soddersays | (no subject)

Quick Announcement

Hello everybody! It looks like the new Activity Check went over smoothly! Don't worry, we aren't making any more big point changes.

I am changing when Activity opens and closes. AC will open at 10 am EST on the 1st of each month. You can, of course, post before then but that is when I will officially open AC. AC will close at 10 pm EST on the 5th. This is because I have to wake up early for work and struggle to stay up until midnight to open and close AC.

The AC clock has been deleted. I will be posting AC opening and closing on Discord, Plurk and now the OOC Community.

The next note is timing. As the game grows, it will take me longer to go through AC. I will be giving myself two/three days after AC closes to fully process everything. If revisions are required, it's assumed that you have two days to complete the revisions or shoot me a message and let me know if you need more time or if you need help/clarification.

We have one clarification about Cross Canon CR. If a canon is from the same source material then it does not count as Cross Canon CR. These extra points are meant for CR where characters do not yet have a base to talk to each other. This means that everything beneath the Marvel or Final Fantasy umbrella (games, movies, series, comics) count within the same source material.

Finally, we will be adding a section to our Hiatus form. We currently require a check-in during AC but for some that is not possible and people have come close to idling out on a technicality. This section will let us know if you will be able to check-in or if you will be missing AC entirely. You can have friends check in for you as well. Just let us know and we are happy to work with you.

Thank you!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Hi, mods! I was wondering why you decided to have another addendum to AC bonus points again?

For the Final Fantasy characters, each game is set in entirely different worlds and settings despite being in the same franchise, so I can't see how it can count as the same canon? Eorzea of FFXIV is totally different from... I forget the name of FFXV's world, but they're not set in the same universe. And Dissidia only has select characters for crossover stuff, so it's doubtful a huge amount of characters would know anyone from other Final Fantasy games anyway.

For Marvel properties, I can understand combining MCU films and MCU shows (both Netflix shows and Agents of Shield and maybe Runaways, IDK if that's set in the MCU with the Avengers) since they're set in the same universe, but the MCU is entirely different from Marvel Comics, and then the XMCU is completely apart from both as well. There are no universal events between the MCU, XMCU, and Marvel Comics, and it's not like the Avengers of the MCU know the X-Men of the XMCU and vice-versa. I figure it's valid that Marvel Comics characters have more IC incentive to interact with cinematic versions of castmates, but it's still not the same canon? And it wouldn't apply to MCU and XMCU characters who know nothing about each other. What will happen to PS4 Spiderman?

Also-- if you're applying this new rule to the AC, does that mean you'll combine all Marvel properties on the taken list? If not, then it doesn't seem very uniform/neat at all, and will probably just add confusion when AC periods roll around again.

Finally, and this is just a general observation, it seems every month there's something new happening to Activity Checks, whether it's a new standard of calculation, change in the kinds of points given, and now this. It's disheartening to have so many changes in such a small span of time and kind of makes it feel like it'd be way too easy to screw up. I do understand it's only crosscanon points (so 2 points for character, no big deal), but it just feels like it's coming out of nowhere again.

Thank you for your feedback. We understand your frustration, but we want to be clear that this isn't a change to AC. It is a clarification because it was something that hadn't been approached with uniformity in the past and that is something we want to strive for. Some players were taking cross-canon points in these instances while others were not. We feel that the spirit of the cross-canon bonus points is to encourage CR between characters who have much less of a reason to interact. While we agree that the different Marvel franchises are separate universes and canons, we feel that because they are based on the same source material that there is a lot of OOC incentive to have them interact and that giving points for that is not in the spirit of what those points are for.

As for the past changes, the mods are trying to find a balance that works for this game. We want to be receptive to feedback from our players, but that will either involve changes or it will involve not taking in the feedback you all give us. We can't do both, but the changes are more work for us, too, and this is something we are hoping will become less of an issue as we settle into the new ac that we built around the feedback we have taken from the playerbase.

We ask that you understand that we are doing our best to be fair to our entire playerbase. We want a game environment where players feel comfortable talking to us about these issues, but there are a lot of times when we can't make everyone happy because different players want contradictory things and it's up to us to find a fair middleground.