Saturday, Oct 3rd (TOWN HALL MEETING)
Put in your topics now, vote in the poll too!

Fire based weapons and pyrotechnic items/weaponry besides normal explosives?. I.e incendary grenades (if they don't already exist) flamethrowers (both proper and equivelent of aerosol and a lighter)

-The Matrix

-Body guarding

-Fire based weaponry

-Vehicle Combat

-Cybernetics Development

-Combat Messaging (I wonder what messages you are seeing though, as we have some pretty extensive combat messages that don't include long_blade. Could you please list a few in a response?)

-Plans for Grapple

Keep 'em coming folks!

--S

The game lately is RAMPANT with players making their characters act like there are only sixty people in Withmore and like they know each and every one of them.

This results in, at best, unthemely roleplaying and, at worst,unintentional or intentional metagaming. No, it really, really does. Really. And it ruins the game.

I've heard a lot of different kinds of excuse-making and far-out justifications for why someone thinks it's actually "in character for my character" to think some of the things they think, reach some of the conclusions they reach, take some of the actions they take, when the unmitigated reality is that the player believes that there's only one player with a HondaMitsu Whatever in the game and therefore their character knows who just drove past, or that there's only one player whose character is "lithe" and therefore they can turn Judicial evidence over the person their character saw in a poncho shroud.

It's almost funny to me when they're wrong about who they think did what. Almost. Because it's smarter to allow your own character know what's realistic rather than to let them know what you OOCly believe about something you've seen. It's fairer, it's better RP, and it's funner. It's absofucking LUTE ly funner for the other players, the ones who are rightly or wrongly on the other end of your metagaming.

It takes creativity to RP the theme. It takes integrity to RP your character's plausible perceptions. It takes thoughtfulness to back off from your burning desire to win Sindome and allow the City to be bigger than you are.

http://sindo.me/mjv5db

One thing I was a bit dissapointed by is the size of the city itself. After my first day, (where my head was spinning and I was a bit overwhelmed) I realized that the city really is... kind of tiny. For example, the Red district covers just nine square blocks, or thereabouts. I'm aware that because this is a game where adding areas is kind of a big deal, so that areas being no larger and no smaller than they need to be is essential, but it would be nice if there was a way to make the city feel more like a vast city you can get lost in, and less like a 3x3x3 cube of city blocks stacked on top of each other.

!Grumbling for several moments while stuffing a fistful of chy across the bar, Player tries in vain to grab Bartender's attention away from the fifteen other people doing the exact same thing.

-Availability of items. I know that it creates RP the fact that you have to lease, borrow, buy or steal items since they are scarce and or expensive. I get it, and how it is affected by class warfare and how it affects power balances. But recently I've noticed that some items are simply almost non existant and they just prevent rp and plots and jobs because of their almost nonexistence.

-NPC bodyguards: We can have pets, or gangers or agents, how about merch NPC bodyguards? Since PC bodyguards are boring jobs, very, having to just stand still most of the time. They don't have to be good or cheap or even reliable, but it's a good option for some characters.

-Other current bitches: the matrix, the artistry skill, grapple mechanics.

Looking forward to this! I hope I don't forget to login this time!

Right now perma-death is optional, which isn't very themely. I'd love to discuss how we can make it a more concerning reality, a constant specter that looms over your every decision instead of just something you can shrug off for the price of a clone.

You don't have to leave your room. You don't have to ever put yourself at risk if you don't want to. Engaging in any behavior which could result in your perm-death is very much optional. Many characters play it entirely safe: They keep their clones up to date, and they don't mess around. They treat the game like a big chat room, or perhaps a text version of the sims, going back and fourth between the bar and their apartment.

These characters are in no real danger from perma-death. But at any moment, they could change their mind: Stick their neck out, try picking a few pockets, pick a fight, start an argument on the SIC, and actually make death an option.

Some of us play our characters that way all the time. But for some, death isn't something they really have to be concerned with; It's strictly optional, and they seem to like it that way.

