The Indigo League (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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the_plateau2017-03-01 08:34 pm
indigo_league) wrote in the_plateau2017-03-01 08:34 pm
Entry tags:
ANNOUNCEMENTS AHOY!
Hey howdy hey folks, it’s finally time!
Big announcements mean lots of scrolling, so take a dip behind the cut to check out what we’ve been working on!
As soon as we’d been contacted as new mods, we got right to work! As a lot of you have noticed yourselves, though, we inherited a LOT of stuff to catch up on. The navigation is a labyrinth, information is hard to find, and a lot of rules and mechanics are outdated, obsolete, or just need some tuning up in general. And even with the considerable work we’ve already been able to tackle, we’ve got a long way to go.
But one of the biggest things creating issues for the game recently, first and foremost, is communication. As players who’ve spent a lot of the last six months being confused and frustrated ourselves, we’d especially like to make sure that communication between mod team and playerbase stays frequent and open, while still taking care to make the best decisions possible. Which is why we wanted to make sure we had some good, positive progress to show before making our first large announcement!
SO WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, OUR OFFICIAL ONE-WEEK REPORT:
-Housekeeping: One of the first orders of business was making sure as many of the built-up housekeeping tasks as possible were knocked out!
As of a few days ago, applications, badge requests, unanswered FAQ questions, mod contact questions, and other basic upkeep have all been caught up.
Navigation links to the various communities have been added to the sidebars of each one, and our ooc and meme communities no longer have the default DW layout!
We’d also like to thank player placide for helping us to bring the Taken list up to date! Any remaining inconsistencies should be fixed at the conclusion of our next AC.
-FAQ: Okay, there’s no getting around it. The FAQ is a mess. We’ve all just kind of been staring in horror. But NEVER FEAR! Revamping and streamlining the FAQ and all its nested pages is going to be an ongoing project. Victory Road is a game with a lot of information!
While sorting it all out will likely be done over a longer period of time, we’d like to let everybody have a sneak peek of one of our first big tasks as a team: tackling the Extended Item FAQ page, which is a particularly cluttered hodgepodge of random info. We’ve moved a great deal of the relevant information over to the Pricelist page, now revamped as the Item Availability Page!
We wanted to make sure that relevant information about both canon buyable Pokemon items AND normal everyday items was all in one centralized location rather than hidden off in nested pages that many people never see.
Of course, there’s still a lot of ground to cover from here, so we thank everyone for their patience while we dust off the cobwebs!
-Calendar: For those who didn’t see it, for the first time in six months, we have a brand new updated Calendar, complete with swarms and Freaky Friday-style events for the month of March! We’ve come up with our own new system that will hopefully allow us to keep it updated regularly for many months to come! And everybody thank Mod Wolfy for the cute little event symbols-- aren’t they adorable?
-Policy Updates: After receiving inquiries about certain game mechanics, we’ve reviewed and decided to update several of our policies:
HIDDEN ABILITIES are now able to be passed down through breeding! This will go by the same basic rules as breeding for shinies; in order for a Hidden Ability to be passed down, the Pokemon must be bred by a Breeder, and at least one parent must have a Hidden Ability already. A female Pokemon has an 80% chance to pass down its H.A., while a male Pokemon has a 20% chance-- but if both parents have it, the chances are 100%! The Breeder FAQ will be updated during our revamp to reflect this change.
CANON UPDATES no longer require mod approval before being put into effect! However, you are still required to comment to the appropriate Taken Page with your character’s new canonpoint.
APPLICATIONS, for the time being, will be checked every other week.
ACTIVITY CHECK… will be back in effect! Chop chop, everybody get your thread links ready, ‘cause FEBRUARY AC IS HERE!
-Aurora League: CONGRATULATIONS! We’re excited to announce that after successfully defeating the Elite Four, Sion and Ryner are officially the first characters with their own character-run Aurora League Pokemon Gym! You can find out more about the Collegiate Gym HERE thanks to Sion’s mun, AC - go challenge that gym, you guys!
-Sevii Islands: So we’ve gotten a number of questions about the islands (as well as the Ride Pagers), and while we don’t have anything concrete to show you right now, rest assured that we are aware of the lack of information! This is another big project we’ll be working on over the next few months, so that when we do have something to show, it’ll really flesh out the islands for the game setting. In the meantime, please send any of your more time-sensitive questions about the islands to the FAQ and we’ll answer them right away!
-Okay, so about the Type: Null thing… Unfortunately, there is no simple solution to this issue. We’ll be totally honest-- placing a pseudo-legendary like Type: Null on the available starter list is not a decision we would have made ourselves. However, as one has already been accepted, and the Alolan starter list was in effect for quite some time before we became moderators, we feel it would be unfair to remove or retcon it at this point.
This leaves us in the tough position of needing a way to make Type: Null available to the playerbase at large while still staying true to its unique nature.
Luckily, we’ve been in touch withsunnysidewalkstreet, who had some great ideas about how to introduce Type: Null as an available Pokemon in-game! We think this is something that should be open to player discussion, but we figured we’d put forward the ideas we’ve been bouncing around:
Silph Co., the company behind the artificially-created Pokemon Porygon, is at it again with a mysterious new prototype, and looking for capable trainers to test it!
