And here are some of the questions and answers that came up:If you've been around for a while, you may have noticed that Rias tends to pour a lot into his work and that sometimes leaves a person quite depleted - that is the case now. Rias is currently on indefinite hiatus - he may not do any development work on the game for weeks, months, or years, or even forever (he may move on to a new project rather than coming back to this one or he may hang up his game development hat altogether). He is still invested in the world and lore, and so is not open sourcing the project or bringing in a new developer. Instead things will remain more or less as they are. Because many of you are still invested in the game, its world and lore, he has opted to continue to host the game rather than closing it down. If your natural response to this is to want to reach out to Rias, instead please don't do that (unless you are already real-life friends with him and are already regularly in touch - if that's the case, you do you) - Rias needs time away and a barage of unsolicited contact isn't time away. Rias will remain available to keep the game server from crashing, and existing staff will be around, availability and interest permitting, to keep an eye on things and occasionally run events or merchants (but try to keep your expectations low in that regard).
Q: Is this going to be put up on the BBS?
A: Here it is! (posting it on the BBS was part of the plan but we felt a roundtable with people about in the moment was the better way to break the news)
Q: So if the game is going to stay the same... does this mean bugs or suggestions won't be worked on until he is able or wants to return to game work?
A: That's largely correct. We can handle object and room typos, but that's mostly it as far as bugs we can squish. And suggestions can continue to be contributed to the BBS, as could lore questions. I don't know how much Rias will be reading them, but they'll have a longer life there than perhaps anywhere else.
Q: How does this effect storylines that are already pending? Is that something yourself, Rilulth and Ansarian can still handle? As the sign says, when interest and RL coincide.
A: We have been given free reign to carry on, so we could, yes. Rilulth in particular has a very strong desire to not deviate from established lore, and I respect that. So there may be some hesitance to pick up some of Rias' plot lines in particular.
Q: What does this mean for the custom requests? The crafting marks and druid avatars.
A: I think I know the commands to approve them, if I'm right and the commands actually work for somone that isn't Rias, I could theoretically approve them. The ones that remain are usually the ones Rias struggled with visualizing, either on a variety of crafted objects for craftmarks, or for some other reason. I'll test my ability to actually use the commands then, and we'll find out together whether that will progress or not.
Q: I was just curious if there will still be weddings and the occasional festival? I know those are quite enjoyable.
A: Weddings are usually player/character driven plots. Event staff (or Rias) have occasionally lent a hand with those, and you can still email the staff email (cogg @) to request asssistance with player driven plots like that, though limitations will still be in place as to what gets supported, and I suspect the festivals will continue, though there may not always be new shops. I know new people and new characters are still excited to see existing ones come around again.
Q: Also, i'm guessing it's prying too hard. in knowing which plots are basically frozen? In case there are people looking into those events that'll be on hold.
A: I should let the event staff comment on that. I will speculate that Rias' bigger plot lines will continue to not progress.
Q: I'm curious if there's a coding limitation on "restrings" or if it's just preference. I.e. a longsword to an arming sword or what have you. The reason I ask, is that something as simple as that can have the appearance of new and exciting development without the added needing of coding. Which could help allay some of the pains of screeching to a standstill.
A: There are some limitations code-wise around restrings, particularly regarding item nouns. It's why we don't do those during merchant events.
Q: I'm assuming the Tse Gaiyan, at least, was under Rias' purview? Will someone else be floating that in the interim?
Q: Who controllith the potential Thieve's Guild? If ye can say.
A: Really all the societies were under Rias' purview. The ascetics in particular are likely going to be difficult as we don't have a good way to initiate any new ones. If the event staff are interested in running events under the open societies, they'll be able to run those plots.
Q: Will citizenship be something that can be switched still, or was that all Rias, too?
A: I could probably figure out how to adjust citizenships, but I won't be able to migrate farms or set home joint owners.
Q: What about books being put in the library? Is that a thing that GMs can do?
A: We could probably figure that out. I'd need help from other staff on the quality control, because I'm a grump on those.
Q: Will we get the opportunity to find special animals like alpacas in the future? And if not, will we ever be able to buy and sell among ourselves?
A: There are some existing mechanics to buy and sell among yourselves - special animals sold off a farm show up in the stockade office. As for special animals being up for sale, that would probably be a gm-run merchant event, and we wouldn't be able to make any new ones that don't already exist, but I think we could probably sell existing ones from time to time.
Q: Are any houses like any more houses going to be built?
A: The housing code was fairly recent, so I don't know if we have the commands in place for non-dev staff to add more homes. I'll have to research, that one is firmly in maybe territory.
Q: Are we going to be able to have access to the orphanage?
A: No we won't be opening up access to the orphanage.
Q: Can the GM's change the option for how many character we can play at once? I'm just wondering because I feel like if we had the opportunity to play more different characters it would open up a different game in a lot of ways. Or is that a Rias decision?
A: That one is hard-coded and out of reach for everyone but Rias. Rias has in the past pointed out that it is that way, and some various other things exist (like only one character per account can own a home) to help get people to stick to having a main. In
Q: Will Rias still be handling account issues, and/or can other staff do this? Things like lost passwords but also deleting accounts.
A: Rias will still need to handle issues like lost passwords, deletion of characters or accounts will continue to be unsupported.
Additionally, there were a few character sentiments that I felt were worth sharing:
So I'm fairly new, but.. well I guess I wanted to say before I headed off is that to me it seems like theres enough people and enough people interested in keeping some sort of community going that me as a new person I've had really awesome interactions with folks and the game in my month here. So my closing words... not being awareof anything higher than just the roleplay of being a villager basically... is I'll still be around doing what I've been doing and hopefully I'll still see you guys around too.
Basically, I just wanted to thank ya'll for everything, as always, and specifically note that the sandbox here's a good one. Given I experienced a similar sort of situation with clok-- I can attest to there still being a lot of fun potential to be had, to those interested in what can be had here, still. Even if said sandbox is a bit more dense in certain places, and a bit lighter in others, by comparison. It's a cool world, it's cool lore, the places and the characters and everything in that world are rad, and I'll still likely show up from time to time to have my fun in it. It might be slower, but have what fun you want to have here. Enjoy what happens when it happens, do what you can when it ain't. Feel free to reach out to me on discord or whatever anytime if you don't see me here. But i'll still be around now and then, just like I was. That's all.
I just wanted to say that I expected this is what was going on for a while now. I makes me sad for rias and worried for the game long term, but I plan to stick around. I haven't been able to find good rp anywhere for a long time until now and I've had a lot of fun with many of you. So I hope people do stick around for good rp with what we have.
Just wanted to pop back in to remind everyone to pour one out for the bro Rias on your way out of here. High hopes and good fortunes are what we do in this community. Rattlesnake venom can be found in the hanged man. Do as the good gangster do. The command syntax is dump <container>.
Prism dumps the contents of a hearth-etched copper mug of some pale yellow-green whiskey out onto the ground.