Also death hitting your stats/skills is what DCD is all about... you're asking to re-code the wheel.

But I agree with the go light option when you have a clone.

Also, this does fall on the individual artist to police themselves, and I suppose the community at large to attempt to police each other. If you have a shitty artistry skill, it doesn't matter how good you are at describing things yourself, you should not be describing items over the top and of amazing quality if your skill level does not fit that.

As for policing each other, this can be done IC. Did you order an item from a tailor and although they described it amazingly and are asking a large amount for it, you inspect it and it says it only worth a couple hundred chyen or something? Call them out on it, something like, "Are you kidding me? The stitching looks like shit on this. I'm not paying five grand for this crap."

Thanks to all the staff for being receptive to making these town halls bi-yearly.

You can't quite fake tailoring either unless your buyer can't codedly estimate value, but, I recognize that estimation doesn't matter when people are looking at a person who's wearing a shittily-tailored item - OR a fabulous one.

I do have an idea about a way to mitigate this and I will propose it to Johnny.

Grapple! (yay)

Body guarding and multi player fights (nods head)

--Also:

Permadeath:

"You don't have to leave your room. You don't have to ever put yourself at risk if you don't want to. Engaging in any behavior which could result in your perm-death is very much optional. Many characters play it entirely safe: They keep their clones up to date, and they don't mess around. They treat the game like a big chat room, or perhaps a text version of the sims, going back and fourth between the bar and their apartment.

These characters are in no real danger from perma-death. But at any moment, they could change their mind: Stick their neck out, try picking a few pockets, pick a fight, start an argument on the SIC, and actually make death an option."

There is still danger from death & perma-death for these characters (though less, true). If they want to spend a few months getting a little more familiar with the game before diving into it more, I can understand that. They still can die. If they SIC and only go to work and bars on Gold and Green, they can still die. If they are in Red and stay out of fights, they can still get enemies and die. There are enemies around that travel between levels and there are enemies that Red has and there are enemies that Green has. All it takes is one wrong thought or an association with someone that goes wrong.

Keep in mind, corpies and successful mixers can afford clones, therefore decreasing perma-death. It's one thing that makes becoming a corpie look worthwhile. That and food on the table and a roof consistently over your and your family's heads. Your kids that just might actually make it to adulthood and at least to their mid-20's. That's why a lot of low paying jobs on Gold are held by people in the Mix and then maybe they work up to an Assistant and maybe get 8,000 or if they are lucky, 10,000 a week.

--

Have dying make you lose a flat percentage of your skills/stats. So new players aren't hit too hard.

We already lose UE, Memories, Time. I don't think every death should have this happen. However, should a player not have a clone and maybe, due to player ignorance or timing and corpse cloning fails, the character maybe coming back with a certain amount lost. I did like that idea on the OOC chat.

Perhaps first clone cheaper/free for immies?

No. Keep in mind, I have been in those shoes. This is something that Genetek would not do. They are a business. They are in the business of making money. And keeping clients. What do they care if someone can't buy a clone when they are already cheap. Not cheap if you die all the time but then, that's okay by them. And clones progressively costing more. (once again, business of keeping clients) That wouldn't work out well and they would lose stock value because as cloning happens and you are farther and farther away from the original body, your DNA will eventually start to break down after a while. For it to cost more would end up with major, not lawsuits as there aren't courts, but there would be major reprucussions.

Now, you mentioned different qualities of clones depending on where they got their upload done. I'm thinking that might be in the works though not sure about that. I do know about some IC thinking on the matter before.

Make Go Light an option, even if you have a clone. (I thought this already was but guess not. Yes, it is a good idea. Less suicides. Just for some reason, the clone never activates.)

--

@ErgoProxy - Not sure what you mean by people who have little amount of disguise skill getting away with it. You use it, you experience very fast the results of not spending the time learning it. I have seen someone in game try using disguise. As Linekin put it, you can't fake it with RP.

