Survival Of The Fittest

Hello

As debated slash talked in the discord, a lot of people have varying opinions about the pace of sotf.

Some people think it's too slow, but others think it's too fast, but there's something that can be agreed on is that something just feels wrong.

This isn't like an official thread so opinions held by staff member isn't representative of the whole staff team so please don't be a little bitch about it.

So what are you opinion about the current pace of sotf, how do you think it can be fixed, and why do you think it needs to be fixed?
(and if you think it doesnt need to be fix, that's also good so you can include that.)

I think the way things are currently structured aren't necessarily bad, but I do often feel like it's been going a bit too quickly for my tastes. Often times it's difficult to completely wrap up a thread, even if people are moving at a relatively quick pace, given the pressure to do so when the days change over and when people leave/enter threads for kills/deaths.

Given the fact that at least for a significant number of people September is the beginning of a major readjustment in routine, I think it would stand to reason to, at least in the short term, delay things marginally.

In the long term I'm honestly not too acquainted with potential options, but I'm a fan of a previously-floated idea to move our day cycles to three weeks instead of two.

as an active member through v5, v6, and several mini versions, i think the pace is completely fine. there will always be times when a user gets caught up in RL stuff that results in a setback to their characters' story. this is unfortunate, but i feel that is unavoidable when doing writing in a time-sensitive, mechanics-based environment like this one. when a main version is already taking up a year + of IRL time, not counting pregame, im very cautious about extending that time even further.

that doesnt mean im not willing to hear people's proposals out of course, but this site's been going strong with these rules for many years now, and these may be the single most vital rules outside of roll mechanics. im wary of messing with them, especially as any change, in either direction, has the potential to throw things off-balance

I think people are all over the place. Some blitzpost threads in a matter of days and others it takes a week to get a post out of. It's rough. This leads to things on a day basis being hard to wrap threads on the days they actually start, IC. Which I mean it's kinda a personal thing but I really get irked when I'm not on the same day IC as everyone else.

I don't know what the best thing to actually do is but September is yeah a rough month for people schedule change wise so maybe some lite measures could be taken for this month as opposed to the full pushback we do for December.

I believe that it would be beneficial to do something like every three months of real-time, skip a mid-month roll.

So in months in which we know things will be busy, like September (routine/school/work changes), December (holiday season), or even June (exams and/or summer holiday season), you delay things. That's THREE months of the year in which maybe you just do one roll. That way, you prevent people from having to slow down and/or ask for extensions on deaths, people can have a chance to allow stories to breathe a little bit, and they wouldn't feel as hurried during the busier times of year.

Just because rules have been in place for a long time does not necessarily mean that they cannot be modified. We had several different rules or policies in place from V1-3, and while they worked at the time, systems are very different now. I think that it's good to take a look every once in a while as a community at what can be changed, and provided staff is open to any change which doesn't originally originate internally, it could only make the community better in the long run.

As far as activity timers I think that two weeks is plenty.

My take:

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the current pace. I do think awareness and willingness to readjust as necessary is important--that's not a new thing, either, but has in fact been standard procedure for the site's entire existence. I think that it's better for the member population if adjustments are communicated rather than announcements/rolls just mysteriously running late by arbitrary margins, as has been standard procedure in the past.

I also think, however, it's worth looking at root causes. V7 has been very, very active. It has also been very crowded, and raised the character cap. Crowded isn't awful if almost everyone is active, but if two handlers with four characters apiece are posting once every ten days, that locks down roughly a quarter of the game to that pace. It does not take a lot to have a huge impact.

Frankly, we've seen a pretty crazy boom of planned and private threads,which I think is a major symptom of pacing issues. If you need to keep other people out of your threads to make sure they roll out smoothly, that's a sign of some issues, and I think another discussion worth having. I think folks should maybe evaluate the extent to which they've been engaging with the version as an unfiltered whole and the degree to which that might be informing their opinions (and also look back to ye olde days for the assorted perils of loads of private threads--just as a quick note, they escalate congestion in other parts of the island, reduce organic arc growth, and irritate a decent chunk of the member base).

What should be done? Well, really, I think what should be done is more or less what is being done: discussion should be encouraged, staff should keep an eye on things, and adjustments should be made as and if needed. Are they needed right now? Eh, we're still moving really fast compared to past versions, and as characters die it opens more spaces assuming proper DZ pacing, which reduces clutter and increases potential speed. As long as people are listening and open to the possibility of making changes or of the hard deadlines being mutable for site health (which, again, has been the system since forever and I think we do a certain disservice to staff to assume that's changed unless explicitly told otherwise), I think we're in a good space.

