Rather then pointing fingers or blaming anyone. I took a moment to look at what could we do to both enrich the current atmosphere of CF as well as help it build.

I remember there was a talk of the Steam project. But I don't know if it kicked off. I know that although we've lost quite a few players I have seen overall a difference in pk. We deal with less people trying to destroy the fun stick. I've been dealing with more classy acts because well, I think we are all seeing how much smaller the PB is.

So I ask both IMMS and players alike what can we do as a community to keep the game alive and kicking. Or what can be done on the PB part opposed to the IMM's to ensure it's longevity. After so many years even as things progress CF is still a very immersive game in its own right.

Would this be worthwhile?

http://tintin.sourceforge.net/board/viewtopic.php?t=1018

For $100 you get a banner that's randomly shown whenever someone starts up a newer build of tintin++.

We did this last year. I have no idea if Scar renewed again this year or not, but as of v2.01.1 we're still in advertise.c anyway.

Unfortunately there's really no way to tell whether it had any impact.

I have almost done assembling a team, and had some funds for it, and got source codes and allowance to use it from it's former developers.

But, I've closed the project because of the two reasons:

1. Staff. I think you have seen my relations with them, and what I explained in my farewell post, why newbie players have no chance to survive here with the current system;

2. Community. I think I have never encountered so poisonous and hateful community as on QHCF.

I can't take such responsibility to bring players to the game where they'll be hated, despised and used for someone's ego satisfaction (I'm talking about both community and the current staff). So I'm done with it, as well as with CF, though I'll miss good old times.

Should situation change, I'll probably revive the project, because I believed and still believe it have a good chance to success on Steam - Steam is a heaven for the oldschool, weird an hardcore games. Or maybe someone else will do it instead - I wish luck to anyone who'll go that route.

I do hope you change your mind down the line. I think everyone included believed the Steam project to be a great idea to bring others in. I will say that when I started off the game.

Things like Qhcf and the personas there were something I didn't even come to learn about until gathering a decent grasp at the game. Which at the time the negativity just rolled off because the game itself was/is so in-depth and enriching.

I just think everyone has to get back to those roots. What the game meant and still can mean. If you want to see change in CF be that change. I along with many others would of course help new players coming into Cf's environment because I too remember what it was like starting off and being to everything text-based. I started playing at 12 y/o I'm 23 now and it still is to me one of the most enriching games I can find.

I would help anyway I can. :)

After reading this I'm not going to follow through with my Malasian CF child labor farm idea anymore either. We had the little Malasiats trained in computers and English and we're working on RP but at this point it is shut down. . . because edges and Umiron. And empowerment and I suck and blame everyone else for my shortcomings as a gamer.

nt

Like you were going to follow through on it anyhow, ROFL

.

I know jack squat about Steam. What all would be needed to set it up? I mean, all you need for CF is a telnet client. So what exactly would you package up for a CF bundle?

I'm in the same boat about knowledge of steam, however there was a post a while back about it. I'm sure the main ideas were fleshed out there if we want to look at it and see what's feasible in trying to do.

Steam is how you pretend like you have the best interest of CF in mind and that you're going to become involved in an elaborate player driven recruitment process. You build it up for a bit in multiple posts and then when someone doesn't do what you want them to do you go ahead and blow the Steam you've built up for yourself in a huff and say you're leaving and you're taking your non-existent weren't-ever-going-to-be projects with you.

you need your own proprietary client that connects to CF. This way you can put that client into Steam (Greenlight) as the "Carrion Fields" game. Then you go steam marketing and evolving that client.

tintin++ is open source. I could modify it to "only" connect to CF. Would have to check their license terms.

Trouble would be making it cross-platform. Building tintin++ on Win32 is probably a huge P.I.T.A.

>tintin++ is open source. I could modify it to "only" connect
>to CF. Would have to check their license terms.
>
>Trouble would be making it cross-platform. Building tintin++
>on Win32 is probably a huge P.I.T.A.

And that's the part none of us have had time for: finding a MUD client we can "fork", that's cross-platform, and that has a permissive enough license for us to use for these purposes.

It is a rewrite of tintin++ in python that implements most of it's stuff (actions, aliases, etc.) that is GPL based and has gtk/qt/text only modes which are all cross platform along with python itself. Should be fairly easy to make a Windows installer that handles the dependencies. Might already have one actually.

If you really did have all that, you would finish it. If you're not going to do it, fine. Don't lie about it and try to point fingers at others. That's hypocritical nonsense.

When you are doing something, and getting constantly insulted for it, trolled for it, and just smacked by the staff for all your efforts... Do you really believe that someone (adequate) would want to do something for people like you? That's funny.

just because you feel like you might do it, the rest of us look at your past claims, notably around characters, and disregard what you say.

i'd love to be proven wrong. you could be the hero that CF needs. but not if you throw in the towel because you feel maligned or disrespected (wait, it's like you're an immortal now!!).

