![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Let's look into a reboot!
Hello and welcome to the interest check and feedback round for a reboot of "Save the Earth", tentatively named "Save our Earth".
What is this?
Save the Earth was a plot-driven DWRP game with elements of (reverse) memloss and AU. In a world that seemed to be just like ours, everyday people developed the ability to access a network connecting them with others who started going through the same experience at the same time: They started regaining memories, abilities, physical and mental traits, and even items from earlier lives that they lived in other worlds than their own. And soon they were pulled into trouble in the city, the country, and finally the world that turned out to be less and less mundane the further the game progressed.
Save our Earth would be a classical reboot: The metaplot and background meta would be revised, all characters would start fresh and the game would tell a different story with some of the same elements (partly because the development of the plot would, again, be reliant on player actions). There would also be a number of changes to the rules.
What would stay the same would be the underlying game mechanics (characters would start out as distinct from their preincarnations and slowly regain and more and more of their preincarnations' lives through so-called "echoes") and the base setting (Earth starts out as the very Earth that we know in the very year the game starts, with roughly the same developments continuing on in the background; only the addition of the city in which the game is centred and some supernatural events would set it apart) as well as the essence of game-play (for example that characters would be embedded in their social contexts and NPC their non-numbered social contacts).
Who are you?
Kira-mod, one of the people in the last and final batch of mods of StE.
When would this happen?
The current tentative launch date is mid-June 2018.
Okay, what do you need feedback on?
Please comment to this post (I'd say or on plurk, but I fear I'll lose your feedback there), answering the following questions (a hand-dandy textbox is provided below).
- Interest! Would you be interested in playing in an all new, rebooted StE? If yes or maybe, why? (I'd love to know what interests people about the game/premise!)
- LOCATION. How important would it be for you that the city that serves as the central location of the game would be situated in America? (The alternative location that I'm considering the most strongly right now would be a fictional city on the southeastern coast of England, somewhere between Brighton and Dover.)
- I'd like to hear any input towards things that you would love to see again from StE's original run, things that you would love to not see again, things that you think might be a cool addition...
Would you need help?
Yes! I'm not totally alone here, but the game would need:
- app mods! Task: Judging and processing apps.
- echo mods! Task: Processing echoes (there will be some minor modifications, but the basic process will remain the same).
What is this?
Save the Earth was a plot-driven DWRP game with elements of (reverse) memloss and AU. In a world that seemed to be just like ours, everyday people developed the ability to access a network connecting them with others who started going through the same experience at the same time: They started regaining memories, abilities, physical and mental traits, and even items from earlier lives that they lived in other worlds than their own. And soon they were pulled into trouble in the city, the country, and finally the world that turned out to be less and less mundane the further the game progressed.
Save our Earth would be a classical reboot: The metaplot and background meta would be revised, all characters would start fresh and the game would tell a different story with some of the same elements (partly because the development of the plot would, again, be reliant on player actions). There would also be a number of changes to the rules.
What would stay the same would be the underlying game mechanics (characters would start out as distinct from their preincarnations and slowly regain and more and more of their preincarnations' lives through so-called "echoes") and the base setting (Earth starts out as the very Earth that we know in the very year the game starts, with roughly the same developments continuing on in the background; only the addition of the city in which the game is centred and some supernatural events would set it apart) as well as the essence of game-play (for example that characters would be embedded in their social contexts and NPC their non-numbered social contacts).
Who are you?
Kira-mod, one of the people in the last and final batch of mods of StE.
When would this happen?
The current tentative launch date is mid-June 2018.
Okay, what do you need feedback on?
Please comment to this post (I'd say or on plurk, but I fear I'll lose your feedback there), answering the following questions (a hand-dandy textbox is provided below).
- Interest! Would you be interested in playing in an all new, rebooted StE? If yes or maybe, why? (I'd love to know what interests people about the game/premise!)
