Web portals and scenes and grids oh my!

[faraday]

@bear_necessities said in Web portals and scenes and grids oh my!:

the only thing I can say is that the "big complaint" I've heard about Ares is that it doesn't work for people who passively seek RP and that some people have honest difficulties with opening up a scene that might not get used, or asking on RP request. Which... I honestly don't know how to fix for those people and it might just be that Ares games are not for them and that's OK.

That's the big complaint I've heard too and it just honestly, genuinely baffles me.

How do you find RP on NON Ares games? Well most folks find it by:

• Asking (via page or channel)
• Plopping down in a grid room and hoping for the best
• Joining a scene in progress

All three of those things work in Ares too. Additionally you have the scene/start tool that lets you not just plop down in a grid room but actively advertise "hey! RP here!" And when joining a scene you have additional information at your disposal like "This scene is marked OPEN so you're welcome to join" or "This scene is only for Viper pilots" or whatever.

There may be some additional cultural issues with the introduction of asynchronous RP, but but let's be honest - there were always some pitfalls in joining a scene. Unspoken, often game-specific rules about when it's cool to wander in and when you should ask first. Scenes stall, people go idle, sometimes an extra person isn't welcome, and so on. It's never been as simple as "see scene - join scene".

[Lisse24]

@faraday said in Web portals and scenes and grids oh my!:

@Lisse24 said in Web portals and scenes and grids oh my!:

If someone is on the portal in a scene, but not logged into the game, they don't show up on +where.

I mean if that's a big deal, I can add a "In Web Scene" section to +where, but most of the non-grid scenes are typically private anyway. I don't really understand how that "actively discourages" people from using the grid? You can still wander to the grid and start your own scene?

I don't know that it's necessary, because, again, I don' t think wandering the grid is the best way to find RP, even though I know why people do it. I'd rather make finding good RP better, but I don't think you need a strong grid to do that.

@bear_necessities I think you're mischaracterizing it when you say 'passively seek RP.' I know when I played on Ares, I was pretty pro-active on asking on the RP channel for scenes and still had issues finding RP. I talked about some of the reasons why then, I don't need/want to rehash them now.

To clarify, IMO people trying to find RP need to know:
1 - Who is available to RP.
2 - What that RP may be about.
3 - When they can expect that RP to happen.

RP Channel kinda gives that information, but does so poorly. Grids kinda give that information, but does so poorly. I'm pretty convinced there's a better way.

[krmbm]

"Passive RP seeking" = Sitting on the grid and waiting for people to come to you.
@tel Central Location

"Active RP seeking" = Advertising your desire for RP.
@tel Central Location
rp :is at Central Location if anyone wants to RP central location stuff!

If I'm not mistaken... Ares, Arx, PennMUSH, TinyMUSH, TinyMUX, [whatever the other one is that starts with an R that I just forgot]MUSH... all support both options.

It's just a matter of what people do with the tools they are given.

[Sunny]

every choice in building a game -- every single choice -- has 3 possible consequences towards any specific thing:

encourages
neutral
discourages

+meetme code discourages walking the grid by being an easier way to get somewhere

Okay, so now we have a bunch of choices:

a- do nothing -- as a result, this piece of code discourages walking the grid
b- remove code -- but that's a convenient thing man, people really enjoy it!
c- compensate -- do something that means that NOT using +meetme provides some benefit somehow
d- ensure other policies strongly encourage walking the grid to the point where the small SMALL discouragement that +meetme provides is outweighed by what other policies or code are offering

If you never stop and consider what impact +meetme has, you automatically do a. That's how code creates culture.

ETA:

+meetme code encourages OOC cooperation by allowing people to go right to pre-arranged scenes
+meetme code is neutral on character creation by not having any relation to a PC's stats

The +meetme code here is an example, rather than 'this is the issue' -- this is an illustration of what I mean when I say that the end goal/priorities are REALLY what all of this needs to build to. Once you've identified your priorities, you know what questions to ask. If you literally do not care about encouraging grid based roleplay, then A is for reals the right answer! If you're more interested in the 'OOC cooperation' metric than you are the 'encourages walking the grid' metric, then that is the metric you need to be evaluating by. Yes, it gets super complicated and hard when you have competing metrics, but that's show biz.

[bear_necessities]

@Lisse24 I really wasn't speaking about you, I was explaining an actual complaint I have actually heard from several people. That being said, I don't think your problem is exclusive to Ares games. You can give people all the tools in the world and people still won't RP outside of their circles.

@faraday it baffles me, too

[Auspice]

I may be a minority but forcing me to walk the grid discourages me from rp. I know for a fact I'd rp on Arx more if I could tel / meetme.