>

NT

This is more bullcrap you're spouting. I replied to you calling all players and imms negative things. You started the trash talk, not someone else. So if you can't take some real truth being thrown back at you, don't lash out at a game's entire community. You basically said you are the *only* person who was "good" for the game. Where were you being "constantly insulted and trolled" then? You were the only one saying crap like that. Your level of hypocrisy if baffling. The guy you replied to had only nice things to say and he wanted to help the game, which was why he was asking questions about the steam project. Wait, that means nobody has been talking about the steam project. Yeah, sure sounds a lot like "constant insults and trolls."

One thing anyone can do is promote CF. Introduce your friends, plug it at a local game store or D&D/gaming/whatever Meetup, put up a flyer, etc.

CF grew and hit its peak when the vast majority of its players were in high scool / college and people came together over things like what they were playing on the computer instead of studying, and it was "cool". As adults, I get the impression a lot fewer of our players are interested in yanking their co-workers or neighbors aside and saying, "Hey, check this out!". And so we don't do as well from word of mouth as we did 10-15 years ago. Over (literally) decades, this means we lose players at a greater rate than we acquire them.

The Steam idea (which a player proposed) was and is an excellent example of a more technical project anyone could do with minimal guidance. All it boils down to is the right individual going beyond saying they're interested and actually getting involved.

Another thing people can do is adjust their expectations. If CF cannot be enjoyed without 70 players online or 20 religions to pick from, then you're going to have a bad time as they say. Players (and staff) have a tendency to remain anchored to the past (both the good and particularly the bad) and have trouble acknowledging that CF (like life) can't and won't stay the same forever. So be grateful for all the memories and work on building new ones while trying to stay focused on the present and not the past.

And of course the game needs immortals to run religions, design features, market the game, write areas, fix bugs, and so on and so forth. So for those that have those skills and a desire be a mover and shaker of Carrion Fields, I believe there's a FAQ worth checking out at the top of this forum.

EDIT: Multiple typos.

Especially ones that are kosher for outlanders, fortress, etc. Lots of times I can find one person to group with but not a third and the merc change is really nice for those filler gaps.

Honestly, I question how realistic it is to bring in new players who've never played a text-based game before.

Stealing players from other text-based games, or getting people who played a text-based game at some point in the past to "come back", are much more realistic.

That said, I'm not sure how best to accomplish either of those.

Pen-and-paper role-players are another segment that might potentially be interested in a text-based RPG.

with the short attention spans (ever getting shorter) and programmed behavior to seek immediate rewards of generation Y and Z good luck getting new, young players.

But then I looked at mudstats.com and there's plenty of non-furry, non-adult, non-IRE, non-aardwolf *custom codebase* fantasy MUDs that are relatively new and sport playerbases CF would kill for. Maybe they don't have millennials and only old farts but I doubt it. So the conclusion is that they must be doing something right. And don't give me the horse#### about CF being cutthroat PK-intensive bla bla bla. It's practically a solo PvE game these days.

So my view of the situation is two-fold: Get CF veterans back to playing the game and try to attract new blood. I personally know more than 10 people who have stopped playing due to recent changes.

Lots of others stopped before that, but still for mostly the same reasons (tedium, time investment required vs fun). How do you fix this? You go back to the fundamentals that made CF fun to play. Focus on PK first, integrate PK-related edges smoothly, completely detaching them from time sinks like OBS XP. If you can't do that then remove them from the game and roll the necessary changes where it makes sense to the classes. It may take time due to lack of coders, but we can wait as long as we know that *something is happening*. Go back to doing regular code updates once a month and announcing them in the forum board. These were a breath of fresh air and had me rolling chars just to test the new things out.

On the subject of lack of coders, people have said in the past they're willing to sign NDAs and contribute but the administration deemed that as a no-go. There are professional software engineers working for some of the biggest tech companies on the planet, willing to put their professional reputations at stake, but they find the door slammed in their face for what exactly? Fearmongering and vague conjectures?

I and others would be willing to spend tens of hours every week working on the CF codebase *gratis* but time is too valuable for me to waste years answering newbie channel questions and writing room descriptions. These things are not fun for me. There are also things that the administration can do to help here. I've said before that MSDP (http://tintin.sourceforge.net/msdp/) would be a *tremendous leap forward* and would allow people to contribute programmatically to CF without having to become a part of the administration. Custom clients with graphics and ambient, dynamic sounds would become possible to do without having to deal with inexact crude state machines on top of parsing mud text output.

This would be the first thing I'd implement if I could write code for CF.

>with the short attention spans (ever getting shorter) and
>programmed behavior to seek immediate rewards of generation Y
>and Z good luck getting new, young players.

I think I agree with this.

