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Changes to Fandom High as of Fall
Saturday, June 24th, 2023 07:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
not_a_goddamn_princessHi, guys!
A while ago, we ran a few polls about the future of the game. That future will now involve segueing to a college system, a process that we plan to begin this fall. So what does that mean for you?
The types of characters you can apply for will change
We ended applications for freshmen earlier in the year, and have now also closed them to sophomores. As of fall semester, we will only be accepting juniors and seniors into the high school, which will continue to exist in parallel to the college for a year. As far as we can see, there are two options after that: we can either end applications for juniors come next spring and let high school characters peter out naturally, or we can roll existing juniors and seniors into the college program as of next summer. That choice is up to you; you will find a poll for this and some other questions at the end of this post.
If you choose to fold the current high school students into the college student base early, they will end up testing out of their final high school classes due to Fandom High's slightly skewed version of the AP exams - probably other schools don't give you points for knowing how to evacuate a castle via canoe, or successfully identifying which brick will shower you with gold coins if you slam your head into it.
The other side of this coin is that we will start accepting college students come this fall. ICly (and in our spreadsheets), college students come in two flavors: 2-year and 4-year program students. OOCly, however, when your college student graduates is entirely in your hands. We will open up a form next spring that will allow you to apply for graduation, and signing up for this will mean your character is part of the graduating ceremony and will be considered graduated afterwards. We feel this is the fairest way to give you all some structure to the eb and flow of your character, while also allowing you freedom to determine how your character's arc goes.
(Also, the idea of 2-year-program students who've been at the school for 7 years just seems funny to us.)
Finally, we will also introduce the concept of graduate students. These characters will be somewhere between teacher and student: they can take classes, but also teach them. Which brings us to...
The activity requirements for new character types
In many ways, college students won't be much different from your high schoolers. They have to enroll in, and attend, at least two classes a week. In summer, they must attend at least one workshop, go off-island, or find a job in town.
For graduate students, the situation is similar but slightly different: they must attend and/or teach at least two classes a semester. That can mean teaching two classes, attending two classes, or one of each.
Other new activity rules
Finally, we would like to propose a new activity rule, but we want to put that up to you guys for a vote. This is an old game, with a lot of old characters and old players; people segue back into the game and then leave again. That has left us with a number of businesses on the island that are ostensibly player-run, but the player has not actually been around in years, won't respond to questions about their character's status, or hangs on to a business or residence by emailing 'still present' every five years, but never actually appearing. We don't feel that's fair for existing players who might want to take over those businesses.
As such, what we want to do from now on in is to remove characters from the island/ownership lists if they haven't appeared in game for a year. If you guys would prefer we don't do this, things remain as they are. If you do, we'll become more proactive in removing these characters from the island.
Just to make things clear, when we say 'remove them from the island' we're not talking about removing anybody from the game -- just switching the characters to alumni/expat status and marking their address/business as open on the town map/directory.
Changes to townies and teachers
We've long held on to a system of students, townies and teachers. However, those latter two categories have become more porous over the years, and we've encouraged that, because we feel it adds more flexibility to the game. As such, we'd like to take one step further and simply fold these into a non-students or professionals class. (We're still thinking about the naming, there.) That will relieve us of the need to constantly update spreadsheets and further emphasize that going from townie to teacher is as simple as applying for a class.
As for classes at the new school, as of this fall, when you apply to teach a class you can indicate that it is meant for high school students, for college students, or for both. We'll clearly indicate which class is which on the class rosters.
Finally, adult characters who are not enrolled at the school may take college classes at any time. It just won't count towards any kind of degree, and they'll have to enroll if they want to go through a full program.
The housing situation
With the continuing growth of the adult character categories, we've run into some housing space issues on the island. We've got a three-step plan for solving this, one of which is up to a player who will reveal their plans (dun dun dun) in due time.
On our side, we will be replacing the burnt-down part of the abandoned warehouse industry with affordable homes, modeled after the quaint uneven and adorably medieval townhouses of Mont St. Michel. These homes can be mixed-use: much like other businesses in town, they can contain a business or store at the ground floor level and an apartment upstairs. Each also comes with a small backyard that can be used either for yard purposes or, for instance, outside seating for a restaurant.
Once the last of our high school students has ceased being a high school student, we will also repurpose the dorms as a student dorm, with some floors for students, one special fancy floor for graduate students, and a floor of temporary teacher housing. (The sixth floor will remain sixth floor-y.) This way, we hope to preserve the role of the dorms as a place of safety and a place for easy character socializing, while also opening it up as a place for people to live.
A while ago, we ran a few polls about the future of the game. That future will now involve segueing to a college system, a process that we plan to begin this fall. So what does that mean for you?