But getting lost constantly is frustrating and feeling like I'm barging through scenes on my way elsewhere is insanely anxiety inducing and stopping to pose through makes other people wait on me which is also anxiety inducing and

When I give people pros/cons for Arx, 'the grid is insanely confusing and almost impossible to navigate and you can't meetme/tel' is near the top of the list. 'directions'.doesn't always work and I hate how often people are like 'ok to get to this place use directions for this other thing and then go through these other five rooms.

I just want to RP. Not spend twenty minutes just getting to the scene location.

[boop]

I am active on three Ares games so clearly I like the format. I also like the so called "passive grid RP" and I can say that never on an Ares game have I gotten into a scene by going somewhere on grid or someone coming to me on grid.

I think it's not that you can't do grid RP on Ares, I think that it's other features are so strong and filled such a need that players gravitated toward them more.

But if there were design elements that could help promote grid RP more I would suggest:

• Removing 'scenes' from 'where'. Currently 'where' has the grid listed under 'other' which gives secondary importance to it. Plus the 'scene' command already exists

• Speaking of, I know you can do 'scenes/open' but that should really be the default, and a toggle needed if you (for some reason) want to see the private scenes you aren't in. Seeing all the private scenes going on when you're looking for RP can be demoralizing in two ways: 1. Of there're a billion private scenes and no open scenes, and 2. Seeing that 70% of those private scenes are 2 or more days since the last pose gives a false sense of the 'activity' of the game.

[Ganymede]

@faraday said in Web portals and scenes and grids oh my!:

There may be some additional cultural issues with the introduction of asynchronous RP, but but let's be honest - there were always some pitfalls in joining a scene.

While this may be true, there are players who don't care for asynchronous RP. I think Sunny and I fall into that category.

Arx permits asynchronous RP through flashbacks, but if those was the only kind of RP available I would not be playing there.

I have never done asynchronous RP on an Ares-based game and I don't intend to. If it appears that asynchronous RP is the only or most likely kind of RP I'm going to get, I'm not going to play there.

That's all.

I've got no problems with the Ares platform. I think it's great! I just don't like asynchronous RP, and I see it cropping up on Ares games more and more as the key to involvement in plots. I could be wrong but this is the impression I get.

And this is totally okay, I don't need to be part of or like everything.

[bear_necessities]

@Ganymede 100% agree.

I rarely do asynchronous RP and nothing turns me off more from a game than seeing a bunch of scenes (ESPECIALLY plot scenes) that have been going on for days/weeks/sometimes even months. I'm glad Ares has given people the ability to slow-scene and I'll take advantage of it sometimes, but if the scene is going on for longer than like 2 days, I'm out.

[krmbm]

@deathbird There are config options for this in Ares. Admin decide how where looks from three options:

+============================================================================+
                                 Sandbox                                  
-----[ Open Scenes ]----------------------------------------------------------
#235  Some Room                       CharacterA, CharacterB

-----[ Other ]----------------------------------------------------------------
      Some other room                 KarmaBum
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        3 Online                    3 IC                    4 Record         
+============================================================================+

+============================================================================+
                                 Sandbox                                  
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Location                            People
Some Room <#235 Open>              CharacterA, CharacterB
Some other room                    KarmaBum
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        3 Online                    3 IC                    4 Record         
+============================================================================+

+============================================================================+
                                 Sandbox                                  
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Status Name                   Location                            Conn   Idle
ADM    KarmaBum               Some other room                     47s    0s
IC     CharacterA             Scene 235 - Some Room               4m     1m
IC     CharacterB             Scene 235 - Some Room               2h     11m
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        3 Online                    3 IC                    4 Record         
+============================================================================+

[Lotherio]

@bear_necessities said in Web portals and scenes and grids oh my!:

@Ganymede 100% agree.

I rarely do asynchronous RP and nothing turns me off more from a game than seeing a bunch of scenes (ESPECIALLY plot scenes) that have been going on for days/weeks/sometimes even months. I'm glad Ares has given people the ability to slow-scene and I'll take advantage of it sometimes, but if the scene is going on for longer than like 2 days, I'm out.

I think this hits the nail on the head, these last few posts. The Asynchronous play seem prevalent, because it shows up as 'active scenes'. Would could help Ares is removing these from that list, so synchronous players get a picture of what is actually synchronous activity?

[L. B. Heuschkel]

@bear_necessities said in Web portals and scenes and grids oh my!:

@Lisse24 I really wasn't speaking about you, I was explaining an actual complaint I have actually heard from several people. That being said, I don't think your problem is exclusive to Ares games. You can give people all the tools in the world and people still won't RP outside of their circles.

And there's the real issue. It's not the codebase. Ares does nothing the other codebases can't do. While it's true that some codebases seem weighted more towards grid based RP than others, it still comes down to what people do. I for one always sit in a public room on grid when available to play, on Ares games, and I have never, ever had someone walk in on one without paging first. Not once. Never ever.

