Smash OOC / News

ACTIVITY CHECK RESULTS

The following have been removed from play:

feelings_of
yournewcaptain
sexyspybat

Thanks for checking in! As noted in our September 2014 Rule Update, if this is your first time idling out of a player's check or activity check, you can reapp right back in, but if you do it again you'll have to wait a really long time before you can app back in. Seriously, please don't idle out.

Remember that mods are willing to grant strikes and extensions, but we MUST be contacted before the end of the check. If you receive either a strike or extension, you must make full activity on time next check. Signing after the end of the check without contacting the mods beforehand is an automatic boot.

AS AN ADDITIONAL REMINDER: Only hiatuses posted on the hiatus & drop post will exempt you from AC, so please remember to sign there! Simply posting to the community will not count. Thank you!

But wait... THERE'S MORE!

• March's AC will be bringing a few changes to the table about what will count as activity! We'll get a post up about that before AC gets here once we've got the specifics totally ironed out, but we think it'll really help get things going. Keep an eye out for it!
  
  
• March PERSONALS are up! You might notice there's something a bit new under game plotting...
  
  
• Because this month we're introducing HOUSE POINT CHALLENGES!!
  
  Each month, a challenge will be presented that you guys can have your characters try to achieve over the course of the month. As characters succesfully complete these challenges, their respective houses will earn points. At the end of the month, winning houses will receive a reward.
  
  Click the cut to get to all the juicy details~!

( LET'S LEARN ABOUT MONTHLY CHALLENGES. )

Hello Smashies! You might have already noticed, but we're well on our way down the path of transitioning! Things are changing, and we're here to get you in the loop of what's going on. You might want to grab a drink, we've got a lot of stuff to cover in this post.


Final Showdowns, Welcome to the Sky!
Once the final log has been up for a little while and everyone's had a chance to do what they want to do, we'll be ramping right up to our new home! But here's some options for your Blowing up the Moon needs:

Going into the doors of the clocktower lead you to... not the clocktower, as anyone who might have visited it before would notice. There is a staircase going impossibly high up, and if characters follow it up there they will find that it brings them right up to the moon. The tower certainly shouldn't be so high, but there they are! It'll take them a while to get up there though. But at the base of the stairs is also a set going down, impossibly down. It's not certain what is at the bottom, but it definitely goes deeper than the bunkers so it could be an option for characters looking to just skedaddle somewhere else.

Stranger still about this new inside is that there isn't any trace of where Master and Crazy Hands resided. In fact, no one has seen them for ages. They're not even the mod account anymore! What!

How mysterious. Characters are just going to have to hope for the best. Good luck, chums!


Things are Changing for the New!
Spoilers: Your dude makes it. Sorry to ruin that surprise for you. Unless, you know, they didn't... There's going to be a big log for the changeover in just a little bit (and a plotting post for it!), but we've got some things to sort out before we can get there.

After some discussion because of various circumstances, we decided that with the changeover we'd introduce new communities for the log and the network. Before you get alarmed, Never fear-- the old communities will stay right where they are for archival and backdating purposes.

For now, you can start joining smashrising and smash_network so that you're all ready to go when the change hits! Some of you have already started doing this so, gosh, you're on it!


Lack of Network
But as you might notice when you click on that network community, the system is down. More accurately, the system doesn't even exist anymore! This is one of the key changes to gameplay- there's no network. At least, not yet. When or how one appears is going to be entirely up to your in-game actions! There's just going to have to be a lot more direct interactions for the time being.

A lack of network means that our main community is switching up! The logs community will now be the central RP hub.

In lieu of a network, there will be another option available for characters to leave notes and messages to each other in the main foyer of the mansion: a handy, dandy bulletin board! While not the most discreet place to post passionate love letters, it's definitely useful for leaving warnings about the environment or letting someone know you're trying to get a hold of them. (Don't let that stop you from writing passionate love letters if that's what you want to do though. The world needs to know about your feelings.) The bulletin board will be available after characters settle in a bit.


