ioduanooc | Game HMD

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how's my driving?

Game HMD | March 2018

HOW'S MY DRIVING? GAME EDITION ★ { MARCH 2018 }

Hello Dreamers, it's time for our very first game HMD Meme!

Khu Ioduan launched in January, so we've had a few months to get our feet under us as far as the style of events, the agendas, mod contacts, and the overall organization for how things run. We want to take this opportunity to open the floor to everyone's feedback: what do you like about the game so far, what's not working for you, what would make your day to see added or changed?

The modteam is eager to hear your feedback positive or negative (as long as it's made politely!), so we can work to make this game as entertaining and welcoming as it can be for all our players. And you don't need to be a current player of the game to comment, the input of potential or former players is valuable too!

Players can also use this post if they'd like to use it for a personal HMD, since Khu doesn't have a mandatory HMD rule. This is completely optional, not required.

NOTE: If any issues brought to our attention need further discussion between the modteam to provide the best information, we will let you know ASAP and then follow up on this post when we have the answer.

IP logging is OFF and anon commenting is ON.

EDIT #1: Regarding missions, we'll be taking some time to assess all the suggestions and figuring out the best way to implement changes. Based on that, we will not be having a mission during the month of May.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

So I have some quibbles with the setup of the first mission log.

The format where teams could not split up on choices spread decisions out over days, or even a full week, particularly for teams with a lot of players. Ultimately, characters aren't going to all agree, and the requirement of agreement and OOC organization made this painfully similar to high school/college group projects. Which is to say, just painful.

That said, I love the choose-your-own-scenario missions! And I definitely don't want to lose those. However, I'd definitely recommend allowing players to split up (if all the possibilities are written up by the mod team ahead of time, as was implied, then this is the least difficult option for everyone). Perhaps there's a point after which teamwork between the remaining players on a choice is necessary (based on the expectation that there'd only be 1-3 players remaining at that point).

Too many of the options on March's mission were forced choices, where it wasn't natural for characters to choose x over y but we weren't given another option.

(To give an entirely hypothetical example) If, say, option A can be completed by 1 char, and option B needs 3, and the split of characters doesn't allow for option B to be completed but allows for option 1 to be completed (times however many characters signed up/however many resources there are to be gained/etc), then just tell the people who pick option B that no matter how hard they try to (ex: remove superheavy alloy from ship) they can't manage it. (Accounting for superpowers and the like, though that's another matter.)

tl;dr make it less like a group project where we have to all come to the exact same conclusion and cooperate on everything, please

I agree with most of this, only I think I might have a possible solution -- randomisation. The mission scenarios in that log would work much better with only 2-4 characters working on each one, and some of the scenarios got like 6-8 characters signing up. If players got to sign their characters up for the scenarios they wanted, and then 3 characters were randomly selected for each of the scenarios, it would make things fair and also help make coordinating on decisions easier.

But man, the choose-your-own-adventure options were awesome, and I too really hope they stay around!

Answered this below!

Thanks for such a detailed reply! We're definitely going to be reviewing the mission format re: setting up teams and such (we're in the process of organizing a full modteam meeting for sometime this coming week) so we hope to have a proper announcement of changes for people then. If you think of any other suggestions, add 'em in!

One of the big factors we ran into was we didn't think to cap how many people could volunteer for each section, and we ended up with some big groups which made it tough for everyone.

The CYOA format is definitely something we're looking at keeping though!

I gotta chime in on the mission logs, too, and part of it is my fault as a player in the first place. Large amounts of people in a group = making the group slower to finish a round of tags, which I definitely experienced during the mission. Whether or not you guys decide to put any sort of character caps on the group sign-ups, I know I'm personally going to make it a goal to avoid joining a group en masse like we did this last time.

I'm super happy with the game otherwise though, and looking forward to more adventure-y stuff in the future!

We are definitely considering capped spots for future missions, yes. We were caught off guard when most people gravitated toward one or two scenarios and it was too late for us to be like "oh, sorry, you can't actually choose this one after all". The actual process of figuring out how we'll make the selection (whether RNG, etc) is something we'll have to fine-tune when we have our next modly meeting.

Thank you for letting us know!

c/ped from discord, so the mods can always remember how much we love them

Am | Zelos, X - Today at 11:42 PM
and I want to specifically say, because I remember how much writing there is in plots and monthly agendas and whatnot
that having so many different options for the talent rankings is incredible.
and I really super appreciate all the work that must go into writing them.
Heron | Kei, Kaltz - Today at 11:43 PM
yeah tbh that is SUPER impressive
Kalineh | Valdis - Today at 11:44 PM
Affinities is my favorite thing ever
Am | Zelos, X - Today at 11:44 PM
yes sorry affinity rankings, not
not talent rankings
Heron | Kei, Kaltz - Today at 11:44 PM
i never use all the options but i deeply appreciate them all being there
Kalineh | Valdis - Today at 11:44 PM
me too

THIS MAKES ME VERY HAPPY.