However, I like the idea of a quality detector for those with little to no ability to truly detect value. You should be able to see the quality of stitching for example not matter if you have an eye for such things or not.

--

Beyond that, I'm going to ask whether the situation might be improved not so much with realtime messaging changes and more with ideas which have been requested elsewhere, along the lines of having more/better information about wounds location and type, once the fight is over? There could be more to it, but as far as I know, the main reason Ive heard about, regarding why players want "more information" doesn't have to do with what the content of the combat scroll is in realtime, but in wanting to roleplay against what happened, once it's over. I absolutely am familiar with scrolling back in order to figure out where I, or whoever else, got hit, and that isn't even an option for someone who might encounter a wounded character later and didn't witness the fight firsthand.

Be free to describe other benefits or ideas around enhancing the combat scroll, if I've missed somethig that's on your mind.

Saturday [6PM-9PM] October 3rd.

Also, as for keeping an eye on what type of hits you're taking as they come in: combat scroll can be a really real thing.

Your Free UE makes me laugh. :D

My main suggestion for this would be to split the current grapple into two separate systems. One would be 'grab' and be for RP purposes. No attacks could be made, and breaking it would be very easy. The other would be 'grapple', and work largely how the current system does, but hopefully with more use of skills and stats to determine how things work out, as well as a risk of being injured in the attempt so it isn't just a free attack.

Okay, enough about grapple.

For the Matrix... well, I'm sure everyone would really love it, but just as sure that it would be an absurd amount of work. Personally I'd be happy if the Grid was just... a bit more integrated into the world. Right now there is... well, virtually no reason to go there. I think 90% of people go there as nothing more than a mail service for their grid mail, and occasionally to skim the forums. Finding nodes is difficult, there is depressingly little information there, and even major corporations have virtually 0 Grid presence. SK doesn't advertise its cyberware. It'd be a great place to put in game information in about their products. There is this strange sort of addition with 'The Mind' as things on there are theoretically discoverable on the Grid, but good luck finding even the slightest trace of most of what is there. Combining the two a bit better and in a bit more IC format would be wonderful.

It would also be great if there was a reason to be on the Grid. Right now it is a bit of a catch-22. There aren't any people on the Grid, because there isn't much there, because there isn't any reason to put anything there, because there aren't any people on the Grid. I think putting more information there would be a good first step. Then again, if there really is plans to replace the whole thing, then I suppose there wouldn't be too much point to putting effort into it.

Next!

One thing I'd really love to see is more robots/drones. I know there are a couple of eyebots or whatever they're called floating around, but I think it'd be wonderful to see more of them, to see little drones running around performing small tasks, and particularly to give players access (or more access) to rigging of drones and what not. It might be that I just haven't encountered it ICly yet and it is really out there, but giving a player the ability to have some eyes in the sky floating around, or little mechanical assistants/bodyguards or whatever. I just feel like this is a rather classic element of cyberpunk that seems to be virtually non-existent in the game. As a short term thing, I think it'd be great to have a few more eyebots wandering the streets, keeping an eye on things, to give the presence of more technology and the feeling of being watched by big brother. It would also pave the way for seeing player controlled eye-bots and such and having less of a 'well, some other player is watching' instant mindset when they're seen in odd places.

I support the bodyguard suggestion. Give a 'bodyguard' command and any time someone does an attack on the person being guarded, there is a chance for it to target the bodyguard instead, or perhaps just enter combat with the bodyguard instead of the target entirely.

Disconnecting. Someone mentioned how strange it can be that people are always 'asleep' when they disconnect, even though they are actually theoretically potentially going about their job and such. I think it might be nice if there was a... well, a way to set that someone is disconnected, but going about their daily life instead of simply asleep. Perhaps let people set a space of time when they would be actually asleep, and a time when they would be doing their jobs or otherwise awake, and let them set a message that reflects the latter which it would automatically change to at the set time so long as they're in some particular area (like their own home). Maybe not take them out entirely, but adjust their message to something like “is off on their daily business right now.” and them logging on would be them coming home from shopping or working or grabbing a morning coffee. I realize there are significant difficulties with this, and it may not be feasible, especially as I've described it, but some way to not have sleeping bodies all over the places in our homes and such would be wonderful.