Action Posts -> Logs
Since the main community has shifted and we have temporarily put the network on the backburner, that means we're making a slight shift with some of our posts! Quick [action bracket] posts are still totally welcome, but we're relocating them over to the logs community! We're doing this to keep the action in one place and put more emphasis on the network being for messaging, if/when it exists again. All this really means is that the only community you'll be posting in for a while is the main one.


Sorting Hat
We're turning the game into a Harry Potter AU because Bret insisted it was a 'really good A+ idea, totally solid, we're definitely doing it.' We are not turning the game into a Harry Potter AU but we ARE introducing Houses to the lot.

Most of the residential sections of the mansion (aka your characters' new home on the island) are divied up into four unique houses based on Smash Bros. elements: Gunner, Brawler, Swordfighter, and Assist. These houses are meant to provide some instant CR for characters with similar traits, set up house challenges that might help people out later in the tournaments, and continue to provide the option of random room mates!

(On that note, characters are not required to live within their Houses' wing if they would rather room on their own or with someone specific.)

You can read more about the houses here, and there is more information about the wings of the mansion in the Settings page. House Status and Place of Living will be listed on the Taken page, once they are all assigned!

As you can see, we haven't really assigned anyone yet. This is where you come in! Please step right up to the sorting hat and input all of your characters for us once you've read up on things, and we can get them all divied up.


DLC Characters Leaked! CONFIRMED!!
Another important note is that we've expanded our acceptable characters' list! If a character appears in a video game, they're good to app as long as you follow the game's canon! The rest of our requirements are the same, which you can check out right here. So, if you were really enamored with good ol' Lincoln in Code Name: S.T.E.A.M., he's, uh, totally appable now. If you wanted. You never know when the aliens are coming back, y'know?


We'd like to ask for some Favors
So that was a whole lot of new stuff to go over! As we noted in our last post, this opening is going to be a soft-launch. We want to make sure we get the kinks out of the system before we bring the game back to the mass public, and to do that we'll need the help of your fresh eyes! If you could take a little bit to go over the game pages and see what's new, us over here at the mod table would really appreciate it.

If you have any questions or suggestions for things we could improve, please don't hesitate to bring them up! We'd love to be able to add things to the FAQ or just rework something if it's too unclear. This is your game as much as it is ours, and this is our chance to really polish it up.

We'd also like to ask you for some suggestions on who you really want to get placed on the ATP ad for when we're ready to go live! Our current ad is a bit unwieldly, so we'd really like to trim it down with characters that you really want.

We'd also also like your opinion on the dressing room! Nowadays it is a common trend for games to put up a Test Drive Meme for their game every so often as opposed to having an entire community dedicated to this. Our DR hasn't seen too much action lately (though we realize that is because of various circumstances), so we'd like your opinion: should we keep the DR or would you like to try out the test drive meme option? Not everyone really uses the DR, so would you be more motivated to help test things out if it were in a concentrated meme format? Is it just easier to have one place for people to come at their leisure? Please let us know your thoughts!


Opening Log!
We're very excited to embark on this journey with all of you, so we'll end this huge post with something to look forward to. We're giving the closing log a bit of time to do what it needs to, but we know a lot of you have been waiting for the new things on the horizon. With that in mind, the opening log for the new communities will be up by January 15th, with its plotting post quick on its heels!

Thanks for all of your patience while we were getting things ready to go, everyone. It means a lot to us, and we're so hype to finally be able to say IT'S HAPPENING.

IT'S HAPPENING.

Hello, Smashies!

A quick update on the state of Smash Academy, for your convenience. First and foremost: come end of July, we will be reinstating monthly activity checks! The requirements will be the same as always (six comments per month or one prose log/journal entry), so plan accordingly, and have fun. Personals for this month have been posted, and we have two new pogles among us with Rio the Oddish and Mesprit, so that's an excellent starting point if you'd like to plan something new.

As for the game itself, it's going to be a busy month! Big changes will be coming to Smash Academy by the end of the month, and already strange things have been happening:

- It started with a mild earthquake during prom. The disturbance was mild enough that there wasn't even any property damage, save for a few knocked over decorations, but its source still remains unknown; though Wave the Swallow did a thorough patrol, it didn't seem to have been caused by monster or machine.

