If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP

[Lotherio]

@Roz Yes, my fault on wrong names there. But with my point, I don't want to see that level of game coded into everything else. It works for Arx, doesn't mean everyone wants it.

[Tinuviel]

@Lisse24 said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

Point. True, but not applicable here, I think.

It's applicable to every situation in which one is trying to impart information. If the information doesn't stick, then it's your responsibility to ensure the information is more easily understood.

@Lisse24 said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

So, how do you solve that problem then? And no, I don't accept telling someone to keep doing the very thing that's failing them as an acceptable answer.

The personal touch. Ask a person you know, or a staffer, for help in finding RP. People are much, much better at dealing with social issues than any 'tool'. This is what we do in real life, is it not? "Hey, I don't know anyone at this party, can you introduce me?" Hell, have official "first contact specialists" that someone can more comfortably page - because it is expected, encouraged, and rewarded - to get the ball rolling and get them used to things, start a little scene for them and invite a few others.

The answer to almost any social problem is people, not a tool.

[Ninjakitten]

Here's my issue with using the scenes system as a want-rp thing: I really hate ending up with abandoned scenes hanging out in my unshared, and the chances of any given speculative scene going unused seem high. I mean, I guess one could keep reusing the same one if it doesn't get used? Just change the summary and date and location? But I don't think people will.

I also don't see where the summary actually shows up while a scene is in progress. Testing one (granted, I'm only on one Ares game), the summary didn't seem to show up either in the Active Scenes list or in the scenes command's list on the game...

@krmbm said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

@faraday said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

ETA: However, I did envision the scene system being used for this end.

+scene/start Somewhere in Westeros=open/Looking for RP - maybe down by the dragons? I'm flexible

That shows up both on the web scenes list, the in-game +where, and the in-game scenes list. I don't really know how to advertise any better than that, but I'm all ears if somebody comes up with something.

I think the thing that's missing on this is some sort of announcement about the open scene. Right now, at least on GH (and on SL, when I played there), the trend is to start the scene, then note on the RP channel that you started a scene.

Just spit-balling - If there was some kind of announcement option (e.g., - +scene/start Somewhere in Westeros=announce/Looking for RP - maybe down by the dragons? I'm flexible) that pushed a little "[RP Requests] Bob started an open scene: <Details>" comment...?

The one thing that leaps to mind here is that you don't seem to be able to scene/start privately in the room you're actually in, which makes sense in a Cafe but is a little weird in your apartment. 'Never RP on-grid in your apartment' is an option but also a little weird and more importantly probably not never going to happen. So you'd probably end up with announcements of scenes that go private 10 seconds later.

[Ganymede]

@Tinuviel said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

The personal touch. Ask a person you know, or a staffer, for help in finding RP. People are much, much better at dealing with social issues than any 'tool'. This is what we do in real life, is it not? "Hey, I don't know anyone at this party, can you introduce me?" Hell, have official "first contact specialists" that someone can more comfortably page - because it is expected, encouraged, and rewarded - to get the ball rolling and get them used to things, start a little scene for them and invite a few others.

The personal touch isn't a great strategy for those who suffer from social anxiety. I believe that is what started this topic.

In the past, you could walk a grid and bump into people. Games appear to have shifted away from this method, or such "spontaneous RP events" are less common these days. For people with anxiety, bumping into people IC on the Grid was an easy way to get RP without having to have direct contact with others, either via channel or page.

Tools can alleviate that stress, but only if people take advantage of them.

When I look for RP, I make it a point to see if anyone's got a RP Flag up and appears to be not engaged. I don't always engage such players, but I sometimes do. That's a matter of personal touch, yes, but I do not suffer from anxiety issues.

That's why finding RP is easier for me than others. And that's also why we need to keep thinking beyond what works for us personally.

[Tinuviel]

@Ganymede said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

The personal touch isn't a great strategy for those who suffer from social anxiety. I believe that is what started this topic.

Certainly true, to a point. If the idea of speaking to people at all is the issue... then that's a whole different discussion. If it's the idea of speaking to people out of the blue, as some have indicated, then having designated persons who are encouraging such contact should alleviate some of the stress when compared to contacting people apparently at random.

[faraday]

@A-Meowley said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

@Lotherio said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

Ares is meant to be full web portal, client is for holdouts and older players.

Wait. It's supposed to be full web portal? How can we idly chat on channels on the web portal and stuff? Asking for a friend, because obviously I'm not so old that I can't immediately figure out a new system, that'd be absurd...

It is expressly not supposed to be full web portal. Some commands still exist only in-game, and there are no gameplay features that are web-only. (Just the game wiki aspects, like scene log archive, wiki pages, etc.)

I would say that the ultimate goal is to have everything on the web, but that's still a long ways off, and it will never compromise your ability to play with an old-school MUSH client.

