Posts made by Rook

Aha. Thank you. I was looking in the wrong place. Not sure how I missed that.

I am working in CharGen for a character here, and wanted to post a mini-review to back up Emma's claims else-thread that the game is very friendly.

So I've sent off a background hook idea to a player on the game, and since we have opposing play schedules, I am waiting to hear back. Someone is always looking for RP on the Public channel, and today it raises eyebrows that I'm still waiting in CharGen. I quickly point out that this is not a slow staff thing, I haven't even finished, I'm waiting on a player.

Instantly, three people page me asking who it is, how can they help. Two are players, one is Skaldia. One even offers to contact this player /immediately/ in RL and get them to look at my @mail. Now, that's (unnecessary) service!

The friendliness here is outstanding. The helpful attitude of everyone I've run into is great. I highly recommend this game if you are into this Lords and Ladies sort of play setting and style.

I am not seeing, if it is there, a mechanism for renaming threads/topics.

A status...

Done:

• Standard +who/who/+where/+finger/+profile info.
• Standard +summon/+join and +ic/+ooc commands.
• +watch system.
• Wildcard searchable +HELP and +INFO (news).
• +Build code for Architects @group, allowing for building without bits.
• Comsys and mail wrappers for comfort levels of MUX and Penn enthusiasts.
• @groups is mostly done, might be adding features to that over time.
• I've built the basics of the threaded BBoard code and it's up. I'm adding features like polls and between other coding projects.

In progress:

• Right now building +view features.
• The RPG forum is up and going as a parallel thread, and we are brainstorming design there.
• In the midst of all this, Alice and I are building out +rent-able buildings, deciding how we are going to automate all of that while maintaining all of Alice's creative ideas. (+rent, +directory, +keys, some of +map)
• We've recently had Morin join the team and start pitching in RPG design ideas as well.
• Still seeing/hoping if Kaedin will make it back from the Work blackhole he got sucked into (client travel).

On the docket, code-wise, is:

• CharGen, once the RPG solidifies. This includes +sheet, +roll, etc. Shouldn't take long.
• Possible economy system, allowing players to +buy things and add to their IC inventory for use in scenes.

We toyed, once, with the idea of awarding XP when information and plot hooks were spread around. Thus, when Bob knows of the plot, he gets XP when he pulls others in. I think this is the direction I'd like to push Shards when we get open. Inclusion and making the game more communal, in my mind, will work great for this setting and gamestyle we are going for.

Status on the game is that it is up, we are coding and building and designing a simple(r) RPG to play with. silvren 6900, 'co guest guest' should work fine. Ping me here if you still have issues.

@icanbeyourmuse - I totally forgot about your exitformat, and I am so sorry! I'll try to work on that today!

@Chime
Something I've been working on, off and on. SQL-based webapp that the game reads/writes to.

Could this be a CSS override issue? Do you have a custom CSS enforced on pages somehow? Not that I've looked at the wiki to diagnose, and nor am I a web designer/developer.

I didn't think that anyone liked nWoD anyway, from what I gather reading posts here. Okay, I stand corrected, thank you. It's been years since I've played WoD.

I can see how the *WoD games could be much more strict on XP sharing, but on many games, I see it as a boost. Especially if you allow unspent XP to be carried to the next character on character death (even if at a fraction or max limit). This can tip someone toward allowing a character to die for the sake of story and dramatic impact versus holding onto them due to the "trouble of getting started all over again".

If characters can spread XP amongst them, I can see players having a main, active character that is hip-deep in the storylines... but also a few supporting cast characters that rarely get XP-mongering scenes or rewards due to their roles. The main can earn the XP, the supporting characters can benefit from it.

My main issue with linear progressive character systems is just that, they are linear. Going from 1 to 2 is the same /rate/ of xp spend as from 4 to 5. You get there quick, relatively, and you "top out" and become the master of whatever trait you maxed out. I guess, even as a player, I enjoy building and working toward something a bit more rare. I like to see specialist characters, not all-powerful Jack of all Trades types everywhere. </rant>

I agree, cheaters will cheat, and it will be a small amount of your population, no matter how big your game is. I guess I've always fallen to the same conclusion: no matter what you're trying to stop with alt-check regimens, someone will get around it.

