Pacing in Ares Scenes

[Cobalt]

@Roz said in Pacing in Ares Scenes:

There's a lot of "I'd prefer" in the responses, but I don't think that's what was being asked.

The problem is that it isn't cut and dry. It depends on if the scene is specifically stated as a "slow web scene" or a "live scene".

[mietze]

And pretty much everyone seems to agree that it is courteous to disclose pacing.

I think it is probably a little foolish to assume pacing slow or fast on web based scenes (I've been part of both and surprised a few times, so I learned to ask before engagement), so it would be kind of cool if there were pace tags for scenes that could be updated since they do shift sometimes! Or a time stamp visible on scenes in progress, ect. So that people can make decisions prior to hopping in before they wait for hours or get run over thinking its a slower scene.

But on a web based scene there really isn't a should that i have seen. But there are better ways to signal what the realistic expectations for that scene are. I found playing ares games that utilize all functions meant I needed to not be quite as attached to pacing and people in the room conventions as I was used to and while I like it in most ways it was a little weirder than I thought it would be especially at first.

[faraday]

@Cobaltasaurus said in Pacing in Ares Scenes:

a "slow web scene" or a "live scene".

I looked into adding a 'pacing' tag to the scenes, but the issue is that it's not as cut and dried as fast/slow. As we've seen here, everybody has their own definitions. And as I've seen in Storium, a lot of folks just flat-out ignore the setting, where even games marked as "Normal" (2-3 scenes per week, ideally) will go weeks between poses. It's actually pretty maddening.

It's a social contract. I don't see it as any different than if I'm playing on a TinyMUX game taking an hour to craft a 3-paragraph masterpiece while everybody else is tossing out a few lines every 15 minutes. It's good if a game has a sort of "default" expectation, but it's really something that everyone should get on the same page about.

@mietze said in Pacing in Ares Scenes:

Or a time stamp visible on scenes in progress, ect. So that people can make decisions prior to hopping in before they wait for hours or get run over thinking its a slower scene.

There is a timestamp for last activity.

[Derp]

It is changing. As people have busier lives, the ability to RP gets fitted into narrower windows of time. Ares portal scenes allow more people to RP at their pace, which is at non-"live" 5-20 minutes between poses pacing.

I personally don't see this as a bad thing. I have gotten used to that, saving bigger chunks of time for GM'd events. I also predict that as people get more used to the joys of the scenes system and web portal that this will become more common.

Might want to prepare. Just saying.

[mietze]

@faraday yeah I figured it was more complicated than non coder me could fathom. But having an average posting time or last 5 timestamp thing seems complicated even to me.

Mostly I think its on players to get in the habit of making an ooc note that can be updated periodically to disclose pacing. No assumptions.

[mietze]

@Derp I agree. I remember how people fussed about wikis over a decade ago as they became more and more popular, ect but now its almost essential for wide swaths of the community. Getting away from the assumptive norm of live action is what I will predict happening in the next decade.

[krmbm]

@Pyrephox said in Pacing in Ares Scenes:

(although it's hard to sustain any sort of real emotion with one pose a day)

Just wish I could upvote this one sentiment like 45,000 times.

[WildBaboons]

@mietze said in Pacing in Ares Scenes:

the assumptive norm of live action

This I think is the draw to MUing for a lot of people so that's hard.

It isn't for me, so it doesn't bother me. My "normal" ranges from 5 minutes to an hour between poses since I almost always am scening from work, but I also have done scenes that span over several weeks with poses every few days and I don't have a problem being 'in the moment' for those.

I do think a Pacing field for Ares scenes would be a good idea, even if it is just a text box to enter it in. "Live Action", "Daily", "Glacial", "WildBaboons Thinks You Are Rushing Things"

[Ganymede]

I’m just not a big fan of waiting long between poses.

[Roz]

@Cobaltasaurus said in Pacing in Ares Scenes:

@Roz said in Pacing in Ares Scenes:

There's a lot of "I'd prefer" in the responses, but I don't think that's what was being asked.

The problem is that it isn't cut and dry. It depends on if the scene is specifically stated as a "slow web scene" or a "live scene".

Well, yes, but I think the question is what is the assumption if it's NOT specified. I read it as a sort of preliminary discussion about how to best frame expectations. If the opinion is really "I have zero assumptions at all," I guess that'd be fair, but I don't really believe it.

