snowblindmods | Moderator Contact

Moderator Contact

Moderator Contact
Mel [EST] Head Moderator Plurk: maiiau - pings okay, private plurks okay Cee [EST] Moderator Plurk: ceesawaseesaw - pings okay, private plurks okay Danielle [PST] Assistant Moderator Plurk: ddsapphire - pings okay, private plurks okay Moderator Plurk: snowblindrpg Please do not ping or private plurk the moderator account. You may use this post to contact us if you are in need of moderator assistance, have something you wish to bring to our attention, or have other mod-related issues you would like to bring up. This is also the place to go to tell us ways we could improve the game or our modding style. If you have a question about game mechanics, please take that to the FAQ, and if you want to ask about a player plot, please take that to the player plot page. Comments are screened, anon is enabled, and IP logging is only on for anonymous comments, which means all we can do is tell how often any one person is commenting, and cannot connect it to any specific journal. If you would like to have a conversation with us through this post, please reply with your journal or a sock account so we can hold the conversation without unscreening anything for your privacy.
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We've turned off IP logging in the non-moderator accounts! I forgot the default was to log them. Don't worry about anyone seeing your IP address, though; even before we turned them off, only mods could see IPs.

Thank you for the suggestion; we do want to make sure to watch our application standards, so we'll take this into consideration. If you do have a problem with the characterization of anyone currently in the game, they should be on the HMD if you'd like to crit them (and if they handle it badly you can always bring it to our attention).

Hey mods! Some players have a few concerns about Snowblind's game mechanics. I have summarized a few points and the suggestions that were shared below.

Clarity of Plot Related Locations/Items
Sometimes, replies to search requests are vague. This leaves a lot of uncertainty of whether an action should continue to be pursued. Some examples brought up would be "it's ALMOST impossible to do X" which raises confusion if it's actually possible to do.

Another example is, "Using a pick, they find nothing here."

One of the suggestions was to give more small details so players would know whether to keep looking or to move on. To build on the previous example:

"Using the pick, they find nothing here." versus "Using a pick, they find nothing here, but there appears to be a way to wedge something between the ice."

Being more clear on if an area is a bust could help encourage exploration of unknown areas. There was some frustration in spending precious IC time on "dead end areas" with no clear hints on if there's more to be found.

Event Variety
There was interest in more events allowing players to interact with the plot. Sometimes, plot clues are difficult to find. Events like the dreamer event allowed players that interaction and gave them more clues to investigate the town. Snowblind is a psychological horror game focusing on the theme of isolation, but more chances to interact with the general setting would be excellent. A way to fix this could be to spread out plot clues, allowing any characters to find them, or to utilize the older areas of the setting. Having events that forces cooperation between characters was also a suggestion.

Tied to the above, it might be nice to have hints spread across the map. For example, the ragdoll plot makes the split tunnels a "hot spot" where players who want to interact with the plot can head over to. The downsides to this is it limits who can interact immediately with the plot. It would help a lot to make such chances easier to access, as characters are limited to scavenging or bumping into other groups otherwise.

Some players have been reluctant to bring up these concerns because the perceived attitude from the mod team is that these plot points should be very obvious to the playerbase. This feels like an issue of miscommunication. To quote:

"I've also had issue with the mods thinking plot related/relevant stuff is more obvious than it is to the rest of the player base. I can't be the only one who was slightly frustrated and upset when the split tunnels were announced and the mods' response was along the lines of 'this has been here since the start of the game, we can't believe it took you this long to find it' when there were not really any incredibly obvious clues leading to having our characters dig through the snow for days on end."

We really love this game, which is why we want to bring these concerns and suggestions up to you.

Hey, anon (and other associated players)! We're really sorry about the confusion related to search replies. We'll definitely try to be more clear in the future about if something is a complete no-go or if you're just going about it in the wrong way. Speaking for myself (this is Mel), I will say that sometimes when I reply with something like "it's basically impossible" is that while I can't think of a way to make it work, I also don't want to completely cut out every potential way that might not have occurred to me that you guys might tackle a problem. In the future, though, when I say something like that, I'll try to imply whether it's impossible in the "there's actually nothing here for you to find" way or the "technically there's a way through that unlocks later so you shouldn't be able to get through here but hey you guys might improvise some super explosives before then and then who knows what magic might happen" way. In general we can be more clear about dead end areas or areas that are mostly exhausted for now. There are definitely areas that aren't turning up things right now because they're connected to things that aren't unlocked yet, as well as areas where most of the plot-relevant things have been discovered already.

In regards to clues, yeah, the split tunnels is definitely the "hot spot" right now. I know at least my hope was that by making the ragdoll situation fairly blatant it would be easier to figure out how to go forward, but I can also see how for people not in there it would leave them out.