>But then I looked at mudstats.com and there's plenty of
>non-furry, non-adult, non-IRE, non-aardwolf *custom codebase*
>fantasy MUDs that are relatively new and sport playerbases CF
>would kill for. Maybe they don't have millennials and only old
>farts but I doubt it. So the conclusion is that they must be
>doing something right. And don't give me the horse#### about
>CF being cutthroat PK-intensive bla bla bla. It's practically
>a solo PvE game these days.

Even with numbers where they are, there are still upwards of 30 PK deaths every day. Say what you want about the balance between PK and RP (people have different opinions), but I don't think you can argue CF is quite a "solo PvE" game (yet!).

CF chooses to be a relatively unique niche by trying to strike a balance between always-on RP (no OOC channels, in-character 100% of the time, etc.) which we see more of on MUSHs/RPIs and competitive PK/PvP. People disagree on the proportions of that balance, but that's always been the goal and it's something we're committed to even if it makes us less viable.

>So my view of the situation is two-fold: Get CF veterans back
>to playing the game and try to attract new blood. I personally
>know more than 10 people who have stopped playing due to
>recent changes.

I'm not sure I believe this, or at least I'm not sure I believe them. But fair enough.

>Lots of others stopped before that, but still for mostly the
>same reasons (tedium, time investment required vs fun). How do
>you fix this? You go back to the fundamentals that made CF fun
>to play. Focus on PK first, integrate PK-related edges
>smoothly, completely detaching them from time sinks like OBS
>XP. If you can't do that then remove them from the game and
>roll the necessary changes where it makes sense to the
>classes. It may take time due to lack of coders, but we can
>wait as long as we know that *something is happening*. Go back
>to doing regular code updates once a month and announcing them
>in the forum board. These were a breath of fresh air and had
>me rolling chars just to test the new things out.

Barring the First Age, I'm inclined to disagree with you on what the fundamentals of CF ever were (or are).

>On the subject of lack of coders, people have said in the past
>they're willing to sign NDAs and contribute but the
>administration deemed that as a no-go. There are professional
>software engineers working for some of the biggest tech
>companies on the planet, willing to put their professional
>reputations at stake, but they find the door slammed in their
>face for what exactly? Fearmongering and vague conjectures?

I understand. I felt that myself at one time. Here's the problem: if given the opportunity, plenty of people (not all) would happily sign a NDA and abuse our trust. Then we're ####ed and there's literally nothing we can do about it. So it is what it is and it's probably never changing. I'm sorry.

>I and others would be willing to spend tens of hours every
>week working on the CF codebase *gratis* but time is too
>valuable for me to waste years answering newbie channel
>questions and writing room descriptions. These things are not
>fun for me.

See above, basically. And apologies in advance, but having heard and seen this not just in CF but the greater MUD (and MUD dev) community as well as outside the MUDverse (e.g., open source projects and initiatives), that just doesn't do anything for me. If I had a nickel for every time those were just empty words I probably could pay myself a salary to work on CF. I don't mean to pick on you (you may very well be sincere), but I'm just too cynical (for legitimate reasons, in my opinion, for what it's worth) to be moved by statements like that.

it would truly help and it doesn't seem crazy hard to implement.

I wanted to write CF client on top of OpenGL with dynamically generated
ambient music. OpenGL would help with some dynamic graphical effects on the background, but you'd still have all the text and no bitmap graphics.

Other cool ideas would be possible too.

I'm not against MSDP^*, it's just kind of a low priority and not something I think we'd get a ton of ROI from (see below).

* Even if we supported MSDP, we wouldn't be sending over data we don't already provide via prompt and such. Meaning we wouldn't send over hard numbers for things we don't already display as hard numbers, we wouldn't be sending over map data for rooms that aren't in 'exits' (e.g., hidden rooms), etc. So basically all you get is some fancy Diablo-esq health/mana bars and maybe a couple other cool UI bells and whistles. Which is great for the purpose of making a cool-looking client or whatever, but that's about it.

Still, if the bug queue were at zero I'd look at tackling this.

That' fine, no hidden exits required or extra hard numbers.

The big improvement would be that one doesn't need to parse text and deal
with *context* that can change but get the definitive answer straight from the mud
on a multiplexed channel.

The other big improvement would be VNUMs for rooms. When I was working on
a custom CF client I hashed the room name, room description and exits to get a
virtual VNUM but obviously that's not enough cause you have many rooms with identical
names, descriptions and exits. Having CF send a guaranteed unique id for each room over MSDP would be great.
Automatically generated map overlays (again very easy to show transparently with OpenGL) become trivial to implement.

