Feedback Post

[soul_mods]

Hello everybody!

It’s been a little over a month now since our new mod-team has been formed and become active and a lot of things have happened since then: the backlog of all those things that are needed to keep a game running has been cleared up and optimized, the annoying bug that kept borking the game profile page over and over again faster than you could say “It’s working again!” has been hunted down and taken care of (if you have time, give Orange a big Thank You for that, that thing was nasty!), App cycles and the handling of the intro logs were tinkered with to make them run smooth again and the first phase of a new plot that stars opponents that are neither witches nor kishin eggs has been run! This isn’t the end, though!

We know that there there’s still a lot more that can be done to make the game enjoyable for everyone and this is where we need your help, wonderful players of Soul Campaign!

We want your feedback!


We need to know where we and the game are currently standing to make it fun for everyone. To do that we need your feedback! Be it concrit, things you’d like to see more of, things that annoys you, wishes, opinions, questions you have, stuff that has caught your eyes,… Give it to us!

In the following you will find comments with headers about things that we’d like to hear your thoughts on as well as for suggestions for things that could be done in the future. That said, don’t hesitate to make your own threads with headers if you want to talk about something that we forgot to cover too! You want to talk about it, we want to hear it!! We’d also like to ask you to be brutally honest with us (I don’t mean kick your manners to the bucket, but don’t pull any punches just because we are mods either)! We all want to play and have fun here, so it’s just fair that each voice and opinion has the same weight.

Thanks a lot for participating!


Update-Edit: Wow, a REALLY BIG thanks for all the comments that we’ve gotten so far! They’re all very helpful and we are taking them very seriously – with the result that official mod replies will be a little slow as we’re considering all the points you’ve made carefully.

Juu, first of all we owe you an apology for what has happened. We’re still figuring out what went wrong and how to address the concerns you brought up. Please be patient with us.

Comments

[shiromadoushi]

I actually really really dislike this plot, especially the first phase.

Kidnap and rescue plots are like lit matches. Unless there's a lot of them and/or there's something nearby to be affected by it, they don't amount to a hell of alot. Unless it's carefully grafted into a larger plot in a meaningful way, it only affects a very small group of people for a very short period of time. This whole section had the feel of something that was just thrown out there without much thought for the sake of having something to do.

And really, the whole plot has this feel, as well as the feel of something that swiftly got out of control and went too fast before the track had time to be laid. What started as graffiti and cranky shop owners in about a week and a half in game-time turned to riots. This was likely not at all helped by the near month long lag in the casual comment that grumblings had started and the second note about crime rates spiking up. Both of these notes were in day changes with no OoC post follow up until a good 5-6 weeks after the first hint was posted. This void of any plotting left it utterly up to player interpretation to how the NPCs were acting. Suddenly, graffiti and refusal of service became assault overnight, and then swiftly erupted into riots. The first plotting post didn't show up until well after the violence was already rampant and that was just to plot out the kidnapping phase, which seemed utterly at odds and pointless with the way the rest of the plot was going. If the entire city is already against the guests, why bother kidnapping them? What good could it possibly do? All that momentum that had been built by the player base taking the small crumb of a plot and running with it felt squandered on a small handful of people being kidnapped.

Honestly, for a mod plot, nearly this entire thing has been player run. Unless I'm mistaken, there's been no mod controlled NPC involvement anywhere along the way, which only adds to the feel that it was half assed and just let to run because something needed to happen.

As this plot progresses, I really do hope that there will be more time and thought put into what goes on, and more actual mod involvement and communication. Consequences to actions would be nice as well. It's great that the riots have stopped and all, but what happens now? Life doesn't get to go back to normal after the population turns on you. It was clearly stated that no witches were involved [since that seemed to be the whole point of this plot, to break the predictability of a one front war and give people actual people to fight against,] and with such large numbers of NPCs who were formerly indifferent or supportive suddenly having turned violent, how has the climate of the city changed? Some official IC word on the violence and riots would be good as well, since it seems the only official comment was regarding the kidnapping. The riots were far bigger and affected far more people than the kidnappings, but the kidnappings are the only thing any official word of plotting came down about.

[pmsgargoyle]

I’m agreeing with a lot of what Bakura-mun said above. Demona issues aside, honestly, I was very excited for the current plot because my character got to be one of the kidnapped people, but after, I begun feeling like this plot was taken way too lightly with little thought to it. I won’t be repeating what it was said, but I will add my two cents.

First, I was hoping there would be some kind of official “We have your people” kind of post. Meaning, I would have liked for the kidnappers to actually show up to the network and make demands. Because they kidnapped people and have them in their possession, yes – what now? What do they want? What are their demands? What do you wish to do? If the recue didn’t happen, what would have happened?

Because my character only sat in a hole, was saved and nothing else. Shouldn’t they have tried to do something? Shouldn’t they have tried to get some information? Shouldn’t they have addressed to the other Guests and tell them what their demands were or why exactly this was happening? What’s the point of kidnapping only 5 people to leave them in a hole while heavily guarded? I felt like there was no reason other than “we just wanted to introduce this terrorist group” but you have failed to actually properly introduce them IC-ly. You have done so OOCly, but ICly there is a lot missing that should have happened during the plot, in order to make a proper introduction.

What I also don’t think is right is how all the riots simply vanished. I doubt only one group would be inciting riots and other nasty deeds against the Guests. The discomfort still exists, from the Guests’ part and from the People’s part and they won’t just sit down because some terrorist group was caught – their dislike is still there, I would imagine. So why have the riots been controlled with just a rescue of few people?

I also will press on the matter regarding lack of official IC word. I have said this before and I will say it again, Soul Campaign is lacking that a lot. Shibusen officials NEED to be present, they NEED to be involved. Guests are fighting a war for them, Shibusen HAS to ensure and show the Guests they are on it and they are helping and they are affected. Else it just feels like Shibusen sees the Guests as cannon fodder and don’t really care. A lot of Guests asked many questions about the riots and asked them to be addressed and there was not one post about it until very later on.