Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning

[Sparks]

@Thenomain said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

@Sparks said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

It later emerged that sharing clues should actually be more like a thesis defense; it's not just "here's the information" but "here's the information, all the footnotes, three primary sources, and why I believe this is accurate". Given that, limiting how much can be shared at once makes perfect sense.

I'm confused by this statement, because it didn't look like anyone was advocating not sharing as much as possible (though it appears some may be hoarding information). Can you elaborate?

Several folks were saying that they were disappointed at how widely a lot of the early game information had spread among the playerbase—i.e., how many people had @clues. Because they'd like to hold a piece of knowledge close, and not have it spread widely.

My explanation was that early on in the game (where by "early on" I mean "last September and October") there was both a push that "characters will need to work together to figure out what's ahead" and a belief—a misunderstanding, as it turns out—that @clues were meant to represent "I know this", not "I have solid evidence for this". That difference is kind of crucial; it's the difference between "I was told X" (or "I read X on Facebook" in modern terms) versus "I know X, and here's citations on where all the information comes from to back this claim up".

But when people believed @clues were meant for staff to track who'd been told of a given thing ICly, lots of players were still actively running around scrambling to figure out the shape of the metaplot—and the coming threats, which were hinted at but nebulous—and so were sharing @clues willy-nilly as topics were discussed.

Hence why there are crazy people out there who have 150 @clues (and who will likely be eaten by an archfiend who doesn't approve of higher esoteric education).

[Deviante]

@Sparks Let me quickly count my @clues... Okay, whew! 149. I'm safe from being an Archfiend's dinner.

[Thenomain]

@Sparks said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

But when people believed @clues were meant for staff to track who'd been told of a given thing ICly, lots of players were still actively running around scrambling to figure out the shape of the metaplot—and the coming threats, which were hinted at but nebulous—and so were sharing @clues willy-nilly as topics were discussed.

But if this only a belief, what are "@clues"? Since that seems to be the point of confusion, both in this thread and apparently also on the game, rather than what people believe, what are they, systematically? Parenthetically, is it or is it not good that players are "sharing clues willy-nilly"?

Other than having too many clues is bad for the character, I can't work out from what you're saying whether or not sharing clues is good for the players and/or game.

[Ominous]

@Sparks I can't help it but I am a PvPer at heart. Even in a co-op game I want a traitor mechanic somewhere. I need the paranoia and I think a game like this needs it too. If we are all kumbaya-ing, what's the point of all the factions and secret societies? Let's put aside all of that and go full military state. That's not fun though. What's fun is 'Oh my god, Cthulhu wants to eat us, the Oathlanders want to call another crusade on us, the Northerners are actually demon worshippers pretending to be tame 'shamanists', the Thrax want to enslave us, and hey this Lycene wine tastes funny.'

I never once thought about spreading around what I know. I keep that shit on lockdown. I trickle out the bits to folks that I feel they need to know to get the work done. They're not the High Lord, so they don't need to know everything. Just because everyone is supposed to be working together doesn't mean everyone needs to know everything. When you play a grunt, that means jumping when we need you to jump, not ask why you need to jump. Don't like that, don't play a grunt. We can use some spymasters too.

@Deviante
Sadly only 120. Fortunately no Fable revelations yet.

@Thenomain
@clues are mechanical means of tracking who knows what.

[Sparks]

@Ominous said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

@Thenomain
@clues are mechanical means of tracking who knows what.

But they're not! I mean, the whole problem was that many of us (me included, as noted) treated them as if they were just a means of tracking who knew what. Which is why they spread so far so fast, and left poor Apos spending a non-trivial amount of time every week writing like 30 new ones.

They're supposed to be a mechanical means of tracking who has the proof of what.

It's possible to know something ICly without a @clue, after all; I could tell you something, and now you know that thing even if I don't share the @clue. It's when I give you the @clue—the proof of that thing—that you have the evidence to know it's right, or to potentially convince others.

At least, that's my understanding based on discussions of the system.

[brent]

@Ominous idk if a traitor mechanic is even necessary, Arx has plenty of "alternative facts" going around the metaplot in my observation. Arx's already got a PvP game and its primary mechanic is confirmation bias.

I'd think if there actually was more kumbaya-ing going on the Compact wouldn't be faceplanting its way through its various crises as much as it does.

[Pyrephox]

@brent It's true; the characters of Arx (love them though I do) could provide adequate challenge just by the amazing ways we manage to fuck stuff up. Even those things that should be gimmes.

[Apos]

Yeah man I decided early on that I didn't need to design like mustache twirling assholes on the roster because if I make multiple goals that are mutually exclusive shit is gonna hit the fan regardless. Originally I made a few red herrings and then quickly found out it was TOTALLY unnecessary. I'd create something ambiguous and it would go in wild directions I never fucking dreamed of with how it was interpreted.

[Faceless]

The Wizard's First Rule.

[Ganymede]

@Faceless said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

The Wizard's First Rule.

... don't stare at the sleeve?

[Sunny]

@Ganymede said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

@Faceless said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

The Wizard's First Rule.

... don't stare at the sleeve?

People are stupid.

[Lisse24]

@Sparks

@Sparks said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

But they're not! I mean, the whole problem was that many of us (me included, as noted) treated them as if they were just a means of tracking who knew what. Which is why they spread so far so fast, and left poor Apos spending a non-trivial amount of time every week writing like 30 new ones.

This is a result of what I view as the major falling down of Arx. Don't get me wrong, this is the best thought out game I've played on since RfK and it generally provides what I look for in a game. However, the help files read like they've been written by someone with a technical background and they don't actually tell the players how to use the systems or commands or what these systems and commands are for.