>That' fine, no hidden exits required or extra hard numbers.
>
>The big improvement would be that one doesn't need to parse
>text and deal
>with *context* that can change but get the definitive answer
>straight from the mud
>on a multiplexed channel.
>
>The other big improvement would be VNUMs for rooms. When I was
>working on
>a custom CF client I hashed the room name, room description
>and exits to get a
>virtual VNUM but obviously that's not enough cause you have
>many rooms with identical
>names, descriptions and exits. Having CF send a guaranteed
>unique id for each room over MSDP would be great.
>Automatically generated map overlays (again very easy to show
>transparently with OpenGL) become trivial to implement.

I'm not sure how I feel about vnums, but in general I've never been too concerned about programatic mapping of CF because while it's possible in many cases, it's also nigh impossible in others, or at least it looks like ####.

This may be less true today, but historically CF saw a number of areas built without any regard for geometric/spatial sense, and thus are difficult to map using a simple algorithm (e.g. to generate ASCII maps). Granted, the possibilities expand when you're talking about real graphics and drawing and not just a 10x10 grid of characters, for example.

Yes, the map wouldn't be tile-based on fixed grid but more fluid.

Most of the mud (including some mazes) can be mapped in this fashion, even with the
simple hashing scheme I mentioned (it's just more complicated to deal with collisions
and not 100% accurate in this case).

But then another reason I'd want to do this (with vnums to get the accuracy) is to offer
auto-navigation as an option. The administration may very well deem this falls under
botting but I would view this as yet another time-optimization improvement
that could help entice new players.

Recently I caught myself being able to run from Hardan Woods to Velkyn Oloth blind, and I'm quite sure that much useless information should not be stored in one's head. So maps ftw.

it's a bridge from a pure text mud running inside a classic mud client to something
that's more familiar to young gamers.

You still have the text, but it's running on top of a custom client
that's OpenGL based and allows you to do graphical overlays, fadeins/fadeouts,
background "ambient" graphical effects (maybe according to terrain),
ambient sounds for weather (rain, wind, lightning), has keyboard/numpad
walking enabled from the get-go and also allows you to script it and add your own keybindings and macros and so on and so forth.

The ambient sound thing is huge for immersion. You can programmatically generate ambient sounds dynamically that never quite sound identical,
so it's even more immersive.

Finally, if you're doing text rendering on top of OpenGL you can present
the text itself in a more glitzy way. Combat verbs for instance could be
animated and have their own effects. All sorts of ideas that make the game
look *unique* and hide the stale 80s text adventure stench that can be
immediately off-putting to young gamers today.

The "cypher" (http://www.cabrerabrothers.com/cypher.html) text adventure is a good example of the things that are possible
to do with a custom client.

I can't wait till my kids mature so that I can kick their ass in whatever new games they'll play.

JK

When we talk about younger generation what age group are we talking about? Because I started playing at 12 I'm 23 now. So yes it's possible for millennial to get into it. It's just the learning curve is steep and the incentives not as big as they used to be.

Srsly

Coming back to this thread kind of late. Sorry for the gap.

1. I don't think lack of coders is a big problem. The more the merrier, assuming adequate quality, but in the pantheon of things that are contributing to low numbers I don't think it's a big factor.

2. What specifically do you feel needs to happen in order to "make CF fun again" and bring back those 10 people you know who quit because of recent changes? You mentioned restoring edge points for PK. That's seems like a strange one to choose since the game's halcyon days occurred before edges were even implemented.

Specifically with respect to edges, here's what I think it comes down to:

a. If you give edge points for PK then you exacerbate the power gap between the players who're good at PK and the players who are terrible. That tends to drive off the terrible ones.

b. If you give edge points for RP then you disadvantage those players who're only willing to put forth minimal RP and who are primarily interested in PK. It's really hard for that type of player to handle being gimped because, at the end of the day, they're here to own face.

c. If you give edge points for exploration / observation then you create a scenario where (some) vets feel obligated to waste time exploring / observing places and things they've already explored and/or observed with past characters.

So what can be done? To answer that we need to take a step back and consider what we're really trying to accomplish with edges. For instance, why not just award them based on level achieved similar to how "trains" are doled out?

The reason is that using a fixed system like that completely destroys the staff's ability to use edge points to incentivize certain (beneficial) behaviors, e.g. "participating in PK", "playing a role", "exploring the world and learning new areas", etc.

The tricky part is that what was intended to be an incentive can very easily morph into a perverse incentive and, consequently, actually serve to make the game less fun.

At the end of the day I'm fine with a scenario where almost all long-lived characters end up with roughly the same amount of edge points. Exceptional characters will have more and marginal characters have less, but the difference won't be huge. However, I think it would be a mistake to award them solely on some "fixed" thing like rank. Rather we should attempt to incentivize people who exist at the margins.

For example, award edge points for PK but only for the first few PKs. Above that you don't get anything extra. Anyone who's not totally lost at PK is going to get the same amount of edge points from this source. The folks this targets, though, are total newbies and/or the vets who (for whatever reason) choose to completely opt out of the PK scene. Think Herald gear-locker types who are only interested in PvE.