Interested characters would need to fill out an IC application in person at Silph Co. (possibly with a minimum badge requirement as well) in order to obtain their very own Type: Null. (This allows there to be less of an overall discrepancy between between characters obtaining Type: Nulls by their own choice and characters with Type: Null starters, as the starter option also requires players to provide a justification on their application.)
Little does the public know, the blueprints were stolen, half-finished, from another scientific company far off across the sea. The resulting Type: Nulls available in Victory Road, while still retaining the general characteristics of the species, would have slightly lower base stats than the ‘real’ thing, making them more akin to a strong regular Pokemon than a pseudo-legendary.
The Memories required to influence Type: Null’s move-type would potentially also be available via Silph Co. Another possibility is having each individual Type: Null’s move-type be fixed and determined the same way as Hidden Power (aka, player’s choice).
Silph’s slightly-fishy business practices could in turn lead to a future ultra-secret, beastly event somewhere down the line. After all, the Aether Foundation probably wouldn’t take kindly to having their research stolen...
… and that’s just what we’ve been playing with! We’d love to hear from everyone, so please feel free to comment below with your thoughts and ideas!
-IP logging and Harassment: Unfortunately, our last announcement is a bit of a downer. While we did have IP logging turned off briefly, we have decided to turn it back on for the time being after getting several separate reports from new players who have received unnecessarily aggressive messages from someone using a sock account. We understand that in the past, there have been player issues that weren’t acknowledged or handled appropriately. However, as a new mod team, we take harassment very seriously. As such, we’d like to emphasize the following things:
There is no rule requiring players to turn IP logging off on their HMD posts. This is up to each player’s discretion and a player is not doing anything wrong by keeping it on.
Moderators will never approach a player about rulebreaking or misconduct under anon or using a sock account.
If you are not a mod, it is not your job to police your fellow players. If anyone feels that another player is “cheating” or knowingly breaking the rules, bring it to the mods and we will investigate the matter.
If anyone has an issue with another player that they do not feel safe approaching said player about without total anonymity, bring it to the mods and we will approach the player for you if necessary.
On our end, we understand that some people are nervous about giving moderators crit without being anonymous. However, we would like to make it clear that if you have something to say to us, including negative crit, you will not be punished for it unless you are wildly rude. There is also the option of the monthly gamewide HMD for anonymous moderator crit.
Lastly, if anyone else in the game has received hostile messages from a sock account recently, please let us know as soon as possible.
With all that said, we’d like to thank everyone again for their patience and encouragement during this bumpy period!
Big announcements mean lots of scrolling, so take a dip behind the cut to check out what we’ve been working on!
As soon as we’d been contacted as new mods, we got right to work! As a lot of you have noticed yourselves, though, we inherited a LOT of stuff to catch up on. The navigation is a labyrinth, information is hard to find, and a lot of rules and mechanics are outdated, obsolete, or just need some tuning up in general. And even with the considerable work we’ve already been able to tackle, we’ve got a long way to go.
But one of the biggest things creating issues for the game recently, first and foremost, is communication. As players who’ve spent a lot of the last six months being confused and frustrated ourselves, we’d especially like to make sure that communication between mod team and playerbase stays frequent and open, while still taking care to make the best decisions possible. Which is why we wanted to make sure we had some good, positive progress to show before making our first large announcement!
SO WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, OUR OFFICIAL ONE-WEEK REPORT:
-Housekeeping: One of the first orders of business was making sure as many of the built-up housekeeping tasks as possible were knocked out!
As of a few days ago, applications, badge requests, unanswered FAQ questions, mod contact questions, and other basic upkeep have all been caught up. Navigation links to the various communities have been added to the sidebars of each one, and our ooc and meme communities no longer have the default DW layout! We’d also like to thank player placide for helping us to bring the Taken list up to date! Any remaining inconsistencies should be fixed at the conclusion of our next AC.-FAQ: Okay, there’s no getting around it. The FAQ is a mess. We’ve all just kind of been staring in horror. But NEVER FEAR! Revamping and streamlining the FAQ and all its nested pages is going to be an ongoing project. Victory Road is a game with a lot of information!
While sorting it all out will likely be done over a longer period of time, we’d like to let everybody have a sneak peek of one of our first big tasks as a team: tackling the Extended Item FAQ page, which is a particularly cluttered hodgepodge of random info. We’ve moved a great deal of the relevant information over to the Pricelist page, now revamped as the Item Availability Page!
We wanted to make sure that relevant information about both canon buyable Pokemon items AND normal everyday items was all in one centralized location rather than hidden off in nested pages that many people never see.
Of course, there’s still a lot of ground to cover from here, so we thank everyone for their patience while we dust off the cobwebs!
-Calendar: For those who didn’t see it, for the first time in six months, we have a brand new updated Calendar, complete with swarms and Freaky Friday-style events for the month of March! We’ve come up with our own new system that will hopefully allow us to keep it updated regularly for many months to come! And everybody thank Mod Wolfy for the cute little event symbols-- aren’t they adorable?
