Feedback/Complaints

[sodder]

FEEDBACK AND COMPLAINTS

If you have any feedback on recent plots or events that have occurred in the game, this is the place for them! If you have suggestions as to how better improve the game or certain aspects of it, please let us know here. This can also include suggesting events if you feel events have grown stale or you're feeling like the game could benefit from something in particular.

All comments have been left unscreened to encourage open communication within the game.

If you have a more private complaint, please feel free to message one of the mods! Thank you for all feedback and criticism.

Comments

[herbmancer]

HEYA, HEYA, I was wondering, in the future is there any way we could allow a few days of OOC event plotting before event logs take place?

I realize the way things are set up now it'd be kind of difficult to put up a plotting post in advance of an event and allow for a couple of days of plotting when all the necessary info is in the log itself, but maybe instead we could have logs forward dated a bit? For instance, instead of OOC plotting starting on the same day an event is ICly scheduled to start, we could create a little leeway by putting up both posts with the event officially "beginning" a few days later, i.e. posts go up on the 10th of a month with the event ICly starting on the 12th or 13th.

My thought is that getting in touch with people to hash out OOC plans currently eats up IC time, and in that time it may take to set down concrete thread plans, suddenly half the event could be over and you're in the territory of starting threads "late" and scrambling to backdate IC reactions. For 1-2 day events I feel like this could especially be a problem (speaking for myself), since plotting may take those 1-2 days, and boom, insta-late for a very important date.

Anyway, I just wanted to float the idea and create some food for thought!

[sodder]

We actually really appreciate this since we were actually trying to consider the best possible way to set up the plotting posts since we also felt as though it would be more beneficial to hold them before the events. So reaching out to us with this idea was extremely helpful to that process we've been thinking about for a while now.

Forward dating might actually be a great option and we think that's something worth trying out. We'll enact it with our next plot and hopefully it'll allow for more wiggle room for players to plan things out. If that doesn't work with people, we can figure out a better solution, but we agree that this might be the best option for everyone.

Thank you very much for the suggestion!

[vermillon]

Hallo there! I have nothing to give feedback about but I do have something to suggest! I recently remembered this site existed-- found several years ago when I was binging on stories about dangerous "games" from r/nosleep and r/threekings. I thought you folks would like to know about it, for events in the future and whatnot. The Three Kings, the Elevator Game and the Hooded Man rituals in particular feel like good fits for the game (Nammah and I have talked about one of these unlocking a new area or something)!

I don't recommend reading some of these at night though. They are spooky as heck 8')

[sodder]

Oh what an excellent site! Thank you very much for the recommendation. We have tabbed it and will definitely be referring to it in the future for ideas. We appreciate you taking the initiative to send us something so helpful.

We live to be haunted here at Deerington. The fear makes us stronger.

[herbmancer]

Hello, my lovely people! I HAVE RETURNED (fear me).

I had a thought and it occurred to me why not bring it here in case you guys think it’s a good idea, too! How do you feel about adding a mod plot tag to event logs? I realized as time goes on and more posts are made it’s going to get more challenging to go back and look at details from previous events since there’s currently no way to sort them out from other posts on the comms.

[sodder]

Hello!

A wonderful idea. We updated our events with the tag 'mod event'. Thanks for the suggestion!

[morethan084]

Hey guys! I'm coming at you with two possible suggestions.

1) I was wondering if the questions section in event posts could possibly be moved to the plotting post instead? Just because sometimes a lot of questions come in and it pushes the actual log event top levels even further down.

2) If at all possible, could we maybe have the plotting post go up a few days prior to the actual event? That way people have something to work towards before the event actually goes up.

Thanks for taking the time to read this! :)

[sodder]

Hello!

We'll try out putting the questions into the plotting post itself and see how the game responds. It would definitely be a better way to organize the event questions, so we appreciate this suggestion.

We agree that providing event details and a plotting post prior to the event could be beneficial as well, and we will try that out with this event! You can expect a plotting post to be put up later today.

Thank you for the suggestions!

[shotgunyuukon]

Hello modteam! I was just wondering, since the TDMs go up monthly now if it would be possible to maybe post them a little earlier?

Since the reserves go up the next day, apps only 6 days afterward, and there's not much else that usually happens the last week of the month, we could bump it up a little to allow more time to get samples together and more time for ingame characters to get more bonus points?