I was gonna sit this one out, but after thinking about it I would like to give my unsolicited take, too.

I think the OOC pacing is fine as is. Two weeks should be plenty of time to get posts and deaths in, and one month give or take to start and clear out threads is perfectly reasonable. Ultimately this is a game as much as we wanna call it "collaborative fiction", and I think a steady pace like the one we have currently discounting the leniancy during the holiday season is fine as is.

That said, wild ass take but I do think the overcrowded island size in comparison to the roster size has been detrimental to IC pacing.

In theory, threads with 4 or 5 people shouldn't be that much of an issue to work with. I still absolutely believe 3 or 4 people is the sweet spot for the amount of time normal posting cycles take, but if everyone is posting within 1 or 2 days on average it's not that big an issue.

However, what if several people or even just 1 person in a 5 person thread end up taking 4 or 5 days between posts? Those days add up quick, and you can easily get into a situation where you're constantly stuck only making 1 or 2 posts with a kid in a roll cycle. Unless you disregard post order or just leave the thread, obvs, but I don't think it's fair or right to expect that as a fall back option.

I think the boom of recent semi/fully private threads are a symptom of the bottlenecking issue, too, rather than a cause or at least not as much of a cause as private threads hogging real estate on day 1. I don't know how else to say this without sounding like I'm purposefully subtweeting or being coy but I know I personally have gotten frustrated in some open or large threads waiting for my turn, and as the days pass I get antsy because I just wanna write with my kid. I know I can fall back on oneshots or meanwhile or even memory threads still, but I joined this site to write with other people. If I was gonna write oneshots just because otherwise I'm twiddling my thumbs waiting for people to post, I'd just write a book at that point.

That said, moving forward I'm not sure what else can really be done that already hasn't happened or been discussed. I don't know if the activity timer being as long as the roll cycles is necessarily an issue, and I don't wanna be that guy who wants to change how things operate for his own sake just because I can get posts up faster than other people I'm threading with. But I think extending the OOC pacing is just putting a bandaid on something that has larger underlying problems, or a problem that really will take care of itself as the game progresses.

I think extending the length of SOTF by increasing the space between rolls would be a mistake. It's all well and good for when you have kids and you can frolick in murder land, but consider the people who have had all of them die, or arrived after the game started. It's already a several month wait for v8 pre-game, during which time interest can easily fizzle out and we already risk losing fun new members. Asking them to wait even longer is only going to make it harder to keep numbers up, not to mention frustrate the people who want to actually play SOTF some more. Even just an extra week between rolls risks adding almost half a year to the running time.

Month long days allow for a perfectly sufficient posting speed, I say as a relatively slow poster, and we've had several past games to demonstrate that. It just takes some organisation and commitment to posting regularly enough to get through what you want to get through. Acknowledge that SOTF's a time investment, and that means you might have to take time out of other things if you want to fit it in. If your issue is slow thread partners, I would suggest approaching them or, worst case, bailing. Especially be careful of making plans with people who don't post at the pace you want, and that includes too fast as well: burn-out's a thing.

Personal life can get in the way, no-one's questioning that, but personal life gets in the way of everything for everyone. Trying to accomodate everyone's schedules is just an effort in futility.

That said, I am open to experimentation with the rules and there's a good argument for flexibility around certain times of the year. There's already a grace period around Christmas, one around September wouldn't necessarily be a terrible idea.

Meanwhile:

Frankly, we've seen a pretty crazy boom of planned and private threads,which I think is a major symptom of pacing issues. If you need to keep other people out of your threads to make sure they roll out smoothly, that's a sign of some issues, and I think another discussion worth having. I think folks should maybe evaluate the extent to which they've been engaging with the version as an unfiltered whole and the degree to which that might be informing their opinions (and also look back to ye olde days for the assorted perils of loads of private threads--just as a quick note, they escalate congestion in other parts of the island, reduce organic arc growth, and irritate a decent chunk of the member base).

This so hard, but it's not the topic of this thread so I won't go into detail here.

What about only doing 1 roll in June, September and December but roll twice as many people in the roll before (May Midmonth, August Midmonth, November Midmonth)