WE ARE THINKING OF GOING FREEFORM

ARCELIA
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WE ARE THINKING OF GOING FREEFORM Jun 1, 2013 12:37:50 GMT -5

Post by ARCELIA on Jun 1, 2013 12:37:50 GMT -5

GOING FREEFORM?!

We have a new proposition to offer our members! A few months ago, I asked this question and the vote was pretty much split down the middle. Since it's been so long, I figured it was best to ask one more time.

V5 of Proboards has made freeform very much a possibility now. I’ve written out a rough system below and would like all of your thoughts on the matter and especially YOUR vote. We will go with the majority decision and if the majority is the ‘I’m fine with either one’ option, then the staff will make the decision ourselves.

So, without further ado…

For our freeform system, EXP and COL will be given out per post rather quest mods grading regular quests. Now, we’re probably going to start at 100 per post. We’ll monitor this for a while and see if it’s too much or too little for the system and adjust the amount accordingly if need be. The amount will also increase over time to account for higher levels.

The quest board will remain up for a few reasons – skill quests and a new feature we’re adding to our quest system. I don’t want to give away too many spoilers, but there will be activities and quests players can complete to earn more rewards.

Keeping the quest board up will also allow you to create a quest log for players to see what you’re up to. Consider it an advertisement…You don’t have to post the quest log up, but if you’re looking for other players it serves to attract their interest and they don’t have to go fumbling around the many boards on the site. The only quests that will need a quest log are supplementary skills and extra skills.

Now, you might be worried about the issue of ‘spam.' First off, double posting is not allowed in any way, shape, or form for group quests. You’ll only be receiving EXP and COL for posting for the roleplaying boards, too. We're not sure of the exact amount yet, but we will also be capping the number of posts a solo thread can have so they don't make a billion posts for one solo. I trust everyone won’t abuse the privileges that they’ve been given, so please don’t break that trust. It's easy to see if you've been deleting your posts or not. If we see any signs of cheating in our system, the consequences will be severe and you may even be banned.

The word count of 300 per post MINIMUM will continue to be enforced.
We’re also still enforcing a level cap. For the time being, players may not go more than two levels higher than the presently released floor. For example, if we have floor 4 released, than players may not go higher than level 6.

Seeing as how quest moderators will no longer be grading normal quests, their free time will go toward a few other jobs – helping with bazaar transactions, grading skill quests, and…RUNNING EVENTS!

With more free time, we’ll be able to have more staff-moderated events. This can range between a variety of activities. It might very well be lead ups to the boss fights, raids, parties, “mini” bosses, holidays, festivals, and the general mysteries and plot arcs surrounding Aincrad. Participating in these staff-moderated events could give players rare and exotic rewards and bonus EXP and COL. In this case, the quests WILL be graded based on your participation.

Now, you’re probably wondering about items, right? Right. We’ll be setting up a massive item shop for all players. It will include all the materials players have the option of buying in the NPC shop presently plus all of the materials and ingredients normally dropped by monsters. These items will be purchasable with COL. You can still also receive special items from our event quests, too.

To sum it up, with freeform we're hoping to focus more on the story + events and have you guys worry less about needing to play "catch up" in regards to leveling up. It will go more with the flow and you shouldn't feel the need to finish threads asap now. On top of that, we'll have a lot more events planned and we can advance through the floors and boss fights more rapidly. Although this game is based on an MMO, it is still a community roleplay. We want everyone to focus more on having fun and less about struggling to ~~be the very best~~ keep up. This will definitely bring about some major changes but we're aiming to make this site strive better for both players and staff alike!

If you decide to select no as your answer, please tell us why! We appreciate constructive feedback.

Last Edit: Jul 5, 2013 15:09:58 GMT -5 by Savvy

ARCELIA
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WE ARE THINKING OF GOING FREEFORM Jun 2, 2013 14:02:06 GMT -5

Post by ARCELIA on Jun 2, 2013 14:02:06 GMT -5

I'd also like to add in a small mention about solos.

The staff is still discussing what to do with them in case we go freeform but here are our ideas so far.

The first option is to encourage more group interaction and limit solos to only one post, therefore no double posting would be allowed. The second option, and more likely, is to limit the number of posts per solo around 3-6 posts. Regardless of the decision, only two solos are still allowed per week.

RYEES
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WE ARE THINKING OF GOING FREEFORM Jun 4, 2013 2:26:01 GMT -5

Post by RYEES on Jun 4, 2013 2:26:01 GMT -5

TL;DR: NO! D:

SAO is a roleplay based on an MMO. Albeit that we are not, in fact, an MMO, the system of the site greatly increases the immersion that one feels when playing. Going freeform is a surefire way to turn the site into a generic RP board that happens to be SAO-themed. Without a system, there is no quantitative way to measure... really anything, and this is absolutely essential to an MMO environment.

"That's the demon sword Gram. It's said that a player needs a Two-Handed Sword skill of over 950 to wield that."

The above interaction, in a freeform system, cannot happen genuinely. Sure, it can be roleplayed that you're pretty awesome with your swords and maybe people know about it, but without a numbers-based system, unique weapons and items have a dramatically reduced effect on making the player feel like their equipment matters in any real way. If a player wants to have a Skill up to a certain number, he can make two solos per week about traipsing through a field of daisies, while having coffee with another player and chatting the day away, and these activities will allow him to level up his sword skills.

Also, having mods stop grading quests is very weird. Without any moderation on quests, players are free to do whatever they like (like traipse through daisy fields), and this is even less conducive to encouraging storyline and fluff and roleplaying than anything previous.

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ARCELIA
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WE ARE THINKING OF GOING FREEFORM Jun 4, 2013 8:51:56 GMT -5

Post by ARCELIA on Jun 4, 2013 8:51:56 GMT -5

I can see where you're coming from, Ryees. The present system really does make it feel more like an MMO and less like an RP board...but the fact of the matter is that the present system we have isn't working as well as we'd like, and in the end, we are still an community-based RP forum.

I think you misunderstood part of our proposal, though. If you reread what I wrote above for going freeform, it lists a majority of the changes we're making. By going freeform, it means the staff will not be grading most quests anymore. EXP and COL will be generated per post instead. We're definitely keeping equipment and skills. When we converted our skill system a few months back, it made it easy to manage with almost any system we throw at it.

It will be strange for staff members to not grade regular member quests anymore but it's really for the best. We will still grade skill quests and events. We will also still look over threads from time to time like any RP staff should to make sure players are not breaking IC or OOC rules. Believe it or not, I've already read about a player traipsing through a field of daisies on another site. I don't want to read it all the time, but I don't consider it a problem, either.

The skill system allows players to pool their skill points into what they would like to focus on. In character, of course, the character has practiced and leveled up accordingly. We can't see and write every waking moment of our character's lives so in that time they could have leveled up their sword skills. I'm also not too concerned with many players traipsing through daisy fields very often. In this case, I hope the system focuses more on character development and less on solely grinding. This is an MMO, but even Kirito and Asuna had fun from time to time and they didn't only fight. As an example, Kirito was occasionally seen just laying around and relaxing in a field under the artificial sun.

Last Edit: Jun 4, 2013 8:52:55 GMT -5 by ARCELIA

bunny
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WE ARE THINKING OF GOING FREEFORM Jun 8, 2013 7:41:24 GMT -5

Post by bunny on Jun 8, 2013 7:41:24 GMT -5

Thank you for voting, guys! Members will be given a week's notice before the changes are implemented. Any solos or group quests that aren't done at this time will be given a partial unless they meet the minimal requirements for a completed solo/group.

Thank you again!