@Ominous said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

I was surprised at the spread of info too. I was treating each clue as a precious secret and only sharing with like one or two people at most and only if I felt they needed to know. Then I realized people were basically holding classes where info was committed at participants. I think a little more traitor element would help here, like in cooperative board games with potential traitor mechanics. Maybe have some agents of Fable amongst the PCs. Give them a clue and suddenly you forget all about it or maybe you start getting hunted down.

Due to an insane RL that started right after I decided to take a PC on the game, I never had many @clues shared with me. I sympathize with the player earlier, who is out doing tasks and stuff and feeling bored, because I was there. You can only do so much if people won't talk to you, and you can't force people to talk to you about plot. Well, you can, but you won't get very far doing it, and without having some base knowledge, you don't even know what you should be bringing up in RP.

However, I digress. My point is, that right now, my character's lack of clues is leading to interesting RP. Everyone in her family is under Fable's gaze and she's the only one who isn't AND SURPRISE, she's now a duchess and needs to make decisions. So there's all this tension around needing to know and knowing too much, which is fun. Also, generally being clueless, is also fun.

[Ominous]

@Lisse24 My suggested solutions were the 'rising tide' method (as in all boats rise with the tide) for making sure that new players have some basic @clues. After a @clue is known by X of people, it is automatically shared with everyone as general knowledge.

The second suggestion was that every time you got a clue that you would get a list of people randomly selected from the people who know related clues as well as a few red herring people who may or may not know anything related, giving a starting point for who to chat with about what you know.

@Sparks said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

@Ominous said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

@Thenomain
@clues are mechanical means of tracking who knows what.

But they're not! I mean, the whole problem was that many of us (me included, as noted) treated them as if they were just a means of tracking who knew what. Which is why they spread so far so fast, and left poor Apos spending a non-trivial amount of time every week writing like 30 new ones.

They're supposed to be a mechanical means of tracking who has the proof of what.

It's possible to know something ICly without a @clue, after all; I could tell you something, and now you know that thing even if I don't share the @clue. It's when I give you the @clue—the proof of that thing—that you have the evidence to know it's right, or to potentially convince others.

At least, that's my understanding based on discussions of the system.

I suspect they originally were just for tracking who knows what. They didn't expect people to spread the info as quickly as they did. Again, just the feel I get. I think the expectation was that people would be a little more careful with who they shared info with, as demonstrated by the fact that Fable has basically become the Black Death with how many people are infected.

Then they realized that 'Doh!' people have diarrhea of the mouth and shit is being spread quickly. Again, just the impression I have. It's beta, though, and ironing out this stuff is what it is for.

@Apos I would argue that is a step beyond traitor mechanic and outright PvP. If players have mutually exclusive goals they are working towards that is a player-player conflict. It may not be quite 'I am going to drink your blood out of a cup made from your own skull' level of PvP, but it's PvP nonetheless.

[ThugHeaven]

I'm a fairly new player and I have to say, my biggest bane as a new player has been clues. When I started, I had quite a few from previous players I had to sort through. Then I'd RP with people and we'd share more, then I'd have more stuff to sort through and organize. Pretty soon I had a Carrie Mathison crazy wall in my living room, with colored string and color coded sticky notes.

It's not as bad as it sounds. At some point I realized that I should probably just focus on one or two things, and let other characters sort the rest out. My head did explode though prior to that realization....twice.

I think the AP thing is good, I know the first time I shared a clue with a couple people and it cost me 15 AP, I immediately thought "Fuck that I'll just tell you the clue." It definitely puts more focus on crisis actions and doing things that deal with that. The only problem is some people didn't get the memo and/or they just like having information just for the sake of it.

It became part of the culture. But people ain't givin up them points for share time as much now.

[Autumn]

@Lisse24 said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

This is a result of what I view as the major falling down of Arx. Don't get me wrong, this is the best thought out game I've played on since RfK and it generally provides what I look for in a game. However, the help files read like they've been written by someone with a technical background and they don't actually tell the players how to use the systems or commands or what these systems and commands are for.

I just want to echo this for emphasis. The game has a lot of really neat ideas but the need for more and better documentation is pretty dire.

[TNP]

I'll just add my +1 and agree, in the most constructively critical way possible, that the documentation SUCKS. It's not just that the help files are often near useless and need to be read a few times to interpret them but actually finding the commands is horrible. Example.

help guards, help +guards and help @guards are ALL the same exact help file. Which is fine. It's more than fine, it's great. Different people will try different commands to find something. BUT.

help home is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from help +home. How the HELL am I supposed to know that? Why would I ever check help +home after I've already read help home since I already knew that all 3 variations of help guard were exactly the same?

[Thenomain]

It's difficult to develop that hard and fast and keep all the goals in sight, but the often confusing documentation was the first thing I asked about on the guest channel (and was called out for on it). I'm sympathetic, considering Arx's success and fan-base.

[Misadventure]

@Sunny said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
People are stupid.

As they say in the psychology biz:

"You know how stupid the average person is? Half the population is dumber than that."

[Meg]

@Thenomain

Well, I think basically what was 'called out' was just-- that we all knew documentation needs help.

I mean, it's been said, a lot. In this thread, too. Documentation still needs help.

I don't know what staff's plan is for it, but it would be something to probably touch on at the end of beta, if not before. A whole documentation review.

[ThugHeaven]

The documentation thing is funny because when you ask for help, people refer you to the documentation. Me and someone struggled through something last night, it was like hey I'm trying to do specific thing, but I'm having trouble. Helpful player: help specific thing.

What I noticed is newer code seems to tell you more, what you did wrong in a helpful way. It's easier to figure out what you did wrong from the error message you get.