empatheias_ooc | Mod Announcement: May

— MONTHLY MOD ANNOUNCEMENT: MAY —

Who wants a break? I think we all do. No major events are planned, and if one springs up from our end, it will happen at the end of the month.

Calendar.
The main calendar spreadsheet can be found here. At the moment, there is nothing scheduled to happen, but that can always change.

In terms of weather, sunny, temperate days all around. A pleasant warmth from the sun with not much rain.

So here are the basic dates to keep up with:

5/01: Applications open.
5/07: Applications close; Reservations close.
5/18: Test Drive.
5/25: Activity Check starts; Reservations open.
5/31: Activity Check ends.

As always, any player plots or events will be added to the main calendar as they pop up, so feel free to throw events!

Activity Check Results.
Below are the following who were either removed from the Activity Check or dropped out of the game. The list includes all characters who left the game throughout the month. The following names will also be posted in a visible place within the residential area where most of the characters are residing. This list reflects the names that are also on the wall.

Atem |

willneverlose
Balder |

maskedlumen
Doug |

mansome
Estelle Bright |

estelle_bright
Gan Ning |

youhearthebells
Hitagi Senjougahara |

tsundra
Hubert Oswell |

omurice
Logan |

decrees
Lubbock |

crosstail
Minato Arisato |

evokingfool
Mutou Yuugi |

mindshuffle
Pascal |

pascalines
Roronoa Zoro |

yourotherleft
Sanji |

serving_love
Sora |

fallingsky
Sun Ce |

sonofatiger
Sync the Tempest |

akashictorment
Takato Matsuda |

hazardtamer

The following received strikes and must pass the May Activity Check to remain in the game.

ledbythewind

schrodingers_man

If there are any mistakes, please let us know ASAP!

Jobs & Task Board.
The Task Board has been updated so characters can start taking on odd jobs if they are so inclined. Details as to how the Task Board works and sign-up can be found here. In addition, there is a Job List sheet that list out more permanent jobs available for characters. These are different from the Task Board jobs as they can be used as part-time or full-time jobs and do not have any specific time period. If you want your character to have a job, that's it. This is also where we will list character run businesses. So if you have one or are thinking about one, there will be a place where it can be referenced and looked at. You can even make tasks relating to your business.

Due to how events rolled out last month, one of the tasks is getting carried over to this month: ST0410. There was supposed to be an NPC log but unforeseen scheduling conflicts occurred. Thus it is going to be pushed to May. For those who signed up for it and are still interested, just comment again.

Otherwise, you will notice that we've designed the tasks so that players can have fun with them. Since we have no real event planned (no Arehtei visits unless ~~Junko~~ someone really tries hard enough), players should have much more freedom to do whatever they'd like.

Verens Crystal Status + Emotion Tracker Update.
The Emotion Tracker is colorful as always and it's definitely positive. If we weren't taking a small break, we would have something happen to island, but we'll save it for the very near future. For now, that crystal is going to be looking almost white gold and shining brightly high in the sky.

As for the Arehtei, the numbers aren't too different from the Mid-Month tally.

The following is a tally of the numbers for the month so far. The formula is TOTAL = RAW + (ALI-I * ALI-C). The +/- column indicates whether the emotions trended positive, negative, or neutral.

AREHTEI	RAW	ALI-I	ALI-C	TOTAL	+/-
Aiada	50	4	10	90	+
Daimonia	97	7	11	174	+
Elios	100	7	12	184	+
Peromei	46	5	19	141	-
Piphron	26	3	3	35	+
Sosyne	34	4	9	72	+
Thras	26	3	7	47	-

Elios has finished its arc, so despite any huge numbers in the future, it won't make an appearance. However, that doesn't mean there won't be anything related to it or the emotions happening at all. As for the line-up, as mentioned before, it's most likely going to be Peromei and...that one might be in despair (thanks, Junko). Daimonia got a bit of a jump as well and Sosyne is maintaining high numbers.

Thras, though. Thras might be thinking there's a bunch of weak cowards up on this island...

WANTED: Helper Mods.
As we've mentioned before, we need help! The game's growing at a great pace, but given how detailed our events and NPCs are developing, we need a few helping hands. Details and the application can be found here (can only be seen with accepted character journal), but here's a quick list of what we're looking for help with:

NPCs (this is a biggie and includes opportunity to develop them further)
Task Board
Applications
Entry Tags/Minor Maintenance

Helper mods can choose one or more of these tasks, whatever they have most time for. Given the nature of these tasks, helper mods will not be needed 24/7 and only when needed. For instance, looking at applications only happens during the first week of the month, Task Board prompts are developed toward the end of the month, NPCs only appear during certain events, etc.

