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etrayaooc2026-02-20 11:39 am
etrayamods) wrote in etrayaooc2026-02-20 11:39 am
Entry tags:
State of the Game
Hello, Etrayans!
Here is a summary of recent updates to the game, as well as some requests for feedback!
Activity Rewards
- The Activity page was revised, and a new method for acquiring reward points was added that utilizes a written summary instead of tracking number of comments.
- Adding locations as an AC reward was removed, but you can still renovate existing locations for 30 points.
- The Locations page has had a map update.
- After a character has been in the game for at least six months, the player can request a free location for them, one per lifetime of the character in the game. We started tracking these requests in January, so everyone has started from a clean slate there.
- On the upcoming intro CR meme for this app round, we will be including a new thread where people can advertise locations their characters frequent. This is a way of encouraging people to make use of the locations already in game, and to plan out chance encounters or assumed CR as desired.
- Please continue to leave mission suggestions on this post or anywhere else to us to your heart's content! We do save these and have used several of them in the past.
Update as of 2/23/26: There is now a Mission Suggestions page where you can direct these to! - The game has gotten much bigger than originally anticipated, and we've been experimenting with the mission formats to hopefully accommodate a variety of play styles. We started adding exploratory leads and optional meta plot involved side quests in missions, and we're interested in your feedback on how that's gone!
- We would also like to invite people to come to us with offers to run missions or events of your own on the Mission Suggestions page. This can be an IC effort or just one you as the player are volunteering for. Although we can't guarantee we'll take up every offer, we know we have some motivated, capable, and creative players in game, and we want to open up the idea!
- The Story Thus Far page has been updated.
- Also on the Story Thus Far page, all of the previously distributed notes pertaining to the meta plot are available here out of character, and thanks to the addition of an in-character data repository, several are available for player characters to view.
- We encourage players to come to us if you're interested in exploring the meta plot further, and would love some feedback on how to balance plot within the overall pace of the game! Is there enough meta plot for you right now? Too much? Not enough? Let us know down below!
Finally, this month marks Etraya's 2-year anniversary and we want to thank everyone for making this game what it is! We've come so much farther than we ever thought we would. We all as mods appreciate all of you so much.
mission suggestions.
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Like lmfao i'm imagining that bit in Lilo & Stitch where she's like "dear God i need a friend send me your nicest angel" and then it hard cuts to Stitch cackling maniacally...
But like yeah imagining we respond to a call to the supposed heavens that isn't related to Echo's efforts at all but can be taken advantage of would be interesting to me just as a setup B]
Precisely WHAT about us collectively that could be the clincher is what I'm still chinscratching on; maybe we got some imperviousness to whatever is blighting said world on account of being outsiders or sth? Isekai stink. Or idk only strangers from distant realms/heavens can pilot the combining mecha to defeat our enemies etc etc...
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Balancing tone across missions is always something we're trying to keep an eye on, and we appreciate the feedback that there might be a need for a more hopeful mission that allows characters to feel that success is possible.
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Just to be open about our thinking on this, we're thinking of ways to make it more apparent in character that Echo hasn't definitively decided on which worlds to save yet. This means there's no real evidence to be found that it "works" so to speak, because it hasn't happened yet. However, we get the idea here and we do think we can work something into a future mission that achieves the goal of characters feeling like they can help save worlds instead of just being stuck in their fates.
general game questions.
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How are these widely available if the notes were distributed to specific individuals who have not come forward with them?
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I have a suggestion for something that worked quite well in other mission-based games I've been in prior. Would it be possible to have a permanent post we could reply to with mission suggestions, linked in navigation? I feel it would both encourage sharing of ideas and let people glance over and easily see if someone else had the same thought before.
Regarding balancing, I personally would like more time in exploratory missions such as the last one. I can't speak to the general sentiment of fellow players, but I got the impression it took a bit of time for groups to find their footing, and then the mission was ICly over. Since it felt to me that there was a great deal of potential, I'd love to see an exploration/survival mission have a longer duration in the future. Conversely, I find I struggle with when slice-of-life style events run long, so mileage will surely vary. My hope is that these variable durations will be mixed between the meatier and lighter events where feasible.
Thank you for all of your hard work!
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As for timing with exploratory missions - you're correct in that we do try to work with variable durations depending on the context of the mission to suit the wide variety of play styles we have in game. We are wanting to include more exploratory missions in the future, and will keep in mind that having them longer does assist in successfully exploring through new grounds for some!