The types of characters you can apply for will change
We ended applications for freshmen earlier in the year, and have now also closed them to sophomores. As of fall semester, we will only be accepting juniors and seniors into the high school, which will continue to exist in parallel to the college for a year. As far as we can see, there are two options after that: we can either end applications for juniors come next spring and let high school characters peter out naturally, or we can roll existing juniors and seniors into the college program as of next summer. That choice is up to you; you will find a poll for this and some other questions at the end of this post.
If you choose to fold the current high school students into the college student base early, they will end up testing out of their final high school classes due to Fandom High's slightly skewed version of the AP exams - probably other schools don't give you points for knowing how to evacuate a castle via canoe, or successfully identifying which brick will shower you with gold coins if you slam your head into it.
The other side of this coin is that we will start accepting college students come this fall. ICly (and in our spreadsheets), college students come in two flavors: 2-year and 4-year program students. OOCly, however, when your college student graduates is entirely in your hands. We will open up a form next spring that will allow you to apply for graduation, and signing up for this will mean your character is part of the graduating ceremony and will be considered graduated afterwards. We feel this is the fairest way to give you all some structure to the eb and flow of your character, while also allowing you freedom to determine how your character's arc goes.
(Also, the idea of 2-year-program students who've been at the school for 7 years just seems funny to us.)
Finally, we will also introduce the concept of graduate students. These characters will be somewhere between teacher and student: they can take classes, but also teach them. Which brings us to...
The activity requirements for new character types
In many ways, college students won't be much different from your high schoolers. They have to enroll in, and attend, at least two classes a week. In summer, they must attend at least one workshop, go off-island, or find a job in town.
For graduate students, the situation is similar but slightly different: they must attend and/or teach at least two classes a semester. That can mean teaching two classes, attending two classes, or one of each.
Other new activity rules
Finally, we would like to propose a new activity rule, but we want to put that up to you guys for a vote. This is an old game, with a lot of old characters and old players; people segue back into the game and then leave again. That has left us with a number of businesses on the island that are ostensibly player-run, but the player has not actually been around in years, won't respond to questions about their character's status, or hangs on to a business or residence by emailing 'still present' every five years, but never actually appearing. We don't feel that's fair for existing players who might want to take over those businesses.
As such, what we want to do from now on in is to remove characters from the island/ownership lists if they haven't appeared in game for a year. If you guys would prefer we don't do this, things remain as they are. If you do, we'll become more proactive in removing these characters from the island.
Just to make things clear, when we say 'remove them from the island' we're not talking about removing anybody from the game -- just switching the characters to alumni/expat status and marking their address/business as open on the town map/directory.
Changes to townies and teachers
We've long held on to a system of students, townies and teachers. However, those latter two categories have become more porous over the years, and we've encouraged that, because we feel it adds more flexibility to the game. As such, we'd like to take one step further and simply fold these into a non-students or professionals class. (We're still thinking about the naming, there.) That will relieve us of the need to constantly update spreadsheets and further emphasize that going from townie to teacher is as simple as applying for a class.
As for classes at the new school, as of this fall, when you apply to teach a class you can indicate that it is meant for high school students, for college students, or for both. We'll clearly indicate which class is which on the class rosters.
Finally, adult characters who are not enrolled at the school may take college classes at any time. It just won't count towards any kind of degree, and they'll have to enroll if they want to go through a full program.
The housing situation
With the continuing growth of the adult character categories, we've run into some housing space issues on the island. We've got a three-step plan for solving this, one of which is up to a player who will reveal their plans (dun dun dun) in due time.
On our side, we will be replacing the burnt-down part of the abandoned warehouse industry with affordable homes, modeled after the quaint uneven and adorably medieval townhouses of Mont St. Michel. These homes can be mixed-use: much like other businesses in town, they can contain a business or store at the ground floor level and an apartment upstairs. Each also comes with a small backyard that can be used either for yard purposes or, for instance, outside seating for a restaurant.
Once the last of our high school students has ceased being a high school student, we will also repurpose the dorms as a student dorm, with some floors for students, one special fancy floor for graduate students, and a floor of temporary teacher housing. (The sixth floor will remain sixth floor-y.) This way, we hope to preserve the role of the dorms as a place of safety and a place for easy character socializing, while also opening it up as a place for people to live.
Poll #29261 Fandom Sundries
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 17
When should we end the high school system?
At the end of this school year (2023-2024)
11 (64.7%)
Once all students have graduated, in 2025
6 (35.3%)
Earlier (elaborate in the comments)
0 (0.0%)
Should we remove characters that have not been active for a year from the island?
Yes
15 (93.8%)
No
1 (6.2%)
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