Mod Announcement: Exposure Effects and the Data App

[snowblindmods]

The event ends with a surprising lack of something: there is no paralysis in the morning, no mysterious injection. Instead, the effects characters suffered from fade but do not vanish. All effects are now at level one. And, well--they don't go away. At least, not easily. The Exposure Effects have begun. It's dangerous to stay for too long in a place like Norfinbury. Every other month, characters will be expected to choose either a new effect or to level up an old effect. These can be combined as much as you'd like--in theory, someone could be level three in all six, if they were in Norfinbury long enough. But all hope is not lost! As explained on the exposure effects page, bonus activity can be used to lower and eliminate these effects. Of course, they're constantly threatening to come back...

...Of course, some of you aren't having quite this many issues. For some of you, the progression is much slower. Anyone with their beacon on will only have to add an additional effect or level every four months. Whatever the beacon is for, at least in this one instance it's doing something useful.

Please come to us with any issues you're having with this game mechanic. Once we see how the game is actually handling it, we may adjust the numbers/how often the effects grow worse if people are having difficulties.

Additionally, on night 051, due to the efforts of Jim, Quark, and Hiro, the Data app appears on everyone's tablets. This app collects found SD card information. While it has all information found before it was unlocked, any new information will only be added with the permission of whoever found the SD card. Additionally, the SD cards of anyone who drops from the game will be automatically added to the Data app. Note this only gathers information and files in SD cards. It doesn't collect programs or non-digital findings. If we forgot any old SD card data, let us know and we'll add it!

Comments

[heroproceeding]

I'm with Fossil on this. Even with the lowering of the comment requirements, it's still additional activity you would now be required to make in order for your character not to suffer additional effects. It wouldn't be as bad with that count, but it's still not like there's any reward for this. Unless you count being able to play your character without being consistently affected by these effects? But that's honestly something that I feel should be a choice from the get-go. It would have been different if this was a system that had been around since the beginning of the game and people signed on knowing that, but Snowblind's been around for five months now and I don't think many people signed up expecting something like this change to occur.

I also understand that you're trying to bend things a bit in our favor with the addition of what's essentially a "bank" for your comments. But in the end, wouldn't that just overcomplicate things both for modwork as well as player work instead?

That would mean both mods and players making sure the same threads aren't used for that additional AC and players keeping track of their comment bank. And would players have to check in with mods about their comment bank every AC period on top of that, stating "This is what I've saved up so far"? How would this be streamlined?

Perhaps people would be more willing to do this if there was an actual reward to it. But it just seems like more busywork than a fun, new mechanic. Especially for players who really don't like how much these effects have the potential to change their character too much, I feel like this is something you'd be sweating over rather than enjoying. And this is on top of keeping track of character movements, item claims, and reacting to monster rolls.

I understand the emphasis of these effects, especially given the nature of the game, and I'm not adverse to the implementation of they, themselves, in some way. It's not the concept I'm against at all. It's part of what this game is advertised to be: a psychological horror game. And the playerbase went in knowing that and wanting that. I would even like to see an additional physical effect! I'm just not really crazy about this being a forced mechanic.

[snowblindmods]

We're still discussing options, but I wanted to explain where we're coming from as far as trying to compromise. Without spoiling, this mechanic not being optional is so plot-relevant removing it would mean we would have to rewrite a huge chunk of the game plot.

[heroproceeding]

I see. With that in mind, removing it would make it tricky then, wouldn't it. From that standing, I could definitely see your hesitance and I can respect that.

[snowblindmods]

We've come up with a potential alternative to the AC system and posted a poll on plurk about it; please let us know what you think!