I have, however, been the new kid on a game knowing no one and finding it pretty much impossible to convince anyone to let me join their stuff. I have also experienced being welcomed and invited to join stuff. It should be obvious which games I stayed on.

Inclusion, to my view, is about people and game culture -- not about codebases and interfaces. The more options available, the better.

ETA: I'm not actually a fan of asynchronous RP either. It's just that from my European timezone, it's the only choice I get -- Ares or not Ares. So Ares making it easier is definitely not a bad thing.

[Sunny]

Scene systems run on OOC engagement to find RP. I ask other players for roleplay.
A grid-based system runs on IC engagement to find RP. My character asks other characters to speak with her.

That is the difference for me.

It's not active/passive -- I promise, I am very active in sending an IC letter or phonecall out to seek a meeting with the characters that my character needs to speak to -- it's how the game itself evaluates where and how I should be looking to engage with other people. Am I using my character, her factions, the grid? Or am I using the channels and boards and OOC areas to talk to the people I'm playing with first to arrange the thing?

[L. B. Heuschkel]

@Lotherio Such a change would tell me, someone who can't be there for synchronous RP, that I am not welcome on Ares games.

[Ganymede]

@L-B-Heuschkel said in Web portals and scenes and grids oh my!:

ETA: I'm not actually a fan of asynchronous RP either. It's just that from my European timezone, it's the only choice I get -- Ares or not Ares. So Ares making it easier is definitely not a bad thing.

I play often during business hours EST and I can tell you that Arx has quite a bit of activity for Euro-Zone folks.

[Auspice]

Do remember that for some people, asynchronous play is all they can do. It's OK if it's not your cup of tea, but remember that if you scrub if from visibility on your game, you're saying 'we don't want your kind here.'

I know the'Limited' option is usually used now to flag what scenes are and aren't slow and if that's not good enough for people, we could ask @faraday for a feature to separate live and asynchronous scenes in the listing, but it sounds like people are unhappy seeing them at all and that bothers me a lot. A lot of my favorite people to rp with can only rp because of these scenes and I don't jive with the idea of essentially excluding them because some people don't like that rp. Your preference shouldn't mean excluding others unless you're designing a game around having only live scenes period.

[Roz]

I wish that Ares could be mentioned in a thread without the same fight happening.

Guys, you don't need to try and argue people out of their own life experiences and preferences.

[bear_necessities]

@Sunny thanks for clarifying, I think what you said makes sense.

[faraday]

@deathbird said in Web portals and scenes and grids oh my!:

Currently 'where' has the grid listed under 'other' which gives secondary importance to it. Plus the 'scene' command already exists

Grid and Scenes are different things. You can have an open scene on the grid, in which case it will appear in the "Scenes" section. The default +where display is actually designed to highlight places where RP can be found. If you're on grid, start a scene there and mark it 'open' to show people you're available for RP. Give it a description so folks know what to expect. There's a lot more flexibility with the scenes system than with "Oh look, Deathbird is hanging out in Sharkey's Bar" while still having you be physically present on the grid.

@Ganymede said in Web portals and scenes and grids oh my!:

I see it cropping up on Ares games more and more as the key to involvement in plots. I could be wrong but this is the impression I ge

You may be right as to it becoming more common, but I think you're putting the cart before the horse. IF it is indeed becoming more common, it's because the PLAYERS need and want the flexibility of asynch RP. If they were playing on Arx, that need and want wouldn't go away. Those plots just wouldn't exist, or they would be being done in google docs or TP rooms or whatnot.

Which, hey, some people may prefer. That's fine. I don't object to peoples' preferences. What I object to is the assertion (not yours directly) that Ares is somehow the cause of the culture.

Ares just gives people the tools to play their way. If their way isn't in line with your way, then maybe that's not the game for you. There's nothing wrong with that.

@Lotherio said in Web portals and scenes and grids oh my!:

Would could help Ares is removing these from that list, so synchronous players get a picture of what is actually synchronous activity?

Then you're relegating asynch RP to a second-class citizen, implying that those kinds of scenes don't "count" because they're not "active".

That said, I realize that competing expectations about pacing is a legit concern and I've been working on tools to make that expectation more clear. It's not as simple as adding a "speed" preference to the scenes because one person's "slow" or "fast" may mean something entirely different to someone else.

@L-B-Heuschkel said in Web portals and scenes and grids oh my!:

I for one always sit in a public room on grid when available to play, on Ares games, and I have never, ever had someone walk in on one without paging first. Not once. Never ever.

I've sat on public rooms on Penn games too and had the same experience. This isn't an Ares thing.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

@Ganymede said in Web portals and scenes and grids oh my!:

I play often during business hours EST and I can tell you that Arx has quite a bit of activity for Euro-Zone folks.

I have considered it, for this reason. Something about it doesn't seem to quite click with me -- but I'm not going to say 'never' because, well, this.