#famedadmin

The following options are phrased as they are in the poll.

I would be interested in being an active member of Famed if it were to remain the same*.

In this context, ‘the same’ would be more in the sense of the larger idea of the roleplay and many of its major mechanics running the same. If this option were to be the most popular, I would take it that perhaps there are some more minor areas (frequency of events, certain rules, more minor details about how the roleplay operates) that could be updated or fixed to increase interest and I would run a follow-up feedback poll following the results of the interest check poll to gauge what these might be.

As this option doesn’t involve a huge overhauling of the roleplay, activity would just continue as usual following the conclusion of the interest check poll while I received opinions from the follow-up feedback poll.

I would be interested in being an active member of Famed if it were to be revamped as a still primarily idol-based, but more open-ended / laissez-faire roleplay.

In comparison to the previous option, this option would keep Famed, but with some more major changes to how it runs as a roleplay and the details in the universe. Again, I would probably run a feedback poll, though this would have a lot more focus on what major changes people might be okay with seeing / want to see.

This could result in several different changes — some changes to the types of positions available, perhaps. Instead of all groups having relatively equal schedules / comebacks as group, there might be some senior groups that comeback on a significantly slower basis, where muses would have a lot of room to shape their muses separately from idoldom; rookie groups that are very active as a group with frequent comebacks; and groups across the seniority spectrum that are somewhere in between with comeback frequency. The claims system may change majorly to something that is less overly-involved, as I know it’s become quite a lot to take in over the years. It could perhaps become less points-based. It could also result in a soft re-launch where the roleplay itself “starts fresh” in a sense of wiping established background and starting over in some aspects to make it easier for newer members to integrate into the world.

Honestly, the main goal of this would be to make the roleplay a bit more ‘laissez-faire’, or rather, with the dual goals of allowing more muse / mun flexibility outside of the current boxes and requiring less admin micromanaging as the current systems can lead to a bit of admin burnout and I suspect may sometimes contribute to player burnout. The aim would be a more collaborative feeling of muses affecting the universe / roleplay more and vice versa, instead of it being more heavy-handed one way.

This would be somewhat similar to the restructuring Famed went through in 2021 as to level of general change, but potentially with some larger scale changes to the mechanics of the roleplay. As such, this may see a brief period of closure as systems are overhauled. It may or may not require muse applications to be resubmitted depending on which changes take place, though, like in 2021, current members would get a designated period to send these in before applications are opened to everyone.

I would be interested in being an active member of a roleplay based in the South Korean entertainment industry that casts a larger net with playable occupations of actors, models, television personalities, solo artists, etc. in addition to a select handful of idol groups.

This would involve several of the overhauls of the previous option, but would have the added aspect of expanding the focus of the roleplay to allow more fluidity in development in regards to things like career.

The core focuses of celebrity, media, image, etc. would remain present, but the core focus Famed currently has on the idol system would shrink to only one option / facet with a handful of active and semi-active idol group spots available as canons / subplots. The main driver here would be more flexibility and options to the paths muses take. The aim would be for any reasonable ‘celebrity’ type path to be allowed, whether it’s idol group member, soloist, actor, model, celebrity chef, athlete, etc. No one would really be locked into their career path — an established singer can become an actor, either concurrently or leave singing behind entirely. Another muse could have left their idol group to go solo. A dancer could become a famous television personality and model. Overall, the focus would just be on celebrity life within the scope of the Korean entertainment industry (and the unique and non-unique factors that play into that) as opposed to the more zoomed-in microcosm of only idol group members.

The career and development systems in this would be somewhat different from their current forms in Famed, but should be relaxed enough that anyone who wishes to use a version of their current muse should be able to keep any major career and/or development landmarks they want for the new version of their muse (or start fresh with a new muse altogether).

In this case, the roleplay would be more of a spin-off or reboot than a true continuation of Famed as it exists since it would be quite different in scale and mechanics. It would be opened as either a very highly rebranded reboot of Famed, or (more likely) created as a new roleplay under a new name. Current members of Famed would be welcome / encouraged to apply with a version of their muse (be they an idol or otherwise) or a new muse for a new start.

THE POLL

The poll is here. Current members as well as anyone who may be interested in becoming a member under any of these options are welcome to answer. Please be sure to indicate which one you are in the first question. You may choose as many options as you want for the second question; check any you think you might be interested in. You won’t be held to it if it doesn’t work out for you; the poll is anonymous, after all!

