ANNOUNCEMENT + EVENT

Happy mid-September everyone! As promised, the results of the game pacing poll have been determined, and today marks the IC start date of Glencola Reef's third major event, 1st Full Moon. We'll start with the bookkeeping first.

GAME PACING POLL RESULTS

Thanks everyone for voting! The results are in:

While it seems that the overall preference weight was to keep things at 6:1, most people had 3:1 as their top choice. Therefore, we will return to a 3:1 OOC/IC pace starting in October.

Based on some of the feedback for a compromise in the previous post, I'm also tempted to do something like a rotating slowdown that aligns with event months - going to 3:1 during "off" months where scheduled plot events aren't happening (so that they don't drag), and switching to 6:1 during event months (to give players/mods more OOC time to plot and play during event weeks). How do people feel about this idea? No poll this time, just a comment to post feedback or alternate ideas.

Now, onto the fun stuff!

EVENT: 1st FULL MOON

If you've spent any time on the beach lately - and most characters have, either while exploring alone or taking shelter in the now very popular airbase in tile IX - you've probably noticed the coconut crabs. With the larger specimens having a legspan of three feet across and weighing nearly ten pounds, isolated encounters can be hard to ignore. But recently, there's been a lot of them. Rotting fruit and animals left out from the recent storm seem to attract the creatures in droves, and now that most of those have been expended, there are rather alarming signs that the crabs have developed a particular taste for meat and are hunting to obtain it. Thankfully, small animals like young birds and already stranded fish have been the only things on their menu.

However, as the moon grows close to full, their behavior starts to take a noticeable turn. Starting in the early morning of Day 028, a peculiar rumbling noise sounds throughout the island. People in the northwest will feel it more than hear it, like the pressure wave from a bomb rippling underfoot and through the air itself, while people in the southeast will definitely hear the lower notes humming and clicking in a quick rhythm. This will repeat several times during the day. Every time it does, it's like the whole world goes on pause: The air stills, birdsong and animal calls cease, and any creatures currently visible stop and look in the distance towards tile XI. Then they continue about their business.

All of them except the coconut crabs. Each repeat of the noise whips them into a frenzy of activity, driving them out of their burrows and into the forests in swarming masses. They spend most of the morning and day just rushing towards tiles X and VII, trampling and devouring anything that stands still long enough to get in their way. Humanoids and larger animals are big enough to shake off single crabs, but as they start to clump in their target tiles, they rapidly become a force to be reckoned with. Writhing balls of coconut crabs become too tall for others to join in, so more of them scuttle up nearby trees so that they can launch themselves into the piles, and soon the trees aren't enough, either.

By the start of Night 028, the assorted clumps of crabs have coalesced into two distinct crab swarms that each roughly resembles a single, larger coconut crab, but on a truly massive scale. The main body easily covers one square kilometer while the sprawling swarm of crabs rotating in and out of it flows along the ground underneath in a nine square kilometer area. Over the next eight hours, they will each carve a path through the forest until they reach their respective bays. Anything - or anyone - directly in front of them will surely be destroyed.

EVENT FAQ

How long is the event running?

Coconut crabs will be a problem throughout IC day 028 (OOC days 9/15 -> 9/20), with a high likelihood of showing up in people's search requests in various ways. The two crab monstrosities will only appear fully-formed during Night 028 (OOC days 9/19 -> 9/20).

Is anywhere safe from the crab menace?

Characters traveling in the foothills or mountains will have a significantly lower chance of running into any coconut crabs, while characters traveling through the ocean will encounter none (as long as they're not in points of impact for the giant crab swarms, anyway). Anyone else is likely to encounter at least one bunch of very agitated coconut crabs and will have to deal with them somehow. While most situations will be avoidable by just staying out of the crabs' way, characters in tiles X or VII may be killed outright by this event. Additionally, failing to move out of the paths of the giant crab swarms during Night 028 will almost certainly result in instant death.

What are the exact paths of the giant crab swarms?

Tiles X and VII, respectively:

Note that these paths are not set in stone, and could potentially be altered by character actions throughout the event. Updates will be provided here as they occur.

I have many questions/comments/concerns!

Please post them here!

NAVIGATION

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Namely, how do you feel about the rotating 6:1/3:1 schedule idea? If you have other ideas, leave them here!

My first instinct was "hmmm, that could get confusing", but tbh I'm so used to playing things loosey-goosey with time in RP (backdating, forward-dating, nebulous-time-dating) that I actually don't think I'd be as thrown off by it as I first thought. I like the idea!

I'm chronically behind anyway and idk that I always know what IC day is what OOC day either way l-lol but I'm all for the rotating idea in the vain hope that one day I will catch up

How close to the southeast would people have to be to hear the clicking and humming, and would they be able to pick up on what the exact pattern is?

They can technically hear it (or feel it) anywhere on the island - it just might take a few extra iterations of the noise to be able to discern any patterns the further away they are. Assuming Dirk is in tile IX (and given his prior experience communicating with the Pacairs), he'll be able to determine this sequence just before nightfall:

.. / -... .-. --- ..- --. .... - / -- -.-- / ... .--. .. .-. .. - / - --- / - .... . / ... . .-
.. / ... - --- --- -.. / ..- .--. --- -. / - .... . / ... .... --- .-. .
.. / --. .- --.. . -.. / ..- .--. --- -. / .. -. ..-. .. -. .. - -.--
.. / .... . .- .-. -.. / - .... . / .-- .- - . .-. ... / .-. --- .- .-.

I think it could work well - maybe let's try it out and see :')

Otherwise like I suggested in the other post, something in between (5:1/4:1) could be worth looking into.

Echoing everyone else: sounds like a good compromise! I definitely worry 6:1 would drag without an event going on.

I might be an outlier but I've found the 6:1 pacing slow/limiting at times, in terms of what I could have my character doing. When he was stuck in one area ICly for several days, it was about a month OOCly... that got kinda rough lol. Though I've been considering bringing in a second character and that would likely help since I'd have more to do.

But I'm in favour of anything that's a bit faster. A rotating schedule could be interesting to try. For 6:1 pacing it might also be worth considering adjusting some of the other time-based mechanics slightly, such as injury durations.