What locations do you want to RP in?
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@Chet said in What locations do you want to RP in?:
@Thenomain Building Nexus.
Non-sequitur. How to implement classification and reporting tools is easy compared to what to classify and report on.
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@Thenomain Wouldn't this be supremely easy? Like, have a 'is hangout' attribute on the room parent and thus all other rooms? Default to 0 for no, 1 for general hangout, <name of group> for 'yes, but for <name of group> only'.
Oh fucking well.
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@surreality said in What locations do you want to RP in?:
@Thenomain Wouldn't this be supremely easy? Like, have a 'is hangout' attribute on the room parent and thus all other rooms? Default to 0 for no, 1 for general hangout, <name of group> for 'yes, but for <name of group> only'.
Sure it's very easy to do, but making it something that people would use is not.
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@Arkandel said in What locations do you want to RP in?:
@tragedyjones Sphere-only hangouts (Turs, Elysium, etc), mixed-sphere supernatural hangouts if applicable, and general public hangouts (bars, restaurants, etc).
Everything else is circumstantial for me, and usually/often spoofed as needed.
So about the mixed supernatural hang out, I've mentioned an idea I've been kicking around for a while, and wondered if you might have some ideas for it, or parts that you don't necessarily like the idea of.
Currently the idea would be building on top of some smuggler tunnels, not at all unlike Robin Hood's Bay in England. If things go very, very south, people can retreat into the tunnels and come out the other side. Anyone trying to really ambush the place would have to somehow fine the entrance to the tunnels, funnel people into a few areas AND attack it from above.
I noticed a lot of "cross sphere" places were always held together by some kind of magic that prevents fights and conflict within in general entirely... personally I find that rather stifling, especially since the character building it holds very strongly to the belief that conflict is the true forge for growth. Nothing has merit or worth until it has faced a challenge and overcome it.
As such the place would be kept "peaceful" by the promise of mutually assured destruction. As many possible opposing and hostile groups would be brought together, as long as the rules are followed no group is given a favorable position over the others.
If one group breaks the rules they are no longer offered the protection of the others there, and will likely face multiple hostile enemies who will gleefully crush them for a reward.
IN return for protecting the place, each faction is allowed to use it to use the location to settle disputes, letting them deal directly with people they couldn't normally and hopefully being able to solve things without people having to die.
Also instead of fights being entirely blocked or discouraged, they would be completely allowed to blow off steam and set up pecking orders under the condition that no one is to be killed or permanently harmed unless that was part of the "negotiation" they had agreed on.
Does that sound like a kind of place that would be acceptable, or would the "high stress" you think be too much for most characters?
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@Duntada said in What locations do you want to RP in?:
Does that sound like a kind of place that would be acceptable, or would the "high stress" you think be too much for most characters?
It really depends on what you want to do thematically, there's no real one definite answer to this question.
For starters it's really easy to say "if $thing happens then there will be consequences" but what does that really mean? For instance back on HM there used to be attacks in Elysium all the time because yes, theoretically someone would do something about it but in practice who was that? Staff were either never informed (so note: need a systemic way to transmit that information to staff), too overworked to do something about it (so note: *need more human resources) or didn't care to go into the drama that often came of Elysium brawls (so note: need better staff).
What I'm trying to say is that as we introduce systems into games they need to make thematic sense - do we want spheres/factions to cooperate, to have tension between them, to be in open war except for these pockets of peace? - and then to ensure there are adequate resources for these systems to function. And since everything in the game needs to tap into those same resources prioritisation becomes the issue; so it gives rise to other questions, such as how important as these rooms? What are they providing you? Do they work for most characters or would they be actually avoided by some? Will the Lost go hang out with Guardians of the Veil, both of them being super paranoid folks in general? Maybe, but you still need to ask the question ahead of time.
You get my drift. I like the approach you propose, and it could fit the right MU* very well, but you need to know the MU* before you can determine if it does fit.
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What we really need is some sort of system that allows for mass combat, so security can storm a room and beat the shit out of people with overwhelming force.
<.<
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@Thenomain said in What locations do you want to RP in?:
@surreality said in What locations do you want to RP in?:
@Thenomain Wouldn't this be supremely easy? Like, have a 'is hangout' attribute on the room parent and thus all other rooms? Default to 0 for no, 1 for general hangout, <name of group> for 'yes, but for <name of group> only'.
Sure it's very easy to do, but making it something that people would use is not.
