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Returning from @OOC when hiding

I recently ran into a bit peculiar issue when had to suddenly @OOC when in an unsafe place and hiding. I saw returned with @IC, people started to refer to my character, even though they couldn't see me hiding, and the hide held through @OOC/@IC cycle as I confirmed through gl people.

So here is a suggestion, make the @OOC and @IC messages run against the same checks as would spotting hiding/sneaking person go. This way having to go @OOC as sneak, won't announce your return with fanfare to people who otherwise would have no clue.

Not a fan of stealth OOCing. I feel it could be abused.There should be no room for confusion as to weather you can't see or didn't see a person because they wen't OOC or if it was due to IC reasons. Not a fan of blurring those lines.
What Mobius said. When you go @OOC you effectively disappear from the gameworld, and if we're able to reappear suddenly without players being alerted then there's a chance for unfairness. I know you mentioned skill checks, but there are ways other than skill checks that players may be looking for hidden players, which wouldn't be accounted for.
It is a point @Mobius, but the counterpoint is that, in the case described above, people will react to the Xyz returned from OOC as if they see the character, as unless they will then "look" to verify, they can't know that their characters don't see them.

Maybe we can expand the message to make it clear to not treat it as IC visibility of said PC?

Maybe it's best not to go OOC while you're hiding. Sneak away somewhere safer first.
Not always an option to get safe before you need to @ooc.
I mean, going @ooc when you're in possible danger is semi-tantamount to cheating anyway, isn't it? I know it's not quite the same, but you couldn't @ooc while running away from someone chasing you, either.

Maybe the answer is not engaging in risky stuff when you might get suddenly pulled away?

Or maybe, as alternative echo "A player has returned from OOC". We currently do not display what player is in @OOC, so let people type "look" and see if they see someone new?
"Maybe we can expand the message to make it clear to not treat it as IC visibility of said PC?

The entire point of @OOC and @IC is to announce the player leaving the game world because of RL events. Stealth is a extremely powerful skill in the game. Going @ooc and @ic from stealth back into stealth is a terrible idea.

Can we stay on topic crook nose?
I am on topic, I'm trying to offer more reasonable solutions to the problem you're experiencing.
While that's true, that's....just a risk you take when you play, I think.

If you're hiding in an unsafe situation and you need to fo AFK, I think you just need to take the risk and go AFK. Being able to safely @OOC is WAY too ripe for abuse in that situation.

I'd only be remotely comfortable with it if it involved a skillcheck each @ooc (going and coming back), probably a challenging one, to reveal yourself.

Topic is a suggestion on how to change a game behaviour, not solve whatever IC situation you may think this specifically describes. I understand that you are trying ot be helpful, but it isn't. Sometimes you just have to OOC, not because you are meta bastard or whatever, but say, you have kids and one just tripped and you need to evaluate whether it's fine and normal bump or, well, you need to run off to ER.

So really, can we stay on merit whether the change could be good or bad? Not for reasons behind the sudden need to @OOC?

The solution is not to go @ooc in a place you don't want to be seen going back @ic in. It's an entirely out of character process, and if you're going @ooc in places where it would be risky or detrimental to your character's health if they were caught caught in it, then maybe just don't.

There are extenuating circumstances, sure, but the game can't feasibly cater to every possible emergency a player behind the keyboard could ever theoretically face.

It is a bad idea, sorry.

It would be a bad change that would introduce a lot of possibility for abuse. Just as one example, imagine you snuck onto the lev and hid, then went OOC. Every five minutes or so you hop back in to see if anyone else is on board the lev. That's a situation where this would make it easy to selectively wait and mug people.

Ditto for say, sneaking up to Gold and laying in wait somewhere, maybe even inside a corporation, occasionally popping out to see who is on SIC.

Idk if this is codified anywhere but I think OOC should only be used when you're in relatively safe circumstances already. Using it to escape a risky situation shouldn't be okay.

Marleen. You're not understanding what we are saying.

@OOC exists for the exact use cases you describe. Allowing people to return from @OOC into a hidden state would completely break any balance of stealth.

RL happens, and we get that. A friend of mine ICly got taken advantage of recently because of OOC things. It happens. People typo commands, people fall asleep at the keyboard, etc. We as a playerbase are asked to have some semblance of respect for our fellow players with these things, but it's totally valid to see someone's door open or them passed out on the street and rob them.