Same deal with RP. You get some amount of points for having a passable role. It's pass/fail, so nobody feels obligated to spend forever on a role as if it were some magnum opus. You can get some more from imm exp, but there's a reasonably low cap. You get some for being granted a leadership position in a cabal. The players this targets, then, are the ones who actively avoid non-PK interaction with other players and the staff and who can't be bothered to even write a basic role.

Same deal with exploration and observation. Give edge points for them but with a fairly low cap on each so that only the "least adventurous" and "least observant" ~10% of players even have to think about them.

Then I'd give out some periodically based on hours played, but with a rank-based cap. This to prevent some idiot sitting at level 20 for 300 hours to accrue a bunch of edges on a low-level character.

The end result of all this would (hopefully) be that if you're someone who's not in the bottom ~10% in any one area (PK, RP, exploring, observing, etc.) then you don't have to think about edge points at all. You can just "do your thing" and be reasonably sure you won't cheat yourself out of any edge points by declining to "game" the system.

Those are my ideas, at least.

NT

>Coming back to this thread kind of late. Sorry for the gap.
>
>1. I don't think lack of coders is a big problem. The more
>the merrier, assuming adequate quality, but in the pantheon of
>things that are contributing to low numbers I don't think it's
>a big factor.

I agree with this for the most part, with the caveat that any game like CF benefits from new and updated content. I would love to see new races/classes/cabals/features as much as the next guy, and that's where (competent, trustworthy) bodies come in.

>2. What specifically do you feel needs to happen in order to
>"make CF fun again" and bring back those 10 people you know
>who quit because of recent changes? You mentioned restoring
>edge points for PK. That's seems like a strange one to choose
>since the game's halcyon days occurred before edges were even
>implemented.

This is something that people often overlook. They also tend to overlook the fact that despite drawing a (in my opinion, bad) correlation between very recent changes to edges/edge points and declining numbers, a simple line graph would suggest otherwise.

>Specifically with respect to edges, here's what I think it
>comes down to:
>
>a. If you give edge points for PK then you exacerbate the
>power gap between the players who're good at PK and the
>players who are terrible. That tends to drive off the
>terrible ones.

Pretty much. Some players always have and will PK anything that moves as often as it moves, and we probably haven't done enough to discourage that. But, we've seen a noticeable drop in 'griefy' PK since making this change.

>b. If you give edge points for RP then you disadvantage those
>players who're only willing to put forth minimal RP and who
>are primarily interested in PK. It's really hard for that
>type of player to handle being gimped because, at the end of
>the day, they're here to own face.

Understandable, but at the same time we *do* want to encourage and reward RP, and the game is (perhaps to our discredit) already built to favor the PK-over-RP minded player. Which is to say that the PKer who feels "gimped" should probably consider just how many advantages he or she probably has over the more social/RP minded character.

>c. If you give edge points for exploration / observation then
>you create a scenario where (some) vets feel obligated to
>waste time exploring / observing places and things they've
>already explored and/or observed with past characters.

This is unfortunately true.

>So what can be done? To answer that we need to take a step
>back and consider what we're really trying to accomplish with
>edges. For instance, why not just award them based on level
>achieved similar to how "trains" are doled out?
>
>The reason is that using a fixed system like that completely
>destroys the staff's ability to use edge points to incentivize
>certain (beneficial) behaviors, e.g. "participating in PK",
>"playing a role", "exploring the world and learning new
>areas", etc.

This, and we also don't like the fact that giving everyone X EPs or edges is going to yield more of an advantage to the competent "only cares about PK" player than it is other characters. I think this is observable and obvious to anyone who themselves has decent PK chops and is looking at the landscape of the game objectively.

>The tricky part is that what was intended to be an incentive
>can very easily morph into a perverse incentive and,
>consequently, actually serve to make the game less fun.

And we understand that to some degree that has happened.

>At the end of the day I'm fine with a scenario where almost
>all long-lived characters end up with roughly the same
>amount of edge points. Exceptional characters will have more
>and marginal characters have less, but the difference won't be
>huge. However, I think it would be a mistake to award them
>solely on some "fixed" thing like rank. Rather we
>should attempt to incentivize people who exist at the
>margins.
>
>For example, award edge points for PK but only for the first
>few PKs. Above that you don't get anything extra. Anyone
>who's not totally lost at PK is going to get the same amount
>of edge points from this source. The folks this targets,
>though, are total newbies and/or the vets who (for whatever
>reason) choose to completely opt out of the PK scene. Think
>Herald gear-locker types who are only interested in PvE.

I'm not wholly opposed to something like this, though I also tend to think that giving EPs for cabal stuff helps address it. Even if we only people for their first X PKs, we're going to see people bending (or abandoning) their RP for the sake of getting those kills or getting them sooner. And then they may become upset we aren't rewarding (or are penalizing) them for their weak RP.