People don't use +hangouts because it doesn't tell them anything that +where doesn't also tell them. In fact, in many cases, +where is more informative.
When I use a command like +hangouts or +where, I'm looking for the following things:
- Who's on right now?
- Of the people who are on, are any of them available for RP?
- Of the people who are on and available for RP, do I want to RP with them?
- Are there any ongoing scenes I can join?
- Are there any ongoing scenes I want to join?
+hangouts really only answers question #4, and provides some information helpful to question #5 when it lists the names of people in that hangout. +Where typically helps people answer all 5, even if it does so poorly, and so I don't see people ever using +hangouts more than they already do, with the exception being on very large games where +where sometimes becomes unwieldy.
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@Duntada said in What locations do you want to RP in?:
Does that sound like a kind of place that would be acceptable, or would the "high stress" you think be too much for most characters?
And why would the supernatural characters go there? That is, why that place in particular?
Nothing above really answers that question.
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I don't want to tangent too far on this, but I do want to comment a bit. None of this is my saying that anyone is wrong; this is an exploratory post on the concepts given.
On the whole I agree with you, Lisse. I mean, look at my premise: Who, Where, Hangouts, and Directory are largely the same and share a huge chunk of the same code. They should be part of the same code object. (Who has seen my "Brand New Who Where <bnww>" in a master room? Sadly few.)
@Lisse24 said in What locations do you want to RP in?:
When I use a command like +hangouts or +where, I'm looking for the following things:
- Who's on right now?
I agree: One of the most used hardcode commands on any game does its job very well.
- Of the people who are on, are any of them available for RP?
- Are there any ongoing scenes I can join?
Almost nothing reliably tells you this. Few people use the 'WantRP' flag/setting/et al., many people on the grid are not available and many people in the OOC rooms are. I can think of only one case where you can see if someone is available for RP: They are in a public area.
I know that this isn't a 100% indicator, but it's more generically reliable than any other source. It doesn't require opting in to a secondary system.
There are a lot of people who try to be nice and page, "Hey, can I join this scene?" to people who are on the open grid, but it's not that difficult to get people to just go to the place and see what's going on.
It would be trivial to add this information to 'Where'. 'Hangouts' is a cross between Where and Directory, and so still does serve a purpose that isn't on your list: Tell me something about this place people are at. Also trivial to add to 'Where', but how much overloading can we do?
It turns out that we can do a lot, but I don't want to just keep throwing data at people. Sometime when you're logged in as a staff bit, type 'DOING' and note how it's different than 'WHO'. We don't care about doings anymore, but there are times where this differentiation is important regardless of its popularity.
I would love to see 'Where' be more like 'Hangouts', but as most people code it as an extended 'Who' instead, it creates a design overhead that people aren't used to considering.
(edit: My hangouts can list who's where, but if you look up that particular hangout it will also break down who's in which room. A hangout in that system can be a series of rooms, so it's smarter than 'Where' for keeping it simple. Setup is a hair more complex, but the payoff is substantial.)
- Of the people who are on and available for RP, do I want to RP with them?
- Are there any ongoing scenes I want to join?
Once you have the raw data, you can work this out. I don't think it's an item for differentiating 'Where' over 'Hangouts'.
It's good feedback, tho. I'd love more like this for next time I'm continuing my attempt to make all that info better. Because as everyone who has worked with me knows, I will keep designing working systems until I think it's done.
They may say so with swearing.
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Having now experienced the +hangouts code on F&L, the thing I wish it more easily told me when I hit +hangouts/all is: a one or two word descriptor of what kind of place it is (bar, lounge, coffee, casino, etc.) and if it has general or specific supernatural affiliation (general supernatural, changeling, vamp, etc.). The latter could be a one or two-letter designation or even color-coding or whatever. It'd just make it a lot easier, especially for newcomers, to get an immediate sense of what public spaces there are they could go try to RP in/start scenes at. Coloring/highlighting public spaces on +where would also be helpful just to differentiate them visually as scenes that are likely joinable.
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@Roz said in What locations do you want to RP in?:
Having now experienced the +hangouts code on F&L, the thing I wish it more easily told me when I hit +hangouts/all is: a one or two word descriptor of what kind of place it is
I didn't have enough room for that. Well, I could kill the 'Details' column for it, and just put a checkmark. Though I do have a very small amount of room left over for it. Hm. Until I kill that giant 'Details' column. Hm.