What you are asking for would When you @OOC you are gone from the game world entirely. Allowing people to ICly dissapear and then OOCly poof from the game would be absolutely abused to hell and back.The @IC messaging is very clear on this. You are re-entering the game and are subject to consequences. Treat @IC as if you were walking out of a room, a building, or whatever else accordlingly. Simply putting on a hood before going @OOC alleviates 90%+ of use cases as you describe.

Em.. Few things, and in bulletpoints, as few people repeat them and they are just wrong.

1. @OOC/IC DOES NOT break stealth. You will return as hidden after @IC as you @OOCed out.

2. It seriously doesn't break stealth as it is now.

3. Really.

4. The problem is that when you then return from @OOC into your hiding, it announces your SHORT (or name if not disguised) to the entire room. And unless people "look" to not-see you there, many just resume roleplaying like you are in the room.

I am not asking here to boost stealth or realy open stuff for abuse. Just to maybe not announce your short/OOC name along the way to everyone. They knew the player was @OOC, and now they know this player is back @IC. Do they see them? Maybe, maybe not.

Thanks for the clarification on that.

To be clear then: I don't think it should work the way it does today, at all.

Maybe you shouldn't be able to go @ooc while stealthed, then.
1. Well, it meta-breaks stealth, which is...let's be honest, basically the same as IC'ly breaking it.

2. If @ooc doesn't IC'ly break stealth, it absolutely should because that's SILLY. Or rather, you simply shouldn't be allowed to @ooc while stealthed. I don't think you can @ooc while sitting even, why can you do it while stealthed?

3. None of those points address any of the concerns or points people have already made, which largely boil down to: sometimes you need to AFK when it's really, really inconvenient IC'ly. It happens to everyone, just go AFK and hope for the best, this change would be a poor one.

I don't see a reason to change the announcement for someone going @ooc and @ic.

I do, however, see the reason that one shouldn't be able to @ooc and @IC while hidden using stealth.

-1 op's suggestions

+1 new suggestion that has been created through the conversation of this thread.

Stealthing then going @ooc without a message to escape someone searching for you is bound to happen, and I can see tons of ways for this to be abused. I say prohibit @ooc while stealthed, like we prohibit it for sitting/being unconscious/immobilized/etc
So what is your suggestion to when @OOC calls and you are hidden?

And well, why do you think the named announcement is good for the game? You were aware that someone was @OOC in the room when started a scene. Continue having run, and get a notice that that person has returned (without any details), so you either can tell them from the scene, or you can't. Assume it as background noise - as you are never alone in sindome (short of @OOC in someone's private place).

Go somewhere safe, unhide and @ooc.

Otherwise, AFK where you are and reap the rewards.

It's a risk you take, as a player, that sometimes life happens. Something out of your control and you have to step away. It might not be the safest place, it might not be the most ideal situation, but it happens and that's just part of it.

Sometimes you just need to build a bridge and get over it.

^ what Ducky (and like a dozen people have already said, cmon)
So it's preferred to just leave your character, without player behind, than to leverage the system made for just this situation? Alright then. I avoid doing this like a plague out of respect for other players who may want to interact with it, not just deal with not-there-blank.
Leverage the system? So you mean to leverage going @OOC as a tool? @OOC is not a 'tool' to be used as protection. It comes with the names as a balance for it, else its use would run rampant

If you're hidden, are you really going to be interacted with anyway?
You can be if someone spots you. Or someone tosses in sonics, plenty of weird scenarios. Not to mention sic etc.
That's metagame then. Use XHelp and report it.
What's metagame? Using @ooc?
Using the room message that someone is OOC, returning or leaving the gameworld to make IC decisions.
This is why I was offering other solutions/advice to your problem, Marleen, which you were quick to dismiss as being outside the scope of your post, but they're not. This is one of those things each player has to solve for themselves, there's really no system in the game to pause during dangerous moments.
If someone is metagaming the presence of your character based off of an OOC message to the players, report it.
That's kinda the point @Dani, this can and so far as I've seen was just an innocent accident. Someone saw the message, assumed my PC is in the room, then looked around and realized "doh, they are not here.". They can still look around at @ic message and try to spot the person, that' all perfectly fine.
When OOC calls, go @ooc.