Permadeath – I'll throw my 2 chyen in on this. Personally, I don't see any problem with how the system is now. Increasing the penalties for dying would be a terrible decision, as it would only push people harder towards never taking risks. And honestly, I don't see the system being 'optional' as some put it as a flaw. Not all characters are risk takers. Not all characters want to be so extreme and live on the edge. It honestly feels like a slap in the face to suggest that playing a character who doesn't have a death wish is somehow not playing the game correctly. I'll leave it at that after spending half an hour typing, deleting, and retyping various responses.

Training – I think it would be nice to have some level of in game training. I don't think it should be much. I played a game recently that was all 'improve through skill use' and at times I found it very entertaining and loved it, but I also found myself grinding terribly, and realizing how hard it was for people that couldn't be on much to do anything, and how much less I was actually RPing. That said, I'd love to be able to get an extra UE a week or half a UE a day or whatever through some IC means of practice or training. Maybe visiting the gym for half an hour (in a way somewhat similar to how SHI works) gives you half a UE a day towards a physical stat. Or buying some sort of 'learn X language tapes' would slowly trickle in some points to speaking a language.

As I said, I think the amount should be very small and limited so as not to give people with more free time a large advantage, and I think the activity required should be relatively quick so people without a ton of time could do it without serious commitment. I suppose in some ways this amounts to a 'more UE please' request, and perhaps some additional restrictions could be placed on it. Maybe it's only valid for very low skill levels of things, giving people a means to gain a little passing familiarity in something as a sort of side hobby without having to devote overly much to it.

I suppose my thing is I'd love to see a bit more 'on screen' use of UE. I'm guilty of it too, spending my UE with little to no RP around it, and I'm going to try and avoid that more, but I really think it would be nice to have some sort of motivation, or even tools to aid in the RP like language books or tapes, computer/vehicle manuals, dojos, etc. It is though a fairly minor concern overall, as much of this can be obtained by the players themselves, but currently the only training I ever seem to see RPed at all is spars.

Gadgets – Thecraftydragon mentioned this, but I'd like to as well. I'd love to see more high tech gadgets in general. Right now there aren't (or at least I haven't seen) all that many things that make Sindome feel like it is set in the future beyond a few of the big things like cloning, the dome itself, and the chrome. I think the robots I mentioned above would help increase that feel, and perhaps changes would come about as a result of the introduction of the matrix, but even pieces of tech that we have now might be cool additions. Earpieces to talk on your phone without holding it for example. Glasses that can act as small TVs for the wearer. I'm bad at coming up with this sort of tech, but I imagine we could get plenty of suggestions for small things that could add to the immersion some. And yes, I know there are a fair number of things looking around in the city, but I'd love to see it more on an individual basis.

SIC chatter – Related to what bean_dip said, I'd love it if some scripts could be set up (though babble on maybe) to have some random chatter happen on SIC to make it seem a bit fuller. Wouldn't have to be overly complicated or anything. Maybe just a huge list of random names that throw out an occasional “Hello Withmore” or “Call me again” or “Sorry private SICer, no.” along with a few other things we commonly hear other players say, and random snatches of conversation. Doesn't even have to be a full conversation back and forth, just random snatches of it to represent the mundane stuff you normally ignore kind of slipping past your mental filters. Some people may not like the extra 'noise' it creates, but honestly that's supposed to be a downside of the chip, is that there is tons and tons of noise from it.

TL:DR Grapple needs work. Matrix please. Robots/drones please. Go bodyguarding. Sleeping when disconnected alternatives. Permadeath is fine. Training. Gadgets please. SIC chatter.

