HMD | April 2012

[these_balls]

EVALUATE MY BATTLING!

TRAINER TIPS:
→ This is encouraged, not mandatory. We will not penalize you for not using it.
→ Feel free to link your personal HMDs if you would like, just in case someone doesn't want to use the mass HMD post.
→ this is more for actual critique and discussion. Please don't just blindly praise a person or just call them horrible. If someone's doing a wonderful job, you can tell them, just tell them why, or even where they're showing off bonus perks. If someone's doing a not-so-wonderful job, tell them why, give them things to improve on if you can. Examples, links, things that can give them something to work on. Meaning, no bashing, flaming, or nasty behavior. Please keep it civil.
→ Anonymous is turned on! But note: anonymous is a privilege, not a right. If it's being abused to bash players, please be sure to let one of us know and we'll step in or freeze threads if necessary. If anonymous is abused too much, it will be turned off for the next HMD.
→ Don't take this all too personally! Remember that roleplay is a game, and crit is supposed to help, not make you feel horrible. No one is perfect, we've all got room to improve. Please keep that in mind.

→ MOD/GAME HMD

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

This is a problem with journal based games in general. Unless you want to suddenly convert the entire game to a community based one, there really isn't a way to fix this.

The other problem is, well, to get tags you do need to tag yourself. You can't blame everyone else for not getting tags if you just plan on expecting them: Tag out there and they WILL come. Start building the CR yourself if you want it. Others might feel the same way as you, they might be waiting for the tags that aren't coming, so it's up to someone to take that first step.

Be that someone. If they don't follow up on CR that you're starting, crit them on it and if you don't, they can do the same.

[dreamsofahero]

If you read through my entire comment, you'd see I addressed all of those point you just raised, including the possibility of switching to a comm-based system, or having a centralized network page rather than relying on individual players' journals to all be up to date. Similarly, I DO tag people a lot. Sion posts fairly infrequently, so I kind of have to, anyway. By the month, for threads Sion had with people outside his own journal posts, 5 out 7 in February were with non-canonmates, 4 out of 6 in March, and 4 out of 6 so far in April. The only reason he has any threads outside his own posts with canonmates is because, given the nature of their canon relationship, he will always respond to a canonmate's post in some way, so it is really not for lack of my tagging around. But again, I've observed similar issues in posts made by other characters from more obscure canons, so I really don't think it's just me that's having this issue.

[(Anonymous)]

... Well if you put numbers on it it sounds like you aren't tagging that many posts at all...

[dreamsofahero]

Considering that it's in the middle of con season as well as busy time at work for me? That's probably more than I average with any other character in any other game at the moment. And still averages WELL over 100 comments per month, as most of my threads often average 15-20 comments from me apiece, where the minimum activity requirements for the game is what, somewhere in the 20-30 comment range? So, y'know, if you want to split hairs like that...

And apparently I need to repeat myself again, but I am not the only person affected by this. I have seen posts on a regular basis that basically only ever get tagged by the character's canonmates, as far as I can see. Which yes, is often a symptom of the journal-based format, but that's exactly part of the issue, isn't it?

Oh, and I neglected to mention before, but I, for one, do not feel comfortable critting people solely on the basis of "hey our characters threaded x many times but you never tag me" for the simple reason that it's entirely possible that what's ICly important to one character isn't as important to the other. And the complaint here is that SION'S posts are not tagged by other people in the first place, regardless of how much he has or hasn't threaded with anyone else. Basically, characters from lesser-known canons or played by players who aren't well-connected OOCly don't really get tagged, regardless often how often they post or with what content. And because it gives the impression that you have to be or play someone popular just to get replies, that is really, incredibly frustrating and discouraging to a (relatively) new player to the game!