Just a thought. Thank you for all your work and your great game!

[sodder]

At least through the holiday season, we're going to keep TDMs on the last day of the month, if only because it's best for the sanity of the mod who is in charge of them. Come the New Year, though, we'll consider trying out putting it up a little earlier and see how it works!

Thank you for your feedback.

[incandescentfaith]

Hey guys!

I wanted to bring up some comments about Event Posts, Event Information, and Plotting. Since I joined in July/August I've been struggling a little with the event schedule and finding time to make posts or logs for my characters that aren't directly involved with the mod posts because I don't know when the post is going to go up or if the mod plot is going to be something huge and setting changing like October and November, or something relatively minor like the power going out at night in August.

The timing of the plotting posts and event logs going up has felt fairly inconsistent since I joined (for example, August and Sept when up around the 12th, while October and November were the 3rd, and December was back to the later schedule). December in particular was frustrating because of the major setting changes we were told would be reversed but there was no information given to the player base at large, though I found a non-specific answer on the discord after some digging. I feel like that kind of information should be made available to the playerbase via some sort of announcement post so that we can engage with the setting and play and plan what we're doing for the month.

Down the same vein, I feel as though letting the player base know at the beginning of the month when to expect a mod-made event log and an indication of it's intensity or impact on the setting would be good. It would make timing player network posts and logs a little easier without making us wonder if what we're doing will run into the mod plot and either be missed/dropped in the rush to engage with that plot, or cause tag overload/burnout. Even a minor announcement with just dates would be helpful! If possible I feel like having an early month plot post with some indication of what's coming would be excellent, even if logs go up later so that significant CR affecting plans (like a character death, or a major change in situation like a major injury) can be figured out and not feel rushed.

Thanks for reading, and sorry for the lengthy comment.

+1

[onerous]

I don't really have much to add bc I think Ax hit the nail on the head here. But yeah I feel the same way. December was a bit frustrating w/it especially because I didn't know if my Christmas plans would be jossed entirely by the plot so I didn't know if I should start doing a log or not, etc. etc. which lead to a lot of just sitting on my hands and waiting to see what was going to happen to start anything.

I think putting things up at the very beginning of the month would be the most helpful.

[nakedsingularity]

I was wondering, do you guys think we could get a cr meme going, maybe after apps close? I think it’d be cool to do some game-wide cr building since we haven’t had one in a long while!

[sodder]

We could absolutely do that! That's a wonderful suggestion, thank you for bringing it up! We will discuss a good time for posting it, but you can definitely anticipate one around sometime soon after applications close and after the event has been posted (on the 11th).

[missingache]

Is there any way to get a brief overview of what will happen during the month at the beginning of the month? I and a few others feel like having to wait till the event is posted to even plan for the month is really late and it makes the first couple of weeks into the new month feel like it's stalling since everyone is just using the TDM for ideas since there's nothing else to go by. I've been in plenty of games where at the beginning of the month they gave us clues as to how the month will be by saying what the weather will be like, locations that might be closed or open, and other things that might make more sense when the event rolls around without giving away the event.

Basically plotting for this game before the event is almost impossible since we have to come up with something to do before the event starts on our own when we have no idea what the state of the world is other than going by the TDM which not everyone looks at. Is there a way to get a quick overview post at the beginning, not the middle, of the month? Or even the end of the month going into the next?

[sodder]

Hi there!

Thank you so much for leaving feedback for the game. We think that this is a wonderful solution to bridge the gap between the beginning of the month lull and the mid-month event plotting posts. While it’s too late to implement it for April, we will start trying out this method in May.

We appreciate you taking the time to bring us your ideas and concerns. We hope that this will help early plotters feel more at ease in the game!

[revenante]

Hi Modly Ones, I come with a suggestion.

I think it might be beneficial for players if the Mods could post an 'AC Results' page every month after AC closes, detailing any changes to players - ie. should any characters be swept/not make AC.

Not everyone has muns added on Plurk, for example, and aren't aware of changes. A post on the OOC comms would allow others to know if a player has left the game in a way that's accessible. Also adding a list of drops from the month with the 'did not make AC list and therefore swept from the game' list could also help since not everyone checks the Drops/Hiatus page.

[sodder]

Hello!

This is a great suggestion and we appreciate you pointing it out! We agree that it would make it much easier on players to have a more streamlined source to figure out who is no longer in game available in the OOC community.

