oocinthenight | WELCOME TO OUR NEXT NIGHT.

just one more night. waiting to get there.

Hello, Beacon Bits! We appreciate your patience and we know that it was hard to tell if there was any movement going on behind the scenes. Finally we are ready to come to you with more information about our next walk into the dark, and we hope that you are still walking in stride with us!

First things first: you may notice we've put together some new accounts. This is done to best reflect the transition from a game to a GPSL. We would love for you to subscribe to our new mod journal, nextnightmods, and follow the new mod plurk at nextnightmods. These will be the mod accounts for the GPSL going forward, and the others will be retired. Messages sent there will not be received, so please make sure you've got the new ones!

The second thing we'd like to direct you to is a new Taken Page. To help us with housekeeping, we would like to put together the taken page for the GPSL that is separate from the Game Page. This is to help us know who we are bringing along on our next journey together. This is not reapplying — if you already had a character in the game, you can fill out your information on that page and it will be as simple as that. If you did not respond to the interest check but still wish to participate in the GPSL, you are more than welcome! Please do!

Now, there is still plenty that we are still trying to decide on behind the scenes, and we hope you will bear with us as we work to put together new pages and information. While we intend to maintain some of the features that made this game the one we know and love, please understand that there will be some changes to make this project sustainable. Things like Explorations are currently on hold, and we have decided any left pending will be canceled. Don’t worry if you were invested in those explores — you will have the opportunity to put them in again once the new system has been finalized. Apps for new players are also closed for the time being, but prospective players, do not fear! We hope to open them soon, once player characters have reopened the avenue for their arrival.

What do we do next? Well, the start of our next step is player-suggested, as we hope many elements of this new route will be. Bottom Of The River event will move forward as scheduled, though in a slightly different format than before. With it many parts of Beacon will wash away. However, what remains of Beacon is up to player characters to salvage… and explore.

It is understandable that a lot of questions might linger, and you will find a header below where we will try to answer them. We ask you to give us some grace as we get the wheels moving again, and remember: The Next Night is transitioning from a game to a group private storyline. While there is a team behind the scenes to help with moving plot forward and maintenance, we are still players that want to keep telling this story just as much as you do. There are elements that will be different and we might experience some transition pains. However, the team enormously hopes to create a player-led experience that will still involve exploration, dice roll elements, and eventually a player-decided resolution to the plot started in the game. Those of you that offered to help with list management and running pages, we haven't forgotten about you, either! You'll be hearing from us soon.

We are making our next step forward, and we hope that you will walk this night with us. ♥

Lastly, we want to extend our love and appreciation for the mod team of In The Night for being so generous and excited to walk this next step with us. Mippins and Leu are moving from mods to consultants, and hope to play in the new world that we will be building together along with us. Danielle and Kit also deserve our gratitude for the heart and soul they put into modding the game we love so much. Thank you for all your hard work! You built a game and a community that drew in so many. We hope to keep the spirit of our last night in mind as we walk towards our next one.

Sincerely, The Next Night Plot Team
Carlee, Lauren, Kitty, and Margot ♥

you looked at me like i was someone else.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Are players free to assume any outstanding purchases from the last Night Market were finalized? Healing from Pluto, requests for items etc.

You managed to ask just as we were preparing a post that would clarify this! As long as it was something that could be provided at the market without needing it to be delivered on the ferry, yes, assume the purchase was able to be completed!

This is going to be a stupid question, I'm sorry.

What makes ITN a GPSL and not a game? If/when we allow apps again what would we advertise as and why?

...I'm not being deliberately obtuse, I promise, I've only done one PSL in the last decade so I'm not exactly aware of where the distinction is. I'd always thought it meant a sort of mod-less, rudderless experience dictated by players alone but that doesn't quite seem to be what we're doing here. It seems like we're going more in the direction of a game albeit still a player directed one.

It's not stupid at all! In fact, I find that this is a question quite a few people have had, and I (hi, this is Kitty!) will do my best to answer.

GPSL stands for Group Private Storyline. As for where the distinction is, it really depends on the group of players and what they want out of the experience. In general, a GPSL will simply be a less structured experience with fewer requirements and usually less players, when compared to a game. This can look however we want it to look, and mostly in this period of flux this term is more comfortable for us as we do not want players to expect a full game environment with large app rounds, multiple events per month, and a lot of heavy lifting behind the scenes (such as npc threads, factions, etc).

Is that to say we won't have any of those things? Absolutely not. In fact some of these things are planned, while still remaining reasonable for the plot and list team. However, especially with current world events, we are more comfortable with defining The Next Night as a GPSL over a game at this point in time. Especially considering we are not currently running AC, and instead are utilizing a check-in process. Is that to say we will want to keep it as a GPSL forever? Maybe, maybe not. While I have been in GPSLs that required apps and AC, that does start to become the gray area between a GPSL and a game. If we are looking to move into a faster-paced, higher mod-work experience at that point, we will reevaluate how best to define the experience players should expect. However, for the next few months, especially when we are operating on a check-in basis, we think a GPSL is the best way to describe the experience we are offering.

I think this all makes sense!

I'm gonna offer my two cents but please feel free to take it or leave it.

To me it still seems like a game, just not one with heavy mod lifting. (Keep in mind I am An Old and I used to bump around in this hobby when games were more like Drama Drama Duck or Camp Fuck You Die which, while games, were check-in only if they had AC at all and had no structure. The heavy mod lifting is a more recentish phenomenon.)

If we open up to apps again we may want to consider saying we're a game, just not one where the mods are constantly hands on with everything in terms of plot and forward momentum. Which would make us retro (it's style baby) at least for now. I'll be honest, the reason I say this is I am seeing people looking for a place to play but are saying they want a game, not a PSL...But what they're really looking for is a setting to interact with and I do think we can offer that to folks.

AC being check-in only isn't anything to worry about though. For what it's worth other games out there right now, including ones with HUGE amounts of mod involvement, have gone into a check-in only AC for the duration of the pandemic.

I think we're more or less on the same page. Once we get to a point where we are running apps and AC, would that still qualify as a GPSL? That's something we will tackle when we come to it. You could make arguments for it either way, and I think that you are right most people are looking for a game, not a private storyline. The plot team has already discussed that this would probably move us into game territory again.

However in this interim period, GPSL seems like a comfortable description while we get our bearings and the playable world is still in a state of flux. A GPSL is more relaxed on every party involved, and with the pandemic and just the changes from one group behind the scenes to another, it is a little more forgiving in the next few months where we really need it. Hope that makes sense — and thanks for the question!

This all makes sense, yes! My second question was mostly about how we'll advertise in the future, not how we should currently run things. I do agree being more relaxed about things, especially right now, is the correct call.

Thanks for clearing things up for me!

WELCOME TO OUR NEXT NIGHT.

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