Feel free to send any further questions you have about any of these options to the ask box.

Firstly, the ability to claim a second specialty has been added to the points shop as promised! A second specialty may be claimed three months after a first specialty is claimed. If you claim a second specialty, you will get the 15% discount in that specialty as well and you may apply both your free article and your 25 point quarterly specialty voucher to that category as well. You do not get a second 25 point voucher or a second free quarterly article, but you may use your existing ones on the second specialty too..

 If you have one specialty, this is what you get:

A15% discount on all claims in that one specialty One free article related to that one specialty per quarter A 25 point “voucher” to apply to claims in that one category per quarter

If you have two specialties, this is what you get:

A 15% discount on all claims in both specialties One free article related to one claim in either specialty category One 25 point “voucher” to apply to claims in either category per quarter

The rules also now allow for changing of specialties. A muse may change one of their specialties once every six months, if necessary, as they develop. This does not cost points, but please note that this means you may change one of a muse’s specialties after six months, not that a muse may change each specialty every six months. For example, if a muse wants to change from Specialty A to Specialty B and Specialty C to Specialty D. They would need to wait six months from claiming Specialty A to change to Specialty B and another six months after that change to change Specialty C to Specialty D.

There have also been some slight tweaks to specialties. Soundcloud claims have been moved to the Music Production specialty. The choreography specialty is now called Dance & Choreography and some dance-specific claims have been moved / added to it, including a new specialized Studio Choom Artist of the Month claim. Solo Music & Performance was a little claim-heavy compared to some of the others, and this gives all three categories a more defined focus of solo artist vs. music creative vs. dancer.

As I mentioned when I first announced specialties, I’ll allow members to make an early change now that the experimental period is over if they wish. You just have to submit the specialty change claim form by the end of April and the waiting period will be waived. Changing the specialty will restart the three month waiting period before picking up a second specialty claim and the six month wait before being able to switch your first specialty, though!

Unrelated to specialties, I also removed the limit of articles a mun can claim per month. The overall limit of how many can be claimed per month hasn’t changed, but I wasn’t really running into the problem of having too many articles to queue up since they cost points now. If it becomes a problem where I get overwhelmed again, I may have to reinstate a cap per mun (perhaps only temporarily), but for now, there is no longer a cap.

I have also finally gotten up the new member welcome guide! This may be updated and added to if more comes to mind that needs to be added, but if you’re planning on joining, I’d recommend giving it a look to help you apply and then settle in!

I’ve also gone through and updated company and group pages. Nothing major has been added or changed, but I updated group backgrounds like Calypso’s now that they’ve had a significant progression point in their background and given a little more information on some groups and companies. A small update has been made to the established career claims page as well: just a small note that magazine shoots and CFs can be claimed later than they released in real life, but not earlier!

MINOR UPDATES

First some minor updates that don’t tie in with everything else in this post. The waiting period between muses has been changed from three months to two months and I will be looking for above-minimum activity demonstrated over the most recent four weeks instead of six. This is liable to change if I find this is too lax, but since I went with a waiting period on the longer side of things during the restructuring with openness to scaling it back after seeing how it worked, I’m scaling it back now.

The application’s previous “image” section is now “image & career” and asks for career details as well. An optional “future” section has also been added. This is not required, but you can earn a few extra ECP if you want choose to complete it when applying.

ESTABLISHED CAREER CLAIMS UPDATE

The first step in this has been to update the established career claims page. I’ve been meaning to do this since the new points shop costs post-revamp settled in, but the established career claims prices are now equivalent to the points shop prices (a few points shop prices have been tweaked a bit in the process to even out between the two). This means some established career claims cost a little more, while other claims cost a little less. 

The group totals of allotted ECP have been increased as well in addition to a bonus for all groups that have re-signed their contract. The intention behind this is to symbolize a “bonus” a muse might have gotten in career opportunities through the company courting their re-signing or as a result of better re-signing conditions, as well as to potentially provide help with having a career reason for your muse to have re-signed if you need one. 

Specific reference claims are also now permitted for claims that didn’t allow that before (such as brand deal CFs) since they have the same “value” as points claims now, and there is more room for pre-debut claims as well.

