Post by Super Gmagical on Mar 31, 2018 22:56:38 GMT -8
SPRING INTO STARDOM!
STAR FESTIVAL
It's that time of year again! As Bal's Comet passes overhead for a week, Veria celebrates its annual Star Festival. The bulk of the festivities are in Liggs, where the people can stand closest to the stars, but folks all over the country might celebrate in their own ways.
Liggs' celebrations include our first full three-round contest in a while, which will be held in the new Contest Hall board. All future contests and showcases will be hosted here regardless of IC location in order to make them more visible and past contests easier to find.
We'll also be trying out a new way of handling events! In some past events, we've had specific game threads to win prizes, but it got a bit tiring writing about the same thing for multiple characters. So, to keep things fresh and encourage activity, here's what we've got:
- All Star Festival activities (except the Contest) will take place in the new Star Festival event board, regardless of where they are ICly. The event will last for a month and a half OOCly, even though it's a week IC, as we know this is a busy time of year for many.
- You can write threads about doing anything around the festival, from enjoying the games to having a starlit picnic to pulling an overly complicated daring heist to steal a teddy bear from a prize booth-- whatever your heart desires. These threads can ICly be in any town, as long as they're in the event board and related to the event in some way.
Then, for every 5 post rounds between you and (a) partner(s), each person participating will receive 2 randomly rolled pieces of Star Festival Loot, up to a max of 3 rolls / 6 prizes each per thread. (One full page for a 2-person thread, for instance.) These rolls can be saved up and done all at once if it's easier to keep track that way.
In addition, each time two unique players thread together for the first time, they will each receive 3 bonus prizes! This is per player, not per character, so if for instance Jay and I had an Orion/Nik thread and a Kali/Yue thread, only the first one would earn the bonus prize. We hope this encourages people to branch out and particularly to help out newer members~ - Alternatively, writing a solo one-shot of 1000+ words will earn a single character 4 prize rolls, for those whose time or muse is currently better suited to that sort of thing.
- Like last year, [SF Catch] threads can be done to spawn from a special assortment of Pokémon. Rather than use the normal terrains for a given city, these will be a space/night/dream-themed assortment. There are less Minior than last year, but they're still slightly higher spawn rates than the others. The overall list is expanded some from last year. (There are even two Rares hiding in the mix!)
Event [SF Catch] threads can be done in addition to normal [Catch] threads, limit one event and one normal thread per player at a time. [This is currently a trial basis, and we reserve the right to revoke the extra freedom or to not continue doing it in future events, just in case, but everything should be fine.]
Wild Shiny Pokémon are appearing during this event, too. Of course, Shinies are always easy to Spritz anyway, but for those who find it more fun or rewarding to find them wild, it's a little extra perk. (Note: For Minior only, Shinies can also be part of Horde encounters. If you find a Minior Horde where one of the Minior shown is Shiny, assume only one from the Horde is. If both of the Minior displayed are Shiny, at least 2 should be but the rest can be whatever natural colors you want, including but not limited to an all-Shiny horde. In general, Minior and Unown Hordes should have at least one of each form displayed but the remainder are up to you.)
After May 15th, no new Star Festival threads may be started. However, catch threads can be finished up indefinitely, while interaction threads can continue to earn prizes until the end of May. After that, you can finish RPing those threads, but prizes will no longer be earned.
BUT WAIT, WHAT'S THAT ON THE NEWS?
We're receiving reports that something mysterious has been sighted in the skies by comet-watchers. What ever could it be? (
- [SF Catch] threads will have a rare chance of spawning the mystery new Ultra Beast with every spawn.
- In addition, every 5 post rounds in other Festival threads, players can mod summon for a chance of encountering the UB outside of a catch thread! This opportunity continues even after you've earned all the prize rolls you can for a given thread. Perhaps if you're lucky, an Ultra Beast will come crash your date, or ruin your campsite. :D Wouldn't that be fun?
NOTE: If you go this route, or do a group catch thread, be certain you've worked out with your RP partner who will get the UB (either in general or maybe "if it's one of these species it's mine and if it's one of those it's yours", etc) or have custody-sharing plans laid out in advance. We want this event to be fun, not cause for a dispute. - Solo one-shots of 1000+ words can summon for 2 UB chance rolls in addition to the 4 prize rolls earned.
- Everyone starting a Festival thread in which they plan to try to roll for the UB can mod summon to be given 1 Beast Ball if they don't already have one. ICly, these are being made available by the League as a precaution since the last rumors of a UB turned out to be true.
Like Poipole, the odds of encountering the UB will go up gradually throughout the month. (Unlike Poipole, the buttons for this event are on a secret staff only page, so there's no chance of spamming the button to find out what it is! >8D Good luck.)
{Star Festival Prizes Available} Star Ball: A beautiful specialty PokéBall that works better than normal! (Guarantees one non-Rare catch regardless of post length. Works on evos!)
