I know it's an OOC solution and not a perfect one at all, but this is definitely a headache on the player side and I'm sure staff has been getting an earful, too.
I know it's an OOC solution and not a perfect one at all, but this is definitely a headache on the player side and I'm sure staff has been getting an earful, too.
Although I would more than love for immies to start being more reasonable, I do not believe this is the way. Maybe there's a better solution.
My gripe with this is just that it's not exceedingly interesting, and it falls to the people around the chaos to salvage it. Cool stuff can happen, cool stuff has happened, but I wish it was a little more interesting on the whole and not just a cheap injection of chaos.
I'm all for danger. I'm not all for some rando zooming out of the gate, snapping necks and then falling asleep once things turn against them. I wish it was more interesting than that more consistently, but maybe that just means if I care about this, I should be stepping up to be the person who forces this stuff to be more interesting. Or else.
I've seen it happen on other games. People get banned and such but there's always proxies and alternate email addresses. It's often very difficult to get rid of the "real" problem players. I agree with the sentiment to let them discover just how bad the gangs can be without an approved background, but when you allow a player to just come up with a new name and go to town on the rest of the playerbase, you're kind of opening yourself up to some seriously exploitive abuse.
Personally, I think it's only good form for a player to invest time in at least catching a clue who's who and what's what before engaging in violence, otherwise, it becomes unrealistic play. If it's a repetitive problem, some restrictions may help to ease the burden so they at least have to make an effort to engage in such behaviors. I think Vera's proposal is a sound one, myself.
What I do have a problem with, and considered starting a new thread for, is the way people have been reacting to dips lately. Your wallet gets stolen, you call it out over SIC, and suddenly 5-10 player characters are combing the streets looking for the described immy. Within an hour, the newbie is permed. This seems to have happened every day this week. Personally, in the past I've had good RP experience with dips - call in an ace cool and maybe we track them down, maybe we don't. If you catch them you get back what you took, maybe a little extra, and bruise them up. Maybe if you're feeling nice and they're obviously new, you give them some tips to help them RP their thief better in the future. Instead we have people rushing to perm newbies because someone they've only ever met on SIC got 36 chy taken from them. ICly this reaction makes little sense to me, when we have old men and women being beaten up and little girls getting shoved into vans every other block. Didn't we all just agree at the Town Hall not to be a bunch of white knights?
tl;dr - Maybe don't hunt down newbies unless you yourself were affected by them?
The point I wanted to make is that some of us should reconsider how we respond to dips. If you just got dipped, heck yeah, chase them down. Maybe call or private sic an ace cool for help.
But broadcasting it over public SIC doesn't make as much sense to me. Nor does every random PC sitting bored in a bar or their cube running to join the hunt. Half of us, maybe more, play criminals or are affiliated with them somehow. If it's not you being robbed, what do you care if some random Joe down the street might lose a little chy out of his pocket? It's more interesting to let those directly involved play it out, imo.
Apologies if this ought to be it's own thread. Maybe people who've successfully RP'ed theives could start one?
Some of the best RP uses the PvP mechanics. We have a system that allows people to play the game without submitting a history - this is good, as not everybody is prepared to make a commitment to the game. If they can't fuck up and get the hard welcome to Withmore, or get thrust right in, those players may never stick around to become regular players who 'get' the game. A LOT of players who stuck around and went on to play longterm started out like this, getting smacked and then 'getting' the game by being taught a valuable lesson. That kind of RP is compelling.
I think getting rid of it means fewer people stick around to submit a history at all.
If a certain char hadn't mugged my char, she would definitely -never- have become what she is now.
Yes, it could be a problem, but whether they are or are not intending to cause RP, it is still caused. As mentioned before, the IC consequences they face are heavy; five PCs chasing them in one example (I think that's what they said?). If your character is attacked and does not react much except mourn over loss, then maybe try to find a way IC to prevent this.
Or perhaps, the solution to this type of problem can be made ICly.
Most of the time, its the immy who gets their ass beaten, but if its not the case, then you have some RP.
Find them, get even, make them work for you to repay the offense, etc, etc.
The mix is a rough place, and some immys are crazy. I mean, did you see the line to get inside the dome? I would be pissed too.
If you want to do crimes, do them intelligently and anticipate the repurcussions for getting caught. This is 100% a lesson immies should learn, and is just out and out real world common sense.
Going over and making an example out of a terrible dip isn't white knighting either. How do you know what intentions those characters are going into those situations with? The most obvious and themely case would be extorting the victim: You just did them a damn kindness, have them pay up!
We offer protection for new characters for up to two weeks-- but this protection goes away if a character takes certain actions (pick pocketing, attacking someone), which would, if we kept protecting them, prevent other characters from defending themselves.
There will always be people who join the game and run around killing people and getting killed until they figure out that that is not the purpose of the game they are playing. I count myself among one of these people. I ran through 5-10 characters in my first few days because I ran out of chargen and tried fucking with gangers or established players.
This is a part of our learning curve, it also serves to discourage those that are looking for a purely MUD based game of hack n' slash. It promotes RP, reinforces our theme, and reinforces that our game is not hack and slash.
We take time on the admin side to discuss this with players who continually come out of character generation and attack people. We help them understand as much as we can. Not everyone ends up getting it, but for those of you that stick around (and there are a bunch of you that have!), you're better off for it and so is everyone else who plays.
<3
-- S