Season Announcement
Hello everyone!
There have been a lot of questions about the remainder of our season (October and November), specifically about whether or not they will happen in-person.
The Board has spoken extensively with Kiri B, our Safety 1st, amongst ourselves, and listened to feedback from the player base. While Michigan is slowly lifting Covid restrictions and allowing different businesses to re-open, we still don’t feel it is viable for us yet; even with proper social distancing, hand washing stations, accessible and abundant hand sanitizer, restrictions on cooking/eating, etc.
As a result, we have concluded that the remainder of our season will be digital (through the Discord server), we will not have an in-person Feast in February 2021, and our October and January Board Meetings will be held online through Discord.
We know that it’s hugely disappointing. Trust me, we feel it too. As it stands we do not feel that we have an appropriate amount of time to get the field of play as close to “sanitary” as possible. The net cost of purchasing hand sanitizer for the whole field, hand washing stations, water, soap, and everything else that comes along with it is just not justifiable for the last 2 events of the year, not to mention the exorbitant amount of work that will fall on volunteers to take care of it. We also do not want people in our community to feel as though staff members are looking for a reason to kick people out. Everyone should be welcome at our game at all times.
While 2021 does remain unknown, we feel confident that supplies can be budgeted (if not acquired) over the winter, and that all the logistics of running safe in-person games can be thoroughly thought out and not rushed.
We never, ever want any player to suffer or get sick because we rushed into things too quickly.
So as disappointing as that all is, I DO have some good news.
The GSOM staff has put their heads together and will be opening up a beta-test “soft role-playing server”. This will be a discord server that will be up and running 24/7 between games for players to go and RP with one another.
This will be a role-play only server, so there will obviously be some restrictions such as (but not limited to): staff will not be running things like NPCs, you can’t do things like grant titles, mechanics will be off, and you won’t be able to do things related to the economics of the game.
We realize that people don’t get the same kind of roleplay during online games as they do in person, and it leaves you wanting more. Likewise, sometimes you get into a REALLY HEAVY RP moment right at the end of an event. This would be a way for people to talk to one another in character all month long.
This server will have set locations that do not change, and once the beta-test is finished the idea is that on your character sign-out you can say “I am going to spend the month in Yardsmuth!”, hop on to the server, and then RP all month long in Yardsmuth with others who are there. The Yardsmuth server room would be one large inn room for everyone to join, and would not have side or private rooms.
More details about this server will become available in the next few weeks, so please look for another email with that information!
Another thing that we will be doing is a 1-day digital event in December (the date is still TBD, but it will be relayed to the community as soon as that is nailed down. Don’t worry, it won’t be near the end of the month). This event will be free to Season Pass Holders, and will cost $15 for non-pass holders.
This event will be a way for Season Pass Holders to be balanced again with pay-per-event players since we only had 1 weekend of game instead of 2 in June, and is also another way for players to earn XP.
In accompaniment to the December 1 day event, we will be doing a Kanar community-wide Secret Santa gift exchange! Details for that will come out towards the middle/end of October, so please be on the lookout.
I would like to take a moment to thank all of our staff members who volunteer their time so graciously. Rather than just canceling the entire season outright, they have all come together and done some really amazing things.
Thank you for reading. Please stay safe and healthy, and I look forward to seeing you all in person next season.
— Aaron
