A while back, we posted an official alt policy in which Project players were limited to two alts in the supergroup at any time. After some discussion with the other officers, we've decided to temporarily relax our alt policy.
Currently, there are 29 players with a total of 50 characters in the Project. The reason we're so far from the character limit is because several of our players have chosen to have only one character in the supergroup, for which we thank them profusely and give them cookies.
For the time being, we're going to increase the allowable number of toons-per-player to three. This will continue to be the case until we reach about 71 toons. At that point, rather than say that <b>this</b> person can have three but <i>that</b> person must have only two, we'll ask that everyone with three alts on the team drop it back down to two.
In short, we can have three alts per player until it becomes a problem. That may be next week, or may persist for a little while... we'll see!
Anyway, post to the Roster thread and let me know what, if any, characters you'd like added, and what their builds are, since my memory for builds is abysmal. Please give specific responses to the policy revision in this thread only.
I'm going to look today into new options for maintaining our roster online - I'll let you know what I find!
-Thundergirl
Guess I'll be the killjoy on this one and you can all toss darts at me. I'm going to put up two questions on member numbers...
1. Why does anyone really need three characters in P:R? Who plays the third alt enough to warrant taking up the third slot? Please read that again... "who plays a THIRD alt...."? Now keep in mind, I have a level 22, 16, 15, 14, and two 12's. So as someone who plays a lot, I have several post 10 characters. I just added my second character to P:R this week and I have been a member since the first week in March. The only reason I mention this is because I have several non pr characters that could group with about any level and I don't think I need to fill out the roster with chaff.
2. Do we have a policy of inactivity? I think we definitely need to have one. I think it sets a bad tone when characters haven't logged in for several weeks. If someone wishes to take a leave of absence or is gone for RL reasons like vacation, moving or what have you, then I think its reasonable to allow them to stay as long as they let you officers know ahead of time. But if someone disappears with no notice, their characters should get dropped until they ask to be re-instated.
Whats reasonable? I would say if your main character hasn't played in 21 days or an alt in 14 days then they should get dropped (unless you give notice beforehand). It's not that hard to keep track of the inactive characters. You look at the last time logged in and we all know who the primary character is. If not, we can set up a sticky where we say (a) is my primary and (b) is my secondary.
Ok, so why be a killjoy? I mean we have 18 or more slots left right? First off, its about building cohesion and also role play. Very few (and there are of course exceptions) have the time to develop sg relationships for more than one maybe two characters. For my money, I would rather have a smaller group but one where characters know each other. In all honesty, what good thing do you bring to the group with a tertiary alt that you play once every week or two.
Sure, a lot of us have three or more quality characters that they could play. Good names, costumes and back ground stories. Its very hard to choose. But bottom line, do we really need to fill up the SG just because we can?
Secondly, I think it looks bad to scroll down this huge list and see names that haven't logged in for quite awhile. We had a few names that were well over 30 days. You all decided that we need to have some selection process to ensure the SG has quality Role players.This would just keep the dead weight off the list. The officers would probably get stuck with the duty of kicking inactive characters off the list. But we could and should police ourselves. If you aren't playing your second character often, then log on and take him off the sg. You can always ask an officer to let you back in.
Color me the evil one on this issue. I just don't think we need to have that many characters. If you really decide you want the third, then remove one that you don't use that often. Ok ready for those daggers....
Re: Our Revised Alt Policy
Why color you evil, Windy? I think you've got some good points.
We <b>do</b> need an inactivity policy, but we're a young enough supergroup in a young enough game that it hasn't come up yet. It's worth discussing.
I think it came up because we have a couple of players with severe, debilitating rerollitis. Ardrikk gets a high fever and a serious case of the shakes if he doesn't switch characters frequently. Playing a single character long enough will undoubtedly cause him to die. Black Atom tries to hide it, but when he thinks no one is looking, he switches to another character. I'm told the high is quite powerful.
More seriously, for those characters who do play alts, it's a convenience to log in with whichever alt and still have access to supergroup chat and the attendant ability to find a group. For a few, it's a roleplay thing - I want Thunder-Girl on the team because her RP doesn't make any sense unless she's in her supergroup costume.
Opening it up really is an experimental thing. You're right, most of us primarily focus on just one character. We're going to have to dial it down to two sooner or later, and my hope is that primary character principle will keep it from being a big deal. As it is, I posted this mainly to clarify to rules, but even here, I'm stipulating that we've got to make a hard two-alt rule at some unknown point in the future.
Anyway, your post's not falling on deaf ears. These ARE things we need to think about. Then again, people have different playstyles. You essentially having a single-character focus is a stark contrast to someone like Ardrikk or Slayde, and I do want to make an effort to accomodate multiple playstyles.
Okay, I need to go do something else now. Too much thinking hard makes my brain hurt!
-TG
Re: Our Revised Alt Policy
My response to this, Tynstar, is just to say that the reason you guys only rarely see me on the SG and only rarely end up teaming with me, is because I have 8 characters. I play them all, just depending on the mood I'm in.
