Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!

[spaceshipit]

Hello, friends!

Firstly: our working on this post ran late, so this week's Shuffle is being pushed out to tomorrow (Monday)!

Secondly: As we're sure you've all noticed, the Drift Fleet seems to be in the middle of a big influx of new players. This is pretty normal and happens a couple of times a year, and we're all super excited to see all of the new faces--we've even worked it into the game canon in the form of "mysteriously overfilled" ships. However, we also acknowledge that this influx is a little overwhelming for old and new players alike, so we're implementing a few changes (both temporary and permanent) to help ease some of the strain on the game's infrastructure, and would like feedback on a few other possibilities that we are considering. We've done this during influxes past, so some of these measures may look familiar to some of you!

Please read over this post and let us know your thoughts--positive and negative, pros and cons, whatever you want. The replies are screened this time, so no need to be shy.



→ Our Planned Changes
These are changes we're planning on implementing soon, to help keep the game a little more stable.

• Temporary App Blackout Period
  Just like we've done in the past during a large, rapid influx of new characters, we are planning to temporarily close the game to new players for a short period of time. We tried a blackout interval around this time last year for the same reasons, and it worked very well as a way to give everyone time to acclimate, get to know their new crewmates, catch up with established CR, and set a more relaxed pace for the game. It also helped newer players establish base CR and get to know the rest of their game better! So, encouraged by the success of the last one, we're thinking it's about time to do it again.
  
  If there are no major objections, we would like to close the game to new players at the end of February and give everyone the full month of March to breathe and settle in before re-opening apps to everyone. This way, there's a month for new players to apply before the blackout period, and a month after that for crews to stabilize, CR to strengthen, and inboxes to calm down.
  
  During this app closure period, players already in the game will still be free to app new characters. In the event that someone drops their only character from the game, but wants to come back within that period with a different one, that's totally fine. The closed door during March will only apply to brand-new players who have never been in the game before.
  
  
• Emphasis on invites
  Invites were originally put in place back in May of last year to decrease the volume of apps coming in at any given time, as well as to encourage a close, friendly playerbase. We're going to make some changes to the wording of the invite system; there will be no added rules or any additional steps put in at this time, but we do want to make sure that everyone is on the same page about the nature of the invite system and how we would ideally like it to be used.
  
  
• A "coasting week" between events
  We've sometimes posted a one or two-week period between Star Systems where the Fleet drifts through mostly-empty space--and while they've previously been to give us space to finish writing game information, we'd like to turn them into a standard practice. It seems like these short intervals between event settings have been beneficial to players, crews, and CR in the past, and it has definitely helped us mods recover and finish the details of the next plot. With this becoming an official thing that happens, players will be able to expect a regular little period of time to rest and catch up between events.
  
  
• Mod helpers!
  As discussed in our previous post, we're looking for more mod helpers for event writing and other projects around here! This is our last call--if you'd like to submit an application, get it in soon. :) We'll be contacting people about helping us out in the next couple of weeks, and we hope that the additions will help us keep up with our game as it continues to grow.

→ Proposed Changes
There are many options for other things we could do in the long run, and these are some that we're currently considering in addition to the changes listed above. We hope that some combination of these will help ease things as we go forward, depending on what you guys think.

• Spacing out same-player applications
  Most games have a rule like this in place. There wasn't much need to pace players bringing multiple characters quickly into the game while the Drift Fleet was still small, but as it grows, we'd like to do this to limit same-player weirdness on the Marsiva, and also cut down on impulse apps and such within the game. What we're proposing is that current players can app another character into the Fleet once their previous character has passed a round of AC. The timing is similar to how we currently allow a new player to invite another player once they have passed a round of AC. And this rule would not come into play when a player wants to drop a character and app a different one in their place; it would only apply when a player wants to add onto their existing roster.
  
  
• Limiting invites to one per month
  The last time that we implemented changes in the wake of a large influx, we introduced the two-invites-per-month rule. There have been suggestions that we scale this back to allowing each player one invite per month instead, to help space out the rate of new players arriving each week. For this topic especially, we would like to know what you all think! Whether your opinions are in-favor or against this change, we would love to hear all your thoughts on the subject. Again, the replies to this post are screened.
  
  
• Recurring application lulls
  The concept of recurring application lulls had been proposed once upon a time, and now we've brought it back for reconsideration. We don't like the idea of standard app windows or app cycles for many reasons--but doing something sort of the opposite could possibly be beneficial to the pace of the game. Instead of having windows in which apps are open, we could have small, periodic windows in which we don't accept new apps. It would be a regular interval (the first week of the month, for example) that everyone would come to expect, during which players--new and old--can settle in and catch their breath. The mods can also use this time to work on the game itself (or take a break!).

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Thank you in advance for your feedback! We would like thoughts from new and old players alike, so please let us know what you think.