I think the conversation else-thread this spun off of was really an illustration of the difficulty in competing assumptions, and I do think it'd be great overall to have game policy and usable tools that really clearly lay out etiquette as that specific game wants it to be. Certainly it's right that the real solution is excessive clarity. As a community, we often tend to assume that others are thinking of the same unspoken rules as we are, which tends to exacerbate problems like this.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

@Roz
Yeah that was sort of what touched off my want to discuss this more, because I certainly have my assumptions but they aren't universal, and it creates a clash of expectations that can be frustrating.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

I don't think tags will make much difference, since people's ideas of what 'glacial' means will vary very much.

Personally I make sure up front that people know I'm a no-good European who sleeps when real people are awake, and that anyone who wants to play with me needs to accept that. A number of people will not deal with that, and they wouldn't turn up if the scene said 'glacial' either.

[faraday]

There is already a tool where you can convey expectations for a scene, whether it's "Only Viper pilots" or "Super-slow work scene" or whatever.

The real issue is that if folks come into it with "Oh well everybody knows that the expectations are <blank>, I don't need to say anything." So that's where having a game-wide expectation can help.

If people bother to read and remember it. Which a lot won't. So yeah... social contracts are hard to manage with technology.

[Derp]

Part of this, I think, is that the various members of the MU communities seem somehow more prone to culture shock than the average person. Ironic, since every game is its own unique world with its own unique population and unique ways of doing things. You would think that we would be better at moving between things.

But even the smallest of changes, like the format of a command or the pacing of a scene, is enough to give some of us serious anxiety. Which is understandable. I'm one of those people, at times.

But I think it's something we'll all have to work through, just as we work through any new thing on any new game/system/whatever. Eventually you'll find your flow within it even if it's not what you're used to.

You think slowing the pace of scenes is bad, let's look back on yon olden days when the OOC Masquerade (or whatever you called it in your individual system) got booted. Some of ya'll still aren't over that, but the rest of us moved on.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

@Derp said in Pacing in Ares Scenes:

You think slowing the pace of scenes is bad

Hee. For me, of course, it means I could even get back into the hobby after a ten year plus break.

[Ganymede]

@L-B-Heuschkel said in Pacing in Ares Scenes:

Personally I make sure up front that people know I'm a no-good European who sleeps when real people are awake, and that anyone who wants to play with me needs to accept that. A number of people will not deal with that, and they wouldn't turn up if the scene said 'glacial' either.

I play a lot during business hours EST, so I like those no-good Europeans. And I don't mind a glacial pace if that expectation is up front.

But this poll is about preferences, I think, and I certainly prefer a quicker pace.

[mietze]

I guess what I would say is maybe instead of assuming, when you are on a web based or mixed scene it's probably easier to come to agreement at the start, post that in the scene or explicitly tag it, update as necessary. Probably easier and quicker than the alternative. It should be OK to ask instead of guess.

And yes for many people the timeliness is a draw, it is for me too sometimes. With people whom I really enjoy rping with i don't really care if it's slow. There are some folks out there that like to rp with me when I can't be fast too, and I'm very grateful that as long as things are disclosed I can in part not feel 100 percent like a collosal waste of their time and annoy them with the need for reassurance (it still happens).

For a lot of people ooc masque and discovery were huge draws. Now even in genres where that used to be the norm, it's not. Did some people quit mushing over it? I'm sure they did. Did other people stick around longer when they wouldn't have with strict masque? Yes.

There will always be people who never darken slow scenes, and that should be okay. There are people for whom mushing will again be accessible because of them too, though. That also should be okay.

But getting in the habit of communicating what you're looking for on pacing is a good thing, imo, even if its uncomfortable at first.

[Phalkyn]

I'm here to make an inflammatory statement.

No one is going to agree to an arbitrary "standard" for pose frequency just because you post a poll, just like no one is going to agree to a pose length standard.

Trying to force an agreement on the thing is already a little exclusive side, especially when I hear people talking about how there's no new blood in MU hobby.

Instead, the expectation should be: "Discuss expectations beforehand."

Then you don't have to be silently resentful of your RP partners. If parties don't agree to expectations, you don't RP with eachother. No one gets mad because expectations weren't met.

This is why I sing the praises of ARES games, just like @bear_necessities. I can play scenes at my own pace, and I'm very clear on 'These are my activity times, I'm at work, so I'll be slow'.

[Ganymede]

I saw a message through Facebook that seems appropriate:

Unspoken expectations are premeditated resentments.