- LOCATION. How important would it be for you that the city that serves as the central location of the game would be situated in America? (The alternative location that I'm considering the most strongly right now would be a fictional city on the southeastern coast of England, somewhere between Brighton and Dover.)
- I'd like to hear any input towards things that you would love to see again from StE's original run, things that you would love to not see again, things that you think might be a cool addition...
Would you need help?
Yes! I'm not totally alone here, but the game would need:
- app mods! Task: Judging and processing apps.
- echo mods! Task: Processing echoes (there will be some minor modifications, but the basic process will remain the same).
no subject
Location: Location can be wherever.
Anything else: A less intense AC than I recall from my original time (I was around in the 'four threads with different characters' phase, can't recall if there was a comment count on those or not) would be deeply appreciated, for the reasons cited above. Also, while I would play a different character this time and would be less likely to run into this problem, a way to balance the fact that minor characters/LCWs get fewer opportunities for echo chains than major characters/those with castmates, simply through that lack of opportunity to compare notes with others, would be GREAT - in the end, that was the primary reason I left StE.
no subject
no subject
Our current idea for AC is 20 comments across at least three threads per month, and a reward system for more (40 comments let you turn one echo into a double echo in the following month, 60 comments let you turn two echoes into double echoes in the following month [double echoes=one trigger yields two echoes]).
At this time, we have three ideas for levelling the field for characters from large casts and small casts/LCWs:
Firstly, we will try to encourage AU family bonds and other close CR that might be capable of replacing canon cast to at least a degree when it comes to echoes. Secondly, we will try to encourage characters from similar canons to help each other out with their echoes - say, two vampires from different canons.
To achieve both of this, we would mostly use plotting posts and similar venues.
Thirdly, there will be a hard cap on the number of echoes per month and on the number of echoes per (extended) conversation. We hope that this won't be limiting to players but help to balance the game some. (The rules will be slightly altered for new characters so they can catch up with older ones more easily.)
We would appreciate any further ideas and thoughts on how to handle this issue, from you or others.
no subject
Those all sound like things that would help with the echo problem! Another game I apped into had a points system for regains - you got a certain amount on apping, more for participating in plot events, etc., and there was a set amount to spend on specific types of regains (so you could blow the lot on a bunch of memories, or save up for a shiny item/ability). Not sure if adapting that would be practical or you'd rather stick with what you know, but I thought I'd throw the idea out there, just in case.
(Plotting posts as well as plurks already sounds like a big help. I have plurk now but didn't in my StE run, and I know I missed a lot of plotting by virtue of that lack.)
no subject
Secondly, I feel like it's simply more faff than it's worth for both players and mods to keep track of.
(We of course can't force people to take their plotting to plotting posts over plurk, but we at least hope that we can encourage it.)
no subject
Location: I don't think the location matters much. More importantly, put various location types nearby. (Like a beach, forest or nature type area, amusement park, etc.) This will give a lot of options for the players.
Anything else: Make memory echoes easier to get. Echoes that grant skills or powers or other advantages should require approval, but I feel like simple memory echoes are better left up to the players. That way threads don't get held up while players wait to see if their characters remember that time they had coffee.
no subject
The point about memory echoes is very good. We've chatted about it a bit and our current thought is that unlike all other echoes, memory echoes would only have to be submitted and not be mod-approved before being implemented. They would count as "approved by default", but we would reserve the right to request revisions (in other words, making them shorter) if they seem like they are too long or contain too much information.
All other echoes would retain the same approval system as in the old StE, but with a hard limit on the maximum amount of echoes that can be gained per month (simply because we want to prevent the kind of disappointment that happened a few times in the old StE when people were surprised by having hit the soft limit without noticing).
no subject
That is pretty much what I had in mind too- reporting the memories but being able to carry on with the roleplay immediately. It'll help keep threads moving.
And yeah, a hard limit on the number of echoes would help out with long term planning.
no subject
Location: No preferences re: location.