Hm hm hmmm. Hmmmmmmm.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
@Thenomain said in What locations do you want to RP in?:
@Roz said in What locations do you want to RP in?:
Having now experienced the +hangouts code on F&L, the thing I wish it more easily told me when I hit +hangouts/all is: a one or two word descriptor of what kind of place it is
I didn't have enough room for that. Well, I could kill the 'Details' column for it, and just put a checkmark. Though I do have a very small amount of room left over for it. Hm. Until I kill that giant 'Details' column. Hm.
Hm hm hmmm. Hmmmmmmm.
Speaking just as one user among many, I'd personally rather have more basic info at a glance then an indicator of whether or not there's more detail. I ended up going through every single +hangout entry on F&L just trying to get the basic lay of the land re: the grid and figure out some public spaces I could reasonably throw my PC at. In my case, I'm not looking for rooms where people already are; I'm looking for rooms where I could be.
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Totally agree with @Roz on this one.
I also generally agree with @Thenomain remarks that the commands could be combined/rejiggered somehow to make them more useful, but he's obviously put more thought into it than I have.
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@Roz said in What locations do you want to RP in?:
Speaking just as one user among many
Here's my take on "one user among many": You can have brilliant ideas that would help the many. Sometimes you have to defend those views, but just because you're not "the many" doesn't make those ideas any less valid.
Maybe that should've gone into the peeve thread, but whatever. I'll work on this as soon as I figure out what logic is bad in my 'shift' code. Because f'ing Ferals. (It's Onyx Path being inconsistent again, really. Feral players are fine.)
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
@Thenomain said in What locations do you want to RP in?:
@Roz said in What locations do you want to RP in?:
Speaking just as one user among many
Here's my take on "one user among many": You can have brilliant ideas that would help the many. Sometimes you have to defend those views, but just because you're not "the many" doesn't make those ideas any less valid.
Oh, I was just being polite. I totally think my ideas are brilliant.
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@Roz said in What locations do you want to RP in?:
@Thenomain said in What locations do you want to RP in?:
@Roz said in What locations do you want to RP in?:
Speaking just as one user among many
Here's my take on "one user among many": You can have brilliant ideas that would help the many. Sometimes you have to defend those views, but just because you're not "the many" doesn't make those ideas any less valid.
Oh, I was just being polite. I totally think my ideas are brilliant.
Maybe, but a lot of people give credence to the idea that popularity means quality. Many people, but especially staffers. (Especially staffers, holy shit.) Mind you, when staffers do it, they are usually using it as an excuse to dissuade conversation, and I hate that shit. What the hell does popularity matter for anything more than one factor in the question, "Is this project worth the time it will take." And even then, a good staffer will make that decision for how they understand the game, status quo as a single point among many.
Mind you, most staffers aren't polite about it, so thanks for that at least. Baby steps!
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@Thenomain I agree. To many people think popularity is something that must be had in order for something to be done.
If the game is good, people will try it out, you will find people who like it, and those who don't. There is nothing wrong with people not liking your game. If it's not for them, more power to them to find something that is. Keep true to your vision and cater to the people who want to play /that vision/. Everyone will have fun, and if people are having fun, it is a success.
That makes it worthwhile, imho anyways.
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@Thenomain said in What locations do you want to RP in?:
Here's my take on "one user among many": You can have brilliant ideas that would help the many. Sometimes you have to defend those views, but just because you're not "the many" doesn't make those ideas any less valid.
^ This.
In addition to the popularity fallacy, there's a real excess of doomsaying about ideas. New = not worth the time because it's unproven; "sorta reminds me of a thing that didn't work 20 years ago" = ...as if nothing has changed within the hobby in 20 years?/may not actually bear any resemblance to the thing 20 years ago in implementation or circumstance...
...I could go on, because this list is endless, but won't.
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If Theno wants to put in a 'bar, vamp hangout', 'Aquarium, elysium', field, that would be fine by me. We've added code bits and UI improvements at player request before, just ask.
If there are kinds of places you want to see, also ask/offer to build. I am happy to update the grid for more rp hooks.
I need to do a new pass over the descs of some of the hangouts, and build some of the nastier parts of north Vegas, for folks who like crime-ridden alleys and high-danger hotspots. I will also be building out part of the further edges of the freehold over the weekend, and may add an undercity room or two more. The next week will see some off-Strip expansion anyway.
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@Lisse24 @meg For F&L, if you +hangout a place specifically, say +hangout sakana, it will give you info about the place, but only if you do that specifically.