This sort of connects to the event issue, which I've noticed as well! We'll definitely make things more interactive and push characters together more often. This upcoming/sort of started event should be doing something like that, and a lot of future events should be more in the vein of the repairs and dreamer events in regards to putting characters together (not exactly the same, but the idea of having characters who aren't originally physically close by interacting in one "space", whatever that might be).

Hopefully we can improve based upon this criticism! Please don't hesitate to let us know if you have any further comments to make! If you'd like, we would be willing to unscreen our response/your criticism if you'd like to make it more open to anyone else who wants to add their comments, but this is up to you for your privacy.

Thanks mods for a fast response! Personally, I'm looking forward to more from you guys. And yeah, I'm ok with having this thread unscreened.

So lately there's been some concern floating around the anon comms concerning the time frame we have left in game. The idea of bringing it to you came up in a thread, so I'm going to try to do my best to sum up the concerns. Under a sock since it's not just any one player who's feeling this and I don't know the names of the others to ask them to add on support.

The issue is basically that we don't know how much time we have left IC or OOC beyond a loose idea, and that means we don't know what kind of ending we might get. People are wondering things about how far we have left to go in terms of areas to go through and general plot and puzzles to solve. It doesn't look like anybody wants a solution just handed over easy, but would it be possible to give us a rough idea of what we have left to get through, without spoiling the plot?

Following from that, players are concerned over whether we still have a chance to get the good ending. Do we have enough time left? Are we progressing fast enough? If we aren't or if a good end just isn't feasible at this point, do we have any other options for a lasting impact and IC closure? There's also OOC worry over the possibility that you as mods might burn out or lose interest before we make it to the end. Personally, I don't know where you stand on that, but I do believe you've been trying to do your best to listen to and accommodate player concerns when they come up. I appreciate it.

Mainly it looks like people want some reassurance that we're not going to get stuck with a sorry, not good enough at the end, and to get some idea of what we have left to do, since it's hard to see from where the plot stands right now.

I'm okay with this being unscreened, btw.

Right now we're looking at December as a projected end date, given how far you guys are currently. While it's too early to say if it will be necessary, we wouldn't be opposed to extending the game a bit to give you guys more time after that if needed! We may also look at shortening some of the areas and removing certain puzzles as necessary. You've already explored the majority of the map, and in general we would rather have the ending depend on IC actions rather than OOCly running out of time, so we do want to and have been adjusting what's necessary to get through everything.

Thanks for answering so quickly! This is helpful to know. I'm glad to know IC actions are the prime motivator, and it's reassuring to know you're willing to adjust things as needed.

Would it be possible to do another Enable Me Please ad this month?

Sure!

Hi there. This is fine to be unscreened if you'd like. Doesn't matter to me.

I wanted to suggest that maybe in the future, when writing event posts, maybe the mods could condense all of the information into something easy to digest at the very end. I've noticed a lot of people have trouble with figuring out wording and specifics, and I feel like it would save you guys a lot of time answering questions if you had something like an easy list at the end.

For instance, with this latest event, the Automata one, you could do the typical write up like always, to fit the lore and the setting, and then underneath, have another section where you very clearly lay out what happens and what will be done.

Formatted something like:

"(event write up here)
---
Everybody in Norfinbury will be suffering from the effects of radiation poisoning, mild to moderate. However, if you'd like, your character can also receive a second set of symptoms. This is up to the players. The second set of symptoms include both the glitches and the emotional deadening, and you can't have one without the other."

Or something like that. Many other games do something like this - hadriel is another example, with the "details" section. I just think it would make things easier for everybody if the event posts are very clear about what is happening to our characters and what is left to our discretion. That way, when people are making plotting plurks, they don't have to debate back and forth on how they interpreted the write-up.

This is also not asking for you guys to stop doing write ups the way you usually do! I (and many players, I imagine) enjoy the way they're written, I just am looking for a bit more clarity. I know that this probably ruins a bit of the mystery of the plots but I would rather be sure oocly so that I can plan accordingly.

Thank you!

We can do this!

Hi mods! Prospect player here. I love the concept of Snowblind and I'm thinking about apping in during the November cycle. I wanted to follow-up on this question to see if December is still the projected end date, now that it's October. I'd love to play, but if I'll only be playing for two months, I'd like to think on that. Thank you!

Thanks for being interested! December is currently not our projected end date--we will be extending it in order to allow players to reach a proper ending instead of a time's up ending. You'll still have time to get CR and play in the setting!

Wonderful. Thank you for responding so quickly! (Oh and feel free to unscreen this if you'd like!)

Edited 2017-10-29 14:18 (UTC)

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