You won't be able to frisk, get items from, drag, pickpocket or strip things from someone who has just disconnected. In most locations, this cooldown will be in effect for an hour. If they disconnect in a cube hotel room, apartment room (these room have the 'redec' commands) or any location with a bed, it will only be in effect for 10 minutes.
Another character did NOT disconnect but clearly fell asleep at their keyboard. (Stopped responding for several minutes following an RP exchange in which said character had been yawning and was in the process of saying goodnight and leaving.) The general community rule in the past has been to protect people who stop responding without logging off by taking them to a safe place. I think it's fair to say this is something most or all of us have done for IC friends, for the completely valid IC reason of not wanting your friend to be robbed because they were not paying attention (and you'd notice if your friend just spaced out and quit answering you IRL) and avoiding the IC "you just LEFT me there!?" for leaving a person in an unsafe location. Ultimately, in the situation I witnessed, the character who attempted to move the nonresponsive character to a safe place was not permitted to do so because the act of grappling was considered "having him in a chokehold," even though in the past, grapple has been considered to not be an aggressive action if RP clarifies the intent.
The disconnection timer clearly protects people in the case of accidental connection drops, but it seems to have the opposite effect in the case of ones that are going to be longer-term- e.g. a person falling asleep at their keyboard. And in this case, the rule stated here that a person could not be grabbed for an hour after 'disconnecting' was enforced even though the connection had not dropped. (At least I assume this is the logic, as this is the thread referenced and it is a change from past precedent.) And this seems to be a particularly harsh punishment when Sindome is a game that requires a person to get to a safe location to log out. Someone feeling drowsy can't bang out a quick "@quit" wherever they are and then be safe until they next log in.
"Tough break," the answer given by the staff member involved, does not seem like a stance that is ultimately good for player retention. I understand that, from an IC perspective, grabbing a person and dragging them around isn't cool, but we don't have an alternative to the grapple command and it has been used for this purpose as a standard practice at least as long as I've been playing.
So... 1) is this change intended to affect this, and 2) what do we do now?
The players in question, whether idle or not, are in a living breathing world, and when they're connected, the world reactions to what they do or what's done to them. The supposed 'victim' in this case, IE the idle person being grappled, cannot express their consent to passersby so other players, and NPCs, will just see it as someone getting chokeholded off a barstool and dragged off.
Yes, it is a tough break, because there is no amount of quantifiable time for a person to just stand wherever they please and say "well I'm inactive so I'm untouchable." Or on the opposite side of things, a player can't just grab someone and drag them off and not have everyone else around react.
Do, if I understand it correctly, doing this could be construed by bystanders as an attack and might result in someone responding to the perceived attack:
grapple joe
north
However, if the person I want to drag has @trusted me and I add in the extra bits as Slither suggested, it is less likely to be construed as an attack by bystanders:
.squat down and .lift Joe as carefully as I .can
grapple joe
.make my way slowly through the bar, carrying Joe gingerly.
north
Is this accurate? Am I understanding things correctly?
Do, if I understand it correctly, doing this could be construed by bystanders as an attack and might result in someone responding to the perceived attack:
grapple joe
north
However, if the person I want to drag has @trusted me and I add in the extra bits as Slither suggested, it is less likely to be construed as an attack by bystanders:
.squat down and .lift Joe as carefully as I .can
grapple joe
.make my way slowly through the bar, carrying Joe gingerly.
north
Is this accurate? Am I understanding things correctly?
1. You can indeed grapple someone who is idle and take them to a safe place. We do not want people treating 'grapple' like it's a 'joke'. It's not three stoogies time and you grapple your friend for the yuck yucks, it can definitely be a violent act, especially during combat and we want players to see it as such. That does not prevent you from helping a friend. If your friend was staring at a war at a bar in real life you wouldn't just leave them there. If a stranger was staring at a bar in real life, you might leave them there, and in that case it's your decision if you wanna help get them to a safe place.
2. We are still figuring out where the disconnect cooldown fits into the game, that's why we haven't announced any major policy changes just yet. We want to see if/what problems it solves. Once we've seen it doing it's job for a bit and gotten some feedback, we will announce policy changes regarding sleepers.
It's my intention that after an hour, people should be free game. This leads me to my third point.
3. YOU are responsible for your connection to the game, in the same way you are responsible for your actions on the game. There is very little way for the admin, let alone another player, to know you are disconnected because of internet trouble, or disconnected because your internet or power went out. The disconnect timer is a way for us to let players know, via code, if they are OK to rob someone they find. It's up to YOU to get back on the game and get somewhere safe if you lose power or internet. In a day where so many people have cell phones, this shouldn't be the most difficult thing ever.
