMD once every three months. Players are encouraged to post to the HMD, though it is not required; there is a comment for mod and game feedback, as well. While anon is not enabled, socks may be used. However, any harassment is subject to being frozen or deleted, and if that should become an issue we will move the HMD meme to a members-only community such as our OOC community. Please remember to be respectful of your fellow players while offering crit and feedback. Thank you! MOD/GAME FEEDBACK COMMENT.

Comments

GAME/MOD FEEDBACK

[recollecters]

Please leave any feedback you have for the game/moderators here! You may also send us a PM or leave comments on our mod contact page. Thank you.

Gore

[digthefuzz]

Kurt Wagner | X-Men Evolution digthefuzz
Twogami / Byakuya Kirigiri | falsepretentious

ICHI

[tarotcards]

☇ Souji Seta (AU: Souji Narukami) ▪ Persona 4 ▪ tarotcards ▪ HMD
☇ Makoto Naegi ▪ Dangan Ronpa ▪ optimistical ▪ HMD
☇ Raidou Kuzunoha XIV (AU: Jouhei Kurosawa) ▪ Devil Summoner ▪ thexiv ▪ HMD

Anon commenting is turned on. IP Address is turned off. Comments are screened. Any and all feedback is wonderful to hear.

Cidriel

[longwei2go]

Just got Yang here! (with the alt account burndownforwhat running for this event)

I've gotten some feedback about this in the past, so I'm happy to have the opportunity with the new AU to tweak how approachable she was and some of the difficulties in her reaching out to others, trusting them, and hopefully being easier to thread with in general. I know I'm having a lot more fun with her so far just this month and I hope others will, too, going forward!

card

[compendiem]

Minato Arisato | Persona 3 | HMD

Agnes

[standalonehuman]

Togusa - standalonehuman

Charles

[matchbreaker]

Elda Marker | Karin | matchbreaker
Nachetanya Loei Piena Augustra | Natalia Fairweather | Rokka: Braves of Six Flowers | nachetanya

Len

[promisedyou]

Shion Sonozaki (AU: Mio Sonozaki) ★ Higurashi no Naku Koro ni ★ promisedyou ★ personal HMD

If you'd prefer to use Shion's personal HMD instead, feel free to - anonymous commenting there is on, IP logging is off and all comments there are screened.

amber

[spiritoso]

Kaede Akamatsu • New Dangan Ronpa V3 • spiritoso

I also have an hmd post in her journal as well!

Ty

[windeity]

Just John Egbert (Homestuck, windeity) for right now! If you would like to leave crit elsewhere or leave anon crit you can also use my personal HMD! IP off and anon is on and all comments should be screened. You may also send me a PM or a PP or whatever. Thank you!

Luna

[cardcaptured]

Syaoran Li (AU: Xiaolang Li) • Cardcaptor Sakura • cardcaptured • HMD

annabel

[penalizing]

— Kotone Sonozaki (au Mion Sonozaki) | Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni | penalizing | hmd post
— Junpei Tenmyouji | Zero Escape | grumpei | hmd post

vienne!

[idolworship]

eichi tenshouin ☆ ensemble stars ☆ personal hmd

all thoughts welcome!!

Re: GAME/MOD FEEDBACK

[longwei2go]

I just want to stop by and say thank you for keeping this game running, and especially to thank you for this amazing event opportunity! I don't believe I've seen or heard of another AU game giving this kind of chance to its players. For me, it's really revitalized my interest in the game, and given me a chance to play my character in a new way that wouldn't have been possible without a full drop/wipe in the first place. Thank you!!

[fiddlestick]

In regards to the current summer plot, I have to say I feel the pacing of it needs some work. When Phase 2 and this plot were advertised, I got the impression we'd get a more serious plot where our actions do matter- a complete departure from Phase 1 where it was "whacky event of the month but nothing too serious". And then when you guys announced you were closing apps for the plot, I had hope that something really big was going down this summer.

Which we're in month 3 of this 4 month (?) plot and....tbh, I'm really struggling to see how this is different from Phase 1 other than we know it's not Retrospec causing the events (maybe?). I haven't gotten any real sense of weight to our actions (there was an attempt mid June to have update posts? But that was the only one), nor does the game feel any darker than it did last year-- if anything I'd argue year 1 had more gravity to it - as August and October were suspenseful in their own right, and even March 2017 had some suspense too with the secrets plot.

Meanwhile for this summer plot so far we've had:

Painting the Town which was a cute gimmick but really had no dire impact on the characters other than them being annoyed and having to paint stuff. If anything, I feel having all of May devoted to it (and having it be a background event in June) was too much, as there really wasn't a month worth of stuff to do with it. 2 weeks, or having this paired with something else would've been nice.

NPCs noticing stuff didn't lead to anything, because they disappeared the next month and seem to be back to status quo this month (unless I missed something).

NPCS disappearing again no long term consequences since they came back next month. There was potential with this that just wasn't used. What would be the long term consequences of everyone disappearing? How would people manage supply? What do you do about kids with disappeared parents? What if you get sick? There's so much that could've been played with, but it wasn't. Instead it was kinda treated like a side thing due to the next point which is-

Bingo Games these games were fun, but they kinda took up all our energy in June so we couldn't focus on the NPC disappearing and the weight of that. Not to mention, they were yet again pitched to be more serious than the first year bingo game, but other than it had more effects than more freebies- it didn't feel that way at all. Most of the prompts were pretty dang tame.

New AU I like this idea, I really do. I feel it's a great way to explore stuff we didn't think of when we apped, and make our characters question reality. This plot component alone makes me understand better why apps were closed. There's a lot that can be done with this. The problem is that like the NPCs disappearing, it seems to be already getting overshadowed by--

Dreamsharing while this plot idea is really cool and I am playing with it, I can't help shake the feeling of "didn't we just do this in October with nightmares?". It is the same plot with a different coat of paint.

