The Daily Bugle Blog turned 1 today!
It's been a very quiet holiday period, possibly the least active RP-wise than in past seasons on the Marvel sim. Blog submissions have been next to null, but stories seem to be trickling back in and some people are picking up their classes again.
Your Editor has felt some pretty bad burn-out on top of the seasonal inactivity and there's been some big changes in Leadership and Administration.
Some rule changes have also happened in recent weeks that you may have missed notices on:
Created power privileges have been opened up somewhat, including Empathy, Telepathy, and Energy Absorb~Redirect. Check the created URL below for limitations and speak your mind if you think any other changes would be beneficial. No system is set in stone and the needs of players are forever changing as people come and go.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_3YbAnfUK7U0joTKArmnkCTK9jtPCG5_Z3PqqFw7Dec
3rd Role apps have opened up somewhat too, on a case by case basis, if you've been more active than the requirements for your two roles. Check the latest rules URL from the mall's info card to see the specifics. Additionally (though the URL hasn't been updated on this, it was sent in an official notice) as of October 5th 2014 it seems it doesn't matter whether the 3rd role is from the Most Wanted lists or a Villain any more, but you may want to double-check that with a GM.
IC team leader roles requiring weekly activity seems to have changed too, in favour of leniency. This needs confirmation, but from what I understand it doesn't make much sense for Maria Hill or Captain America to be running hands-on lessons for the kiddie heroes every week, and nobody expects you to 'break character' for such a thing. Realistically, the leaders delegate this stuff.
Does that mean players of these roles can show up less than the rest of us? Nope, but the nature of their appearances should be appropriate to their position and they should definitely try to be available for story arcs that clearly require their attention. Maria Hill won't be down on the street fighting Rhino in a bank heist, but Captain America just might, when it's relevant to his own team's investigations or he's on-hand and feels compelled by his sense of honour. The key is role-appropriateness. That said, there's nothing stopping IC leaders from NPCing some faceless agent as training instructors or playing combat robots etc, when there's enough people interested in doing a session. Or they could host some informal face-to-face time with their immediate subordinates.
Something else seems to be brewing in the works for the sim as a whole. The comics are soon to smash various universes together, into a kind of 616 Ultimates sandwich called Battleworld. Given the numerous incursions in the sim I wouldn't be surprised if something similar happens in the RP to allow players to avail of more options than ever before. I guess we will wait and see!
Excelsior, Editor-in-Chief.