If you fall asleep at the keyboard, that's also on you. If you're then attacked or robbed, you need to take responsibility for going to sleep IRL when you need to. If there is an emergency, a real emergency, you can 'xhelp house is on fire please put me in the void', much as I did when my house was on fire.
In the end though, you are responsible for your character and their safety. We have taken measures to help ensure your safety during internet and power hiccups, but it is YOUR responsibility, and no other players. If something bad happens to your character, as much as that sucks, you gotta accept it and move forward.
Any other questions?
-- S
-- S
I'd rather see some sort of clear in-between state where we're not allowed/supposed to take advantage, but we can still react ICly and make sure our buddy's good when we see them black out at the bar.
Also, I'm not sure what ReeferMadness means when he mentions sleepers vanishing from room descriptions... Could you guys please clarity?
Lastly, I haven't really tried to push the limits here. I mean, as far as I know, we're still not supposed to mess with sleepers right? Any suggestions on good ways to test this?
General complaints.
Timer is too long. 30 minute timer should be enough, with it being 5 if they are in a room with a bed.
Information is presented unclearly within the help file. And the help file should mention that the timer is an hour long. Without having to search it up on the BGBB.
Ultimately ineffectual if the grapple is allowed. Say I have a locking room in my base. I can grapple sleepers and drag them to my place. Place them in a holding cell, and wait. If they reconnect, they don't know where they are. And are in my dark room. Without a logical and consistent way of knowing how to direct people to help them. This is a clear and direct way that this disconnect timer doesn't allow much in the way of protection. There's a few others. It only prevents stealing directly, but you can disarm them just fine, so if holding an object you can kick it from their hands and be on your merry way.
Suggestions for handling improvements,
So, first off, the most absolute retool suggestion for me, would be to make it to where they blend in with the crowd. A pseudo OOC status. Display something like "1 person blends into the crowd here just another face." If they are disconnected longer than 2 minutes. And 25 minutes after that. Make it so that they reappear sleeping, unprotected. This is in my mind an optimal solution. As it doesn't waste anyone's time. And provides better protection than now.
Whereas now if someone is tailing me and I DC... I can exploit that, and come back 40-50 minutes later, like, "FUCK ISP DC'D ME" and in all likelihood my tails fucked off, because who the fuck waits 40-50 minutes with a finger up their ass on a game centrally based around RP.
Next up, the hands thing, even if you don't do the above suggestion, prevent disarming from working, or make the disarm put the object in your inventory instead. I've stripped crates from people who had been disconnected for about 10 minutes probably. Adding a check to prevent things like this from happening would be a very good thing to do. I'd say don't prevent grapple from working. As that could be necessary, and there's plenty of ways to stop someone from taking off with your homegirl if they have to drag her cross the street and around 3 corners.
I think the grapple exception is there to allow a certain class of PCs to do their job easier without having to stand around waiting to move sleepers to a safe and GM-allowed area. Maybe more attention needs to be put on this in the sleeper help, like a redirect to the aforementioned kidnapping article, to show abuse of this exception will not be tolerated.
There is a restriction on robbing sleeping characters in public places. This restriction could last up to an hour of time. This is to prevent someone who loses internet connection suddenly from being robbed due to an OOC issue. This protection starts if you disconnect in a public place, and continues for a short period of time which should allow you to reconnect to the game from your phone, or another wifi connection.
YOU are responsible for your connection to the game, in the same way you are responsible for your actions on the game. There is very little way for the admin, let alone another player, to know you are disconnected because of internet trouble, or disconnected because your internet or power went out. The disconnect timer is a way for us to let players know, via code, if they are OK to rob someone they find. It's up to YOU to get back on the game and get somewhere safe if you lose power or internet. In a day where so many people have cell phones, this shouldn't be the most difficult thing ever.
If you fall asleep at the keyboard, that's also on you. If you're then attacked or robbed, you need to take responsibility for going to sleep IRL when you need to. If there is an emergency, a real emergency, you can 'xhelp house is on fire please put me in the void', much as I did when my house was on fire.
I've experienced someone ALT+F4 out after dying before and not being able to interact with body for an extended time was mind-boggling at the time.
Yes, if you're in the dead state and you DC, it applies the sleeper rule including message with the suggestion to review help sleepers.
Thanks, Slither!