Anything else: The first two respondents here both had good points about echo acquisition that I agree with (even things out for LCWs, loosen up the process for memory-only echoes). A hard cap on echoes per month that's known from the beginning sounds like a great idea, too, since it'll help everyone figure out how to pace things.
no subject
no subject
Location: The proposed location sounds good!
Anything else: I... might be able to help with echo mod stuff, since I did that before?? But again it depends on what my time winds up looking like.
no subject
no subject
Location: hmmm pretty important? One location makes it a lot easier for characters to meet and I recall struggling to work with CR that had left Locke City. On the other hand, I also like the open-world aspect a lot.
Anything else: I really think StE at its best had a fun-filled, wacky tone to it that it kind of lost in the second season. I think I'd really prefer the game to maintain that level of fun combined with drama in the face of alien invaders
no subject
We are still working on the specifics to balance keeping a central location and including some of the open-world aspect in later seasons. Part of the revision of the metaplot and background meta are/will be dedicated to that, but whatever the solution is, it will definitely be different from the original run.
At this point, the question is more about the location of "Locke City" (which would of course have a different name). We are strongly considering not placing it in America, but would like feedback on what potential players think on that matter.
Yeah, I agree that the fun-filled, wacky tone was better. We will try to adjust the metaplot so that it can be maintained better this time around. One factor, I think, was the numbered going public - fun at the time, but going public typically turns things more serious and grim in the long run. We would try to delay that and make it happen in a way that upsets normal numbered life less.
If you could offer any observations as to what else you think might have changed the tone, we would appreciate it!
no subject
Location: I don't have strong feelings one way or the other on location.
Anything else: Like I said, I wasn't along for the ride last time, so I don't have any particular insights on what worked/didn't work. So... yay, fresh blood, I guess.
no subject
And fresh blood is excellent \o/
no subject
Location: Either way
Anything else: So lets address the giant squid at the table. The player-mod relationship issues that happened at the end last time. How are you going to alleviate them?
Put in a specific note/rule in the FAQ/Rule page that more than one player plot can happen in a day, so everyone needs to just deal.
Note that Mods the do need to take accountability for their mistakes but we will not be put on trial like last time.
And so on, just wondering.
Also it would be nice to know who is currently helping you right now.
no subject
We can't say with certainty, but we believe that a mix-up has happened there, and we're glad that you brought your question directly to us so that we can respond to it. Thank you for that direct approach, it is appreciated.
As stated, I am Kira, a part of the last mod batch of StE. This last mod batch modded StE from early summer 2014 to late spring 2015 and at its core consisted of me and Louise. We modded StE through the bulk of its second season.
What you are referring to is most likely the wank that ended with the mod team before us stepping down. The wank in question was highly publicized and happened at the end of a time of fast growth. Wank died down fairly quickly after that mod team had stepped down, and the game went through an extended phase of restructuring and diminishing in size and speed due to the fall-out and a bumpy transition between mod-teams. So I wouldn't be surprised if you heard about that but then didn't hear about the game continuing.
Furthermore, the mod changeover happened around the end of the first season of the game. The end of the first season also meant a boss battle, the resolution of some plots, and similar shenanigans, which likely furthered the impression of the game ending in those who paid only passing attention to it, only learned about it from outside sources, or something similar.
If there is anything that you feel concerned about from the period when I was a mod, please let me know.
To answer your question: As stated on the plurk and the post above, I am Kira. I will be the only mod from any of the former mod teams who will be modding Save our Earth. With me are, at this time, two former players at StE: Gil as a setting mod (that is, he will be responsible for assisting people with questions about the setting and will help develop the setting) and Airdra, who has agreed to lend her excellent skills at playing ridiculous characters to fill our NPC ranks with characters that match the intended tone of the game.
no subject
Location: I don't think location is especially important as long as there are enough varied locales within the setting to keep things interesting. I don't know if opening up several different hub cities again would be a good idea, but I did drop out shortly after season one, so I'm not sure how well that played out in practice.
