New Blades, Old Wounds Feedback Thread

[RustingWithYou]

This thread exists to collect feedback for the New Blades, Old Wounds arc. This was the Unathi team's first proper event arc, so if you have any feedback - what worked for you, what went wrong, what could be improved and what you'd like to see more of in the future, then this is the place to talk about it. (Note: I am aware of the slightly erratic event scheduling, and I know that this wasn't great on my part. Unfortunately, real life got in the way a few times here.)

We're taking feedback both on particular events and articles, as well as the arc as a whole.

[HanSolo1519]

Admittedly, missed events 2-4, so I know that I'm biased, however.
 

Spoiler

More low-stakes events, similar to Konyang shore leave, would have been amazing. It would have been great if it was simply "Oh, do you want to hop on as the 'volunteer' role and do soup kitchen RP in the city, or offduty shore leave and just explore and hang out?"
They are great opportunities for players to interact with the new lore/setting without requiring work, lore, and planning. I hope they become a staple in the future.

Spoiler

Regarding the 5th event, it was uniquely amazing. The best, recent comparison I have is the Burzian event during the Konyang arc, and it fixes a lot of the issues I had with that. Players being able to see Hutay'zai, be talked to, and live literally 8 tiles from a person of importance, it really breaks the invisible wall that's felt when playing someone unimportant during an event.

On Burzia, nothing happened for 90% of the playerbase, command had special interaction, but for everyone else, they were left to interact with each other or volunteers, to go bar rp or shop. It wasn't special, and it felt like there was an invisible wall between them and the setting. The feast really nailed it, bumping into the Nralakk Representative in the hall, being spoken to by Hutay'zai, etc. It felt much more like your characters are actually there, that they are living there during the events of the arc, and it's not just 'the setting'

Overall, the arc was amazing, and I appreciate all the work that went into it. Especially for an area so commonly overlooked.

I may rewrite this review later as it's currently 5:48, I just wanted to get my response out before I forgot.

Edited August 11 by HanSolo1519

[hazelmouse]

I've been around for every event in this arc, and by far the most impressive part to me has been how well it's involved every department. At no point did I feel that any department in particular had nothing to do or was forgotten about, and I'm especially glad that none of them - even the high intensity bloodbath - felt as if it were a security-exclusive occasion. I really, really like the idea of the Horizon performing more humanitarian aid.

I played a service character for every event, which is typically not a department that has much at all to do in canon events, but I'm pleased to say that even service was kept quite busy in every humanitarian event. The first humanitarian aid mission was a little clunky on the service side for reasons I did push feedback for, and I'm glad to say that the two events after that were both insanely well supplied for service.

The new event shuttle used for them was especially good, the current version of it contains absolutely everything I feel service could possibly need, as well as quite probably everything any other department could need too.

The mapping for the arc was generally phenomenal. The first and last events were both full of an abundance of intriguing stuff to roleplay over, and the other three - particularly Mudki - were beautifully made. I feel a little sad that maps so well made as them might not see the light of day again.

I'm also personally very happy with how the pacing was handled for the Izilukh event. I played a non-combatant character in the heat of the fighting, and in my experience it felt like there was a serious, real risk of death without it feeling as if the event handlers were trying to get people killed without their input. With the exception of the possibility of security failing, I never felt that there wasn't a good way for me to survive the fighting.

Narratively, the betrayal by Izaku felt strongly like the crux of the arc, and it worked well for that. It produced a lot of interest from the crew with the vitriol aimed towards Izaku, and gave everyone a lot to talk about between events. A part of me does wish we got to play a support role in the campaign against Izaku, but I think there's very good reasons why the Horizon shouldn't have been involved at all, even if it were far from the fighting.

Edited August 11 by hazelmouse

[ASmallCuteCat]

I don't really have much feedback or suggestions, but I'm just posting to say that I enjoyed the event arc and I liked the "humanitarian aid" angle. It was great for giving all departments the opportunity to pitch in.