Problem is, when I'm not playing one of my two SG characters, no one knows I'm around and even if I'm actively looking to team with you guys, it's unlikely to happen, simply because I'm not showing on the SG list or speaking up on SG chat.
And, also, since I'm not on SG chat, I don't know what's going on...if there are teams wanting members or whatnot. So I don't want to just randomly send people tells asking if they want another member (followed by having to explain who I am, of course ). And then I wonder if people want to RP with a character they may not have met yet and who's not in the Project.
Anyway, even allowing a third character into P:R would only mitigate this problem a little bit, so perhaps it's not a valid counter to Tynstar's comments.
But I just thought I'd give my perspective on why I often wish I could have more of my characters in the SG.
Re: Our Revised Alt Policy
TG, thanks for the respons. I dont have a problem or a question with the current policy of having two characters. You have TG and T-G. Atom could certainly bring in an alt. I have two chars in the group. My point is that I dont see the need to allow for three.
SG chat should be for active characters. Not members who want to listen in on the chat. SG chat is for IC and OC stuff for the group. If you just want to chat, then use the friends channel. Then any character you have will be able to converse with people that you are friends with.
As far as the re-roll itis, I do feel for those that are afflicted by it. But life is about choices. Pick two characters and have them in the SG. If you really need you can drop one and put a different char into it.
Anyway, Im not advocating we go to a one char group. We have the two rule and it seems to work fine. I just think three is "a crowd". To put it into sports terms, to me having 3 chars just dilutes the richness of the group. Just like hockey or babseball expansion thins out the talent pool, I think spreading over three chars dilutes the field. Why? Well mainly because when we adventure together, we build ties. If we have 75 chars (3 for 25 people) how is my character supposed to remember who is who in role?
Edited by: Tynstar17 at: 6/21/04 1:23 pm
Re: Our Revised Alt Policy
Ard, I will add my thoughts to your reply. Hope this doesn't come off the wrong way. I think you are an obvious roleplayer with good thoughts and great passion.
[i]"My response to this, Tynstar, is just to say that the reason you guys only rarely see me on the SG and only rarely end up teaming with me, is because I have 8 characters. I play them all, just depending on the mood I'm in."[/i]
--I think this is perfectly fine and would certainly never try and constrict you to using one or two characters. You are paying for the subscription so you should play what char you feel like playing!--
[i] "Problem is, when I'm not playing one of my two SG characters, no one knows I'm around and even if I'm actively looking to team with you guys, it's unlikely to happen, simply because I'm not showing on the SG list or speaking up on SG chat."[/i]
-- As I mentioned above, SG isnt for chatting with non-group members. Its for those characters in the SG. Why would Windy team up with Helios or one of the other alts that aren't in the group RP wise? They have never met in game so unless they happen to be on the same street corner and meet, they wouldn't be teaming up.
Anyway simple solution is if you want to team up, use one of your two SG characters. That way we get to enrich PR by our characters getting to know each other.--
[i] "And, also, since I'm not on SG chat, I don't know what's going on...if there are teams wanting members or whatnot. So I don't want to just randomly send people tells asking if they want another member (followed by having to explain who I am, of course ). And then I wonder if people want to RP with a character they may not have met yet and who's not in the Project."[/i]
--I'm not sure how to respond. If you want to group up with SG members and role play.... why not just log on one of your PR characters? You had two and until just recently, had three.
Ard, I hope this doesn't come off to harsh because thats not my intent. As I said from your posts it is obvious you are an avid role player. I have never ever grouped with you. With even the newer members, I have grouped at least two or more times. I group with Mysty several times a week. So even when you had three characters in the group, I never saw them.
You have great sounding characters but I havent ever RPed with them. I know you have an SG that is composed of your real life friends and that eats up your time. It would be nice to get to know one of your characters in game.
Quote:Why would Windy team up with Helios or one of the other alts that aren't in the group RP wise? They have never met in game so unless they happen to be on the same street corner and meet, they wouldn't be teaming up.
Ahh, there we go. So see, I have been right not to try and get on teams with you guys when I'm not playing one of my P:R characters. Though I would point out that comics are full of various team-ups between heroes that aren't on the same super team. Still, I understand your point. Why would Project members call on an outside hero when they can call upon others of their own number.
Quote:Anyway simple solution is if you want to team up, use one of your two SG characters. That way we get to enrich PR by our characters getting to know each other.
While this is a good point, so far as it goes, the problem lies in the fact that for me it's not always about "Hmm, I want to team up with this particular person or group of people, so I'll log in this character." Instead it's about, "Oooh, I want to play *this* character tonight....now who's around I could team up with?" I decide what I want to do based on the character I'm interested in playing at the time. Which, since I only have 2 of the 8 in P:R, means that a pretty large percentage of the time, I'm not going to be "available," so to speak, to team with you guys.
Thankfully for me, I have 6 other friends now (not counting my wife) who play and I can usually find one or more of them to team up with no matter who I'm playing. The RP is often much more light and further between than when I group with you guys, but they also don't really care what character I'm playing, so long as they're "hanging out" with me (and vice versa).