Anything else: I haven't been in a game with AC for a while, so I don't know what the current vibe of things is with that and what it will be/change into around the time SoE is scheduled to launch. My concern is that 20 threads across three threads per month might be a little high depending on initial interest and pace of the game, but that's obviously something that can be fine-tuned once there's more data.
no subject
The different hub cities are one of the things about the metaplot and background meta that we're looking into revising.
We will take initial interest and pace of the game into account when it comes to AC.
We do however feel that twenty tags are a reasonable number, for the following reasons:
- The system is specifically designed to not limit the number of threads that those tags can be in (thus eliminating the risk of people getting in trouble due to an RP partners not tagging back/unfortunate timezones/other slow-tagging issues). The three threads are a minimum, not a maximum.
- Twenty tags are less than a tag per day.
- We will accept tags from threads started during the month before the AC month as well, as long as one thread in the bunch was started during the current month. So for August AC, you could use comments that were made in August but respond to a thread started during July, as long as at least one of your submitted threads was started in August.
no subject
Location: Actually I'd kind of be interested in setting the game somewhere in Asia, although that's just personal preference and hometown bias for me. And I guess it's probably easier to have reference for locations in England and stuff.
Anything else: Will two-character apps still be allowed? Also similarly, will OCs be allowed? Mainly because I have an adoptive father/daughter fandom OC pair that I'd kind of want to bring in. (This journal is for the daughter character, and I can AU them into non-fandom OCs as well.)
no subject
Our reason for England is actually hometown bias, too - Gil, the potential setting mod, is English, and Kira, the potential head mod, currently lives in England. As you can imagine, we hope that that will make it easier for us to do the setting justice and keep it consistent with real-world circumstances. (The last mod team of the old StE [the one that ran it from early summer 2014 until May 2015], had me and Louise as head-mods. Neither of us was American, yet we ran a game set primarily in America. Despite our best efforts to research everything, we ran into issues more than once that we couldn't have known to look out for, not having the background radiation of home-turf knowledge. And I would prefer to not repeat that experience.)
We will keep your preference in mind though, as there may be opportunities to extend the scope of the game (temporarily) to other locations later on in the game. May I ask what part of Asia you would be looking at specifically?
Yes, combo apps will still be a thing!
Yes! We will allow original characters, both from entirely original worlds and from worlds that are designed for the creation of OCs, like tabletop settings or mmorpgs.
no subject
And that's awesome! I can't wait to bring Tiera and Jann to this game.
no subject
Maybe! But I'm not sure what my situation is going to be when it opens, annnd I am kind of making it by the skin of my teeth in my current game. Granted, I find the AC in that game to be a little tougher than those in past games I've been in.
Location:
I think England is a fair choice for the game and here's my reasoning - it would be easier to find ways to situate a reincarnated character into that society for the larger portion of the players.
For example, while it is possible to set the game in places like India or China, our frame of references are limited to that society and would both have to come up with *reasons* for many of the characters to be there, and having to check wiki for information they might need pretty frequently for the majority of players.
While there are exceptions to this, mostly characters from anime/manga, or other Japanese mediums, it would still be easier on the OOC frame of reference to most players. Such as knowing things like "is there maternity leave in this country?" or "what kind of food is readily available and what does it taste like?" or "how big are apartments in the city?" or "are port-o-potties a thing there?"
As the last game went, locations opened up later, which would allow for more cultures and societies to be explored.
Anything else:
Being that I was previously a mod this is probably going to be REALLY weird to say, but I found the plot hard to follow and not particularly interesting in places. (I'm talking even from early on in my stay in the game, when previous mods were running it.) I never did understand the things with the aliens or any of that.
When the plot would happen, I feel like for the opening OOC post or something, we were bombarded with a LOT of information, and then because players were not always up for participating in the plot - I'm sure you remember how hard it was to get players to *DO* anything - it would go extremely slowly after.