Thank you again, Ren, for your suggestions. We love having you around and appreciate your input!
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I haven't been here long enough to experience a huge variety in missions, so grain of salt, but the last one missed the mark for me on one factor. Team missions for team-centric CR? YES! Choosing your own team? Alas, no. Granted, there weren't a lot of us who didn't get picked, for whatever reason, but if you intend for everyone to have an equal opportunity to be on some kind of team and there are still leftovers? Kind of a problem. I'm wholeheartedly into teams but going forward, I'd suggest only having RNG'd teams if you have to stick to teams of limited numbers. Leftovers may be able to pretend they still had some sort of useful role in the mission but lbr, it feels like failure and being unwanted, and nobody enjoys that. We also didn't get to really thread anything that would have led to IC success, and that also kind of sucks.
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We're sorry that the way we did team assignments didn't work for you this time around. We do want to let you know that we try to mix it up - sometimes, we offer RNG as a main way to build teams while allowing players to specify if they want a specific other character in their character's group, while other times we ask players to build their own teams and offer RNG to those who cannot find teams or do not want to look for them. Choosing teams and RNG is generally always an option during missions with smaller teams, though we do tend to swap which option is the "main" one.
We've found that mixing it up works well for most players, as sometimes allowing players to determine teams helps to work towards specific CR goals, while sometimes people do prefer to build CR via RNG. As a game that is generally heavy on back-tagging, we do try to include ways for people to thread outside of teams in every mission that includes teams, and we're always happy to respond to plotting happening in older missions as necessary.
Striking the right balance is always a work in progress and we appreciate your feedback! We will keep it in mind going forward.
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Honestly, I could do with more plot –– not necessarily meta plot, but just premises that feel more focused on giving characters objectives/things to do that fit into a general "save the universe" motif. Outside of the Jurassic Park expedition, the past few months have felt like a lot of random festivals, parties, arts & crafts and social events that I feel like characters could be putting on themselves if there's some desire, rather than having contextless cultural experiences put on by bots, and the over-the-top zaniness of the horse stuff. I would love more stuff that feels like missions, even if it has nothing to do with an overarching story about Etraya itself, nor is as formal as going off-planet for a few weeks. Put these people to work so it's not just a vacation!
(And lol I am still working on my own mini mission pitch, I swear.)
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Mingles and TDMs are generally constructed to be launching points for new characters, so in that sense, they are deliberately designed to be an easy entry point for new players. Historically we have tried to use TDMs as their own individualistic mission, such as with the library and spaceship - we can re-explore these concepts if it's something our player base is interested in.
While mingles and TDMs are meant to be launching points for new characters, missions are more intended to be the events for existing characters where they're assigned objectives and things to do.
We do have some upcoming plans for missions that we think concretely addresses this request for something more constructive and meaningful for existing characters. Overall, players seem to appreciate the slower pace of the game and that not every mission is on the heavier side, so we try to space things out - we know sometimes this makes it feel like there is a substantial lull in between more plot heavy missions and ones meant to be lighter, and that it mean it can come across like it takes a long time for us to respond to feedback like this.
With that in mind, we're trialing a mission wrap up post that includes a "forecast" of the basic tone of upcoming missions. In that post we will be including a genre poll as well to help keep tabs on player interest across the game in where to go next mission wise. This can be compared to our player survey we introduced back in October.
Historically we've also had several players come to us between missions with plots they want to dig into via our plotting post! This included digging into Aurora's origins, as well as asking what they could discover about Echo/the game plot as a whole via exploring around Etraya during their mission downtime. We do want to encourage players to come to us with these at their leisure, and do think this may be something more closely aligned with what you're looking for.
The time between missions is meant to be used as downtime for characters, where Aurora does intend for it to feel more vacation-y as she understands how difficult some of the missions can be on characters' psyche. But we always want to encourage our playerbase to come to us if they want something meatier to dig into, and we'll do our best to build something suitable to what you're looking for! If you don't have concrete ideas as to what your character might initially be looking for, a simple "hey, I want Sciel to get some more information regarding this, how could we build into that?" suits us just fine! We'll give you a few building blocks to start and respond in a timely manner to build off that initial idea.
And sorry for how long this got! We wanted to address that mingles and TDMs are meant to kind of be their own thing, while also noting that while that is true, we've tried to provide places for players to come to us if they do want something with more substance in the downtime between missions/plottier missions.