Quote:Ard, I hope this doesn't come off to harsh because thats not my intent. As I said from your posts it is obvious you are an avid role player. I have never ever grouped with you. With even the newer members, I have grouped at least two or more times. I group with Mysty several times a week. So even when you had three characters in the group, I never saw them.
Nah, it's fair. Truth is, I've been pretty scarce on the Project, pretty much since the game went live. It's certainly not that I don't like you guys or love grouping up and RPing with you. It's more that:
1) I have founded my own SG and it occasionally needs tending.....I'm trying to get RP among my friends going a bit more frequently as they are much more casual about the RP than you guys are (but then, honestly, so am I a lot of the time....many times I'm more of a "reactionary RPer." Meaning that I often won't initiate the RP among my team, but will start RPing if it looks like someone else wants to).
2) I have 8 characters, as mentioned above, only two of which are in P:R. So the majority of my time is likely, just statistically speaking, to be spent on non-P:R characters.
3) When I get a new character idea, I tend to latch onto it hard and play that character almost non-stop until 10 or 12. That can take up a week of my time, easily. Like, recently, I rerolled Helios from a Fiery Aura/Energy Melee Tanker to an Invulnerability/Energy Melee one because I wasn't happy with how durable he was. Now I like him much better and I've been playing him a LOT the past couple weeks. Since he's also the founder of the SG of my friends, this means that I've been playing with them a lot and trying to get a bit more RP going on occasion as well. For example, we just got another of our friends hooked into playing the game a week ago Sunday and since I'm not sure he'll stick around without some decent RP, I've been trying to make sure he got some.....or at the very least, some help and companionship.
4) And, finally, I have all these friends who play the game. One of the coolest things about the game is that I can play together with my RL friends. So if they're on and they ask me to hook up with them, I'll almost always say yes. It's just a cool thing to do, you know? Of course, some of you have the advantage of having your RL friends actually IN the Project, which gives you the best of both worlds. But I'm not sure if any of my friends would be interested in going into the deeper RP of the Project or not. Many of them are more interested in the game side of things, I think.
5) Err, one more thing. I like to solo a lot too. Part of the cool thing about this game is the exploration. Both of the environments and of the stories. Soloing means I get to read all the mission stories myself. I get to take my time doing so and follow along with what interests me. I can also stroll (or fly or whatever) various parts of the city, checking out whatever I want to check out. And I don't have to feel like I'm slowing anyone down....keeping them from moving on to the next exciting thing, etc. Also, I often like to test myself and see just how sucessful and powerful I can be at taking on various enemies alone. Now, I don't like to do this *all* the time...but there are times when I do prefer to go it alone.
So.....all of these reasons contribute to why you've never grouped with me and why you rarely see me.
OH! One more thing. I work a lot of nights. On nights when I don't work, I'm often at a tabletop game from around 7:30pm til between midnight and 2am. I'm also a night owl and I tend to play during the hours of midnight til 5 or 6am almost every night...except the couple days a week I actually have to be at work in the "morning" (meaning 10:30 or 11am). I've noticed that with the exception of Quickshot, most of you guys do not stay up this late. A lot of you tend to leave around 11pm. So there are many, many, many nights where I never even have the opportunity to see you guys, just because of conflicting schedules. This is a big reason why you see Mysticka a lot more than me. She works days so she's often on all evening.
Re: Our Revised Alt Policy
FYI, Meiyen and I play a lot during the day and early evening/night hours. While we do usually log by 11 pm (the time you're just getting started ), if you find yourself in need of a group with a character we can play with, give a shout. We're often just a duo because we started the game much later than everyone else in P:R, so don't often get to group up with everyone else unless they sk us. Briare is currently 17, Velea (my alt) is 7. Meiyen (and alt Jinni) are about the same levels. Please don't anyone take this the wrong way, but I would just as soon group with people from P:R regardless of what character they are playing so I can start getting to know them than be concerned with whether my character would know them or not, so look me up if you're playing a guilded or unguilded alt.
Re: Our Revised Alt Policy
Hey, thanks Briare! I'll try to do that. I haven't met you at all yet, but you seem pretty cool from your posts on the boards here.
I have the following level characters:
Dr. Arkane (who I haven't actually played in ages): 10
The Red Ronin: 11
Helios: 16 (in like 30 minutes or so )
Syren: 12
Oreithyia: 12
Politron: 12
And then my two actual P:R members are:
Sunstar (who still isn't officially, ICly a member....): 13
Fast Forward: 18
Anyone can feel free to drop me a line sometime and if I'm not actively grouped with someone else (and maybe even then, depending on how my friends would feel...they're usually pretty cool about it) or in "Solo Mode," I'd probably be happy to team up with you and RP as well.
Our Revised Alt Policy
). And then I wonder if people want to RP with a character they may not have met yet and who's not in the Project.
), if you find yourself in need of a group with a character we can play with, give a shout. We're often just a duo because we started the game much later than everyone else in P:R, so don't often get to group up with everyone else unless they sk us. Briare is currently 17, Velea (my alt) is 7. Meiyen (and alt Jinni) are about the same levels. 
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