My recommendations would be to A) Not rely so heavily on "milestones" in the plot being entirely player triggered. This kept the game really slow there for a while. and B) to have plot information come in smaller chunks with both an active AND passive role it being possible (IC-ly) (In the last game, if your character was not a fighter or investigator, sometimes there tended to be not a lot to hook you into participating.)
The things I personally enjoyed about the game was the memory exploration, and connections with other cast mates who were learning about each other all over again.
Also, I would be willing to serve as a bouncing board and idea-man, but I don't think I could take the responsibility of truly modding again.
no subject
The metaplot and background meta would be revised thoroughly, in an effort to make it more comprehensive and most of all more sustainable.
And that is a very good point about breaking information down into small chunks. We will take it into consideration and see what options to implement this there are.
We'll discuss the "milestones" issue. At this point I would rather keep it so that it is player action that pushes the plot along, but I could very much see making the nature of the "milestones" more flexible, or implementing a number of different "milestones" that could all move the plot along in different directions. In cases where plot-important threads move too slowly, I could see a solution along the lines of "let's discuss the results of this oocly so we know what's going to happen and can move forward, and we can still keep threading icly after that".
And thank you for the offer! I will keep it in mind. Right now I have Gil as a "setting-input" mod and he doubles as a bouncing board/idea man (which is enabled by us living in the same household anyway - things like /suddenly barges into the room I HAVE AN IDEA), but I might come back to you in case more input is needed in the future.
no subject
Location: I'm cool with any location atm. o7
Anything else: Twenty comments might be interesting but not impossible.
no subject
no subject
Location: I do like the proposed location, since it would be interesting to set everything in a location that isn't the Americas. And although I did feel that Save The Earth was becoming a bit too spread out by the end, I did like the open-world, but I also enjoy the more closed-in setting of Locke city. So I think that's rather important.
Anything else: Starting AC out with like 20 comments spread across two-to-three threads might be a good idea, see how that goes?
and since someone else on here brought it up, I do like the idea of memory regains basically being instant-approved, with the more personal regains like items and such requiring more. it's an excellent way to get the ball rolling for characters that need those things to develop.
no subject
no subject
Location: Not highly important, but I know it would help if there's some detailed information on the created setting available, with some advice on where we could do more research (besides asking mods/players with hometown knowledge)
Anything else: Big plot posts where players can make top level prompts are love and life. Much easier than games that depend on player-created posts all the time.
no subject
We already have put together a setting description that we hope is both detailed and open enough to be easy to work with, but you are bringing up a very good point about offering some advice on where/how to do further research. We will try to compile a list of links and similar aids.
no subject
Location: Doesn't really matter. I mean I don't know a thing about living in England but that's what an immigrant is for.
Anything else: I hope the metaplot really is different and has fresh aspects. One of the draws of StE was the OOC mystery of what's going on being slowly revealed.
no subject
There will be two options built into the setting to make immigrants, people in the UK on working permits and similar persons of international background easy to explain: An international industrial centre (which would include anything from stores like IKEA or ASDA [English Walmart] to office buildings, a film studio and scientific research facilities) and an RAF base that is heavily used as a base by the airforces of other countries as well. The town also has a university, if someone wants to play an international student or international university staff. It also has a harbour and a highspeed trainline to London (which has multiple international airports), which among other things would make it well-suited for those who travel abroad frequently.
no subject
Location: I'd prefer it if it's not set in the Americas -- Recolle with a similar premise is set in the US and I think it would be nice to have a different kind of setting/location. England definitely sounds lovely and echoing what others have said, varied details of the location would be most important!
Anything else: 20 comments across at least 3 threads sounds reasonable, and I would also love it if it were backtag-friendly. Also, do you have an idea of how much canon background necessary for a character to be appable?
no subject
As for your questions:
We do strive to be backtag-friendly, and will thus allow comments from threads that were started within the last sixty days (or two months) to count for AC. However, to make sure that players do still participate in the current developments of the game, we would request a minimum of one thread to have been started during the month of AC. So, let's say someone submits July AC, they could use three threads that were started on 06-12, 06-28 and 07-15. The comments themselves would of course all have to be from July.