 

we need a statue of John Stok

[Crozarius]

I loved the arc as a whole. Finally, Unathi event focus! Fucking awesome. The events were all great, and I really appreciated the shift in focus of the Horizon doing things that it makes sense for the Horizon to be doing. The lower stakes missions were all very cool as well, and I really appreciated opportunities to cement my characters with canon rounds that didn't feel too dangerous, while also giving the opportunity to do *real* stuff that isn't just chair RP. 

A completely biased nitpick I have is: I feel like there wasn't enough consequence for crewmembers causing trouble during events. A point was made at the beginning of the arc, before the first event, to tell players look at and familiarise themselves with the Unathi legal system and laws, but it was never actually put into practise. Between multiple crew stealing from Unathi, disrespecting/backtalking important figures / guards, looting Mudki, and generally being dishonourable, I'm surprised that nobody got punished, either by the SCC administratively, or by the local guard themselves, for being shitheels. I feel like it was a missed opportunity to bring a much needed reality check to some players who are used to being assholes during events without consequence. People fucked around but unfortunately nobody found out; there wasn't a single lost hand! I think that it lessened my enjoyment of the arc as a whole very slightly, that the Unathi legal system / cultural values were largely disregarded by the crew without consequence and didn't have much impact on the events beyond non-crew related things like the Gawgaryn being executed and so forth.

Edited August 12 by Crozarius

[Triogenix]

On 12/08/2024 at 05:16, Crozarius said:

A completely biased nitpick I have is: I feel like there wasn't enough consequence for crewmembers causing trouble during events. A point was made at the beginning of the arc, before the first event, to tell players look at and familiarise themselves with the Unathi legal system and laws, but it was never actually put into practise. Between multiple crew stealing from Unathi, disrespecting/backtalking important figures / guards, looting Mudki, and generally being dishonourable, I'm surprised that nobody got punished, either by the SCC administratively, or by the local guard themselves, for being shitheels. I feel like it was a missed opportunity to bring a much needed reality check to some players who are used to being assholes during events without consequence. People fucked around but unfortunately nobody found out; there wasn't a single lost hand! I think that it lessened my enjoyment of the arc as a whole very slightly, that the Unathi legal system / cultural values were largely disregarded by the crew without consequence and didn't have much impact on the events beyond non-crew related things like the Gawgaryn being executed and so forth.

I just wanted to tack on here. From my understanding, what we were envisioning was a less organized/centralized structure for enforcement like that. Moghes isn't Konyang with a national police force or similar, so unless it was something really big my understanding was there was an expectation for that to be handled on the ground so to speak, rather than something similar to Konyang with the whole process for reporting arrests and what not. I think that while in theory this would have led to a much more authentic hegemony law experience, with each watchmen player kind of choosing how to enforce it themselves in that round; as with alot of things, people, including volunteers and myself, trended towards the passive side, especially when it came to interacting with player characters. There's probably a billion reasons for this, but none of those really matter right now, what matters is that it happens.

Practically, an arrest system similar to the one we had for Konyang would have been better, where watchmen only arrested people and then let CCIA handle actually making a call on "hey should this guys hand be cut off" after the fact. For events, the other thing we could do is make much clearer outlines for volunteers as to how, for lack of a better term, aggressively, they should be in enforcement. That has it's own issues as well, but if we ever visit a place similar to Moghes in the future, it'll be something I'd want to discuss with the team running the arc.

Lastly, a short point; the lack of a Point Verdant like area I think also generally lessened the prevalence of stuff happening and people getting caught/held responsible, which is also fine.

All in all, I think you were correct in that this is a nitpick, but I also think it's an important one nonetheless. It's the little stuff like this that sells the authenticity of the lore in game for me, not just relating to chopping peoples hands off but, merely showcasing how different of an outlook people in certain settings have(see me calling the Captain a lord, the rest of command minor nobles, and the crew peasants as Hutay'zai); all those tiny details are, at the end of the day, often times the primary presentation of lore to a majority of the playerbase, who(understandably) might not want to read all the wiki pages, and just stick to the ones relevant to their character.