Our team is going to figure out a specific time of month to post an AC/Drop Results Post, but you can definitely expect this change to come into place following our next AC round in September!

We usually do have a list of on the drop page of who has dropped, but we will instead apply that list to the new AC/Drop Post in order to cut back on redundancy.

We appreciate the feedback! If you feel anything about our motions to change might be confusing or could use further improvement, feel free to speak up!

[relieable]

hello! this isn't really a question, more of a suggestion! i was recently told that i could no longer unlock locations, and i just want to state that i was confused about this. the wording on the FAQ page says: Unlocked locations are no longer available for rewards purchase as of 04/2019.

and i did read this before i submitted my request, because i thought that it meant people could now unlock locations for free. i didn't realize that meant we could no longer unlock locations at all. to add to my confusion, the rewards doc says that you can unlock locations for 900 points, and that was what i'd been saving up my points for.

i was just thinking that the doc might want to be edited for future players who missed the memo on unlocking locations. :) i talked with a few people on plurk who were confused about this as well.

otherwise, i have enjoyed my time here very much. thanks!

[sodder]

Hello! We apologize for the confusion and understand completely. We didn't realize that it had still been on the rewards pricing and have edited it out! We apologize about that!

We also cleaned up our Full Navigation list to no longer reflect the Unlocked Locations and instead link to the old information on the Locations page in general. We hope this helps with some confusion as well!

Thank you for pointing it out! And again, we're sorry about that!

[pocketspa]

hey mods!! Ty for having an easy contact.

I'm a bit new to the game, so I know there's a lot to learn, but the more I look into lore and events to adjust and get into the setting everything comes off incredibly overwhelming and a detriment to actual participation. It's super important to keep to game themes and the horror (as that's what this game is about), but it feels like a lot of things are present just for the sake of something being present. Events seem to be like this consistently- certain things that happen in event posts don't seem to match with the rest of the event. For instance, this month's event was largely about doppelgangers and the continuation of the food shortage. However, there were prompts for SAW style torture and an Animal Crossing-esque video game, neither of which fit into what was happening right then. Compounded with all the prompts from last month, and the teams and their effects, AND plot reveals coming from different characters lead to an absolute information overload without even considering the backlog. Not to say that different things can't happen- the baked goods sale completely made sense with the overarching food shortages and forgetting who you are as copies of yourself rise- but there's a lot of "fluff" that makes it feel complicated for a character to know what's going on at any given time or interact with the setting properly. I know this game runs quickly, but it feels impossible to keep up with everything that goes on in even a single month.

On top of that, the lore of the actual game is just as extensive. There's over 50 locations on the locations page, all of which have individual supernatural effects. There are also over 30 types of housing, and the Great Sleep page clocks in over 6 thousand words. This isn't even to mention information about character jobs, organizations, items, and more. While I know you want to be able to explain yourself in a way that gets people excited and into the setting, for a game focused on mystery and unraveling the plot it's hard to figure out what hasn't already been covered, piece together progress, or determine what's actually important. This is especially compounded by the fact that events come out with tons and tons of new lore every month which is already difficult enough to make sure you're on top of. This isn't to say I dislike the lore or plot in any way- I really love digging into this sort of thing, so much so that I made a 30 page lore document for another game of mine just out of excitement. But there being so much, it's not only overpowering, it feels cluttering to the actual point of what's being uncovered.

Of course, it could be that there's a lore reason or otherwise set reason to having all of this extra stuff, at which point I'd love to hear it! But right now as much as I enjoy some of the more "strange" options, having so so so many really feels like it's burying the lead of a really interesting game.

Thanks for listening!

[sodder]

Hi there!

We’re sorry that the amount of information provided can feel overwhelming. Deerington is a plot heavy game that has been open for over a year and a half; because of this, much of the information you see in the pages was rolled out over the time that the game has been active. The locations have grown as new places were unlocked or created by player request. The length of information provided has helped to limit the number of questions that are asked about how certain aspects of the game function as many of our players want to know the intricate details without having to do a heavy amount of guess work on how settings such as the Great Sleep function. To new players, this certainly will come across as information rich and feel daunting to comb through, which is why we make sure to make every aspect of the game 100% optional so no one feels like they have to learn everything about the setting in order to jump in and start playing.