I tried to do the math for all muses currently in the group, and I don’t think any muses are over the limit now, but if they are, they don’t need to worry about changing anything. Most, if not all, muses, though, may find they now are under the limit with the raised totals once recalculating with the new costs. If this is the case, muns will be allowed to add additional established career claims until the end of February. All you’ll need to do is recalculate with the new points costs and totals and submit this form.

You may tweak claims somewhat within the parameters you already have for your muse, but you shouldn’t be overhauling everything to completely revamp their background if you’re not planning to revamp them. If a change requires minor edits to a muse’s biography/image, it will be up to admin discretion whether the change is acceptable without a revamp, but I will be allowing a free revamp through the end of February for the reason of taking advantage of new established career claims opportunities that may not fit the muse’s current biography / background. You will have to tell me the details of why you need to revamp to do this, though, and standard revamp guidelines apply (your waiting period between muses will reset, etc.).

UPDATE & TOUCH-UPS TO THE POINTS SHOP

There have been a few updates and touch-ups in the points shop to expand career opportunities as well. The biggest update will be a separate point below this, but a few add-ons have been added like a contributing fashion editor add-on to magazine covers and spreads so a muse can have some partial involvement in the creative side of a photo shoot. Some of the restrictions for Soundcloud releases have also been removed. Variety main cast positions have also been expanded; equivalent position claims can now be idols / idol-adjacent musicians or actors with suitable images that were no more than five years older than the muse at the time of having the position.

Categories have been moved around and renamed a little bit too, so you can check that out. The reasoning behind this is because of the addition mentioned in the next section.

A few new claims have also been added, most notably: Soundcloud Mixtape in Solo Music & Performance, Original Podcast in Hosting, and Competition / Survival Show Judge / Trainer in Image Making & Fandom.

EXPERIMENTAL UPDATE: SPECIALTIES

By experimental update, I mean this is an update that is being added now, but it may not be in its final form. Because of how it works, I want to get an idea of how it functions in practice before either nailing down a final form or discarding it altogether, which will likely happen some time around our anniversary. Because this is a meta claim, something the points shop hasn’t really dealt in before, I’ll take a poll of member opinion near the end of the initial test run as well, so it isn’t added permanently or major tweaks are made if it doesn’t work for people. This idea is one I’ve been playing around with for a few years now to combine and reflect various member suggestions and tweaking the career horizon for muses some.

If you decide to participate while this added claim is in its experimental form, it will only benefit muses and not harm them if the feature is ultimately decided against. Muses who don’t partake will also not be directly harmed, although they may miss out on discounts / bonuses.

The experimental update is the new addition of specialties. These are a claim and character development tool that allows you to get free and discounted claims in a certain category a muse may be experienced in or focusing on. Specialties will be available in the categories of Solo Music & Performance, Music Production, Choreography, Acting, Fashion & Modeling, Variety & Personality, and Hosting.

A muse’s first specialty may be claimed for 0 points as long as they have at least three established career or points claims in that category beforehand. The claim form will need to be submitted as for a usual claim, but will cost no points.

The plan is for the final form of the “specialties” claim to allow a muse to have two specialties and change specialties if needed after a certain period of time / potentially a small points cost (so that muses aren’t required to stagnate and waste away discounts in one or two areas if their development ends up pushing them toward making most of their claims elsewhere). This isn’t meant to limit muses to specific paths at all, but more so to allow a lower barrier to career development in a few areas for every muse. Muses are still welcome and very much encouraged to place claims in any category, and since a specialty is a meta claim and not something that exists literally for the muse, what a specialty means for a muse in character is pretty much up to the mun!

For the experimental period (of likely around two months), a muse may claim one specialty and it cannot be changed during this period. Once the experimental period is over, if specialties are kept, I will allow anyone who has claimed a specialty to change it for free if they’d like once they get a taste of how it might be useful for their muse’s development, so I do encourage everyone to claim a specialty so I can get as wide of a case study on what I might need to tweak as possible.

The claiming of a specialty provides the following benefits for a muse:

One 25 points “voucher” in the that category per quarter: This can be used across multiple claims, or used all on one larger claim purchase.

A 15% discount (rounded to the nearest whole number) on all future claims in that category : You will be responsible for calculating this and putting the appropriate amount in the points cost category when submitting.

One free claim or publicity article related to that category per quarter : Again, this is in addition to any other free articles offered for other reasons.