I just don't feel it's worth the effort, myself, to police it. If I have to investigate cheating, I won't limit myself to a list of alts. I'll investigate from a behavioral pattern angle. I already code @logging into most every IC-related command (+roll, any money systems, econ, +vote/+xp) so that you can pretty much check for cheating if and when it gets brought up, in my opinion.

@icanbeyourmuse Well, I kept editing the original post, trying to keep it like reference material for later readers.

@icanbeyourmuse - I haven't heard from you, so am guessing that you got this taken care of? If not, PM me.

In building a game, don't accept any help from anyone that hasn't at least questioned you about your theme, vision and goals of the game. Who hasn't asked you style preference questions, grid size, and so on.

In short, it's your game. If someone doesn't come off as 'Right' for the job/position, then don't hire them, period. You can't read it here, since the old forum was the repo of Amazing Stories, but it was rife with bad staff hires by people who just wanted to get shit done.

On the standard game, you have to give builders and coders wizbits, which gives them destructive powers over your database. Be very, very mindful of that. I have seen one game hire descers to @create objects, @desc them and drop them in the rooms. Trusted staffers came along and proofread and the used that desc on the room if it was acceptable. You don't /have/ to give them power. True creators will be happy to envision in objects, and won't bitch if you don't wizbit them.

This is all true. Every bit of it. No, I'm not being sarcastic. You can see the experience in these posts, so for those reading and not understanding, re-read and ask questions.

On that note, @Arkandel, it makes me realize that the great shows I loved, suddenly fell out of favor when shit got stupid. We don't need to waste space with the names of such happenings, but we all know it. You can pretty much point to an episode or moment when a great story turned fucking idiotic, and you lost your happy place.

@Miss-Demeanor said:

I might grumble about a particular staffer always being dark, but I will personally be more upset and angry at a staffer just blatantly sitting on their staffbit and doing fuckall every time I log in. Its that whole 'out of sight, out of mind' thing, I suppose.

This just goes back, I think, to the core issue of people being distracted by other things, be it work, kids, meal-making, bosses, having wild kinky sex in the other room, porn, another game, or just sleeping at the keyboard. They are logged in, but idle.

Players idle waiting for staff, waiting for Something to Happen (tm), waiting for <Person X> to log in, or just because they have no one to RP with. I'll try not to rant about this whole phenomenon, we've all see a WHO list full of people in separate rooms all day, idle.

Staffers are no different. It's the same people behind that name that you see logged in on other games, idle for the above reasons. I have only seen two instances of a staffer actively avoiding/ignoring players in my decades of playing, so I don't that it happens a lot. But, I'm naive, so we'll let me live in my dreamworld.

Nothing code-wise or policy-wise will change this idling behavior. I'd be interested in a study that sees, of the people who staff somewhere, do they idle more on their staffer alt than their PC alts? My instinct says yes. And not always for 'good' reasons (they want to catch questions in scrollback when they wake up, get home from work, and essentially strive to be as productive and helpful as possible).

RE: Duty flags

I think that these are no more useful and guaranteeing of fruitful labor than an RP_OK flag guarantees you'll get a scene offer. Staff routinely have them on, aren't doing anything but idling, or have them constantly off. So, what's the point? If players don't respect them and staffers aren't diligent about setting them... why have them?

They set expectations that get smashed by the reality of the day: work, kids, chores, other tasks taking precedence... why go through the steps if it isn't authoritative?

If you utilize @idle properly as a staffer, you should be able to manage people's expectations and reactions, yes?

@Ganymede said "I don't think removing the DARK flag entirely is a punishment; it is removing a privilege that isn't needed, in my opinion."

I completely agree here, and in fact will take this statement a step further and state that most powers given routinely to staff are not needed, are highly abusable (note that I didn't say abused, necessarily). This is why I built an @groups system and then coded everything on the game against that. It's also a design of my game to allow PLAYERS to manage themselves via @groups, since they can be OOC groups (Architects, Staff) as well as IC groups (Police, Beggars, Research Group Alpha, etc).

You don't need bits to do day-to-day staffing jobs. It's just that almost all code out there ASSUMES a wizbit means staff, and therefore requires it in the code.

It's stupid.

@Miss-Demeanor

Will removing the Dark tag really keep the staffers that only log in and idle from continuing their behavior?

No. That requires staff management from the head(s) of the game. You cannot expect store employees to just show up and do their work at your general fast food franchise. If you have staffers that aren't fulfilling their duties, and there is work to be done, you need new staffers, IMNSHO.