- Some time later, Char happened to notice that the water level of the lake has risen noticeably. Jon Talbain verified that the same thing has been happening down at the docks -- despite perfectly ordinary levels of rain for the season, the water in Final Destination City is rising. At the time of posting, the cause remains unknown.

- Zero, having taken notice of these events, has decided to investigate the bunkers under the school. The bunkers are known to be a mysterious place, and a few shadow bugs are said to still linger down there. Could it have something to do with what's been happening? The expedition has yet to occur, so now's the time to speak up if you want to join him.

- Who knows what else is waiting to be discovered? There are still locations all around the school that might hold hints about what's going on -- the woods surrounding the school, the Mountains of Convenience and the volcano that once housed Pele, the legendary Groudon, the floating island, the clock tower... we encourage the players to investigate as best they can.

If you want your characters to look into a certain place but aren't sure how to plan it, feel free to ask the modlies any questions you might have. You can ask on this post right here, PM the mod account, or use any means of contact you prefer. If the community prefers a nudge in the right direction, keep an eye on the journal network -- who knows what else may pop up!

This Saturday, April 25th, Smash Academy will be seven years old. It's been a long time, and some of have been here since the very beginning. Last month we opened discussion for new beginnings, game growth, and change. Everyone had insightful ideas, and thoughtful concerns, and we've been discussing since then.

Unfortunately in that discussion we've also come to the realization that we as mods are burning out. We deeply apologize that this may seem in poor timing in light of the state of the game post, but rather than deny it we want to be forthcoming with you. We've been doing this for a long time, and for some of us, we think our time has come.

However, we think it would be a terrible shame to at least not try and implement these ideas in some way, so we propose to you these final choices:

We are looking for a moderator to take over our position. Ideally three (or more), but even one person who is driven and ambitious enough could reasonably run Smash on their own.

If someone(s) volunteers to mod, we current mods will help train and implement game setting changes with them. These setting changes will be dependent on the new mod(s) and their ideas, but we believe the consensus of the majority of the players is: open nexus style adventure island game named Smash Rising with a rustic mansion that needs repair, and bi-annual tournaments that draw characters in to test their strengths and weaknesses. After we set up the new mod(s), we will let them fly on their own and Smash Academy/Smash Rising will be their responsibility afterwards to run as they please.

If no one steps up to mod, we will turn Smash Academy into a Dressing Room style game. There will be no applications and you may post with any video game characters as you please. There will be no activity checks. There can be duplicates of characters, and any limit of characters. Events will be entirely player governed and run. Lists will be locked and not maintained as they will no longer be necessary. Any updates or changes to the setting will also be entirely player governed and maintained.

If we turn Smash Academy into a DR we can go about that any number of ways, and given the discussion from this post, we could potentially have two dressing rooms to fulfill everyone's desires; Smash Academy (with the school setting) and smashrising along side it (with the mansion + floating islands setting). Game continuity/inter-game mingling will be up to player discretion.

Please contact us by May 1st if you are seriously interested in modding, and willing to dedicate the time to running this game. We will not officially step down until one of these changes is implemented. Along those lines, we will be waiving April AC in the interest of a smooth changeover that will hopefully take place during normal graduation time (end of May).

Please feel free to comment with any thoughts and ideas! Thank you for your understanding, love, and many fun years of time, Smash Academy.

ACTIVITY CHECK RESULTS

The following have been given das boot:

whata (Kyle Hyde)
for_truth (Hilda)
kindledspirit (Shinta Kikuchi)
provolone_ranger (Mario)

Thanks for checking in! Just a friendly reminder, as noted in our September Rule Update, if this is your first time idling out of a player's check or activity check, you can reapp right back in, but if you do it again you'll have to wait a really long time before you can app back in. Seriously, please don't idle out.