>Same deal with RP. You get some amount of points for having a
>passable role. It's pass/fail, so nobody feels obligated to
>spend forever on a role as if it were some magnum opus. You
>can get some more from imm exp, but there's a reasonably low
>cap. You get some for being granted a leadership position in
>a cabal. The players this targets, then, are the ones who
>actively avoid non-PK interaction with other players and the
>staff and who can't be bothered to even write a basic role.

This pretty accurately describes how things work now.

>Same deal with exploration and observation. Give edge points
>for them but with a fairly low cap on each so that only the
>"least adventurous" and "least observant" ~10% of players even
>have to think about them.

I'd love to.

>Then I'd give out some periodically based on hours played, but
>with a rank-based cap. This to prevent some idiot sitting at
>level 20 for 300 hours to accrue a bunch of edges on a
>low-level character.

I don't feel that inclined to give out edge points 'for free' when there really are so many ways a player can go about earning them, even at lower levels or even at hero and hundreds of hours in if they "skipped" some of those things before.

We've recently discussed awarding "make up" edge points to characters who pass certain points without earning points for various things. Essentially, if you decide that exploration is dumb and you don't want to do it then maybe you'd get some (nowhere near 100%) portion of the edge points you missed out on, but from that moment forward would never yield edge points from observation again. I really, really dislike this idea though, so we'll see.

>The end result of all this would (hopefully) be that if you're
>someone who's not in the bottom ~10% in any one area (PK, RP,
>exploring, observing, etc.) then you don't have to think about
>edge points at all. You can just "do your thing" and be
>reasonably sure you won't cheat yourself out of any edge
>points by declining to "game" the system.

I think we're on the same page more than we're not. Where players and staff alike tend to disagree is what math and limits make sense. Some players won't be content unless they have 15 edges because that was possible once and so that's the bar they've set in their mind. Others will scoff at any design that doesn't make it trivial for them to have 3-4x the edges as 95% of characters do, regardless of the specifics. Another camp won't be happy unless it's all effort free. Certain players will insist it's all rigged until Imm XP is gone entirely (and thus it's very difficult to reward RP) because mumblegrumblesconspiracymumble.

That makes for a particularly tricky game design problem, and one that I'm hesitant to care about anymore because pleasing everyone is impossible and when we don't, we have to hear about it in very nasty ways.

>Those are my ideas, at least.

Thanks!

Thanks for the comprehensive reply. I think we're pretty much on the same page, except maybe w.r.t. how close the current EP system is to what I'd consider ideal. That said, I can't peer behind the curtain, so maybe it's closer than I think.

>Understandable, but at the same time we *do* want to encourage
>and reward RP, and the game is (perhaps to our discredit)
>already built to favor the PK-over-RP minded player. Which is
>to say that the PKer who feels "gimped" should probably
>consider just how many advantages he or she probably has over
>the more social/RP minded character.

I think encouraging RP and interaction is good. The game is more fun when that stuff happens. That said, the game is also more fun when there are more players. Certainly some players are a net negative and the game is better off without them. But there are also players whose RP is thin-to-non-existent but who show up and play. If nothing else they present a target for other people who like to PK. A system of rewards that encourages RP and interaction but drives away people who aren't willing to invest heavily in that aspect of the game might ultimately not be good for the game.

>>c. If you give edge points for exploration / observation...
>
>This is unfortunately true.

True only insofar as vets perceive it to be to their advantage to farm observation and exploration xp, or true as in "actually true"?

>This, and we also don't like the fact that giving everyone X
>EPs or edges is going to yield more of an advantage to the
>competent "only cares about PK" player than it is other
>characters.

Will it though? Honest question. Thieves all get the same amount of thief points. All warriors get the same number of weapon specs. My opposition to giving everybody the same amount. is just that it throws away the opportunity to incentivize stuff.

>Even if we only people for their first X PKs, we're going
>to see people bending (or abandoning) their RP for the sake of
>getting those kills or getting them sooner.

Maybe. Though, at least if the cap were low then the point at which they're no longer incentivized to amass PKs would come sooner rather than later. Maybe they only act like a dbag for the first 5 PKs instead for the character's life.

For my part, I know a low cap would take the pressure off. If I knew the cap were low enough that I'd eventually hit it without really doing anything special then I'd feel no pressure to do anything special. Which is nice. Of course a cap of "zero", i.e. no EP for PK whatsoever, also takes the pressure off, but it loses the ability to incentivize.

Another strategy might be to award EP for PK in hours-played "buckets". So you get EP for each of the first 5 PK during the first 200 hours of a character's life. After that, for each subsequent 100 hour period, you get EP for the first 3 PK within that period. Kills don't count if they're not solo. If you're a healer then you get credit for non-solo kills and/or assists.