Potential special eligibility or discounts for some event spots and opportunities related to that category : This will not apply to all events and opportunities, but may be used as a specific factor in some cases where another factor might have been used. For example, if a group event has spots open for hosts to host the event, one spot may be reserved for muses with a hosting specialty for a certain period of time while the rest are open to anyone. In a limited spot base event like last years Our Songs singer-songwriter competition show event, a muse with a music production specialty might get three entries into a randomly-drawn casting process while a muse without one gets two entries.

Basically, the goal of this is to allow muses a certain base level of progress in certain areas the mun dubs them focused on without too much pressure. For instance, a muse with a hosting specialty would be able to maintain a radio show DJ run essentially for free based off of their voucher alone (and then have some left over) and a muse with a fashion & modeling specialty could maintain two spaced-out non-luxury ambassador contracts for 1 point every quarter. 

ADDITIONAL NOTE:

Because some costs have changed or are applicable to change upon claiming a specialty, any pending claims that were in the points shop askbox from before this post will be put on hold for a week. If you want to give me the okay to review it, just shoot me a message and I will. If the points amount has changed and you want to re-submit with that amount or you want to claim a specialty first, just submit a new claim form this week and I will replace the previous claim with your new submission.

If I don’t get a message from you or a new submission this week, I will proceed with reviewing all claims that were previously pending beginning next Sunday.

“Okay, great, but this is a lot!”

I know and I completely understand, so here’s a quick list of what you should do following this admin post if you have any interest in anything here:

Step One: If interested in potentially adding established career claims, recalculate the ECP cost of your muse(s)’s established career claims based on the new established career claims page.

Step Two: If interested in adding additional established career clams, fill out this form and submit it. If you’d like to make major changes to the character’s background and claims, you will need to submit a revamp application. (Message the main with an explanation of the changes you need to make and I’ll be allowing free revamps for this reason.)

Step Three: If you submitted the ECP update form, wait for approval.

After receiving approval on ECP updates or if you decide not to do anything with your muse(s)’s established career claims, proceed to Step Four.

Step Four: If interested, look at the new Specialties claim page and choose a specialty to experimentally claim for your muse (if they have at least three established career and/or points claim in that category). 

Step Five: Fill out the Specialty claim form and submit it to the points shop blog.

Firstly, I’ve updated a few typos or claim details that I noticed needed changing during the past few weeks, so make sure again that you’re looking everything over before submitting!

One important change I do want to point out is the wording of creative claims. Song production claims are now lyrics, topline melody, and arrangement. This is simply a wording change to separate the claims as definitively as possible. What was defined as production before is the exact same as what is defined as arrangement now, so you won’t need to move around your claims or resubmit. Production is such a broad term that I felt arrangement was clearer.

One of the most important points I want to remind everyone of is the new rule that a muse may only have one pending claims request at a time. If you submit a claim request, this means that you must wait for that claim request to be fully approved or denied before you submit another for the same muse. To keep this fair, I will be more strict with reviewing claims in the order they are submitted. Even if a claim with less information to review is pending, I will review claims with more information that were submitted earlier first so that muns are not waiting longer times before being able to submit another claim for the muse just because they submitted a certain claim type.

Also, as I know there’s been some confusion about this before, please keep in mind that a pending claim holds that claim for you. It does not hold that spot in the review queue for you for anything that is not officially submitted yet. If you decide you want to make a completely different claim, you will need to ask to drop the claim you had pending, wait for confirmation from me it’s been dropped, and then submit a new claim. This applies, for example, if you have a brand ambassador claim pending and decide an album claim is more urgent instead. Similarly, discussing a claim with me through messages does not reserve that claim for you. You are more than welcome to ask if you can switch out a song on an album or change a release date to make sure it’s okay before you submit it and wait for a response, but if you haven’t submitted it yet and someone else submits a claim for what you asked about, they will get first dibs on it since they submitted a form first.

Please also keep in mind that I am requiring all points counts to be up to date at the time of submission. If you submit a claims request on October 17 but you haven’t updated your points tracker since October 1 and you include the October 1 total as your tracker total amount on the form, you will be held to that as your October 17 total and you will be, in practice, forfeiting any points you earned between October 1 and when you submitted that were not recorded. I will also ask that points for claims are deducted dated for the day they were submitted. Using the previous example, if I approve that claim on October 20, you should still deduct the points with the date of October 17. These two requests will allow me to personally not have to go through a huge backlog to check on a muse’s tracker each time a claim is submitted and will speed up review times.

