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Town Hall Meeting
GMs + Players == Town Hall Meeting

It's been over a decade since the last Sindome Town Hall Meeting. To put it in perspective, I was a brand new player who hadn't even figured out how to emote yet, and it was hosted by Sable and Kevlar as well as Jinkorei.

We touched on a lot of things in that meeting including admin expectations of players, player expectations of admin, potential and impending rule changes, theme ideas, policy changes, code changes and ideas, and much more.

It's a bit of a process to get a meeting going because we need to have a time that most players are available as well as a basic outline of what we want to talk about so we can stay (roughly) on track.

That's the purpose of this thread. The first step is to figure out WHEN (we have the meeting) and the second step is to figure out WHAT (we talk about).

Let's all post times we are available in DOME TIME (DST). For those of you who are new or haven't figured that out, it is roughly PACIFIC TIME (GMT -8). http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/time-zone/usa/california/time/

Best efforts will be made to include ALL players and admin. That may mean our meeting is at a somewhat awkward time for you, so that we include everyone, across our 24 hour play schedule.

The meeting will take a minimum of 2 hours, and you are welcome to only join in for some/all/none of it, however, during the time that the meeting is going on there will be no GMs available and attendance is suggested (if you are able to be on). Please respond in the same manner so it's easy for me to see when the most people are available. DAY + TIME (in DST). Up to three day + time's, ordered from best to worst, starting as early as Sunday, April 21st . For example:

Sunday (April 21st): 10am-11pm

Saturday: 10am-11pm

Tuesday: 5pm-11pm.

--

Once we have the times settled I will open it up for discussion topics. Please wait for me to call for topics to start posting them.

Literally any day, with notice, except Wednesdays. There are none better or worse.

3 pm DST to 12AM DST would be a good start time.

I am available from 5AM DST to 1PM DST
Saturday: 4am through 2am

Sunday: 9am through 3pm

Monday: 9am through 5pm

Applies every week.

not sure if i will have anything of worth to contribute other than my usual ramblings as im still new here but i will attend if possible.

1am - 8am weekdays

10am - 12am mondays

Weekday : 12 AM to 12 PM ( 3 hour window)

Weekends : Depending on other meetings : 8 AM to 3 PM

Most days: 5pm to 3am.
weekdays 6am-9:59am. Weekends 12 noon to 5:pm. These are my preferred times, of course, I will do my best to attend if otherwise. BTW this is a great idea.
Every Thurday for the majority of the day

Sunday(27th) from 6pm-3am DST

Monday(28th) - majority of the day

Slither, create a site poll object and publish it to the homepage. :)
I have created a poll, it is on the homepage. Everyone who already mentioned times please go vote instead. After we have narrowed it done significantly with everyone's votes we can discuss the best option.

Go cast your vote on the poll.

Saturday May 10th [3PM-6PM] DST

This is the official time for the town hall meeting. Come if you can. Even if you're late. It will last a couple of hours. This thread is now for putting forth things that you feel we all need to discuss as a community. No flames, no back and forth about if things need to be talked about or not. That's not what this is about. Put your ideas here, I will read them, and potentially add them to our list of things to talk about.

I want you guys to get involved! This is the FIRST DRAFT of the meeting Agenda. It leaves out the opening and closing stuff, as that's not relevant to the discussion. I need specific topics and sub topics. For instance OOC Issues facing the Mix is super broad. Let's get some ideas going as to what we even need to discuss. Additional sub items to the current agenda or new items entirely.

Discussion on the state of the Mix

OOC Issues facing the Mix

IC Issues facing the Mix

Discussion of the state of Topside

OOC Issues facing Topside

IC Issues facing Topside

Code

What are the biggest bugs or usability issues people have faced?

Is there a consensus among the players about what features and functionality is the most important to see developed, expanded, or fixed?

Website

Suggestions for the website?

Any issues with the website?