Deerington is a dreamscape; dreams inherently tend to not make sense 100% of time. We use this aspect to give a wider variety of options to our players during events. Not everyone in the game wants to have completely horror-focused options at all times, just like not every player wants to have completely plot-heavy focused events at all times. To balance the needs of everyone, we try to offer a variety of options, with light, slice-of-life worthy aspects to break up the intense horror that people often have their characters face. This allows for players to have breathing room and to give characters a chance to not be completely re-traumatized with every event if that isn’t what a player wishes to do. Given that there are multiple aspects of dreams that feel random and chaotic, it’s not unnatural for something “fluffy” to feel out of place and confusing to characters. Likewise, we try to balance rolling out intense pieces of plot with having long stretches of time that lack plot; i.e. July & August were plot heavy but not necessarily horror-driven, September is not plot heavy and offers lighter event options, October will be heavier in horror, etc. This is a pattern that has helped to keep the game balanced for the majority of players. We make sure that any aspect of the events can be ignored by anyone and players are able to pick and choose what they want to focus on in any given month. This is true of both temporary events as well as the overarching plot.

The game is also meant to hold a certain amount of mystery; no character can realistically obtain all information nor will they be able to figure out what information is useful and what is not. In order to keep the plotline interesting and to keep players from figuring out the core of the story, we make sure to give a mix of functional and useless information without clarifying which is which, as not everything discovered in any investigation will ever be completely useful. We have no intention of changing this aspect of the game as we feel it gives the best function for creating a mystery that isn’t easily solved by any one player.

We appreciate your feedback and are happy to take suggestions on how to improve consistency in the provided story elements and are happy to improve on how plot-relevant information could be revealed in a way that is perhaps less overwhelming for new players, but overall, we intend to continue to use the function of the dreamscape to provide sometimes strange or random options to players to avoid bogging people down with constant, non-stop horror and mystery.

Thank you for reaching out and we hope that this gives a better explanation of the mechanics of the game.

[newtralize]

Hello, I'd like to ask if it's possible to change how event logs are tagged. At the moment, they're tagged as Mod Event, but I would like to request if it's possible to change them to something like *Event or anything else that would make it the first tag. I find that it is currently very difficult to to look at the event logs and try and find the particular tag for it as it gets buried in the character tags.

Secondly, if it is possible to have links that go to the OOC plotting post to the event log and vice versa. I find I have to manually look up either or. It's usually not as big of a deal early on, but it can become cumbersome later on when the event log gets buried by open/closed logs done by players.

Thirdly, if Overflow posts can link to their original event log/tagged with the event tag.

This is a minor complaint, but a bit helpful for housekeeping and such. I hope you consider it. Thank you.

[sodder]

We can definitely make these changes. We'll go through the tags of old events to update a newer tag that puts them at the top of the tag list so you can expect that sometime in the near future.

We will also implement linking to events on the OOC plotting posts as well as the overflow posts as well.

Thank you for the feedback.

[multipliable]

hi modlies! i was wondering if we have a network un list set in place, so new players can take a look at what's already been taken to avoid any mishaps. if not, i think it could be a useful addition to the game! maybe a spreadsheet could be started for it or something. :)

[sodder]

Hello! Technically UNs can change at any given time much like a Discord handle. However we have had it suggested before that we have an accessible list of character contact information in regards to the social media function in game.

Due to the various suggestions to this we are going to compile a way to provide easier IC and OOC access to all of this information! As soon as we have we will let the entire game know.

Thank you for your feedback! We hope to think of a helpful resolution that works with everyone very soon!

[dramaquinn]

Hello, mods! Not sure if suggestion or request, but: I use DW's dark mode skin due to eye strain, and some posts/pages have the font color coded in to be a dark gray. The dark gray against the black background of dark mode is almost impossible to read. Would it be possible to not code in the font color so it goes to the default for the DW skin a person is using? And if not, I can work around it. It's not A Hardship so much as a minor thing, jsyk. Thank you!

[sodder]

On our end we re-tested out reading some of the pages in dark mode and for us it looks like black font against the dark mode background is actually a lot harder to read than the gray font we have coded. We originally picked the tone of gray since it tested well in dark mode and light mode.

This could unfortunately be a difference of screens/lighting/computer settings/eye sensitivity so we aren't too sure if full game re-coding of font color would be the best move. Thank you for bringing it to our attention though!

[wwrench]

I understand that the size and the premise of the game make this ask particularly monumental, but I was wondering if there was a way to centrally collect and make available the various content warnings that members have requested?

