twistdfateangel | (no subject)

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arcadia

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Okay, I don't have the polling ability on here, but I'm going to ask it here and hope that people respond.

Should I shut down Arcadia? Nothing is really happening and I'm not really sure how to encourage people to start playing again. I hate to see it die, but maybe it's just time.

I mean, I've been thinking it over a lot lately. Then Ren posted and I realized I had to answer that question. Maybe a change of format is in order or maybe I need to reboot it. Maybe it's just dead in the water.

I'll be on AIM later this week, and will probably be starting a chat to ask what people think. If you want to play expys of characters, I may have other options to open, but I want to talk to people first.

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I think part of the problem is that people don't know what the metaplot is, so they're hesitant to write anything that might either 1) interfere with what you have planned or 2) end up being non-canon. I know Sage, Angie and K are ready to start a log that would be considered canon. And Ren's certainly rarin' to go with things.

I'd hate to see Arcadia die too, and while shutting it down is certainly an option as it's your baby, I think perhaps other ideas could be explored first. If your heart's not in it any more, for whatever reason (and goodness knows real-life and RP burnout are completely legit reasons!), perhaps you could do an info-dump and turn the actual running of the game over to someone else, with you as the Idea Person/Master Controller?

Ultimately, though, the decision is yours. *hugs*

Well, that sounds smarter than my plan. There's also the fact that it needs a format change. I'm thinking of taking a leaf out of Kol's book.

I'll write up the meta-plot, and I think I'm going to throw out the episodic format (it's holding things back) and fix the youma issue. If that still doesn't work, I have a few older ideas I can resurrect that may allow for expy's, at least. ("World of BSSM-craft" is tempting, but that one's a wee bit hokey).

Yeh, getting away from the chapter/episode format is an EXCELLENT idea. Even if you state up-front that canon side stories are encouraged outside the chapters, people tend to not want to do that in case something happens in the episodes that would affect what they'd write outside of them. It's part of what killed CC, in my opinion, and it nearly killed Gesma.

The Kingdom format works because it's like "here's the time frame we're looking at, here's the major metaplot points, KNOCK YOURSELVES OUT <3". It lets people create at their own pace instead of feeling constrained to a perceived linear format. Way more flexible.

And YAY FOR METAPLOT! <333 I think I can speak for everyone in the game when I say we LOVE the world you've created -- and we'd love for you to crack open your cranium and spill the rest of your ideas and plans on the screen for us. <333

The trouble is, I'm getting hung up on how to explain how it all happened and why. I know the how and why, but I can't put it in words so well!

I think just getting chats in and having more group communication would do a lot to help out. I know I have been hesitant to work on Arcadia because I wasn't confident that anybody else wanted to - but if all of us players got together in a group, I'm sure we'd see a lot of energy and plottin'.

I really agree with having a freer-format for making stories. Especially because there are so many planets to cover!

So noted. I'd like to try and have a chat Thursday of this week or any time next week, not including weekends. Tim's taking me out for my birthday. I want to try and chat more often again. I dropped off of AIM to avoid people (not any of you) but maybe I'm safe now. I'm logging into AIM now and, unless I dash over to the office to take a break and play with kittens, I'm home. My AIM will lie for me and say I'm not, so drop me a line just in case.

Frankly, the episode format isn't the real problem.

What drew me to Arcadia in the first place was how profoundly screwed up the world was. I'd been sick and tired of games where the Senshi were suppose to save things, but you never got to see WHY or HOW. Most of the logs dealt with civilian life, love affairs, friendships and the usual interactions, with the battles thrown in as an afterthought. The battles were stakeless, because not only were the villains handicapped, but you never got to see what motivated the villains to do all these dastardly things. CC was one of the few games that didn't take this approach and was rewarded with a lot of rich foes to play the 'good' characters off against. Fights meant something in CC, just like the villains did.

Instead, our first episode has Isis and Phia meeting Mrs. Fenton. I don't know who she is-- is she a regular woman? Secretly a spy? Someone in S-Cubed? A Sin sympathizer? I don't know, and furthermore I couldn't bring Neve into the mix because this lady was on the tarmac Neve was suppose to arrive on. We could still spin Mrs. Fenton into a creature of conflict, but she just seemed like a slice-of-life character, arriving to give the characters something to play at instead of propelling the characters to *act* and get this revolution started.

But I *want* to see the revolution. I want to see the Senshi fight. I want to see them go on missions and take losses but keep going because they NEED to keep going. I want to see them struggle, I want to see them lose, I want to see them win. I want to see precisely why Sin is bad news and why her government needs to be taken down. I want to watch as the Senshi topple Sin's government and put Phoebe on the throne. This journey is what I would love the overall plot of the game to be.

Which is why I think we need viable villains more than we need a format switch. There's a lot of confusion with the Iron Angels, and I think working out what you want from that team will help a lot. Right now Arcadia is missing conflict and we need antagonists to set our characters against.

I've been thinking about the Coppellias, and I have a few ideas, but here is one that might solve the villain of the day aspect:

So Sin has her Angels, the ministers of her government, that are basically souped up Coppellias. Kind of like a secret police, enforcing Sin's will on the planet by planet, city by city level. Which means the ministers are probably managing a group of lesser Coppellias, spread out on that city by city level. So what if the main group of villains for the first 'campaign' was the Iron Angel assigned to the area and her group of minions?

Because I'd be super interested in playing a minion-type Coppellia (yay Dolom), and I think that could inject a lot of potential conflict into the logs because we'd have viable villains. Maybe the Senshi decided to start their revolution by offing Coppellias? Maybe the Coppellias are trying to find the Senshi to off them and stop the rebellion? I don't know, but the premise does have a lot of visible villains and the potential for action that I think might help out a lot.

As you can see, I think that the villain issue is much more important than the story format. We have the interest to start writing again, no matter if we do the informal style of Kingdom or restart the episodes. But we need to have viable foes, a group of villains that is attractive for people to want to play, to have a passion to play. I think that the Iron Angels could be that, but there's a lot of work needed to make that team work, whatever you decide to do with them.

No matter what you decide, I'm always here as a springboard for ideas or just as an idea gal. I love Arcadia and really want to RP Neve's journey, and to read the journey of all the other characters as well. I think we have a lot of fantastic characters, we just need more conflict and foes to tell their story.

In my defense, there was going to be a Golem and/or low powered Coppelia attack during that first episode. However, I'm going to strip down all but the side-stories and start fresh. I've come up with a "new" (you did it first, but I'm tweaking it) method of villains.

I don't know what to do with the Iron Angels. I do want to keep them, but how? Your idea is great and I'm going to try and implement that. I'm not sure how, but it's still better than anything I can think of.

I have to admit, Addie helped with that idea way back in Vegas XD. We did a lot of RP plotting that week *_________*.

I didn't realize my reply was so long-- I wrote it at 3AM, though, so that explains it XD

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