@Ninjakitten said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

The one thing that leaps to mind here is that you don't seem to be able to scene/start privately in the room you're actually in, which makes sense in a Cafe but is a little weird in your apartment.

You should be able to start the scene and then set it private. It's true that you can't do it in one command, but that's more an issue of syntax complexity on the scene/start options than a technical limitation.

I'm also not sure what the concern is about ending up with an abandoned scene in your unshared list. If it bugs you, you can delete it. Or re-use it for the next day and change the description. They'll get auto cleaned up eventually if not shared.

Summary is supposed to show up on public scenes. If it isn't, that's a bug and I'll look into it.

To @Lisse24 -- I agree to some extent that if the tools are failing people then we need better tools. At this point, though, I'm not convinced that the tools are actually failing. I think it's more that people are still discovering how best to leverage these tools. (And there might be some kinks, like if Ninjakitten is right about the summary not showing. It is still in beta.)

On an Ares game, you can still go down to the cafe and camp there, and hope somebody sees you on +where just as you have on MUSHes for 30 years. That hasn't changed.

But you can also do these other things - like start an open scene in the cafe to effectively say "RP HERE!", set a summary, start a temproom scene in a flexible location, etc. These are new options that didn't exist before, and it's going to take some time for people to get used to them. Change doesn't happen overnight.

ETA: Oh, the not announcing scenes thing was intentional. The feedback I got from BSGU was that people preferred the announcing to be by choice rather than automatic. You can use either the RP Requests channel or the announce command (available to all players by default) for this purpose.

[Lotherio]

@Ganymede said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

or such "spontaneous RP events" are less common these days. For people with anxiety, bumping into people IC on the Grid was an easy way to get RP without having to have direct contact with others, either via channel or page.

This makes me curious. It seems more and more 'spontaneous RP events' are attended by groups versus individuals. Like everyone shows up with a friend and sticks it out with a friend. Could just be me noticing that though.

Secondary a favorite thing to do in past as staff for me was, random event for groups that are out playing in public. Page the group, 'hey mind if stay-puff marshmallow man attacks your location?' or whatever and do something. But it seems more group scenes are organized or don't have time for the random stafferly event.

[krmbm]

@Ninjakitten said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

The one thing that leaps to mind here is that you don't seem to be able to scene/start privately in the room you're actually in, which makes sense in a Cafe but is a little weird in your apartment. 'Never RP on-grid in your apartment' is an option but also a little weird and more importantly probably not never going to happen. So you'd probably end up with announcements of scenes that go private 10 seconds later.

You actually can start a private scene in the room you're in - scene/start <name of the room>=Private - and it will happily port you off to a temp copy of your room.

That said... that's why I specified it as an an "announce" option, or to only work if the person specifically chooses the "open" option. Otherwise, you're absolutely right: most people just scene/start ; scene/privacy private which would spam the channel with scenes that then went private.

[Ganymede]

@Lotherio

+Events were a great innovation that I think helped people get engaged. So group events are popular and should be.

We can think of other tools, and have, but I think this is a worthwhile topic to bandy about.

[Tinuviel]

@Ganymede said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

but I think this is a worthwhile topic to bandy about

So long as nobody expects to find a silver bullet that happens instantly.

[Lotherio]

@Ganymede said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

@Lotherio

+Events were a great innovation that I think helped people get engaged. So group events are popular and should be.

We can think of other tools, and have, but I think this is a worthwhile topic to bandy about.

I support +events, including random social meet your neighbor ones. Despite the 'bar-RP is bad' these usually get good attendance. I honestly think people want more character focused stories over lets kill the monster of the week (that's just a mix into slice of life, like why are you hurt this week Lotherio, or if we're being honest, who kneed you in the gibblets this week Daithi).

I just meant at the +Event, I notice more (and could just be me) that players show up in pairs of 2 or plan to meet each other there.

[Ninjakitten]

@faraday said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

@Ninjakitten said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

The one thing that leaps to mind here is that you don't seem to be able to scene/start privately in the room you're actually in, which makes sense in a Cafe but is a little weird in your apartment.

You should be able to. It gives you a little warning about occupying a grid room with a private scene, but you can safely ignore that if it's your own private apartment. Perhaps the wording on the warning needs some work.

I can scene/start in the room, but (at least according to help) scene/start [<area>/]<location name>=<private/open> starts a scene in a temp room, and for your current grid room, it's just scene/start -- so it starts open, and thus would be making an announcement as a new open scene, in the suggested situation, but would probably get made private almost instantly in many cases. I kind of figured this was an intentional choice so that it was harder to make a grid-scene private and anyone doing so would definitely get the warning.

Anyway, I was just saying that if open-scene-creation announced to RP Requests, the on-grid in-home scenes would get announced, and that seemed suboptimal.