There's a question on the application that asks everyone to list the things they absolutely need specific warnings for, and at one time I was able to locate a spreadsheet (though not updated) with some of these things listed. Unfortunately I can't seem to locate it now, so I don't know if it might have actually been an internal document intended for moderator use when writing up event information.

To date, there have been two or three instances of information being presented in prelude and event posts where information that I requested a content warning was presented without one. I can't imagine the enormity of what you guys are trying to work through to accommodate our huge player base and still provide the horror environment that we all came here for, but the fact that the application asks that question gave me some assurance that the information I provided would be noted and it really hasn't.

Moreover, I'm sure I've missed tagging my own content with regards to the triggers of other members that I'm not even aware of. I know people have tagged in on me and crossed my limit as well, despite it being listed in my permissions page. And I guess I get why, because I have to admit that I don't always do as good of a job as I know I should of checking them before I tag in with someone new. I know there's got to be some personal responsibility here across the board, but maybe there's still a way to make it easier? A spreadsheet people could modify for themselves that's centrally housed and made clearly available?

I'm sorry I'm rambling, but obviously this is something that's just happened and immediately relevant and the very nature of a trigger means that I'm pretty worked up over it.

[sodder]

Hello.

We genuinely apologize for missteps in providing the appropriate content warnings. While it is not an excuse, we genuinely did not realize biting to wrists/neck would constitute as trauma to those areas and so we apologize about the misunderstanding for what constituted as trauma for you specifically. We have adjusted the prelude to reflect these content warnings.

We do encourage players to immediately bring this to our attention since there are many times in which we simply do not realize that specific wording or phrasing might fall within the specifications of someone's triggers. We are always happy to make immediate adjustments if necessary, so we encourage you and every player to speak up the moment they feel uncomfortable about something so that we can properly adjust our content warnings.

Content warnings are an on-going struggle for many people of the game, as you stated, and you have a great suggestion in creating a player-run CWs excel sheet. We found that our old spreadsheet was far too generalized and often lead to more confusion as to what might constitute as someone's trigger and what might not.

We think that creating an excel where players can list the characters that they play and then make a note specifically for their trigger warnings will hopefully help aid players in the future. We hope that this sounds like a functional option for you. Instead of having a section on the applications for cws we can link to the excel spread sheet upon acceptance for people to fill out. We will get this set up immediately.

We understand that a horror game has a higher risk than most game for brushing against people's sensitive topics, and we strive to provide as thorough of content warnings as we possibly can. Hopefully an excel spreadsheet maintained by players can offer more clarity on what people consider to be associated with their CWs.

Thank you for your feedback.

[therapissed]

Hello, just a passing thought I had while attempting to write a top-level for the latest event.

Given how lengthy the event posts are, would it be possible to put each section under a details disclosure widget? You'd also be able to put the content warnings in the summary/header so people who might be affected by them won't accidentally read a section while scanning through.

I understand this might ruin the aesthetic of the event logs. It's just a thought and it might help for people who like to read up on the event on their phones or those who get intimidated by the length of the event logs at first glance.

Alternatively, perhaps the event logs could be more streamlined? I understand it's story-telling, but it's quite a bit of text to get through and especially to refer back to while writing top-levels and doing tags within the event in general. Putting short summaries of the different event sections in the plotting post could also help players who have trouble remembering the whole log or those who want a quick reference/catalog of happenings later down the line without having to reread the whole log repeatedly.

[sodder]

Unfortunately the disclosure widgets do not work with certain reading aids some players rely on who have dyslexia or other reading comprehension issues, so we will not be doing that in order to respect accessibility over convenience.

We will put summaries onto the plotting post, but they would be quite thin as it would feel redundant to offer a fully fleshed out summary on top of the information sections and prelude. We will try this next event to see if it works for both players and mods alike.

[suchmiracles]

Hey mods, just a couple of quick suggestions!

It would be good if the link to content warnings on the deerington journal could point to the new player-created spreadsheet rather than the old one, to make it easier to refer to when posting logs.

Also I noticed the game calendar is getting out of date. Maybe it would be easier to just have a Month 1/Month 2 structure, then designated the months as alternating 1/2, so you can effectively post the entire year in one go? Or maybe just list the dates that everything seems to generally happen on rather than specific months?