>We've recently discussed awarding "make up" edge points to
>characters who pass certain points without earning points for
>various things. Essentially, if you decide that exploration
>is dumb and you don't want to do it then maybe you'd get some
>(nowhere near 100%) portion of the edge points you missed out
>on, but from that moment forward would never yield edge points
>from observation again. I really, really dislike this idea
>though, so we'll see.

Yeah, that sounds weird. My thought was that every character does some minimal level of observation and exploration, even if they're not even trying. So you set the cap "slightly above" that amount. 90% of players can safely "ignore" observation an exploration as discrete goals and not suffer for it. The 10% of characters who are "least observant" and "least adventurous", however, are incentivized to do more.

>Another camp won't be happy unless it's all effort free.

But it should be "effort free" for someone who is "doing it right" in terms of participating in PK, interacting with players and staff, and not hanging out in the Inn all day. IMO it's counterproductive when players perceive there to be some benefit to "working for" edge points. Whether that be by rotely exploring and observing areas they've already seen umpteen times before, killing PCs they otherwise wouldn't kill, or transparently shmoozing with the staff every time one of them isn't wizi.

At least that's my take on it.

"For my part, I know a low cap would take the pressure off. If I knew the cap were low enough that I'd eventually hit it without really doing anything special then I'd feel no pressure to do anything special. Which is nice. Of course a cap of "zero", i.e. no EP for PK whatsoever, also takes the pressure off, but it loses the ability to incentivize."

There are loads of pressure to PK. I always feel people are not taking me seriously until I have some kills.

Try and become leader of any cabal (other than Herald or Acolytes) with 0 PK wins. Get a third legacy or a quest form with 0 PK wins. Probably can't even get empowered to 51 if you're a shaman or paladin, if you don't have some PK wins.

I GUESS if you can write a contest-winning role... but I always felt this was a perverse incentive at its finest.

Unless that perception changed (and I'm not sure it needs to change), edge points would remain a lesser incentive than trying to get a reputation for being competent.

>There are loads of pressure to PK. I always feel people are
>not taking me seriously until I have some kills.

That may be true for players and to some degree, immortals. People are impressed by different things, but outside of specific religions or other niches, being "good at PK" is never a hard requirement.

>Try and become leader of any cabal (other than Herald or
>Acolytes) with 0 PK wins. Get a third legacy or a quest form
>with 0 PK wins. Probably can't even get empowered to 51 if
>you're a shaman or paladin, if you don't have some PK wins.

That's not a hard and fast rule, though you may be correct that those things are incredibly unlikely to happen at literally zero PKs for anyone but perhaps a Herald or Herald-like character. For cabal leadership, one aspect that a patron imm might consider is how effectively a person is able to defend their cabal, for example, and a person who can do that well is also likely to have some PKs. But again, generally speaking these shouldn't be considered hard truths.

>I GUESS if you can write a contest-winning role... but I
>always felt this was a perverse incentive at its finest.

Nobody should feel like they have to write a RC-winning role to get ahead, but they probably should feel like they need a role that is objectively good (explains the right things, defines goals, etc.).

>Unless that perception changed (and I'm not sure it needs to
>change), edge points would remain a lesser incentive than
>trying to get a reputation for being competent.

In a perfect world I think people would be incentivized to RP because we attract the kinds of players who enjoy it. Likewise, we do indeed hope people put effort into RP because people (players and staff) might notice. But there's probably a place for this method too.

>Thanks for the comprehensive reply. I think we're pretty
>much on the same page, except maybe w.r.t. how close the
>current EP system is to what I'd consider ideal. That said, I
>can't peer behind the curtain, so maybe it's closer than I
>think.
>
>>Understandable, but at the same time we *do* want to
>encourage
>>and reward RP, and the game is (perhaps to our discredit)
>>already built to favor the PK-over-RP minded player. Which
>is
>>to say that the PKer who feels "gimped" should probably
>>consider just how many advantages he or she probably has
>over
>>the more social/RP minded character.
>
>I think encouraging RP and interaction is good. The game is
>more fun when that stuff happens. That said, the game is also
>more fun when there are more players. Certainly some players
>are a net negative and the game is better off without them.
>But there are also players whose RP is thin-to-non-existent
>but who show up and play. If nothing else they present a
>target for other people who like to PK. A system of rewards
>that encourages RP and interaction but drives away people
>who aren't willing to invest heavily in that aspect of the
>game might ultimately not be good for the game.
>

Interestingly, the "thin-to-non-existent but who show up and play" types tend to be the players we can't seem to shake, so to speak. Not that we necessarily want to. If anything, I think we've become too... tolerant(?) of those types at the cost of losing higher quality players who are put off by these types.