I'm also not sure what the concern is about ending up with an abandoned scene in your unshared list. If it bugs you, you can delete it. Or re-use it for the next day and change the description. They'll get auto cleaned up eventually if not shared.

I know they auto-cleanup eventually. I don't know why just deleting it feels odd to me. I think it might be because it creates gaps in the scene numbering and makes the number rise faster. Which is silly. Especially as that happens anyway and even I don't follow whether every number shows up. But sometimes I have some silly issues. >_> That one's probably just me.

Summary is supposed to show up on public scenes. If it isn't, that's a bug and I'll look into it.

I might be looking wrong! ...that said, I usually find that kind of thing pretty intuitive and am often the person answering other people's questions on games, so if I am looking wrong, it might still be a thing that needed to be clearer.

[Ninjakitten]

@krmbm I know you can do it with a temproom, I guess I didn't make that clear. Or you missed it, but I missed that you meant making it an option in the sense of /announce (didn't spot that after the =), as opposed to an option like 'to be enabled or not by a game', so you know, fair enough!

[Three-Eyed Crow]

@Ninjakitten
I also feel bad for 'wasting' scene numbers but for no real good reason. I've had decent luck with just starting open scenes and saying they exist, though, so I figure that's worth the occasional scene going unused and deleted.

[faraday]

@Ninjakitten said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

@krmbm I know you can do it with a temproom, I guess I didn't make that clear. Or you missed it, but I missed that you meant making it an option in the sense of /announce (didn't spot that after the =), as opposed to an option like 'to be enabled or not by a game', so you know, fair enough!

Yeah, so both of these things kind of tie into the "I didn't want to make the scene/start syntax too crazy" category.

The more options you start packing into a single command, the less intuitive it is. There's already a fair bit of overloading on scene/start as it is, for open vs private, and temproom vs grid room, and location and whatnot. I prefer to keep it simple.

If you want to have a private scene in your grid room, or announce your scene so everyone knows about it, the capability is there. It's just two commands instead of one. If there's a lot of feedback that folks would prefer it a different way, I would consider changing it. But for now it's that way intentionally.

[Lotherio]

@faraday said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

The more options you start packing into a single command, the less intuitive it is.

scene/start name/location=description/timeofday=event/posetimes=publicprivate/faction=scene runner/scene secondary ... is totally intuitive to me.

[Pyrephox]

@Three-Eyed-Crow said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

@Ninjakitten
I also feel bad for 'wasting' scene numbers but for no real good reason. I've had decent luck with just starting open scenes and saying they exist, though, so I figure that's worth the occasional scene going unused and deleted.

It would be really awesome to be able to delete unshared scenes, though. My few false starts just hang out there, forever, and I haaaaaaaate it.

[faraday]

@Pyrephox said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

It would be really awesome to be able to delete unshared scenes, though. My few false starts just hang out there, forever, and I haaaaaaaate it.

Oh, you know what - I stand corrected. You could at one point do this, but then I got concerned that someone might delete an unshared scene before the other players got around to downloading the log or whatnot. So I turned it off. Maybe I'll make it so you could do it if you're the only scene participant or something. I'll look into it.

[Thenomain]

@Lotherio said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

Despite the 'bar-RP is bad' (and other words of defense for Bar RP)

I’m going to rant.

Bar RP is not bad.

Bar RP is not now nor has it ever been bad. I’m going to offer a pair of middle digits to anyone and everyone who pisses on Bar RP for being Bar RP.

Bar RP is social and often mixes people together who would not otherwise have a reason to interact, for no pre-planned reason. Scenes with no reason are fun, and I have easily had just as much fun starting from a bar, or a living room, or a park, as I have any event or coming up with a reason to meet.

This is not to say there is anything wrong with either. Events is the best thing to happen to Mushlikes since Anomaly Jobs, and I will note that we can all thank Cobalt for being the one to put code to game. She deserves the recognition.

What we should criticize about Bar RP is that it cannot carry a game. It can facilitate passage of information, sharing of plots, gaining new play groups, but it can’t be the reason for the game.

But that’s it. Bar RP is a tool that is inherently social, and that's pretty much why we’re here.

[krmbm]

@faraday said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

@Pyrephox said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

It would be really awesome to be able to delete unshared scenes, though. My few false starts just hang out there, forever, and I haaaaaaaate it.

Oh, you know what - I stand corrected. You could at one point do this, but then I got concerned that someone might delete an unshared scene before the other players got around to downloading the log or whatnot. So I turned it off. Maybe I'll make it so you could do it if you're the only scene participant or something. I'll look into it.

You can still do this.

scene/start
%% Graham has started a new Open scene (837) here.
scene/stop
%% Graham has stopped this scene. You can restart it at any time using scene/restart, but it will restart in a temp room and NOT in this room.
%% The scene has ended. To share the log, set the scene info (help scene info) and then use scene/share 837 to share it.
scene/delete 837
%% Scene deleted.