-Policy Updates: After receiving inquiries about certain game mechanics, we’ve reviewed and decided to update several of our policies:
HIDDEN ABILITIES are now able to be passed down through breeding! This will go by the same basic rules as breeding for shinies; in order for a Hidden Ability to be passed down, the Pokemon must be bred by a Breeder, and at least one parent must have a Hidden Ability already. A female Pokemon has an 80% chance to pass down its H.A., while a male Pokemon has a 20% chance-- but if both parents have it, the chances are 100%! The Breeder FAQ will be updated during our revamp to reflect this change. CANON UPDATES no longer require mod approval before being put into effect! However, you are still required to comment to the appropriate Taken Page with your character’s new canonpoint. APPLICATIONS, for the time being, will be checked every other week. ACTIVITY CHECK… will be back in effect! Chop chop, everybody get your thread links ready, ‘cause FEBRUARY AC IS HERE!-Aurora League: CONGRATULATIONS! We’re excited to announce that after successfully defeating the Elite Four, Sion and Ryner are officially the first characters with their own character-run Aurora League Pokemon Gym! You can find out more about the Collegiate Gym HERE thanks to Sion’s mun, AC - go challenge that gym, you guys!
-Sevii Islands: So we’ve gotten a number of questions about the islands (as well as the Ride Pagers), and while we don’t have anything concrete to show you right now, rest assured that we are aware of the lack of information! This is another big project we’ll be working on over the next few months, so that when we do have something to show, it’ll really flesh out the islands for the game setting. In the meantime, please send any of your more time-sensitive questions about the islands to the FAQ and we’ll answer them right away!
-Okay, so about the Type: Null thing… Unfortunately, there is no simple solution to this issue. We’ll be totally honest-- placing a pseudo-legendary like Type: Null on the available starter list is not a decision we would have made ourselves. However, as one has already been accepted, and the Alolan starter list was in effect for quite some time before we became moderators, we feel it would be unfair to remove or retcon it at this point.
This leaves us in the tough position of needing a way to make Type: Null available to the playerbase at large while still staying true to its unique nature.
Luckily, we’ve been in touch with
sunnysidewalkstreet, who had some great ideas about how to introduce Type: Null as an available Pokemon in-game! We think this is something that should be open to player discussion, but we figured we’d put forward the ideas we’ve been bouncing around: Silph Co., the company behind the artificially-created Pokemon Porygon, is at it again with a mysterious new prototype, and looking for capable trainers to test it! Interested characters would need to fill out an IC application in person at Silph Co. (possibly with a minimum badge requirement as well) in order to obtain their very own Type: Null. (This allows there to be less of an overall discrepancy between between characters obtaining Type: Nulls by their own choice and characters with Type: Null starters, as the starter option also requires players to provide a justification on their application.)Little does the public know, the blueprints were stolen, half-finished, from another scientific company far off across the sea. The resulting Type: Nulls available in Victory Road, while still retaining the general characteristics of the species, would have slightly lower base stats than the ‘real’ thing, making them more akin to a strong regular Pokemon than a pseudo-legendary. The Memories required to influence Type: Null’s move-type would potentially also be available via Silph Co. Another possibility is having each individual Type: Null’s move-type be fixed and determined the same way as Hidden Power (aka, player’s choice). Silph’s slightly-fishy business practices could in turn lead to a future ultra-secret, beastly event somewhere down the line. After all, the Aether Foundation probably wouldn’t take kindly to having their research stolen...… and that’s just what we’ve been playing with! We’d love to hear from everyone, so please feel free to comment below with your thoughts and ideas!
-IP logging and Harassment: Unfortunately, our last announcement is a bit of a downer. While we did have IP logging turned off briefly, we have decided to turn it back on for the time being after getting several separate reports from new players who have received unnecessarily aggressive messages from someone using a sock account. We understand that in the past, there have been player issues that weren’t acknowledged or handled appropriately. However, as a new mod team, we take harassment very seriously. As such, we’d like to emphasize the following things:
There is no rule requiring players to turn IP logging off on their HMD posts. This is up to each player’s discretion and a player is not doing anything wrong by keeping it on. Moderators will never approach a player about rulebreaking or misconduct under anon or using a sock account. If you are not a mod, it is not your job to police your fellow players. If anyone feels that another player is “cheating” or knowingly breaking the rules, bring it to the mods and we will investigate the matter. If anyone has an issue with another player that they do not feel safe approaching said player about without total anonymity, bring it to the mods and we will approach the player for you if necessary. On our end, we understand that some people are nervous about giving moderators crit without being anonymous. However, we would like to make it clear that if you have something to say to us, including negative crit, you will not be punished for it unless you are wildly rude. There is also the option of the monthly gamewide HMD for anonymous moderator crit. Lastly, if anyone else in the game has received hostile messages from a sock account recently, please let us know as soon as possible.With all that said, we’d like to thank everyone again for their patience and encouragement during this bumpy period!
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