Actually have an Out of Sector room

So... this is kind of pertinent to Summer and vacation times, although is also sort of year round.

When you know you are going to be away, it would be nice to be able to go somewhere, even if it's just a room that's like the OOC lounge. Your character is literally Out of Sector. It's kind of silly that you sleep in one spot for a few weeks without moving.

I would envision it that you have to enter a note to get into the room, which would be an explanation of where you are going and for how long. It would do a couple of things. GMs could reassure players who worry about their in game friends vanishing that they are indeed out of sector and should be returning... and also stop the RP disconnect of having someone sleep for multiple weeks.

It would be a pretty easy fix and a QOL thing for players and I'd think GMs to know if someone has quit, or is just romping around having fun IRL.

By BlazingCoconut at Aug 4, 2021 10:23 AM

I really like this. Hosting an away player for days or weeks can feel really odd - even metagamey, I think. Dude chilling in the bedroom or closet for two weeks and you're pretending they aren't there.

"Yo, have you seen chica x?"

"Heard she had biz outside red til y time."

*Walks into closet and there lies chica x*

Weird.

Maybe instead of having staff cover the communication though, handle it IC? Contact chums in advance to let them know maybe?

By RatchetEffect at Aug 4, 2021 10:30 AM

+1 for this, even if it is just a request to be put in the $void for longer periods away from the game.

By Dawnshot at Aug 4, 2021 10:31 AM

+1 Love this idea too.

By CookieJarvis at Aug 4, 2021 10:32 AM

Yeah, I often take extended camping trips... love being outdoors. When I do, I try to let people in game know. But you have people you deal with that your character would never tell. I know that sometimes they can get a little worried that you've quit. Which is understandable.

There should be both IC and OOC communication.

Perhaps also allow a grid feature to say: "I am away from the city until XX/XX/XX and will read you message when I do so."

Just some things to give some communication and RL assurances while handling the metagame side of having a comatose person for weeks.

By BlazingCoconut at Aug 4, 2021 10:32 AM

Still would be a nice addition.

By Rillem at Aug 4, 2021 10:34 AM

Have had this thought myself, absolutely agree it would be a great QOL addition and better for immersion! 'Out of Central' is a handy excuse when you know you might be distracted/afk for an hour or unable to log on for a couple days, but when it gets to be longer than that it would be nice to have somewhere to go to be physically away from the IC scene.

By Nymphali at Aug 4, 2021 11:18 AM

I am not sure how much I can say as I think it crosses to IC/admin chat territory. But this already exsists, through a service request. I hope to be corrected if I am mistake.

By fopsy at Aug 4, 2021 11:20 AM

There is a way to do this yes, but it's not really IC and it requires GM intervention which this type of method would not.

Plus I could see a lot of extra little features:

NLM Charging you for an Out of Sector message

NLM Charging you for a Gridmail reply

A NeoTrans fee to get out of Sector to use the service

Other things as well. Just there's a lot of things you could add to make it a QOL feature. Someone on XOOC suggested a cooldown period to prevent abuse and perhaps a minimum stay so people aren't using it for one or two day issues. I mean, all that's good.

By BlazingCoconut at Aug 4, 2021 12:09 PM

I also like this because it's always a bit weird to say your character is busy working when in reality, they've been at home sleeping because you're logged off, but we IC can't say that actually our character only really works a couple of hours a day. We could, but it feels hand-wavy.

So my particular ideal use would be fairly frequent and more for immersion reasons. So maybe you could only use the feature in a room you 'own', like a cube or pad, and you would have to drop everything you're carrying to prevent abuse? And if you stop owning the room (ie your cube time runs out) it just puts you back in that room, naked, again to prevent people abusing it for free rent.

Only problem I see is giving staff more busywork to check over, especially since this is a feature I'd probably use frequently, both for immersion reasons and for a way to let people know 'hey, I'm still here, I just haven't logged in for a day or two'.

By Sly at Aug 4, 2021 12:41 PM

Dealing with a character whose player has not logged in for weeks or months has been, for me in the past, really difficult both OOC and IC... especially when having no idea if their player ever intends to return.

Essentially having to make a choice to move an unconscious body into possibility humiliating or dangerous circumstances or be stuck with them as a permanent, awkward to explain roommate.

I know the mechanics prefer to treat characters as totally persistent in the world as much as possible, but something along these lines that is either self-imposed or automatic after some period of extended inactivity would have certainly helped me.

By 0x1mm at Aug 4, 2021 1:55 PM

I could definitely see this being a useful feature. There have been plenty of times that I've seen the situation crop up around my character and people seem to try and be understanding of it on an OOC level, even if there's no actual OOC way to address it.

