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ripleysbelieveitornot2016-09-11 08:12 pm
al2955) wrote in ripleysbelieveitornot2016-09-11 08:12 pm
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Hey, guys, this is Cappy and Xander! We wanted to say thank you for sticking with us to the end. We hope that, ultimately, The Cradle Project was a fun experience for people. That said, we are aware of several issues that we'd like to quickly address in this post.
The first thing we want to address is the plot and pacing of midgame, as this has been brought up to us before. Around w7, both Coco and Xander were unfortunately hit by very serious RL issues. We would prefer not to get into the details, but please understand that this was a very difficult and stressful time for them both. Because of this, metaplot issues such as NPC tags, player/third-role plots, and graveyard plots fell by the wayside until around w10, as Cappy was never intended to be a plotmod and already had to spend most of her time working on the cases and trials. This is not an excuse, but rather an explanation and an apology; we should have communicated with the playerbase better that two of our mods were dealing with RL issues instead of leaving them frustrated that their efforts to impact the game or discover more of the metaplot kept being stalled with no explanation as to why. This lack of communication was our mistake and we deeply apologize for it.
The second thing we wanted to address is endgame. Again, we would like to thank AO/Alli for coming on board during the last two weeks of the game, as we (Cappy and Xander) would have honestly been lost without her. In full honesty, we had no firm plan for endgame, as Coco was our main plotmod and most of the metaplot was her design. Following w10 (Dave's trial), it became more and more difficult to get into contact with her, and downright impossible from w12. We were not alerted of this, we were not given a heads up. This lack of communication seriously affected the game; the biggest issue was that we had no idea what Coco had planned for endgame. We had to put something together a week before, as well as tie up a bunch of plot threads that we weren't sure how to handle. Again, this is not an excuse, but an explanation and apology; in retrospect, we should have had a plan already written up for endgame that was shared between the three of us rather than rely on a single mod. And because it really cannot be said enough, we are incredibly grateful to AO for helping us out during the last trial and endgame, as she brought a fresh perspective and a ton of great ideas and also contributed as much work as a main mod would.
Once again, guys, thanks for sticking with us. We're sorry for all the trouble caused, and we hope that despite it all, we did give you some good memories. If you have any feedback, please leave it in the comments below and let us know if you'd like your comments screened or unscreened.
The first thing we want to address is the plot and pacing of midgame, as this has been brought up to us before. Around w7, both Coco and Xander were unfortunately hit by very serious RL issues. We would prefer not to get into the details, but please understand that this was a very difficult and stressful time for them both. Because of this, metaplot issues such as NPC tags, player/third-role plots, and graveyard plots fell by the wayside until around w10, as Cappy was never intended to be a plotmod and already had to spend most of her time working on the cases and trials. This is not an excuse, but rather an explanation and an apology; we should have communicated with the playerbase better that two of our mods were dealing with RL issues instead of leaving them frustrated that their efforts to impact the game or discover more of the metaplot kept being stalled with no explanation as to why. This lack of communication was our mistake and we deeply apologize for it.
The second thing we wanted to address is endgame. Again, we would like to thank AO/Alli for coming on board during the last two weeks of the game, as we (Cappy and Xander) would have honestly been lost without her. In full honesty, we had no firm plan for endgame, as Coco was our main plotmod and most of the metaplot was her design. Following w10 (Dave's trial), it became more and more difficult to get into contact with her, and downright impossible from w12. We were not alerted of this, we were not given a heads up. This lack of communication seriously affected the game; the biggest issue was that we had no idea what Coco had planned for endgame. We had to put something together a week before, as well as tie up a bunch of plot threads that we weren't sure how to handle. Again, this is not an excuse, but an explanation and apology; in retrospect, we should have had a plan already written up for endgame that was shared between the three of us rather than rely on a single mod. And because it really cannot be said enough, we are incredibly grateful to AO for helping us out during the last trial and endgame, as she brought a fresh perspective and a ton of great ideas and also contributed as much work as a main mod would.
Once again, guys, thanks for sticking with us. We're sorry for all the trouble caused, and we hope that despite it all, we did give you some good memories. If you have any feedback, please leave it in the comments below and let us know if you'd like your comments screened or unscreened.
no subject
I want to begin this comment with a genuine apology to players. I want to, also, bring up my lack of experience with murdergames and especially apologize for that - I had no place modding when I barely understood what I was doing as a player. As a mod, there was more I could have said and done, things I could have changed. I did not change these things and the game at large suffered for it. I'm genuinely, truly sorry. This is my fault, and I completely understand any anger people may hold toward me.
