April 2018 Announcements

April 2018 Announcements



News in Brief​

Tapatalk
Do you ever wish your phone would alert you when someone replied to your thread? Well now you can! Install the Tapatalk app and find Starlight Academy on it. Available on android and iOS.

Temporary Power Upgrades
Ever had your character in extreme circumstances, and want them to temporarily get powers they wouldn't normally? Well, now you can! We've had people do this in the past, but we've never made it explicit what the limits are, so we've gone ahead and formalized all the details here.

Staff Changes
@Keen has stepped down from being a ranger, and we wish them the best!

MC3 Bulletin Board
A bulletin board has been added to plots for the ICC location! Check it out HERE.


Fresh Start Contest
We have a new contest, this time focused on encouraging players to get outside of their normal circles and roleplay with some new faces. This contest rewards vouchers and will run all month. This is a non-competitive contest: Players are competing only against themselves, with no upper limit for how many vouchers you can earn. You can check the contest out here.

Contest Odds and Ends
We have an upcoming post spree running on April 14th and 15th!

The AU Contest from last month wrapped up with a lot of entries, but only a few within the contest period. We'll be revamping AU contests to better fit the needs of the VR events, and all participants who posted their app within the grading period (Boop, Foxy, Kathinja, and Romi) have gotten +1 voucher!

Spotlights
Our player spotlight, @Boop, has and continues to be a major contributing member of the forum with her engaging characters and her participation in onsite plots, events, and nominations. She's always making time for people, so give her a shoutout!

Lucy Zabaal, played by @Max!!, is a gluttony insectoid. While appearing friendly and outgoing, she is actually quite predatory while still following Manta Carlos laws. Max plays this up wonderfully, as you'd probably never notice her predatory nature in the ICC.

You can nominate for next month here.

Events
Manta Carlos celebrates World Environmental Day (WED) with an annual weekend camping trip where people of all different ages are encouraged to enjoy the wilderness and help clean up any messes found as they hike and explore all the wonders the island has to offer.

This event is an ICC event taking place from March 30th to April 1st and located in the forest.

Walpurgisnacht takes place the night of April 30th and translates literally into "Witches' Night." While originally the fire used in this event was meant to ward against Witches, Manta Carlos has flipped that tradition around.

This eve is celebrated with large fires, dancing, and chanting. This is a scenery event on the forum.

Manta Carlos Print
The third edition of the in-character newspaper is now available for reading!​

April 2018 Mid-Month Announcements


News in Brief​

Forum Revamp
Starlight Academy has been around for a long time, and that means that some of our forum descriptions are long, long outdated. We've gone through and touched up quite a few, but we've also rearranged a few for ease of use. The major changes are as follows:​

As I'm sure everyone's noticed by now, we've changed the post editor! The box you type all your posts into has gotten a significant upgrade, with several new benefits and features.​

ICC Logging
Logging your interactions in the ICC has always been a bit of a pain, and now the staff are working to correct this. Every morning, the previous days logs will get posted to the ICC Logging forum, up there in a sticky. When you make your own logs, you can either log it yourself as usual, or you can link to the official log and include timestamps. Of note is the fact that daily logs will cover from 10PM PST one day to 9:59 PM the following day, due to the way the ICC handles logs.

Interested in making this easier for staff? When ICCing, don't send messages that start with =.

You can find the ICC Logs (including the last five days) here.

Transportation Plaza Opens
As members who participated in the last day of the camping trip might have noticed, we have a new NPC - Idar, an extra-dimensional god of portals. With the help of the Manta Carlos government, the Manta Carlos Portal Transport Services division has been set up in the transportation plaza, allowing weekly access to a variety of other realms and dimensions. You can read more over at the wiki.

Odds and Ends
We've written a FAQ that includes assumed ranges and power levels for powers that don't explicitly include this information. For example, an aura without a stated range is assumed to have an effective range of ten feet.

We briefly locked some threads to try and make finding recently finished threads easier, but ran into some issues with this, and reverted the change.

We're testing new ICC filters. If you see text in square brackets, like [idiot], that means a particularly vulgar curse was used. You'll also see slurs called out this way. Please remember that in the ICC, players are intended to write around slurs, not trigger the filters.

Contests and Events
We have a posting spree currently ongoing, running until midnight tonight. It's not too late to join in!

Later this month we have Walpurgisnacht, a scenery event for players to run with, focused on large fires and dancing throughout Manta Carlos.

Our New Faces contest is going well, and still accepting new entrants. Many members are still looking for new threads, so remember to reach out and grab a few!

Spotlight Voting has now begun, so get your vote in soon!

Manta Carlos Print
A new edition of the Manta Carlos Print is now available, highlighting two new changes to the site's setting.​

April 2018 Mini Announcements


News in Brief​

ICC Rule Update
We've seen an uptick in serious situations in the ICC which require police intervention by a large number of players, so we've decided to address this a bit more directly via IC consequences. The Community Center is, in character, a privilege, not a right, and those who are frequently disruptive wouldn't be able to enjoy it. Moving forward, these two rules will be in place:​

Accent and Language Rule Change
Starlight Academy has long had rules against using non-English languages and heavy accents, but they've been inconsistently applied as the line between what is or isn't an accent has been blurry. These rules also didn't properly reflect the ICC's fast paced environment, so we've updated the rules to make things easier for everyone, and to be more consistent. The new rule is as follows:

Posts, both roleplay and out of character, should be in clear, easy to understand English. While your character might speak another language, please be respectful of other languages. Don't google translate large portions of your characters speech, and be careful not to overuse any accents they might have. Instead, mention that your character is speaking another language or using an accent in the post itself. Posts using other languages or accents should include a translation in the post itself, either in-line or at the bottom of the post.

And for the ICC:

Players should not type out foreign languages or accents, but instead continue to post in English. If speech is intended to be heavily accented or in an alternate language, this should be noted with action tags. For example: *in old Norse* Why would you say that?, or by noting in the characters mini-profile that they have an accent.

If anyone has any questions about this new rule, please don't hesitate to ask the staff.​

Post Spree Winners
Congratulations to @Zora for winning the post spree with 27 posts, and a congratulations as well to @Nameless for placing second, with 26 posts.

Incest Laws
While not at all relevant to the majority of characters on the site, players who might be affected by these laws should check the wiki for more information.

Staff Changes
@Keen has returned to staff as a ranger!​