Our current idea for the amount of canon that is needed to apply for a character is a soft rule: Essentially, the character in question has to have enough canon to write a cohesive personality without relying on headcanon (padding it with headcanon would of course be permissible, but it should work as a stand-alone if all headcanon was cut out).
no subject
Location: England would be preferable. Partly because as somebody who has never been to America but has been to England and loved it, and partly because I'm in Recolle which is set in America.
Anything else: Since I wasn't in the original StE I can't really comment on anything else.
no subject
no subject
Location: Although I have a preference for America since I'm American and don't have to look up stuff about culture, how things like schooling are different, etc, I would be fine with somewhere else! If you do decide to still go with the US though I would like to suggest starting with a western state this time, just for a bit of a difference (since it's such a big country and all). But honestly going with a different country to start could make it fun and fresh so it's not a repeat of generic American high school simulator.
Anything else: I can't think of much that I haven't already seen brought up (specifically memory echoes being simpler, since those were more immediately relevant to threads and waiting for them to process slowed tags down).
no subject
no subject
Location: No real opinion, other than the fact that American would be easier since... I am in America and know how things work, but it can be worked around.
I love research anyway.Anything else: As someone who wasn't in the original StE I can't comment too much about changes. Who I bring will depend largely on what's going on with my life when it opens - some characters are more high energy than others.
no subject
no subject
But I am interested in this type of setting, at least when it comes to this character.
Location: I have no complaints about the setting, and no real preference, but I'd definitely be on the lookout for resources on writing things accurately. |D I am one sheltered American, here.
Anything else: ... You don't happen to know of Robert J. Sawyer's Wake Watch Wonder Trilogy, do you? Because if I happened to bring in the main (non-human) character from that, things might get weird.
I can bring in a different character (my Nita Callahan account actually has icons, for one), but I was most curious about applying this setting's mechanics to Webmind.
no subject
We have included a page of resources about "British stuff" into our info pages that talks about a few things that we feel important to get a feeling for the setting and then some onwards links. (Essentially, we used our own experience with American settings, which are foreign to us, and tried to talk about the things that we wished someone had put together for us about America.)
We don't know the character or canon, but if you tell us a bit more about the character that you have in mind and why you think they may be "weird" to put into the game, we can tell you if they'd work! SoE does allow non-humanoid characters, and you can reincarnate a character as any living earth creature - you aren't limited to humans, you could also reincarnate them as a plant or animal.
no subject
As for Webmind, well, per canon he's an "artificial" intelligence based on the infrastructure of the World Wide Web (actually more a spontaneous digital intelligence as he gained awareness on his own... more or less. Not an intentional creation of humanity!)
As I'm familiar with the exploits of Transformers characters in this setting, I'm more than okay with sticking him in a human form... it's just getting him back to normal that's the problem.
no subject
Essentially, Webmind would function like every other character: He could regain any parts of his former self that you would have fun playing with and you could omit any parts of his former self that would make him hard to play or you just don't think are fun.
As the game takes place in our modern world, the www exists. So if you should at some point want him to make the jump to being a non-corporeal internet entity, you could always echo the loss of his human body (we have had people echo all kinds of physical losses in StE). This would require some plotting, so if you ever want to lose his body, please contact a mod in advance, but it would be possible! (It would also be permanent, unless he at some point in canon acquires a physical form that could later be echoed to reverse the effect, as all echoes are permanent.)
Not related, but I love those icons!
(And no, returning to "normal" after the physical transformation wouldn't be an option for him, so I'd probably save that until the end.)
