Athrun Zala
21 April 2015 @ 12:03 am
Hey, all! My name's Chris, and I'm new to this game! I've had a fair few friends here for a while, and so I decided to take a look at the game since I was in the market for another, and well. Here I am.

To start off with, I decided to bring in an old favorite of mine -- Athrun Zala from Mobile Suit Gundam SEED and its sequel series, Gundam SEED Destiny. You can find some general information on him here, but if you'd rather not read all of that, the gist of it is that Athrun here is an ace mecha pilot who served in two wars and helped end both of them. He's a decent enough guy, albeit a bit on the cynical side due to everything that's gone wrong in his life. But perhaps most importantly, he's a Coordinator -- a person with superior physical and mental characteristics to the average person because they (or their parents) underwent a special genetic surgery during the embryonic stage of development. To say it's caused a lot of tension in his home world is a gigantic understatement, so he'll probably be tight-lipped about it unless it comes up, be it he tells someone he wholeheartedly trusts or because they need to know.

As for me, I'm around pretty often, so if you want to get in contact with me, hit me up on AIM or Skype (both are HurricaneChris04), or add me on Plurk ([plurk.com profile] HurricaneChris). I should be getting his first post up tomorrow...in the middle of a crisis in the place he'll most likely end up living.

Oops.

Looking forward to playing here!
 
 
Genessia Mods
21 April 2015 @ 05:13 pm
Ok so! General updates post for everyone, covering the most recent poll (bounties and city guardian electoral terms), recently asked questions that contain important information for IC purposes, an update on the playable characters cap and hero/villain ratio, and a couple of reminders!

UPDATES:
    Bounties:
    Bounties count as bonuses to your character's income that last for a while depending on how big of a bounty it is. Basically, add an extra star onto your character's income as a "boost" for a temporary time. Starting with next week's paper, bounty prices will be listed in levels 1, 2, 3 or 4 and last for the corresponding months that the boost lasts.* This system will make it easier to understand monetarily so that it matches the current income/pricing system we have in the rest of the game.

    As for the poll that we had earlier this month, you may have noticed that update in the latest edition of the news paper. You voted and the results are in! A player will be allowed to OOC claim bounties and handwave most of them, but for every 3 claims they need to have at least 1 log posted. You will still need to claim bounties on the newspaper page so that we know to take them down, even if you're handwaving them!

    *If your character is a "Bounty Hunter" (we do have a couple) and do that as their sole job, they'll just be counted as a 3 star in general, as they're assuming the position of bounties not listed in the newspaper and other tasks as well. If more than 7 people take a Bounty Hunter position as a full-time job, the pay will be lowered to 2 stars overall because there'll be too many people bounty hunting all the same places! Bounties listed in the newspaper will not count toward the full-time position cap. Characters employed as Bounty Hunters can still receive the newspaper bounty bonus.

    Character Caps, Protag-to-Antag Ratio, Wait Times
    Alrighty! So there was a policy on this before that got a little bit confusing overall for a lot of people, so Tamzin and I were discussing it to make it a little more easy to keep up with. So the new rule with character counts is going to be this:
    You may play up to 6 characters without any restrictions. If you play 7 characters, at least one character must be an antagonist. If you play 8, at least two characters must be antagonists. At this time, the maximum character cap is eight characters.

    We've gotten to a point where we have well over 100 players. In order to make sure that a lot of characters are still open without being unreasonable, we are reinstating the character cap of 8 characters maximum. The changes in this rule are not significant, as the previous rule was that to go over 8 characters, you had to have at least 25% of your characters as active destructive villains. (Mathematically, it's roughly the same, just slightly more defined so that it's easier to follow.) If you currently have more characters than this rule allows, don't worry: We aren't going to force anyone to drop. Your character is getting grandfathered in, so to speak. However, if you drop your characters then you will be expected to follow this rule from now on as well.

    Lastly, we wanted to make a note that we are adding a rule that says you must wait at least two weeks after the release of a canon source in order to play that character. This is just basic spoiler prevention, that's all! Also: If you do app a character from a spoiler-laden canon, always make sure to label them even after the two weeks as appropriate.

    Guardian Elections:
    This one won with a landslide 64% of votes. Guardian Elections will be held every six months from now on. Mentioned in the latest newspaper issue, now's the time to start expressing interest or proving your merits and campaigning. Elections will be held in June and December. This means that current City Guardians will hold their positions until June 31st. July 1st will be the new start of the new City Guardian term, which will last until December 1st. This gives current Guardians plenty of time to make arrangements, decide if they want to rerun, and so on.

    Additionally, as a guideline for who is able to run for Guardian elections: Anyone can run, but please do not have your character run if you do not expect to be at least moderately active. City Guardians are an important peacekeeping role in the cities that other characters should be able to depend on for plotting and continuing threads. We're not asking that you be an intense tagspammer, just that you have a moderate presence in the game.

    New In-Game Information:
    This section is mostly based on information that was requested from players. We'll be adding information here to the FAQ/Setting/whatever page is appropriate, but there's going to be a section on updates posts from now on including this, just in case. This way, everyone has the same information and gets notified when any IC information is updated. Without further ado...
    1. How does the Genessia criminal justice system work? Like, do the subarchways have their own systems or is it all central? Do they have the death penalty?
    Each archway has its own system! The City Guardian has lead authority over the whole system and is welcome to make changes and use the local authorities as they see fit.