I also want to clarify how this will apply to my own muses’ claims for transparency’s sake. When there was no limit to how many claims a muse could have pending at one time, I would simply mark my muse’s claims down when I made them without adding them to the pending list (only if no one had that claim already pending, of course!) since claims rely on who submits the claim first and I “review” my own claims against the rules, my points tracker, etc. when I’m deciding them. Now that only one claim can be pending per muse at a time, I will add my muses’ claims to the pending list as well so that this limitation applies fairly to me; I will not be able to make another claim on my muse until everything in front of that claim has been approved. I will submit my claim forms to the points shop submit like everyone else as well for integrity of submission timing.

This all also ties in somewhat to a new portion you’ll find at the bottom of the pending page in the points shop. This will track what the claims currently in the inbox are for to avoid muns submitting claims someone already submitted for. I don’t want anyone to have to wait without being able to submit another claim only to be told someone else got to it first. Make sure to check that list because I will not be messaging muns about full duplicate claims anymore. If multiple people submit for the exact same claim, I will only list the first person who submitted on the pending list. If you submit a claim but it’s not added to the pending list, please check that list to see that someone else didn’t get to placing that claim for review first before you try submitting again.

Once the points shop reopens for everyone, dropping and changing claims will revert to the usual rules. You may drop claims after they are made, but if they have already been released in-’verse, you cannot recollect the points. Claims that have already been released cannot be changed unless there are major OOC reasons.

The first limited-time special claims announced through blog posts on the points shop blog will begin to go up soon as well, so make sure you’re following it!

what are the biggest changes that have been made?

like i said, please make sure you read every single page! the rules are especially important, as there have been a few tweaks there, but the biggest single change made, other than the obvious restructuring of the groups, is the addition of established career claims on the application.

rules around acting past claims have been loosened so that waiting period between claims aren’t so strict, but make sure to still make them realistic. creative claims are also no longer dictated by line distribution, but creative claims can now be made with points on the canon discographies. new categories of past claims are also available!

i’d like to apply to keep my muse(s)! what should i do?

step one: if you haven’t already, check out the groups and decide where your muse best fits, if anywhere. some groups are similar to groups as they previously were, while some are massively restructured, and some are brand new. no group is exactly the same as it previously was, so please make sure to read all information.

step two: figure out how you want your character to fit into the revamped world of famed. this is your chance to make some changes without losing all of the claims you’ve made. for the opening, i will only be accepted existing muses and revamps of existing muses, not brand new muses. the new muse limit is three due to the decreased size of the roleplay. you may not apply with more than that or with brand new muses that aren’t copies or revamps of muses you already had at the time of the restructuring.

step three: read the page linked on the navigation on our new feature: established career claims. this is similar to our old past claims system but allows room for more building of a past career by designating all muse a certain number of established career claim points that they can use to fill their muse’s career up to this point on the application. decide what established career claims you would like to make, and note that all previous past application claims have been cleared to give you a blank slate. you are not required to use all points allocated (though they will not carry over to any other purpose in any way) or even make any established career claims at all. all points claims are currently still marked as claimed, and those will be possible to readjust or drop after acceptances, when i’ll give more information on that.

step four: send in a reserve for the position and faceclaim you want to reserve! reserves will open on august 15 at 12pm edt and all re-application reserves will last for two weeks until august 29 at 6pm edt. please reserve from the blog of the muse this reserve is meant to keep. this means if you have three muses and you are keeping all three, you need to send in a reserve from each blog. the groups currently do not have leader or maknae positions denoted except for equinox and calypso (due to canon lineup changes necessitating them). for the sake of trying to allow as many people as possible to find a place to fit their muse, these are not currently assigned within groups and you may add one of those positions onto your reserve on a first come first serve basis. each group must have a maknae and a leader. maknaes must be born in the last year of the age range and leaders must be born in the first two years of the age range. (after the re-application process is over, maknae and leader positions will be assigned to open spots if necessary!)

step five: check and update your points tracker. unused points will remain usable, even if they come from development that no longer applies, but i will ask that starting with the revamped reopening, muses start to track points on a new page (though the old page(s) should still be accessible). this total will be asked for on the application to make sure everyone’s up to date so please look this over for accuracy before applying.