[sodder]

Thank you for pointing that out! We had completely forgotten that link was there. It is updated now!

Yeah, we have definitely been struggling to maintain the calendar and have decided our best bet might be to just have a stagnant calendar up for when people can expect things to happen- like you said, listing the dates that everything seems to generally happen on. Our events are mostly the same date and we announce those dates per preludes. Thank you for bringing it up - we are currently trying to revise the calendar page, and we apologize for stumbling a bit behind on it!

Thanks for the feedback!

[dividingline]

Hi again mods!

Just a couple of event-related suggestions/some bits of feedback.

I feel like the events have become a bit disconnected and unwieldy lately -- don't get me wrong, they're still great fun and interesting to play out, but with the longer preludes plus the TDMs and the events, it's starting to feel like we have three separate events per month, which don't always have any connection to each other. Of course there's never any obligation to play out every single thing (which is great), but for those who want to stay connected to what's going on, it can be a lot of things to deal with. In general it feels as though we're being thrown a lot of random bits and pieces to try to give everyone something to work with, rather than a cohesive event each month.

Here are a few suggestions I think might help:

• For prelude/event combos, making sure that things raised/given in the prelude are fully connected to the event. As an example, with the orc/LoTR event, Sleepers were given a "Sleeper Stone". This looked like a really interesting item with a neat magical feature, but wasn't used at all in the event or mentioned again. In the latest event, the Ultimate titles don't seem to have influenced the main event at all besides a small feature in the trial. It would be neat to see things like this really carried through in a satisfying way -- maybe making sure that anything given or mentioned in the prelude is used in the event in some way.
  
• Ongoing consequences. Some of the best events have been the ones which have left a mark on Deerington. It would be neat to have maybe a new Location or something unlocked through events every so often, even if it's just a new building or a new store, or a big thing like a new part of the Great Sleep opening up.
  
• More cohesive events. With the events themselves, sometimes there are bits of the event which don't really connect to the "main" part at all besides a general theme (for instance with the current event, the guilt and the angel/demon prompts are quite different in tone to the trial and despair prompt). I understand this is a good way to provide the playerbase with options, but I think that it might feel more coherent if there's a single central reference point/canon and then options within that, rather than picking from multiple canon ideas at once. The Hunger Games event and Titanic event were fantastic partly because it was this singular idea that was fully explored and the playerbase could really go deep into.
  
• "Lighter" events sometimes. I know this was raised before and there was discussion around having a pattern of light/heavy/light/heavy events, but this seems to have fallen by the wayside a little. The last few months have obviously been quite different from normal, but it feels as though the events have still been quite intense. It would be good to perhaps have some alternating months where the events are "smaller" and are more geared towards Deerington itself, which leads me to..
  
• Events that are wholly Deerington based. Obviously part of the dream reality is dealing with setting shifts and changes that appear and disappear, but it would be cool to have something in each event that comes "from" Deerington, rather than an outside canon -- for instance the Authority deciding one month to start cracking down on crimes, or the Wastes suddenly starting to communicate with Sleepers. There are a lot of great and awesome horror tropes within Deerington itself that I'd personally love to explore a bit more through an event!

And on a related note, a couple of event ideas I had:

• Summer camp! It miiight be a bit late for this one, but having a setting change that dumps everyone into a summer camp (with cabins, counsellors, activities, and the occasional serial killer) would be super fun!
  
• Wild west horror! Undead cowboys! Ghostly steam trains! Giant rattlesnakes! OK, maybe I'm the only one who wants this LMAO..

[sodder]

Hello! Thank you for taking the time to give us such thorough feedback. We are definitely going to discuss a lot of this among our team and we really appreciate the effort you've put into giving us examples and solutions. There are some great ideas here and also some great points on things that we can work on and be more mindful of as we go forward. We'll get back to you if we have any clarifications after we've talked.

[goldtoxicity]

hey mods! i just wanted to report a broken link on the profile page nav! i'm not sure if the page doesn't exist anymore / was moved / etc but it seems to be on all of them.

its bestiary link and it goes to this page: https://deeringtonpost.dreamwidth.org/265.html#cutid1

[sodder]

Thank you for bringing this to our attention! It originally did not exist anymore and we forgot to take down the links, but a few players have mentioned an interest in a proper bestiary being back up and running so we are making motions to get the page back up and will have the link fixed ASAP and updated both in the profile navs and the full nav for the game.