More importantly, we're hoping to expand our "think tank" a little, and those helping all have opportunity to give input, especially those helping with NPCs.

So if you're interested or have questions about it, head over to the application!

Completed Crystals.
We mentioned this in our previous mod post, but a few crystals should be close to completion either this month or next month. We asked players to comment to this thread to help give us an idea of how many there might be. If you haven't commented to it yet, please do so! This will help us determine if we should do a small segment in May or wait until June for a larger group.

Here is the important part that you need to know about crystal progression:

If your character has been in the game for at least six months AND emotionally active, it is safe to assume that the crystal is at least 80% full, BUT not yet complete.

In addition, it is possible for a crystal to be more than 80%, even up to 99%. Just not quite 100%. If your character's crystal is going to be that high, we only request that you are being reasonable in determining this.

We also mentioned we'd give a more concrete rubric. Keep in mind, this is still very much up to the player, both to keep up with and determine progress as characters will naturally develop different than others. Some are super emotional, some less so. Events can either slow or hasten it. We haven't had any events that would, for whatever reason, remove emotion drops, but that's a card that can still be played.

So here are some very basic guidelines that can help you out:

Six Months. Six months is the absolute minimum that would take a character's crystal to complete. No sooner, but it can of course take longer. Six months is also factoring in natural development, any development through events, and alignments.
Emotion Tracker. Although commenting to the tracker is not mandatory in general, you will have to comment to the tracker at least three times and they must be from separate months. You will need these comments as proof of completion. So for example, from a time period between January and June, you could use one link from February, one from May, and one from June. You could not use three links from February, or two links from May and one from April. We hope this will help encourage more use of the emotions in general as well as further motivate players to comment to the trackers. Note: Event trackers DO count for this. So even if you didn't comment to the main tracker during the Elios event, for example, comments to the designated emotion tracker entry made for the event can count as proof.
Events + Alignment Influence. As you know, emotion drops created toward an alignment will produce much larger drops than non-aligned emotions. This is going to hasten a crystal's progress. You should keep both of these in mind when determining how far and fast a crystal is progressing.
Apathy + Loss of Emotion Drops. This hasn't really surfaced much in game (except for Bobby), but in case you did not know or have forgotten, emotion drops can be destroyed and lost. The main ways are through apathy and death (as Creed recently discovered). If a character goes through either, it could set them back by weeks or even months depending how much is depleted. Nothing in particular happens to signify this loss—the amount of drops just visibly lower. In addition, the crystal is not harmed in any way and still protects the character as it should. That is why for the natives, this isn't really that big of a deal—they have apathetic people, too. But for the characters, this can set them back in terms of crystal progression. There are also some ideas to make apathy have a more physical consequence and effect on the environment, but right now nothing happens at all.
Color Changes. As the crystal grows closer to completion, the color of it will become more and more like the color of the character's alignment. For example, those aligned to Elios should be seeing their crystals taking on that red-orange hue. It will be a faint color at first before it becomes more distinctive. However, not only will it take on the base color, it will also take on a different shade depending on the type of emotions that had accumulated in the crystal. It's pretty simple. If a character has been mostly positive, the color will take on a brighter shade and may even shimmer. If a character has been mostly negative, it will take on a darker shade and will seem very dull. If a character is more or less neutral, then it will just maintain the base color.
Player Discretion. In the end, this is still up to the player. You do not need to keep some tracker for yourself, but if that's something you think would help, go for it! Otherwise, just keep in mind the six month threshold.

And that's basically it. We have a dedicated page for players to read up and comment to when their character's crystal is completed and can be read here. As you will see, the form is basically an application and among the standard information, you will also give a brief summary (no more than 250 words) as to how the character developed over the past six or so months. This is just to help both you and us see if the time of completion is reasonable.

Comments are currently disabled as the first few to complete their crystals will be an event. Once that happens, everything will be open for future completions.

Player Plots & Events.
We'll close this announcement with a few plots and mingling opportunities created by players.

Pranksters. Enoch got pranked. Wanna help him out?
Cooked bird. Well...it wasn't Elios, at least. Oz tried cooking a bird and failed.

We might have missed some and only went back about a week, so be sure to take a look back yourself! Keep an eye out for the Character Intro Log as well. We try to keep up, but if you'd like to be listed let us know. If you'd like to throw your own event or plot, comment here.

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And that's about it. If you have any questions, concerns, or want things clarified, please comment!