BRAINSTORM!

[shelightsupwell]

Hi, friends!

I doubt it's missed anyone's notice that things around Darrow have been quiet lately. So let's work together to raise Darrow's activity levels!

Use this post to brainstorm. Throw out whatever you've got and let's see what sticks. Suggest anything you think might help or be fun or interesting, from game-wide plots to individual storylines you want to pursue for your characters but need help jumpstarting. What do you want to see happen next? Tell us! Do you have plot ideas you want someone to do but they don't work for your characters? Donate them! Is there something we can do or change that you think would help make things more exciting or make connections easier to... well, connect? What's missing? What's not helpful? Nothing's off the table, everything's worth throwing out there. Let's bounce off each other and see what we can come up with.

Comments

[bsafemydeers]

First, I want to say how much I love you people and this game and everything we've built together. I recognize we're all in very different places than we were when the game started, and we've grown older and busier.

My suggestions are both on a structural/administrative level, and then I have plot suggestions.

1. The current req system doesn't work in the best interest of us or the game itself. We all acknowledge we are tagging more slowly, especially when life is busy or tough, which it unfortunately is sometimes. I've personally found it's taking longer to complete reqs, and to do it two months in a row has been a task that has become unwieldy. It's pretty discouraging, and it's a lot of work that I don't think we, as adults who have known each other this long, need in the same way, at the same level. It also really cuts down on new fictional blood in the game, and I feel really strongly that new characters are needed to pump life back into things. I'd like to think that as a consequence of being an older group that knows each other well, if someone needs to really look at how they're handling, say, a large roster that doesn't have activity, this could be an honest and kind discussion about how that impacts other people and a plan could be made to go forward.

2. PLOTS. My favorite plots are mostly horror, surprising no one at all. So I do have a handful of those tucked away-- maybe more extra islands or locations where we can do something like Fromville from the TV show From. I also like the dream set-up suggested above for this. Perhaps there's a Lovecraftian entity awakening in Darrow to cause bubbled horror (to spare those who don't like it).

3. Lore, city-based plots. One of the initial causes of drama and tension in the game was being at the hands of this unknown force that made it seem like you were expected there, and the city had no answers. Overall, I think we've lost this effect just because it's been years, and the in-game culture grown by our characters is that everything's expected and no one should even try for answers. I'd like to see this shake up too, maybe with some new NPCs or NPC organizations that hint there is something at the root of things, there are people pulling the strings. There doesn't need to be an ultimate answer or antagonist, but something to shake up what the established characters know about Darrow.

Okay, I love you lots!

[eternaldaisy]

Just want to note here that the first is something we mods are all aware of and feeling too, and conversations are happening about how best to address this. I appreciate your thoughtful commentary on it here — keep an eye out in the coming days. ♥

I love your last idea here. You're right, that was a big Thing early on that's sort of fallen by the wayside as just being ~how things are, but that would be a fun thing to lean back into, the mystery and sense of something greater at play.

And you KNOW I'm always down for a horror plot. 8D

[thetinydemon]

Oooooh, and I think that last point really COULD play into the seed we've already planted-- that NPCs are becoming more hostile. And that could give us a clearer direction in mind, even if there never ends up being an "answer."

[bsafemydeers]

I'm also thinking even things that are getting a glimpse at something like a glitch in the matrix sort of deal-- maybe there's a gathering post where characters witness some person in a uniform late to the train station to deliver a new arrival packet. Or 'malfunctioning' NPCs. Some incident where some part of the city is wrong and has a clean-up crew attending. A mini-plot where a weird time flux literally opens up old wounds (this one is more far out but we would all do this to them). Stuff to suggest there just might be rhyme or reason to characters being pulled here, and that Darrow itself might be having issues.

[campraeden]

To your third point, I love the idea of lore-filled, city-based plots! But I do want to say that most of my pups actually prefer Darrow to their home canons, so they just don't WANT to investigate and risk the city ejecting them for their hubris XD but for me as a PLAYER, I've gotten the sense that there isn't much of a point for any of my pups who would be inclined TO investigate the city, because they won't be able to solve it anyway? And I absolutely understand that that's one of the points of Darrow, is there is no answer, so I'd be curious to see how something like this would be approached and handled.