By BubbleKangaroo at Aug 4, 2021 2:08 PM

Not against this idea at all, but some things:

You can xhelp and ask to be put in a coffin if you log out for extended periods of time.

You should be accountable to "inform" anyone of your departure, it shouldn't be the GM's burden.

By villa at Aug 4, 2021 2:32 PM

There are a LOT of IC ways to leave "notes" to other people, either public or private.

By villa at Aug 4, 2021 2:33 PM

There are just some people who I have been around for some time now... that my character is not going to inform that I'm away. That's just the nature of the game. I don't talk all that much in XOOC and maybe I should, but while it's not the GMs burden, they also enforce the rule of us not talking out of the game. Sooooo.... giving us a simple tool to help that communication in an IC manner that's actually more themely than having people "asleep" for a week at a time seems like a good solution.

Since we can't really talk OOCly, there are people who I wished I had been able to talk too when I had to take a break before. Having a GM confirm that I'm alive and not dead would have been nice. Again, we play with each other over YEARS at times. While I don't know you IRL, I feel like there are relationships that I care about and would want to know if something happened or if someone left the game as opposed to just taking a week or month off.

By BlazingCoconut at Aug 4, 2021 2:36 PM

I understand, so how do you propose a solution that isn't immersion breaking or adds burden on the GMs? Again, they shouldn't keep tabs on who comes and goes (people come and go all the time). And we shouldn't have a crystal ball that tells a list of people who's away.

How about voice mails for Progia-9s and above? That you can configure say, I'm out of town. Or automated responses on gridmails?

By villa at Aug 4, 2021 2:40 PM

I love the idea, extended OOC.

By Varolokkur at Aug 4, 2021 2:40 PM

I think they have something for this already called the $Void$ that you can be thrown into in order to float endlessly, safely, should you need to go away for an extended period.

By Damarung at Aug 4, 2021 2:44 PM

@Villa

Well my idea was a Note to get in. That way they are aware with no more burden than the normal note system and it ensures people enter a note. It's a record of how much you are using the system and if someone asks if you are still playing they can confirm if they feel it's warranted. Again, I've had people ask about me before so I understand the worry. I've asked about people who I worried something horrible had happened too them.

As for the other ideas, yes! I suggested them earlier as things that you could do as Chy sinks. Voice mail messages, SIC auto responders etc. can all be IC tools. However, this is a very simple one that could be implemented with very little code time.

By BlazingCoconut at Aug 4, 2021 2:46 PM

I could see something like...

@outofcentral

Teleports your character to a void-like place with a minimum stay time of 24 hours.

I say minimum 24 hours so you can't use it to park your character elsewhere while you're logged off between days.

Maybe even minimum 48 hours would be better.

Could require the character to be sitting in a bed in order to go out of central.

By alittlelonger at Aug 4, 2021 3:11 PM

Maybe we need some 'Travelers Coffins' at NEO to support this more ICly than the current service request process.

By Johnny at Aug 5, 2021 2:20 PM

I think Johnny nailed it with the coffins.

See what I did there?

Please don't ban me...

By Floki at Aug 5, 2021 2:25 PM

I could definitely get behind an idea like this.

"Since we can't really talk OOCly, there are people who I wished I had been able to talk too when I had to take a break before. Having a GM confirm that I'm alive and not dead would have been nice. Again, we play with each other over YEARS at times. While I don't know you IRL, I feel like there are relationships that I care about and would want to know if something happened or if someone left the game as opposed to just taking a week or month off."

"I've had people ask about me before so I understand the worry. I've asked about people who I worried something horrible had happened too them."

I can completely understand these sentiments. It doesn't matter whether you know people IRL or not, when you spend a lot of time interacting with people and grow to know them, you form attachments and friendships. Whether online or not, those friendships are important. I've had occasion to worry about people who have gone missing, and even had instances where something horrible did happen to someone.

When a game is your only means of connecting, and you don't have any other way of communicating or checking to see that someone is OK, it can be a bit nerve wracking wondering what happened and waiting to possibly hear from them again. Especially considering the restrictions on OOC communication in this game, having a feature like this would go a long ways towards ensuring peace of mind over missing friends.

By Blackbird71 at Sep 2, 2021 3:27 PM

"Traveler's Coffins" are a cool idea. I probably would put some on Red as well as Gold, since sometimes people need to go out of the game without the time it can take to wait for the lev. (That's a topside issue too in theory, but most corporate players have access to better transportation.)

By Pavane at Sep 3, 2021 1:11 AM

-	Ralph	35m
-	Ameliorative	31m
And 10 more hiding and/or disguised