ACTIVITY CHECK RULES UPDATE

Now that Activity Check is monthly, we'd like to take a moment to clarify/update our rules. Some of these have already been in effect, but since we're going through these AC changes, it can't hurt to reiterate!

◎ Hiatusing through two checks in a row is prohibited. If you cited documented hiatus for this check, you will need to provide full activity for February.
◎ Along those lines, if we observe an extended pattern of alternating hiatus/activity, the mods reserve the right to contact a player in private to discuss their activity.
◎ In completing out future activity checks, please fill out the provided form to completion, even if you are on a documented hiatus. Include characters' FULL NAMES--no cutesy nicknames or partial names, please. This makes our lives easier when tallying the check and decreases our chances of skipping over you by accident.
◎ In previous checks, we have stated that hiatuses are viable as long as they're posted before AC goes up. We're pushing this back a bit. In future checks, you must hiatus before the 21st of the month. Any hiatuses posted after the 21st of the month will not exempt you from activity, and you will be required to post your six comments per character.
◎ Threads in IC inboxes will now count for activity! Acceptable thread length is six comments from you, and please remember that if your character's activity sample involves only one other character, you may not use a single activity sample involving only that character for the next check.

LOG ROUNDUP

LOGS
• Martial Arts Jusenkyo Staycation! [OPEN: Feb 2]
• Caim offers a little one-on-one fencing! [OPEN: Jan 30]
• Zero attempts some data recovery! [OPEN: January-ish]
• Locomotive Engineering 101 gets students right on track! [OPEN: Jan 19]
• Phys. Ed. Isle Delfino Vacation! [OPEN: Jan 9-11]

NETWORK
• Otacon makes a comeback!
• Chiyo rises again!
• Mysterious Posters to get you pumped to get pumping!
• Ziio is available for The Talk a talk! But yes, THE Talk.
• Rock wants to know how to rock a girl's world!
• Hagakure hatches a featherbrained idea!

We also have FEBRUARY PERSONALS, CUPIDBOT PLANNING and the FEBRUARY CALENDAR!

If you have any questions or concerns please don't hesitate to leave a comment or grab a mod!

Hello Smashies!

Just dropping in very quickly to provide an OOC venue for all your kissletoe plotting needs. The log is here!

If you're looking to get your memory swap on, here is a place to do it! Leave your memory lists here, if that's your thing. Feel free to post, discuss, and plan amongst yourselves in the comments.

ACTIVITY CHECK RESULTS

The following have been given das boot:
tidalwaves (Wartortle/Marie)
iaiai (Purple Pikmin/Ai)
rivalcurse (Gengar/Nyx)

Thanks for checking in! As you know we tend to do the dorm shuffle around this time so go check and see if you have in fact mysteriously woke up in a new dorm with all your belongings and things intact. Now on to the more fun stuff--LOG ROUND-UPS!

GAME EVENTS

• HALLOWEENS:
Go check out the event log and OOC details (now with body swaps) here!

LOGS
• Lucca and YOU watch crappy movies! [OPEN: October 30th]
• Flint decorates the barn all spooky-like. [OPEN: October 26th - October 31st]
• Blaze invites you to Soleanna. [OPEN: October 24th - 28th]
• Gordon wants to be the very best. [OPEN: October 20th and onward]
• Gym Class and teamwork and stuff. [OPEN: October 13th]
• Autoshop Class wow amazing. [OPEN: October 12th]
• Super Fighting Robots chilling on a roof. [OPEN: October 4th]
• Max helps one and all get hyooge. [OPEN: September 28th - October 8th]
• Drinky log for all your drinky needs. [OPEN: September 20th]

NETWORK
• Black Shadow joins the brawl!
• Mondo has an adventure
• Skull Kid tells some spooky stories
• Vianca has a request
• Soryk ponders the holiday
• Shantae returns
• Sable provides her services
• Yarne wonders why nobody is worried about murder island
• Chihiro has a sweet new haircut
• Hayato wants YOU. Yes, you

We also have NOVEMBER PERSONALS and NOVEMBER CALENDAR up!