I was mostly just concerned about the plotting end of things - I have no shortage of ideas for what his echoes could be, though! (Even if they're mostly mental/memory related - also a bit about reaction speed/speed of thought.)
no subject
Location: ....eh. On the one hand, not being in America would be very cool and different. On the other, I worry there'd be a lot of questions to be answered or other mod-intensive work as (and this may just be my circle of RPers, I will admit) I think DWRP is still very heavily American. I know the one time I tried to look up British schooling for a character I was completely baffled by how that worked, not to mention things like pop culture, snacks, politics, etc. I completely understand the desire to set it somewhere where the mods have home field advantage and it would be super cool to not have it be American, I'm just a bit worried there's going to be so much information and research to wade through for any semblance of accuracy when playing someone who possibly has lived in this city/country/region for 13+ years that it'll turn a lot of players off. (And like, obviously this hasn't stopped people from playing in AUish games set in other countries before but A, in my experience most of those games were like X-Men or otherwise Obviously Fantasy From the Start so who cared; and B, this is all just my first reaction to "we're looking at the game being set in Actual Real Life England, a country you don't know much about and the media you consume has not prepared you for at all whatsoever" and it is entirely possible that when there's information up about the setting none of this will be relevant.)
Unrelated to the location of the city, I'm also a little I guess baffled on one thing because while the one-city-for-shenanigans idea makes sense and when StE opened up other cities the game got messy fast, I don't like the idea of being trapped in the city if you want to retain your memories. Sure, it made for convenient hiatus excuses but it was also extremely limiting. Having one city be the epicenter/where the first and majority of echoes have to be gotten and Shenanigan Magnet like New York City or Tokyo makes total sense, but it would be nice for characters to be able to safely go to the next town over without dealing with psychic whiplash.
Anything else: StE's plot got convoluted and frankly absurd towards the end of my time there. It was just nonsensical to the point of being unfun. I'm not sure what prompted that, but at some point I just checked out of what was going on because it was just too much and made no sense. If this reboot happens, I really hope you guys take this into consideration.
Also echoes allowing people to regain buildings and places like them were just too much. Cool! But just impractical.
no subject
As you pointed out, experiences with DWRP demographics rely heavily on a person's circle of friends and acquaintances. In my experience, the DWRP community these days is roughly evenly split between North Americans and those who are not North American and/or do not live in North America.
Knowing from personal experience how foreign countries can blindside a player or mod with unexpected differences in culture or other elements of daily life is something we are intimately familiar with. It is one of the main reasons why we posed the question in the first place, as we felt it unwise to set the game in a country the mods aren't intimately familiar with but wanted to get the input of prospective players on the topic first. It seemed important to us that the mods have a good grasp on their setting; someone always has to do research because we are an international community, and from experience with modding StE (neither Kira nor Louise were American), we felt like it would be potentially troublesome if it were the people who provide the background setting.
Due to our personal experience with foreign settings and due to the feedback that we were given on the subject, we have included a page of resources about "British stuff" into our info pages that talks about a few things that we feel are important to get a feeling for the setting and then offers some onwards links. (Essentially, we used our own experience and tried to talk about the things that we wished someone had put together for us about America.)
There will also be more information about the localities than there was for StE. Feedback was pretty clear on the very vague nature of Locke having been an issue.
All in all it seems to us that prospective players would generally be happy with a British setting for a variety of reasons, and thus we will go ahead with that. But we will try to make it as easy as possible for international players to work with the setting; on top of the above, there will also be multiple opportunities to fit immigrants into the setting (among other things the town in question will include multiple international companies and an RAF station that is also used by foreign military).
Regarding the loss of echoes - as with the original StE, the first season will see characters confined to the Echo Boundary (that, in this case, will not be equivalent to a single city but a radius of six miles with a town at its centre). Later seasons will however change this in a way that is very different from how StE did it and, we hope, should address your concern quite well.
The reason for the StE plot happening the way it did was the metaplot that was inherited with the game from the original mod. The metaplot and background meta of the game will see a significant rewrite for SoE.