Outside of that, evaluate your RL obligations, or potential RL obligations BEFORE you go put your character into potentially dangerous situations.

this doesn't need a change to code, as the proposed change in this post will lead to rampant abuse and cheating, for what i was hoping were blatantly obvious reasons that have been repeated tenfold
I guess I am not as rotten as most of the player base and the abhorrent feel of "how can this be abused" which seems to overshadow almost anything.

Heck, even when faced with evidence to contrary, as stealth lasted through @OOC as long as I can remember, and yet you don't see it abused on every corner, people insist that this is just madness and abuse playground and it should be happening like that, right now, all the time. And yet it isn't.

I refuse to be that rotten.

It isn't abused because we can see when you enter and exit OOC. It will be abused if we cannot.
You don't seem to understand that potential abuse is WHY this system is the way it is, Marleen. I'm not sure how to get that through your head right now that without protections, something will be abused.
Let's not call the whole playerbase rotten, please. There have been a lot of reasons mentioned why this might not be a good change, you're unfortunately refusing to hear them. We have to play with each other, with other people, many of whom have experience with the game and its systems, many of whom have different opinions than us.

I think if you're going to post an idea you should also be willing to listen to the feedback to the idea.

I get the potential, but I also believe in staff to then tackle abuse and, if needed, put safeguards in place. But seems that almost every idea here has to go through endless "how it can be abused." cycle.
Because we need to understand how something can be abused instead of just jumping in blindly because "i think it should"

Implementing something without considering risks and challenges is immature as fuck in a professional standpoint.

Making sure game mechanics can't be abused is a basic game design practice though.
Evaluating the risks, challenges, and dangers of something is basic decision-making practice in general.
Because building in protections frees admin up to do work that they want to do over having to babysit shitbirds all the time, particularly over instances of abuse that can be hard to monitor.
I wouldn't say this is common but I've definitely seen it happening and it's always, along with @ooc on the levs, struck me as avoidance of mechanics. If nothing else it's good this has made more players aware of the potential for, and existence of, abuse of the command.
OOC on the lev, that's not cool. That definitely sounds like someone trying to mitigate the risk of getting mugged.
The way I have seen this, right from the first post, is that that sounded like an issuethat should be have been put to xhelp to see what the most suitable solution would be.
Can confirm. Few days ago I saw someone @OOC at the station, @IC as the train arrived, then @OOC once they were on.

Didn't think much of it since they could have gotten lucky, or actually were OOC but set a timer to alert them to pop IC for a second, or what-have-you

Seen a few go OOC on the lev. Usually looked like they were suddenly busy and just passing by. Did not seem suspicious to me at all.
Going OOC on the lev is suspect A.F.

Let's be real here. The lev exists as one of the major avenues for mixer on corpie crime. Traveling around the city on public transport is not the time to be saying: 'Cool, time for a ten minute bio because surely nothing will happen here of all places.'

Reading this thread I suddenly get the feeling that players use @ooc during active situations more than they should be
@marleen

"I guess I am not as rotten as most of the player base and the abhorrent feel of 'how can this be abused' which seems to overshadow almost anything."

Please unplug characters from players here. It's been said before in townhalls that there are not heroes in Sindome. We have a giant thread about how there are not protagonists in Cyberpunk. Cyberpunk is not the setting to be throwing shade at your fellow players for doing their best to play good characters. Good characters who should be taking every chance to lie, cheat, steal, fuck and murder each other for the pitiful scraps we have to get by on.

When we get new features, or game systems are changed, we have to consider 'how does this change affect my character's ability to do above lying, cheating, stealing, fucking and murdering?'

This does not mean that we are throwing punches in OOC or on the boards though. I have MAD respect for some of my long-time rival and enemy players. But when suggestions are made that will clearly impact game balance, we should be doing due diligence in thinking how this might impact not just our characters, but the health of the MOO overall. As people have brought up, @ooc is a command that has the strong potential to be abused. This would be an enhancement to the potential abuse of the command. And while it's true, that staff can always crack down on the players for doing so, it requires 1) That they catch it in the mess of scroll that is being able to have global oversight of the game, and 2) That players are AWARE of issues and can report them. We can't report problems to the command and abuse if we don't know it's being used in the first place. That is the reason we're pushing back so hard, and not because we all want to be exploiting scumbags.

This was a bug and has been resolved.