Last but not least, we'd like to welcome our new Helper Mod to the table! Let us all give a big hand to SHOCKY. Congrats!

That's all for now. Happy smashing!

ACTIVITY CHECK RESULTS

The following have been given das boot:

will_be_god (Cyrus)
redshirted (Ian Malkovich)
tidalwaves (Wartortle/Marie)
iaiai (Purple Pikmin/Ai)

With this announcement comes an update to our rules! The change is as follows, and will be enforced starting next month:

The first time you idle out of a player's check or activity check, you may use the re-app form to get right back in, as always. If you idle out of a player's check or activity check any subsequent times, you must wait two months before reapping that specific character.

Again, this will start next month and doesn't apply to this check. If you plan to drop a character, please use the drop form. It keeps all our paperwork in order!

That's all for now! Please give our rules page a look, as we've made some updates and done some streamlining. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions or concerns.

Business continues as usual. All strange happenings set forth in the July plot post still apply, and can continue to the end of the event. HOWEVER…

◎ For the first two weeks of August, the aforementioned strange happenings will increase in degree and frequency.
◎ The occasional rifts in the sky now coalesce into a larger, more permanent fissure.
◎ The shadow bugs are more aggressive than ever, cloning whatever they can. Characters overwhelmed and cloned by shadow bugs are left unconscious while the doppleganger runs around wreaking havoc. Mods will not play these dopplegangers--they will be player responsibility, should you choose this route. The originals will wake up after a few hours, but that doesn't mean the duplicate will vanish. They will need to be defeated (or not).
◎ As stated in the dorm log, the subspace bubbles have begun to become actual portals, providing passages between different parts of the school and the city. Occasionally, these portals lead to places not of this world at all. It is advised to exercise extreme caution when entering those portals, as you might find yourself running a gauntlet of subspace enemies and booby traps before finding a portal to take you back home. Getting lost finding your way around the areas is a distinct possibility. At this point, characters can encounter any enemies listed here, including Galleom and Duon.

Again, all of these effects are optional--characters can get lucky and remain completely unaffected if this is not your bag.

On AUGUST 15th, a subspace bomb will (accidentally) go off on the outskirts of the school, consuming a large chunk of the forest. Here is what happens when a subspace bomb goes off.

◎ The resulting explosion opens a fissure that extends from the rift in the sky straight down to the depths of the bunkers (where there has probably been a rift all along), creating a permanent (for now) purple tear in the fabric of reality that…
◎ Allows for shadowy monsters to enter the city proper. The city is not overrun all at once, but it's clear that if something isn't done soon, the rift will get larger and the dimensional barrier will continue to break down until it's past the point of no return.
◎ Master Hand will, of course, make an attempt to rally the students, so that might be a good time to finally confront him--or, perhaps even…Tabuu?**
◎ The school will act as a stronghold throughout the attack, in the event that you don't want your character to fight or encounter monsters! They're concentrating their efforts on the surrounding area, almost as if they're reluctant to attack the school itself...

Four days later, on AUGUST 19th, something else will emerge from the gaping subspace hole in the sky.

◎ The island, which is easily accessible by pretty much anything or anyone that can fly, floats almost directly over the school. It's (of course) crawling with subspace monsters, but there are ruins to explore. The island even has a bunker system of its own, which can be reached through tunnel entrances on the surface.
◎ More details will be revealed mid-August, once the island appears. Keep an eye out for help from unexpected places.

The end goal of the event is, of course, to close the rift, and maybe solve the mystery of this crazy school, while you're at it. How this is accomplished is, of course, up to all of you. There will be a follow up post at the end of August with plot-wrap up and aftermath--though what kind of aftermath depends entirely on what your characters choose to do!

As always, players are encouraged to ask mods about what might occur should their characters take certain courses of action. The sky is the limit, but there might be consequences! Feel free to ask any questions here, or contact us privately.

* Once again, if you are interested in AUing your dude into the Smash Bros/Brawl universe, contact a mod. We might have a little something-something for you.
**Mods are more than happy to NPC for your purposes! Just drop us a line if you want him.