    Genessia: Lead entirely by the City Guardian. There is no police station, but there is a jail. It can only hold standard non-powered individuals, though. Officers typically won't enforce much unless the City Guardian gives them directives, however. Whether the Death Penalty is allowed or not is up to the current Guardian.

    Attleton: This is a Citizen's Arrest! Attleton is largely run by the Neighborhood Watch, which is probably why there's a lot of street crime, but there isn't much in the way of a real police force here. NPC citizens will definitely come try to interfere if they can. Capital punishment is not legal in Attleton.

    Everglade: Think old fashioned Scotland Yard-style police force. They will look for evidence, but since there's a lot of mystical stuff here, it's a little difficult sometimes. They may also consult psychics for testimony and mediums to ask the dead to give their testimony in court. Death penalty may be decided upon in court, but it's unlikely and only after a loooong jail sentence. Unfortunately, they don't have a 'Sherlock' so unless the City Guardian is busy, most of the large cases are left to the City Guardian's discretion or bounty hunters.

    Fayren: Knights and guards focus on defending more important areas/objects/events and will step in if they see something going on in front of them, but overall? It's the City Guardian's job to protect the citizens themselves. There is a court if a person is caught, but it isn't exactly fair and most of the evidence is based on hearsay, rather than actual quantifiable data. There's no set standard for punishment, so depending on who you pissed off, it could be anything from being put in the stocks for a day to being executed by hanging or other mideval-style death. City Guardians may suggest punishments, however, and these suggestions are typically yielded to unless the person your character pissed off specifically was in the courts or royalty.

    Nova City: Robopolice force in addition to whatever force the City Guardian brings. Nova City is fairly self-sustaining when it comes to local authorities, many of the security in the area being mechanical in nature. There are, of course, plenty of criminals that find ways around this. It's never a dull job, and if you've got a know-how with tech, it could definitely give you the edge in Nova City. Typically unless the City Guardian wishes it, the capitol punishment is not heavily relied upon after the individual is brought in. However, if a security/police robot catches you in the act, they will attempt to stop you and do not typically hold back those resisting arrest.

    2. When a character dies, does their network device respawn with them, and if so is it the same with all the history or does it reset?
    The network device will be with them when they're revived unless it was damaged in the death event. For example: If the character drowned and their device got fried, they have to buy a new one. The 'account' is hooked to it though, so upon activating the new device, it will automatically upload the data much like a present-day cell phone does if you connect your Google account to it. (I have no idea about Apple devices, so I hope that's the same thing for both Windows and iOS products as it is for Androids. Are there any other OS available for phones even??)

    3. What are the travel times to get from location to location in Genessia?
    Feel free to assume that 1 block = 1.5 minutes if your character walks quickly and 2 minutes if your character walks slowly. Nova City is a huge metropolis, so it will take longer to get to the end of Nova City than it would to the end of Attleton. Everglade is about the size of a small city. Fayren's city area is about the same as Everglade, though Fayren has vast natural areas including forests and mountains that may take days to traverse by foot if going in a straight line. We don't want to set super-intense limits on how much time it would take, especially since there are characters with super speed or flight or teleportation, but this is an approximation based on average walking speeds to help as a reference!

    4. If my character has a house, then loses housemates and/or gets a lower-income job, do they lose their house?
    After the first two months from the initial purchase, the employment level must still cover at least half of the stars required each month for bills/window repairs/general needs. For the first two months, however, the employment level MUST be met the entire time, regardless of how high above the star level the household goes. If this requirement has been met, a $ will be listed after the household's name on the housing list. With mansions, you must maintain full stars for at least 6 months.


    Drop List:
    Starting in May, we will be posting an 'End of the Month Drop List' that will have a list of all of the characters that dropped throughout the month. This should be an easy way of letting everyone know who is no longer in the game for ease-of-access purposes. April will still have a list for those who didn't check-in. It's not a super process to get into the game again, so if you do get dropped on accident (hopefully not), just let us know and we'll fix it up and let you back in.

TO-DO LIST FOR PLAYERS:
    1. Activity Check-In
    If you haven't already and are still interested in playing here, check-in. Don't remember if you did or not? Check out the warning list, which we're keeping updated as people check in. Anyone still on that list either has not checked in or we made an oopsie and somehow missed it, in which case you should definitely let us know so we don't drop you on accident!

    2. Get Employment
    Characters need to reach the minimum star employment for their place of residence by the end of April or their characters will be evicted! Remember, all it takes is the minimum level to be met- it doesn't matter by which resident.

    Current "On Notice" Households:
    HOLLY RIDGE - Room 102 - Gojyo Sha, Hakkai Cho

    3. Where is your character living?
    Make sure you mark where your character is staying! There are plenty of options that don't cost money, ranging from criminal action to squatting in someone's archway or being a nomad. If your character owns a business, they can also just say that they stay above/below the business in an extra room. It's all acceptable, but make sure that you comment the post.


These updates will all be reflected in the Rules and FAQ by the end of the week. That's it, enjoy the rest of your day, and if you have any questions, feel free to reply to this post.