Something we're also looking into is giving players the opportunity to run more "mini-missions" outside of the missions schedule! IE, Aurora would offer another mission to a smaller group of characters, that mission would be something that is player(or mod, depending) designed during mission off months for players who do prefer to have less down time and want to have more concrete objectives to work towards.
Let us know what you think! We would encourage you to point other players towards this, too, to offer their feedback so we have a good idea of where our current playerbase is when it comes to having more substantial plots to dig into.
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I think for me the thing about TDMs being an entry point is that they work a lot better when they are a part of a mission, because that gives prospective players and characters an opportunity to envision their character as a part of the narrative of Etraya, in a structured event that everyone has to participate in and do their best in.
The manhunt element in San Fran may have been a little less accessible to TDMers, but they had to deal with the barrier blocking them in, and existing characters could at least be like –– hey, this is the situation, you might be coming back with us to Etraya, let's help you not get nuked by the barrier. Or in the fae world, TDMers were also kidnapping victims of the fae, and had a similar "we can get you out of here" element that nicely broke up the party element; suddenly it was a double rescue mission, and I felt there was a neat risk of loss there for Etrayans if TDMers didn't get scooped up! In their eyes, some people definitely got left behind. Both of those plots had lots of opportunity for people to do their own things, but the mission was available. I also thought the Fog would have had GREAT potential for a TDM, simply because it would make sense for characters to appear in the fog and then vanish with it, but also for some characters to stick around, and in some cases be questioned –– are they real? Can they be trusted if they're products of the fog? Etc.
But comparatively, when a TDM is something like the horse thing, it's like, well, existing characters have no incentive to willingly participate in the tomfoolery, and the TDMers are at no risk nor need for explanation, as Aurora does it all, and their first impression of the setting is that it's just kind of... filler. Not to rip on the horses too much because it's cute stuff, but it's a good example in my mind of something that doesn't feel like a hook for new players/characters.
Personally, I haven't TDM'd a second character despite wanting to because I kind of look at the prompts and go, well, I have no problem filling out the chill sandbox weeks with my own plots and CR/interpersonal stuff, so if I want to gauge how well they'd do in the setting/with the overall premise of the game, I want to see how they do on a mission and with other Etrayans in "work mode". I have a lot of characters who would probably ICly have a very unwieldy first impression of Etraya if it was "you go on a date with a horse" over something like "please help us on our mission, and if you do, maybe you'll get to live too, instead of being left behind with your captors." I recognize a good chunk of that is a me problem, but I kinda wonder how many people might be in a similar boat when it comes to joining or staying or being active when there's a missing "substance" angle for sometimes multiple game-wide logs at a time.
Pairing party threads with mission stuff feels like a good way to accommodate all speeds, so characters who need a break can totally have it, but ones who need something meaningful to do (or just players who are less interested in writing parties!) have that option. And part of this is me being like –– I love that you guys are willing to do the legwork for people who will approach looking for something custom and meatier, but it might be less legwork for you overall if those options exist for a lot of people to use/build on/play with as desired, as it could hit a flock of birds with one stone. I think mini-missions are GREAT for that and am definitely looking forward to a system for that, and would happily run a ton of 'em myself.
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We get where you're coming from with TDMs that are part of the mission being a little easier to jump into. One thing we've noticed as mods is that the TDMs that are not mission-inclusive seem to get significantly more tags and more movement as of late, so while we can see where you're coming from, we're not quite sure if this is something that most players hold a similar opinion to.
That said, we're always on the lookout for feedback and ways to improve the game, so if this does change, we're happy to try and adjust to suit - and we're still keeping an eye out for further responses on this feedback post, too.
We do look forward to your mission suggestions, too! While mini-missions are still on the docket, part of the reason we ask players to come to us with their plotting ideas is because it also gives us an idea of what players want to play with. In example, we had several players ask for plot, introduced the letters after, but after some players dropped out of game, it seemed as if interest for that plot line also waned. We want to provide plots and meta information that our player-base is interested in, so for more meta-plot related information drops, we'd still prefer to do the legwork to meet what others are asking for.
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It could be helpful to provide a little more information on how people can engage in these plot moments. Whether it's noting a place to explore to get started or something someone can find that leads to more information and sparks a thread for players. Laying out a breadcrumb or two could be helpful to get the ball rolling. Otherwise, players are left guessing on how to begin, which kind of feels like taking stabs in the dark until someone happens to guess the right method to move forward.
