Eden Underground

Annnnd hello again!

I have run the list of scene lottery participants through a random name picker and the results are as follows.



Hope everyone has fun with it! ♥

Lana

Hello everyone! Thanks for your patience.

For the month of February, we'd still like to hear your feedback regarding a few topics we've mentioned in a previous post. Because of that, instead of the usual way we conduct activity, we'd rather have everyone comment below and let us know which of your characters you'll concentrate or focus on for the month of February.

Since we're in transition from July to August, we thought it might be a fun idea to do a scene lottery! If you're unfamiliar with concept of a scene lottery, it's when a list of characters submitted by you are randomly thrown together to interact with one another. Basically, it gives players the opportunity to mix up their interactions and play characters against others they might not normally play against. Players have until the end of February 13th to submit 1 - 4 characters to be selected for the lottery. After that, comments for the lottery will be closed and no longer accepted. On February 15th, a list of matched characters will be posted to the OOC and announced on Discord via the proper channel.

If you have questions about this or activity, please let us know as soon as possible.

Hello everyone!

As we're sure you noticed, we implemented an impromptu hiatus over the last couple of months due to general holiday chaos and illness. (Aeryn ended up being sick for the majority of December, on top of dealing with her retail job.) We hope that because of this, you were able to enjoy your holidays and had fun with friends and family. However, now that the holidays are wrapping up, we'd like to get back into the swing of things! Before we do that, we feel that there are some concerns to address as a group so that we can progress and make the most of the game. We apologize in advance, this is probably going to get TL;DR-y.

A lot of what we're going to say all bleeds into one another, but something that we noticed a lot of in 2018 was the amount of hiatuses that were requested. Not only were there a lot of hiatuses, but there were quite a few long hiatuses and a lot of hiatuses that were asked simply at the last minute. Since RP is a collaborative process, it's difficult to progress storylines when the collaboration slows down or becomes stagnant.

This stagnation we feel, however, isn't entirely due to the amount of hiatuses that happened in 2018. We get that hiatuses are needed — Real life is always more important, especially when it comes to work and spending time with your family. As Mods, we've tried to do our best to anticipate the needs of everyone by posting activity checks as close to the beginning of the month so that everyone has the chance to check-in with their activity. That said, we would genuinely like to know if there is anything else we can do to help make the check-in process easier, if that is something that's hampering your RP experience within the group. We'd also like to hear any feedback you have regarding activity checks and the handling of hiatuses. Some of the ideas we've tossed around regarding this issue are:

• Quarterly check-ins
• Monthly soft check-in - to see who's home, so to speak
• Characters you'd like to focus on instead of monthly activity check for all your characters
• Personal reminders (do you want us to personally remind you?)

Numerous hiatuses weren't the only aspect that we believe lead to reduced activity. It has been over two years since we instituted delayed time and set the in-game time as July 2016. While we value the group being able to explore stories and develop characters at the leisure of our writers, we agree that this is entirely too long to limit play on one month. Overall, we kind of feel that we've lost active engagement as a group, which has lead to the slow-down of thread progression. Our concern here is the issue of in-game time: How can we can keep the casual pace we need, but still progress toward the next month and not stagnate things? How can we engage you to be more active?

• Would you like to see the occasional town-wide plots, mini-plots, or events?
• Should we try short-form group event RPs? That is, responses which are much shorter in length, in order to keep the pace moving?
• Would you like to try group RPing on the Discord server?
• Would you like to see more interactive things such as polls or prompts/memes, etc?

We are currently in the process of revamping our comms and the mod journal, and would love to inject new energy into the game in this new year. To that end, we hope that you all will give us your feedback and ideas, as well as your personal thoughts on what you want from this game. What are the aspects you enjoy? What would you like to focus on? What do you want that you don't currently feel that you're getting from the game?

We will take everything you say into consideration, and are willing to make changes we think would be suitable for the group as a whole. We love the world we've created here, and that includes all of your amazing writing and characters! They make Willow Creek the magical place that it is!

Thank you so much for your feedback and thoughts and we hope you have a great new year!

Aeryn & Lana

Everyone has until the end of November 30th EST to comment with proof of their activity. As a reminder, you need the following:

• One (1) journal entry. This can be a journal entry your character posted or one that your character commented on.
• One (1) thread. Again, this can be a thread your character posted or one that your character participated in.
• A link back to your comment on the August Plotting entry.

If you don't provide proof, your character will be removed on December 1st. If a name has a strikethrough, they have either passed or they are exempt from the check due to hiatus (denoted by an H). Note that if your character has a W by their name, that means that they have earned an activity waiver — if you wish to waive your activity for the month, just let the Mods know.

NOTE: If you require a hiatus for the month, we must receive your hiatus request no less than seven (7) days prior to the end of the month. In the case of last minute emergencies, please contact the mods.
Character Name = Checked-in/Exempt | Character Name (H) = Hiatus
Character Name (W/W X#) = Waiver/# of Waivers

Lila Burke Kara Choi (W) Ashley Crane Hadley Cross (W X2) Shanna Damiani (H/W X2) Elise Delaney (W X6) Rebecca Delaney Nadia Duchene/Solara-Rei (W) Fredericka Holt (W X3) Abigail Knight (W X5) Alexandria Knight (H/W X4) Rachel Knight (H) Lanie McKenna (W X5) Savannah McKenna (H) Angelina O'Shea (H/W X3) Darlene O'Shea (W) Miranda Quinn (H) Laurel Reynolds (W X2) Dakota Rhodes (H) Skye Sawyer (W X2) Cassandra Thorne (W) Irena Thorne (W X3) Briana Underwood (H) Anna Volkova (W) Grace Whitaker Jackie Young

Kayden Aksoy (H) Bishop (W X2) Storm Briarlee (H) Ethan Cole (H) Gabriel Damiani (W X2) Gideon Damiani (W) Jesse Damiani (W X2) Ryan Dawson (W) Xander Kingston (W) Noah Knight (H) Seth Knight (W) August McKenna Evan McKenna (W X5) Jake McKenna (W X3) Lance McKenna (W) Gray Ó Nualláin (H) Carter Reynolds Harding Reynolds (W) Jackson Reynolds (W X3) Cole Sinclair (W X2) Luke Smith/Lux-Eron Raj Thorne (W) Carlos Vasquez (H) Declan Ward Jamie Whitaker Levi Whitby (W X2) Lucas Young

If your character is missing or you think your character is eligible for a waiver but not marked, drop a note to the Mods

Since it was suggested for July in-game (thank you Kelly/Nae!), we thought it was a pretty handy tool and would like to continue using it. So, for August in-game, copy and paste the template below in a new comment for each character you play.

<b>Previously on Willow Creek....</b> What has your character been up to? <b>Plots, Lines, and Threads for August:</b> What do you want to accomplish with your character during the month of August? <b>General Plotting Wishlist:</b> Any other ideas you want to do with your character in the near or distant future.

If you have questions, please ask them here.

Thank you!
Aeryn & Lana