I apologize for the lack of mod coordination. I don't want to discuss my personal life, but there were a lot of family issues that prevented me from performing as well as I wanted to. One of the things we really, really didn't want to do was ask a player to step up, as we wanted this to be a fun experience for everyone. We ultimately felt that it would be better to only ask for help if we were in dire straits, which we definitely should have understood we would be in if things continued as they had - and we were in dire straits by the time we hit double digit weeks.
In the end, we (Cappy and I) had to take charge multiple times since w10. Coco let us know that she only wanted to handle metaplot and odd jobs from now on in the mod team. Cappy and I began piloting the ship from that point on and while hopefully w11 was fun, it definitely wasn't our strongest week. Still, this impacted us negatively: neither of us were prepared to take on a game this late in the game on our own.
I'd like to touch on w10 in general, because I feel like w10 displayed our issues as a mod team. Cappy had personal business to attend to that week and let us know around a month in advance. I made sure that I would be around w10, and Coco was also fine and aware of this. We assumed that two mods would be enough to run Dave's trial, and truthfully, we were right. The problem was that Coco was unable to mod that weekend, and didn't give either of us a heads up. As a result, my inexperience did the trial in. I was also pretty injured and ill, and I had a lot of personal business happening around this week. To say I was not at my top form is to put it lightly. I did what I could, but the fact remains that I couldn't deliver as a mod. I'm sorry.
There were several other issues; it was blatantly obvious that Coco wasn't paying attention to the planning of the murder, and I know this was a source of frustration for the people involved in plotting it out. The truth is, Cappy and I knew Coco had checked out of plotting murders before then. We felt that the two of us could pick up her slack, but the fact is, this was never a two mod game. This was a poor decision on our part.
During w11, we had extreme difficulty getting a hold of Coco, to the point we waited hours for a yes or a no. This pushed back the mod schedule, and this was a terrible thing to have happen, as players were frustrated with the mod schedule and how we did things kind of late in the evening. This is a fair, and true, criticism to make, I feel. I agree with it. But to keep on the topic of communications issues, I don't think the initial lack of communication is entirely on Coco. To explain, she has a lot of personal issues and I believe that her focusing on her RL as opposed to modding is understandable.
That said, it's still not fair nor appropriate to act like this. During w12, we lost her completely. There was no communication from her. We pinged her. We tried to communicated with her. We asked for her opinion. She made no effort to talk to us during this time. I later found out, postgame, that Coco made a decision that affected how much she would be around for us to communicate with her.
This lack of communication especially affected the game in a severely negative manner. It'd been clear for weeks that Cappy and I were the only ones at the helm, and I'm sorry this was apparent at all. It shouldn't have been. This should have been a smooth ride through and through and it wasn't. Additionally, this lack of contact forced Cappy and I into a position where we had to take on endgame with no blueprints. For endgame and the way it went down, I'm sorry, and I wish we'd had done better. We did what we could with what we had, I assure you, but that doesn't make it any better.
There are a lot of issues I, personally, had with the game, and I want to start with the metaplot. The deeper we went in, the more obvious it was that it wasn't very well thought out. I want to stress that I worked on the metaplot in the sense that I had a hand in writing it, but I wasn't handling the pacing of it within the game, nor was I the one giving information out. Coco insisted on handling it, so she was running the show in this area.
On that note, I do feel I can be blamed for a lot of the plot holes regarding the game. There were times I looked back at the plot and was confused because outside the NPCs, nothing seemed to be as we, Coco and I, initially planned it to be. I recognize changes have to be made, and that's fine, but when I find myself struggling to figure out why we needed roles, then we have an issue. The Mafia aspect of the game was poorly implemented, I feel. This is because of my inexperience with murdergames, their pacing, and how to run a plot in one. If I had known better, then this would have been smoother. I am not going to say that I am entirely to blame for this, but half of the blame sits with me.
To go deeper into roles, I do not like how we handled the Mastermind roles. I think we could have dealt with those better, and I really do think the players in those roles got the short end of the stick. In general, I feel as though roles could have been done away with and the game itself would have been improved by a wide margin. The Aliens and Kampff especially were difficult to work, for a variety of reasons; in particular, the Aliens still don't know what they were meant to do in game, and the same goes for the Kampff, though to a lesser extent for the whole group. This isn't fair to the players. This isn't fair to the game. As mods, it's our job to make things fun and fair, and we didn't do that. I'm sorry. This is something that is on me and Coco, I feel, as this was a metaplot issue. Again, I'm genuinely sorry.