Galaxy Ball: A beautiful specialty PokéBall that works better than normal on almost any Pokémon! (Guarantees one Common or Rare catch, regardless of post length. Works on evos, in the Safari Zone, and on Rare Swarms!)
Starfruit: A soft and juicy fruit bursting with nutrients. It's so good for your Pokémon it can be substituted for 1 evo point!
Starburst Candy: Allows a single Pokémon to earn double evo points from a single battle. (Note you are using it in your evo request post.)
Very Unstable Crystal: Said to have crashed to earth inside a meteorite, it seems to be trying to take the shape of a Z-Crystal, but which it will become is anyone's guess. (Trade for a random Crystal.)
Very Unstable Stone: Said to have crashed to earth inside a meteorite, it seems to be trying to take the shape of a Mega Stone, but which it will become is anyone's guess. (Trade for a random Stone.)
Lovely Geode: There are sparkling crystals inside, but what kind? (Trade for a random Gem.)
Stardust: A small pouch of dust said to have scattered from the stars. (exchange for 30 muns)
Star Piece: A glittering red jewel, said to be a piece of stars themselves! (exchange for 60 muns)
Comet Shard: A glittering blue jewel, said to be a part of Bal's Comet itself! (exchange for 70 muns)
Galaxy Ball: A beautiful specialty PokéBall that works better than normal on almost any Pokémon! (Guarantees one Common or Rare catch, regardless of post length. Works on evos, in the Safari Zone, and on Rare Swarms!)
Starfruit: A soft and juicy fruit bursting with nutrients. It's so good for your Pokémon it can be substituted for 1 evo point!
Starburst Candy: Allows a single Pokémon to earn double evo points from a single battle. (Note you are using it in your evo request post.)
Very Unstable Crystal: Said to have crashed to earth inside a meteorite, it seems to be trying to take the shape of a Z-Crystal, but which it will become is anyone's guess. (Trade for a random Crystal.)
Very Unstable Stone: Said to have crashed to earth inside a meteorite, it seems to be trying to take the shape of a Mega Stone, but which it will become is anyone's guess. (Trade for a random Stone.)
Lovely Geode: There are sparkling crystals inside, but what kind? (Trade for a random Gem.)
Stardust: A small pouch of dust said to have scattered from the stars. (exchange for 30 muns)
Star Piece: A glittering red jewel, said to be a piece of stars themselves! (exchange for 60 muns)
Comet Shard: A glittering blue jewel, said to be a part of Bal's Comet itself! (exchange for 70 muns)
Who Wants a Makeover?
If you're reading this, you've certainly noticed the layout has gotten a bit of a makeover, but here's a breakdown of all the changes just in case there are any you might have missed!
- The background is now a blue sky on the light skin and a night sky on the dark skin, providing a bit of extra color and contrast to make both even easier on the eyes, as well as be a bit of a pun with "Horizons". The dark skin now has a night time version of the banner image as well, and as such the skins have been renamed "Simple and Clean - Day" and "Simple and Clean - Night".
- The links from the normal sidebar have been moved to a pullout bar that can be kept open or closed most of the time, whichever you prefer, and follows you wherever you are on the page for quicker navigation!
- The Announcements and Egg Roller links have been removed due to no longer being too necessary, a Recent Threads link added, and links re-ordered a bit to keep similar concepts together (ex: putting Wanted Ads next to Applications).
- Swarms from last month on the first of each month will be linked below the new current swarms with a light red background to remind players it's the last day to get them!
- The monthly blurb and Legendary News sections have been removed, as keeping them updated while also keeping their length from messing with the cbox placement was a bit of a chore. They've been replaced with a static welcome message explaining a bit of what we're about to newcomers, a site clock so that everyone can be sure they're on the right schedule for weekly rollover and event times, and--
- A small box now links the last several announcements with major notes listed at a glance! We hope this will help those who come back from extended hiatuses more easily keep up with recent changes and help any members who tended to miss announcements before more easily notice when there's been one. :3
- Since the announcements are now linked with more detail above the cbox, the area where the only-most-recent announcement(s) usd to be pinned in the cbox has been replaced with a cbox direct link for both boxes. Since there is a very small unfortunate issue with the Links bar covering the static side bar now on mobile desktop mode, opening the cbox(es) in separate tabs on mobile should ensure there's nothing too vital obscured.
- The Class and Team titles in the Population table now link to the groups they represent, regardless of what a character's displayed group is. (Ex: Xavier shows up in both League and Interpol; Roxanne shows up in both Coordinators and Darkstorm.)
- Perhaps most exciting, we have an affiliate section now-- and with it, affiliates! SG has been doing some advertising as well, so with a bit of luck perhaps we'll get a few new members from that~ ^-^
- Going with the SF/Contest news, we have a new IC Events category, and future major events will be similarly hosted there.
- Finally, between the IC Events and how long it was getting itself, we moved Modded Business below the RP areas just to be a bit more out of the way.
We hope you all find the updates convenient!