I love how there's so much you can do without the game being overwhelming! The setting's very rich and well thought-out, the agendas and affinity activities are great, and I haven't even started exploring what I can do with the talents bit. All that at a pace I can actually keep up with, plus an approachable mod team and a fun playerbase.

I also enjoy how OC-friendly Khu is. And the choose-your-own-adventure idea is brilliant. Sure, there are kinks that need to be worked out, but I'm confident a system that works for the game can be come up with eventually.

Thank you mods for all your hard work, I'm really having a great time so far! ♥

PS. I second Am on the randomization suggestion :D

This is really nice to hear, thank you! ♥

Randomization is definitely an option we'll consider when we have a modly meeting to tackle what changes we'll need to make to missions.

This is minor, but I think there's some confusion with the Reserves. When you guys take reserves, you leave it a little after the app period, so the person who took a reserve with me that month might've thought they could still app until the end of their reserve, which they couldn't. There's no purpose in keeping the reserve just a couple days after the app period, because you can't really do anything with it. It might be smarter to expire reserves at the end of their respective app periods.

That said -- I absolutely adore Affinities. When you guys say world-building, you really mean it. It's such an amazing feeling to have characters be able to change their environment in a substantial way, both by accident or deliberately. People don't have to scramble around to find something to do.

Everybody in the discord is so nice and welcoming. You guys are great. Oh, and shoutout to Li for handling questions and tense situations (like that spoiler thing) so nicely and professionally.

Thank you for the input!

The original idea was to allow people a couple of extra days past the end of the app cycle to extend their reserve if they didn't have a chance to get the app submitted since it's a fairly short app window. Is there a better wording that you think would help on the reserves page, and we can give that a try?

We've always loved the idea of players being able to impact the game premise in significant ways, and we think it really makes sense in a game like this. I'm glad you're enjoying them!

You're very welcome :)

I figured that might be the case, especially with this part: "All reserves are accepted in the order received, and are valid from the time and date of posting until the beginning of the following reserve period." It might be better to add something about how reserves expire a few days after the app cycle ends to give people a chance to extend their reserve. I think you tried to explain that in the next paragraph, but it doesn't really come off like that, so maybe merge the two paragraphs and add in the explanation in between?

Edited 2018-04-20 06:02 (UTC)

I added it to the first paragraph, how does this look?

All reserves are accepted in the order received, and are valid from the time and date of posting until the beginning of the following reserve period. This overlaps the end of of each application cycle by a few days, to allow players to request extensions if they didn't get their app in during the application window.

Edited 2018-04-23 03:41 (UTC)

Yes, that looks good. \o/

I think everyone else covered the troubles with the mission log, so I'll skip that. I do love the affinities. They are amazing, and help so much with catch all prompts and personal story lines. I deeply appreciate the work that goes into them.

Two things though:

The Talents do not seem to have much meaning right now. There isn't really a reason to use them in game, so I'd like to see more opportunities and uses for them. Otherwise they just seem like a wasted mechanic.

Secondly, plot is my lifeblood, and I would like to see more of an overarching plot. I know the game is fairly new, so we haven't had much opportunity for it quite yet, but I feel as if the game is mostly sol, and I struggle with that quite a bit. It doesn't have to be in your face plot, but some more ways to interact with the problems of the city and the outside threats could be fun.

I was going to maybe post this anon, because i’m nervous about saying it, because I love you guys very much. But Khu isn’t really working for me right now, and if it doesn’t pick up, I may have to look for something else. I think the game has a lot of potential, and I know it is only a few months old, but I was really hoping for more by now, and it just hasn’t happened.

Edited 2018-04-22 22:05 (UTC)

Thanks for your input! We'll look at Talents and see how we can incorporate them into more of the monthly events.

Sorry to hear that you don't feel the game is exciting enough for you at this early point! We'll be exploring some more overt metaplot happenings in our mod meeting coming up.

I think we could stand to have a few more locations plotted out? I really love how this world is, but there's not a lot of notable locations for us to explore, and things like the Opara Core and the Tower still feel a little...not quite "intimidating," but given how, IC, everyone is still fairly new to the city. So it feels kind of awkward just going up to those locations right now, outside of plot elements.

How extensive is the city on the turtle's back? Where exactly are the farming areas? What about beaches? Stuff like that can help, and gives us more room to spread out beyond the Dreaming Bridge.

That's a good point! We actually meant to have more locations detailed by now and it's one of the things that got pushed back, when we probably should have put more priority on it. We'll work on filling out the rest of the map ASAP.

I do have to say that I really appreciate how quickly you guys try to get back to us on anything. I've not had that experience in many of the games I've been in.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Game HMD | March 2018

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