Guided Discussion: Next Topic?
What should the next guided discussion channel topic be?

We've gotten feedback that while the Town Hall's are great for getting updates on where the game is at and where we are headed, and having several important discussions in a short (3 hour) period, there is something lacking, because there isn't a lot of back and forth or being able to discuss things in real time, and go back and forth and address points others raise.

The staff agree, and we put the guided discussion channel in place to have some of these longer form conversations in real time, in between town halls.

We're going to be scheduling some at semi-regular cadence, and we wanted to identify what the topics you want to discuss most are.

Please respond with the topic you're interested in discussing. When we've got a good amount of responses I'll create a poll in game and you all can vote on the topic and we'll schedule a date & time to have the discussion!

I'd love to have these scheduled every month or two or three, in between Town Halls.

Looking forward to hearing your suggestions!

I'd like to discuss the current state of the game over the past 3 months. There's been a gradual tone and culture shift that has been overall harmful for the game's mantra of cooperative competition on both staff and player side and I feel it needs to be discussed.

I'd also like to discuss late game progression, and how there are particular expectations of older characters in place yet isn't always the support nor incentive for them to do what's expected.

Fire away, boys

Articles of Incorporation. I brought it up because a recent change made it so all Articles of Incorporation-created businesses require a job terminal which I assume was the spearhead for the greater job terminal change I mentioned: You can no longer be on multiple job terminals. At all. Even if you worked there for free.

I say this was a poor choice for player retention because in the span of the last few months, my character lost almost all of their friends, enemies, and now their hobby-job too which was related to a very niche skillset that barely sees use. So working there full time with no other jobs would be very slow and having 2 jobs was the perfect medium between using my skills and actually having things to do.

And, it's like. What now? Genuine question and why I'm posting in this thread.

I have barely anything to do in game and I doubt I'm the only person in this position. I can't really see any reason why any player character would want to be a bartender or work at a player-leased biz long term now that it has to be their only job because they are very slow jobs with no perks, making them perfect for side gigs for extra RP. But now, I feel like hiring someone as a bartender or whatever, especially if they're new, would actively hinder their enjoyment of the game by giving them less money and zero perks. Sure, they might get some extra RP, but they could also get the same RP by simply hanging out there.

On the flip side, there's not enough actual coded content for a lot of the non player-leased jobs like CHEX, TSX, 3LP or CA, etc, most are very reactive with long spans of time with nothing to do, and taking away side gigs/multiple job terminals does more harm than good and doesn't seem very themely. Plenty of people work multiple jobs irl.

Game feels very stagnant the last few months and limiting player options doesn't really help that.

Also, you should update the site to inform players that decking isn't like hacking or the typical cyberpunk thing because spec-ing my character for that only to be disappointed when I couldn't do anything major with it aside from making advertisements and defacing blogs really killed my motivation to play and I'm sure others feel the same way.

As for the staff not having gone through the new player experience, staff members do re-roll characters fairly often. But I don't think that is a useful metric in and of itself, as anyone on Staff has been playing at least 6 months, and would already have an understanding of a lot of game mechanics that new players discover.

Either way, this sounds like a great topic for a guided discussion. This thread isn't the place for it though. If you do want to continue the discussion on the BGBB, feel free to create a thread on the BGBB and I'll happily discuss there!

Especially for non-combat players. I'm seeing a significant decrease in opportunities and with top-side being a ghost town, now, it's even worse. Non-combat intrigue could benefit from some staff support. I'm not talking about events and performances. Those are just time-killers. I mean real intrigue and plot development. Most ideas just seem to be deflected to combat-oriented characters or passed over. If there are bad ideas for plots, some help generating better ones would be helpful.

I agree that 2018/2019 were great times for this part of the game that helped others ride it for years and getting another atmosphere like that would help Red players I think feel more engaged and breathe life into activity down there beyond the current existence.