Of course our goal is to make the game fun and appealing to many kinds of players who all add something to the game. The reality is that there certainly are types of players we just don't want and certain behaviors we encourage/discourage, but ultimately we want players from all four suites.

>>>c. If you give edge points for exploration / observation...
>>
>>This is unfortunately true.
>
>True only insofar as vets perceive it to be to their
>advantage to farm observation and exploration xp, or true as
>in "actually true"?
>
>>This, and we also don't like the fact that giving everyone X
>>EPs or edges is going to yield more of an advantage to the
>>competent "only cares about PK" player than it is other
>>characters.
>
>Will it though? Honest question. Thieves all get the same
>amount of thief points. All warriors get the same number of
>weapon specs. My opposition to giving everybody the same
>amount. is just that it throws away the opportunity to
>incentivize stuff.

It does throw away that opportunity, so that's absolutely one reason in and of itself, and one we care about.

Remember though that edges weren't designed the same way specs or thief skills were, and so we don't think the same rationale that applies to a class design applies to edges.

>>Even if we only people for their first X PKs, we're going
>>to see people bending (or abandoning) their RP for the sake
>of
>>getting those kills or getting them sooner.
>
>Maybe. Though, at least if the cap were low then the point at
>which they're no longer incentivized to amass PKs would come
>sooner rather than later. Maybe they only act like a dbag for
>the first 5 PKs instead for the character's life.

Fair enough.

>For my part, I know a low cap would take the pressure off. If
>I knew the cap were low enough that I'd eventually hit
>it without really doing anything special then I'd feel no
>pressure to do anything special. Which is nice. Of course a
>cap of "zero", i.e. no EP for PK whatsoever, also takes the
>pressure off, but it loses the ability to incentivize.

It's not that we don't want to incentivize PK, it's that we don't seem to need to (right now).

>Another strategy might be to award EP for PK in hours-played
>"buckets". So you get EP for each of the first 5 PK during
>the first 200 hours of a character's life. After that, for
>each subsequent 100 hour period, you get EP for the first 3 PK
>within that period. Kills don't count if they're not solo.
>If you're a healer then you get credit for non-solo kills
>and/or assists.

This is essentially what we did (but by level), and I got tired of having a dozen characters at any given time "camping" each bucket killing anything that moves so they'd get the maximum amount in each one. The way it played out had virtually no positive impact on the game and a measurably negative one.

One of the (chief) goals of the EPs for PK mechanic, much like the EPs for cabal wars one, was to incentivize risk-taking. In the case of cabal wars I think that's succeeded somewhat, but it failed miserably for PK. I can think of some ways of addressing that a second time around to make improvements, but it's not high on my list.

>>We've recently discussed awarding "make up" edge points to
>>characters who pass certain points without earning points
>for
>>various things. Essentially, if you decide that exploration
>>is dumb and you don't want to do it then maybe you'd get
>some
>>(nowhere near 100%) portion of the edge points you missed
>out
>>on, but from that moment forward would never yield edge
>points
>>from observation again. I really, really dislike this idea
>>though, so we'll see.
>
>Yeah, that sounds weird. My thought was that every character
>does some minimal level of observation and exploration, even
>if they're not even trying. So you set the cap "slightly
>above" that amount. 90% of players can safely "ignore"
>observation an exploration as discrete goals and not suffer
>for it. The 10% of characters who are "least observant" and
>"least adventurous", however, are incentivized to do more.
>
>>Another camp won't be happy unless it's all effort free.
>
>But it should be "effort free" for someone who is
>"doing it right" in terms of participating in PK, interacting
>with players and staff, and not hanging out in the Inn all
>day. IMO it's counterproductive when players perceive there
>to be some benefit to "working for" edge points. Whether that
>be by rotely exploring and observing areas they've already
>seen umpteen times before, killing PCs they otherwise wouldn't
>kill, or transparently shmoozing with the staff every time one
>of them isn't wizi.

When I say "effort free" I'm thinking of the players who literally re-roll every few days or every 2-3 weeks and then get frustrated that they have to choose between all this "work" and being "gimped". A player CAN approach CF very casually and with no serious investment in their character(s) and be successful and effective, but that's certainly not the approach we want to encourage. I agree with you though, someone who is "doing it right" shouldn't have to kill themselves for edge points, and they don't, but they also aren't going to get ALL the edge points, which is what some (oftentimes vocal) people want.

It's not a perfect system and it may not appeal to everyone, but when a take survey of the playing field I quite often find that these days a character's accomplishments and their edge points tend to jive as I'd expect, so in that sense I think we're more on target than we were before, understanding that again, some people may not agree with where we've put the target in the first place.

>At least that's my take on it.

Thanks again!

P.S. I didn't spellcheck this because time reasons.

For real.

before obs/exp gets removed and Murph has even less edges :)

No point hacking off my gangrenous arm when I have a gangrenous leg too.