We appreciate the message!

[cawnfidant]

Hello there! This is just a lousy suggestion, but hear me out! Sometimes with the amount of information on each event post/plotting post/etc? it takes a lot of scrolling to get to the actual comments. I know, it's a petty request but I've seen a few games adding a jump to comments link at the start of the post that could be added to the links you already have.

That's all! Thanks for the great job you do here <3

[sodder]

We can definitely implement that! Thank you for the suggestion!

[tinpotdicktator]

Hi mods, thank you for your hard work!

This is more an accessibility issue than anything, but a lot of Deerington's info pages and more immediately relevant the TDM use a font colour that's not compatible with dreamwidth in dark mode (example from the TDM). Just wanted to give a head's up!

As the game moves into chapter two, I think it would be really helpful to make sure that the new game is dark mode (and while I'm here) mobile friendly as well! I know I at least have to phone tag a lot for accessibility reasons and while the current info pages aren't a deal breaker at the moment (they're navigable just a bit too wide), if you're going to be building new pages anyway, it might make the experience far smoother to keep that kind of thing in mind.

Thank you for your time!

[sodder]

Hello! Thank you very much and thank you for reaching out about this!

I do believe the new entry layouts I went with are much more mobile-friendly since they are more narrow. Here is a (clipped) example of what the stacking of the pages look like under the new system (sorry it's limited for obvious reasons). Also this page was done pre-dark mode and can be adjusted to fit the dark mode images linked below.



And here is what I came up with for a "dark mode" version that will be applicable both on people's dark modes and regular modes of viewing the game:

Dark Mode:



Normal/Light Mode:



Do these seem like more accessible options? Sorry I can't link directly to the information pages but both these screenshots were taken directly off my phone to ensure the smooth translation to mobile-friendly.

re the new event https://soddersays.dreamwidth.org/73713.html

[nimblesoles]

hi mods! posting this from a sock since anon is disabled, and it's a bit of a sensitive issue.

someone in the game posted to wankgate that they felt the "mountain people" section of the event hit on some racist tropes, and i agree with them, so i wanted to see if you wouldn't mind editing these npcs a bit?

the mountain people read to me as similar to wendigo. they're specifically creatures, not humans, with "long black tongues" and other monstrous features. they're cannibals that "might have once been humans but have become corrupt by their own appetite." all of that is not racist and is good horror. love it!

unlike the other anon, i don't think them being covered in mud and making bird noises and clicking sounds to each other is necessarily racist, because zombies are often covered in mud and it's a common horror trope that monsters can imitate birds or people to lure in victims or make clicking or hissing sounds to communicate. but it depends on the context. the problem i see here is that these creatures are specifically called "mountain people" instead of by some horror creature name. they wear clothes from animal skins and use tools they made post-monster transformation including sleep darts, and outside of their supernatural appearance, they're generally described more like people than monsters.

i think it walks a racist line, so i wanted to see if you'd be willing to change the name "mountain people" to a creature name instead (like wendigo or one-eyed-one-horned-flying-purple-people-eaters or whatever!). And to make sure they're more monstrous and less like people, have the bark/mud/fur be their skin not clothing (tough skin, no animal skins needed?), and the sleep darts be a poison in their teeth/claws instead. they could still be "hunting for survival" since wendigo are always starving in the stories to the point of eating themselves if they can't eat other people.

if you were going for more of a "hills have eyes" vibe instead, you could specify that the sleep darts are fired from shotguns, change the animal skins to denim overalls, and just have imitating bird calls, no clicking, to cut out racist tropes resembling "violent society of killers wearing animal skins and using weapons made from nature." whatever is more what you were going for, or other ideas if you have them!

thanks for listening!

Re: re the new event https://soddersays.dreamwidth.org/73713.html

[sodder]

Hello! Thank you for this thoughtful feedback and all of your suggestions. We really appreciate that you took the time to handle your feedback like this.

We can see why you feel that these tropes when all tied together walk a line and we'd like to rectify that. The intention of them was to be seen more as creature than anything human, but we can see how that might not have been made clear in the initial descriptions and we would like to change the language to make it much more clear and to move away from this combination of tropes as our intention is never to make our players uncomfortable in this way.

We will make an update post as soon as we're able with what those changes will be, but we wanted to respond to you quickly and let you know that we hear you and we are taking your feedback seriously and we are discussing how best to make changes in line with it.