P.S. I'm sure everyone would love more chrome. This is cyberpunk after all! I think more exclusive cyber would be great, make you chose between getting option A or B like the limited slots in the eyes and ears do to some extent.

This means two things: One, all the UE in the world can still result in a total inability to actually use skills effectively. Two, a means of training is already in place.

This looks to me like the same thing I just complained about in another thread: Players asking for "new code" to solve a roleplaying problem.

This has come up before.

You can RP that they are off at work, class, etc. There are tens of millions of names on SIC. It's easy to miss them. Also, there are areas that don't have signal (sicnal). Some people go incognito.

Lots of reasons why you miss them. Then maybe they take a cat nap later or come out of where there was no sic.

PUT SIMPLY (in a general way): When you're offline, that's when you (the character) do your usual stuff (class, basic work, etc.) and when online, you do the RP stuff relating to work (special requests, additional hours) or you learned something in class that day and want to show it off to someone or talk about it and maybe learn a little more (RP and ask your questions).

There's gridmail you can use in game to help get in contact with people who are offline. :)

(I think I understood your concept on the sleep suggestion at least.)

How much time to people spend logged in with their first characters, within the first month / year of gameplay?

Does it change in your second character?

Is there a correlation between # of hours played and character IC status?

Admittedly this is a bit of a selfish subject. But it might also be good in managing expectations for new players, or in managing IC economy planning.

If you're looking to expand the playerbase, but only have a game which people who can devote 5 hours a day of gameplay will remain playing for over a year (i.e. will feel enough success or have enough fun in their first character not to bail out) ...then maybe you want to think about what changes on time 'requirements' could improve retention.

Thanks for considering this.

In the current game build creature NPCs (regardless of size or type) can grapple but can't be grappled which doesn't seem fair. Either they shouldn't be able to grapple at all (in some cases it doesn't make sense) or they should be grappable.

I agree.

I know I've had to pull my dog off of my other. Or I've taken my overly excited pup by the collar and picked him up and took him to the other room.

I know I've tried to RP this in a situation where I've tried to pull a dog into the other room.

I figure the reason behind not being able to grapple is maybe because of the guard dog type attitude the dogs have and then players can just grapple the dogs out of the way. Not good. (I might not be right.)

But some situations do warrant a way to move a dog if it's only responding to one owner and not another? Not sure how this would be worked out.

Sorry I can't just link you straight to them, it takes a long time to do that on my ipad.

If someone could pull what matters out of this thread, start a new one, make this consumable, I'd be happy to contribute on individual breakout topics. :)

Thank you.

Maybe we can also add into the description somehow the skill level? I like when the skill lvl is communicated in the description somehow.

Ex: ..., this competently made %t it fits over the shoulders comfortably, giving plenty of range of motion

Ex: The stitching, done by skilled hands, creates a design....

Ex This jet black button-up dress shirt looks crisp and professional, tailored and made by professional hands for a man around six feet or so in height.

Ex: this %color ...., Cut for the frame of a small man, this competently made %t

The stitching is simple yet sturdy though amateurishly made.

This terribly designed azure blue long sleeved dress is uneven in places and doesn't sit well but still covers the wearer, protecting them from some of the elements, even if one sleeve only goes to the elbow.

* For alterations done by other artists for example (or later when tailor is better):

... for some warmth and seems to have had some minor adjustments done by skilled / expert hands.

Wildgiller: patches of blood (yes!)

* I remember a man buying some boots and later realizing they were women's boots. (so artists, make it a little clearer. *smile* )

* I also remember someone's body suit that ended up taking up much of my webclient screen in description. That was silly in my opinion though I have to admit, when I did get a chance to go back to read it, it was cleverly described. But this could have been easily described in a lot less words. Though clever, seems to me to be jacking up the worth, though they were very skilled it seems.

So, I'm interested in seeing what happens with this skill in the future.

(Psst: Stuff around to make gadgets with, like how you find things to make bombs, so a similar idea?)