I also feel our game was pretty NPC heavy when one of the first things Cappy told Coco and I was that we shouldn't over-estimate how interested in NPCs the players would be. There was no reason to make Alice available 24/7 when none of us could handle NPC tags through out the week, as an example. It was more work we couldn't do, and we should have known that. Furthermore, this game definitely became more about River's relationship with Perkins than I was comfortable with, and I was already pretty uncomfortable making Perkins as relevant as she was. That said, I do recognize that we used her more than we should have - it was easy to just get information out using her. In the end, though, I have to admit that we should not have needed an NPC to get this info out there. This was an inherent issue with our plot, we continuously needed to give out information via NPCs because the logic for these bits of information was difficult to arrive at. We put too much information and focus on the NPCs themselves, and not the characters, too. This wasn't cool of us, at all. We should have realized that people wouldn't be that interested in our NPCs and would rather affect the game itself.
The thing I'm getting at is that, yes, our game was stifling. Players couldn't play. This is a problem. It wasn't an easily fixable problem considering how much of the plot revolved around the NPCs, but it was something we could have fixed with some time and effort. We didn't fix it and I would wager this was mainly out of 1) concern that the plot would fall apart too easily 2) being attached to our plot and NPCs too much. This shouldn't have happened at all. We should have made NPCs there for player convenience and nothing else - I'm sorry, again. I truly am.
I also feel that our communication with players could have been better; I look back and I realize we did have a harsh tone. In the moment, it's hard to recognize that, but I think that as a group, we did seem to be very unapproachable. This was unintended, but we should have put more effort toward being easy to communicate with. Players should have felt comfortable coming to us, and they didn't. This is what resulted in the anon plurk blowing up like it did - and while I stand by that being incredibly tactless (because it was, there was no need to stomp around in other players' sandboxes, essentially) - I understand what led to that frustration and the desire to unload anonymously. I know for a fact that we didn't play favorites with modding, and that we actively tried to avoid it. There was never a list of favorites that we worked with, at all. We could have communicated that to the anon without all of us blowing up as we did. It was tactless. This isn't a full time job, but people look up to us, and we need to at least attempt to act accordingly. I'm sorry for how I acted during this period. It wasn't okay. I'm genuinely sorry.
Our ultimate issues really were a lack of communication and a lack of coordination. The latter I cannot entirely say is on me and Cappy, but I'll say I absolutely could have done a better job. I did attempt to, at one point - but Coco, you brushed it off, and didn't attempt to coordinate with Cappy and I. Instead, we were forced to try and figure out how to work out our schedules and not let the game suffer too much for it.
I will not finish this with the question of whether you'd join a game run by me again. I do not intend to mod ever again - this is because I feel that I am incapable of it, and I believe that the issues that were caused in game are proof of that. I cannot express how much I regret my actions during the time Cradle has been running. I'm sorry. If you have concerns that were not addressed here, please do feel free to contact me. I'm more than open to it, and I'm always listening and learning.
no subject
On my part, I'll say that a lot of the miscommunication and lack of coordination could have been prevented if I had stepped up and voiced my conerns earlier. We realized around w9 or so that we had become way too overambitious in terms of our metaplot and roles, but honestly, I should have seen the signs and spoken up earlier. It was already becoming clear to me around w8 that Xander and I were doing the vast majority of the work when it came to cases, but I never said anything or expressed how worried I was getting because I figured I could handle it - casework was what I had signed on for and I was happy to do it when my co-mods were going through serious RL issues.
Ultimately keeping silent was a mistake however, as it lead to a massive lack of coordination when it came to the metaplot due to our lack of information. Coco's absence was something that should not have taken us by surprise, and I should have spoken up much earlier so we could plan out endgame and metaplot while she was still available and possibly asked around for a helper mod to come on board. I should have also been paying more attention to the players' issues with the metaplot instead of focusing all of my attention on the cases. I didn't even notice NPC tags getting dropped or unanswered, and as a mod, that was a major failing on my part. By the time the three of us realized how much was slipping through the gaps, we were already ten weeks into the game, and that's inexcusable.
Regarding my behavior, I'll say that while I don't regret going into that anon plurk, I should have kept it at that and not started a huge storm on my personal plurk about it. It's been pointed out to me that a lot of the players in this game were new and people I hadn't really interacted with before, so the casual/sarcastic and joking tone I tend to take in game plurks could be construed as aggressive or deeply unprofessional. If this was the case and I came off as unapproachable, then I apologize. It was never my intention at all to make any of the players feel uncomfortable or unwelcome in our game or in coming to me with concerns, and I'm genuinely sorry if I ever made you feel this way.
Ultimately, I do still really hope people had fun in Cradle! We had some bumps, but I hope people will remember the high points more than the low points. I disagree with Xander in her assessment that she's incapable of modding - like I said at the start of this, I think she did a brilliant job with everything that happened and while there were certainly areas we could have handled better, I don't regret signing on to mod with her at all. I think that even with all the issues - and I'm not diminishing those or player's frustrations at all - this is still a game she can definitely take pride in, especially with all the work she put into it.