An Uncommon Bond
As some of you have already noticed, we've entirely revamped what used to be the "Uncommon" starter section. Before, it was kind of confusing ("Do Uncommons count as Commons for breeding?"), and while it made sense to restrict some popular lines from being chosen as starters with the old starter system, with the newer version it no longer really made sense. You could start with an Alakazam or a Magmortar, but not a Gardevoir or Snorlax. It was difficult to remember, unfairly targeted dragon lines, etc.
In light of that, we've first changed the names from "Common" and "Uncommon" to "Common (Unlimited)" and "Common (Limited)" to better reflect that they're all Common Pokémon for breeding and catching purposes, some are just more limited in starter selection than others. So we hope that will reduce confusion.
And second, we've revamped it so that, while the list is over double the size it was, it should make a lot more sense: "Limited" Pokemon are now exclusively strong, single-stage Pokémon who are on par with evos in terms of power. That way, giving up an Evo Credit to take them as a starter is giving you comparable power to spending that Evo Credit on an actual evo.
A few have been left off due to lack of popularity (if anyone wants to take a Stunfisk, who are we to discourage the one brave soul who loves pancakefish) or limited utility (Oricorio having only Revelation Dance and potentially Hidden Power for its non-Flying STAB, for instance). Weaker single-stage Pokémon (ones under 450 Base Stat Total) have also been left Unlimited. But now, if something is part of an evolutionary line, you'll know it's either Unlimited or Rare, and most weaker single stages (ex: Plusle and Minun, Unown, Kecleon, etc) are safe bets to assume Unlimited.
This also means that all Pokémon aside from Rare evos (and UBs and Legends of course) can be chosen as starters, now!
We hope this will prove fairer, more sensible, easier to remember, and overall better for everyone.
Wrapping Up Battle Fine-Tuning
Following up from last month's battle system update, we've gone over the Moves and Abilities with changed/RP-clarified effects in the guidebook and touched up or taken out a few. Mostly it's just changes to reflect the battle system update, such as fixing some wording that mentioned 3 moves per post before, etc. Or, for instance, removing Stamina and similar things that were only there because there had been more than one damaging move allowed per round before.
We did remove a few other things we no longer felt necessary. Perhaps most notably, we clarified in the Dodging rules that some moves, including but not limited to Earthquake, would be very difficult though not impossible to justify a Dodge for, but took out the rule that just-Earthquake-specifically was undodgeable. We removed the micromanaging of how Confusion and Psychic should be IC represented (if you want to use the telekinetic version, you can, just remember it would not be a substitute for the move Telekinesis and be reasonable with it), removed the minor buff on Pay Day given there's no shortage of other mid-range Normal-type moves to choose from so it just seemed like one extra thing to keep track of, etc. Basically if it felt more pedantic than useful, or would work fine with in-game mechanics better simulated under the new system, we took it out to be less to keep up with on you guys' part.
Return/Frustration no longer have a set BP but rather guidelines to work closer to in-game on an honor system, so please be responsible with it!
Trapping moves are no longer extremely overpowered, and healing moves have received some more clarification as to how ally-healing, absorption, and gradual-healing are or aren't affected. A few things have been re-ordered to keep similar move concepts together.
Two notable additions:
To reflect Schooling's in-game requirement of being Lv20, freshly hatched Wishiwashi must now be at least a week old before they can School. (Freshly caught Wishiwashi are not affected. We figured it would be easy enough to just not use them for a week if you don't care for this, so it's about half to better reflect the games and half an excuse for cute baby fish scenarios for those who like the idea.)
Soft-Boiled can now be used to heal a partner or oneself, reflecting the lore around Chansey, and somewhat inspired by how the move used to be able to heal party members outside battle.
All in all, though, just go give it a read as you need it. We do not expect you guys to remember every detail. Just try to get vaguely familiar and have an idea of when to go double-check as needed~
Rapid-Fire Notes
- We have a new Veriant Discussion subforum in the Questions/Suggestions board to officially iron out all potential Verian Regional Variant details and start getting some of those implemented soon! A lot of the current suggestions from the original poll thread should be easy to transpose to their own new threads and only really need solid appearance ideas and/or movesets, so hopefully we can get some new forms rolling right out.
- A warm welcome to Dax for being our newest Summon Mod~
- We really wanted a bigger Easter event for you guys, but between how swamped staff has been with work and school, preparing all the other stuff lately, Tag leaving without warning, and everything else, we just didn't have time. :(
As such, we've decided to have a nice little Breeding Bonus Week. From April 1st at 12:00am to April 7th at 11:59pm, all Common breedings will produce 3 eggs, no fail chance! Rare breedings have normal egg/fail chances, but will be free for the week, no Voucher required! Enjoy your lovely eggs! - The Feedback Thread is always open, too, so feel free to let us know any thoughts!
SWARMS
They came by land, by sea and air! Reptiles, mammals, birds, and fish. Enjoy the wide variety of swarming Pokémon this month!
PHARAOH LEAP.