I want to emphasize I don't think any of these plot ideas are bad ideas, they are actually all good ideas. But I have issue with the pacing of them and how they're utilized. You're either spending way too much time on an event that doesn't have that much to work with (May and the paint plot), or you're cramming too many gimmicks into one month so stuff that could be explored by players are shoved to the side (June and the Bingo plot). And because of this, the plot still ends up sounding much like a Phase 1 plot - weird monthly gimmick happens but no serious long term consequences.

Maybe all of this is leading somewhere in August. I don't know August's plot, maybe it'll be incredible. But so far the build-up of to August's plot has been pretty lackluster because of poor pacing and people have felt it. So far, the events have not lived up to the hype you've given us. Throw that on top of closing apps until the fall despite summer being the busy season for RP and the knowledge that you guys are involved with a murdergame on the side (which for the record, idc if you do a mudergame, mods have every right to do what they want in their spare time, but making it a big secret just made it come off way worse) - and it's led to a lot of discontent folks.

Which I know, there's no real way to change things this late into the game. But I guess for next time I'd advise that if you're going to hype up a plot, please make sure the entire plot is paced well enough to live up to the hype. I know you've guys said before that you have the plot planned out 6 months or a year ahead of time- which is cool! But I wonder if that's caused you guys to have a different scope of the timelines than the players. Rpers tend to focus on plots in month increments (as that's how often we make AC)- not 6 months to a year. So what seems like a short amount of time to you guys from your 6-month to a year perspective? Seems like an eternity to us players.

Also another idea is maybe re-examining August/September's plans to see if there's any possible way to push apps reopening to an earlier date- since I feel that'd help. Though I fully admit I don't know if that's feasible or not.

Yuff

[fiddlestick]

Allen Walker (AU: Noah Campbell) | D.Gray-Man | HMD
Elliot Craig | Trails of Cold Steel | HMD

[maskreant]

akira kurusu, persona 5 (maskreant - personal hmd)

ruri

[livingimpaired]

kirei kotomine (kei shigaraki) | livingimpaired

You can also use his HMD post which has IP logging off and all comments should be screened.

Nami

[physix]

Akane Kurashiki | Zero Escape physix
Nanashi | Shin Megami Tensei iv reaquila

Lulu

[clothes]

ryuunosuke akutagawa (clothes), bsd♥

i also have an anonymous/screened hmd post in his journal if you'd rather use that :) mostly, my biggest challenge is making akutagawa, like, respond to-able? he's SUPER standoffish in canon so i try to do all i can, even if it means fudging a thing or two with his character (heh) to make it so others can respond to him. if it's working/not working, please let me know. other than that, i've had a lot of fun playing with you all so far! let's keep it up!

[matchbreaker]

So I largely agree with basically everything Yuff said in their critique for the record (and thank you Yuff so I don't need to write something like that myself) but I'd like to add on/emphasize three more points in addition to those:

Despite the fact that this big five month mega event thing I feel/agree has gone too slow on balance, I don't want that to be twisted to mean that everything should be really zippy all the time. If anything, I actually feel that something(s) as huge as all the NPCs disappearing (even if they did get overshadowed by the bingo stuff to some extent) or especially the apps closing should have gotten a longer lead in ends up. The apps closing in particular probably merited that being announced weeks back further than what it was, because I can tell you anecdotally that blindsided a number of people and didn't provide a lot of time to plan around it.

Related though, while there's been some player choice mechanics (turning in the bingo things, I don't know if you guys did a birds eye view of the painting to assess completion or something?) none of them have felt particularly tangible in a way that reflects the stated desire for player actions to steer this summer mega plot that was said at the front end of it. Or at least they haven't to me and to some other people I know. I admit especially because the bingo thing could have been reported more promptly by me and others and the mid-month update implies that was meant to be a more gradual progression thing, this could be subjective. But it has been a curious thing for me.

It's picked up the pace in the last month-ish (which is good, genuinely!) but for a while there a lot of game functions (response to mod PMs, approving/rejecting regains, etc) were getting to be really delayed as compared to how they function most of the time. While that's understandable, mods have lives and are people, that in conjunction with closing apps for this event and the frankly kind of bad optics of a secret murdergame being prepped for/happening concurrently (which I will stress agreement with Yuff that it's totally valid to do! people should have fun how they have fun, it just felt kind of weird after some lackluster feeling event months) with it do serve to make me a little worried about the nuts and bolts functionality of the game going forward

That said on the flip side even if I am not using the option for it, the ability to provide for AU reconstruction is actually cool and I enjoyed the consequences of the buildings/things being repainted weird colors lasting through June and even into now too, that's actually a neat longer term thing especially if we still have the brushes which I'm pretty sure we do. I'm still on balance having a lot of fun with the game.

Pear

[roughplayer]

Koga Oogami | Ensemble Stars | HMD

ROBYN

[seeker]

Aloy | "Alison Sobeck" | Horizon: Zero Dawn (shieldweaver) | SCREENED HMD

HI guys! I've adjusted Alison's AU for the event so I'm primarily looking for feedback on how it's working from a threading aspect. Is she easier or harder to engage with? Is there anything that you'd like to see me address or add in? Or remove? Is she too far removed from her canon, for those of you who know it? Feel free to let me know here or on the anon enabled, screened hmd above.

becks

[fabrefactions]

→ yusuke kitagawa, persona 5 | fabrefactions - HMD

Mola

[unlightmusic]

Suzu Kuromori | Ensemble Girls! | HMD