In addition, for missions that require group rp, two weeks is kind of challenging. Vax's group is still tagging its only group thread, and I'd say we're maybe halfway done at this point. It takes a lot of time for four people to get through a round (unless they have no RL obligations). This also means the group might only be able to do one thing for the mission rather than explore additional plot points. So, perhaps missions that require group mechanics could last longer to compensate for the time it takes to manage a multi-player thread.
Thank you for reviewing this!
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We were also surprised no one pursued saving the survivors. We dropped in a few leads on the post itself -- "These serve as optional narrative pathways that, when explored, will reveal more information about the world of Mesa and potentially about the meta-plot itself." Following up on that by exploring the research stations, terraforming plants, or communicating with the locals all could have led to paths that helped rescue them.
There were also a few leads in this thread -- it was possible to befriend the locals after leaving them enough gifts, or they would be entranced by anyone with light-emitting powers (of which we have a few characters). Characters were also invited to contact Aurora, who remained available for contact during the mission, to ask about what might be possible.
We didn't receive any other direct questions about how to accomplish this. The only other interest we received was Accelerator's team discovering some detail about the universe Mesa takes place in from one of the research stations.
Apart from that, we believe providing anything more detailed than what we did might railroad characters into certain actions to be successful, which we don't want to do. As we said to Jenn in the above thread, we'd prefer to do legwork to respond to individual players and characters to respond to their specific actions with the leads provided. Additionally, we like to leave it open-ended on how things can be accomplished, as this also helps us work with player responses to accomplish the goals they would like to achieve. We like to not map out specific pathways on how to get there, as this gives us more leeway to create paths to different outcomes using what players choose to explore. One of our main goals of moderators of Etraya is to be able to provide "yes, and" responses to our players as often as is reasonable - and it's easier for us to do that if we leave open a wide pathway to explore.
Regarding the timing of the missions, we can keep an eye on that in the future. Since the game moves at the same pace for new missions and events regardless of how long a given mission runs, and we tend to be fairly backtag-heavy, there aren't any consequences to taking a while to thread out any given scene, and we also tend to leave the end of missions open unless players do come to us with a set conclusion (such as the train mission), leaving time and space to build up to resolutions. We are happy to hold off on reporting outcomes if a plot-relevant thread is on-going and to work with players if handwaving is necessary.
As for your note with teams, players are free to structure their team threads any way they like! Some teams did full four-person rounds and some did sets of pairs in threads, some a mix, and so forth. While teams were structured into four characters, this was more to give our players more opportunities for CR with set individuals, rather than limit them to needing to play in four way threads.
That being said, we understand that for the purposes of exploring plot points, two weeks can seem too short of a time to do so. For this mission, the limited duration was more to keep in mind the limited supplies characters went into the mission with. However, we will keep in mind that for exploratory missions, a lengthier amount of time may be helpful to give our players more wiggle room to plot out what has occurred during their mission.
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Regarding back-tagging, I was hoping to do more with the mission, since it’s still a few weeks before the next mission drops. Based on what you've said, does this mean if a thread is back-tagging 3-4 months from now, the mods will still be actively responding to questions and threads from an old mission as people continue investigating Mesa? Can the outcome of the Mesa mission be changed 6 months in the future as threads are concluded? I presumed this would be cumbersome on the mods, who are actively working on new missions/events each month, but perhaps I presumed wrong.
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We do want to reiterate that we are not withholding information from our players! Rather, we are frequently deciding what will work based on what players are interested in playing with.
Much like D&D, DWRP is a cooperative roleplay between moderators and players - and much like Dungeon Masters often have to wing resolutions as players come up with ideas, we often adjust to players' interests to allow what they are interested in pursuing to push forward plots.
We will still be responding to questions about Mesa for as long as player interest in that world continues! What happens on previous missions informs subsequent ones, so we unfortunately can't retcon major events or results, but we're open to players working with us in advance on what they'd like the outcome to be and then working through the threads at their own pace in backtagging.
For example, in previous missions, we've had players come to us asking what would happen if they chased after a specific angle. We would answer these players on the plotting posts, and they would play out those results in a manner that suited them, even if it meant taking several months of backtagging to get to play out what they sought.
We hope this helps clarify how we hope to play out missions that can involve significant change to mission environments with player and character action!
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