New Player Perspective (1 month (or 2 if there are not enough 1s) or younger)

Biggest IC Challenges

Biggest OOC Challenges

Ways we can improve (chargen, website, help files, game-help, etc)

Help us Help you

How to operate effectively without (or with minimal) GM support

Tips on how to open a conversation with an NPC

Tips on how to get the most out of player notes

Effective use of the Grid

Topside iC issues:

IC power structure is odd. I'm noticing players at the top doing things that less important people should be doing. Restructure of NLM and VS empolyees specifically. People should be fighting for promotions, not being buddy buddy with each other all the time. The IC lower management roles don't seem to exist.

There is no news, or very infrequent news. Freelance work should be offered publically.

Tips on how to open discussion with an NPC: A tutorial would be great for this, with examples of what is good, what isn't, and why, in various situations a PC might encounter.
Keep 'em coming people.
Use of grid:

I'm not sure if this is a feature or a function, but the search bar seems to bug up and not work. Considering search features in real life, I think this is a bug.

Feature to go back to the main list of forums from another topic, instead of having to go back to the main page first, would be a nice change.

The Grid doesn't seem nearly as lively as it should be. It'd be nice if more people had positions that required them to make changes to it constantly as part of their job. New pages, more ads...

Would it be possible to post up the transcript of the meeting for those of us in a timezone that means we cannot reasonably attend?
People are not actually buddy buddy in the corporations. They actually find any opportunity to backstab amongst themselves. They just seem buddy buddy.
Code:

The targeting code for objects. I wish it automatically took the 1st object if you don't specify.

The ability to program doors locks. I've never figured it out. help for the door helpfile doesn't help at all. Should probably be intuitive, and not so confusing.

Chemistry code for creating drugs. No helpfiles, no way to really look it up if your character should know, incredibly slow process, don't know how your progress is actually going.

Opening of several social places like the Cinemaplex. Super Fun Happy Land. Have a couple of casinos open up. Give the characters more things to do other then work and drink?
@panda that search bug is only when you search from the first page (the "whats on your mind" one)

Personal pet peeves :

1) Security tech could use some love.

Security analyzers only show one way communication in your security system. If they could show both ways , you would learn alot about the system and who owns a camera. Right now, the system only shows you the input of a system. Most sec stuff is designed that it shows the input of a system, but not the output.

there is a camera in every corner of Red. With all your UE in sec tech , you still don't have the tools to learn who owns what camera. Knowing where a camera is sending its feed to, could help against the bloat of cameras in the mix.

The new warning about installing camera's is great.

2)Being able to hide bugs and security microphones in car would be great. And give even more functionality to the security analyser. Right now , its impossible (for players) to plant a bug in a car. Because you can't search in a car. So an analyser could scan inside a car and reveal the bug. Thus creating more need for qualified security technicians and give them something to do.

3) Kiosks , if they haven't fixed yet. Haven't been confronted with it myself, but from what i heard , they were / are quite wonky.

4) A decay system in automated shop stock. (Here's looking at you ,Janice). Some shops havent been used in forever. Not because that the items that they sell aren't highly looked for. But because the stock they currently have is junk nobody wants. The shop at Kro's is a really good example. Evry item they have stocked is mostly basic. Alot of players would be interested in higher end items , but since nobody is buying basic car parts , the high end parts don't get restocked.

So you end up having to bother the shopkeep, get him / her puppeted and order an item. for evry item you need. if items 'decayed' and were taken out of the shop inventory after 2-3 months and replenished by crate runners , it would give an feel of being able to shop and shops having something new evry now and then. (60 items in a shop on average means something new evry day or two days).

It just isn't realistic for a shop to have the same inventory for a year. Unless its a front for the mob.

I wish you could pay for the people following you when going into the mag-levs. Sometimes your buddy goes idle and you want to head home, or you're taking them home because something OOC'ly came up, and there is no way to get them through.
If they're following you in that case then pay x (amount) should work.
Cred chips need to work in most shops topside, and only cred chips in shops on Green and Blue.
Nice initiative. Good luck, I hope it helps some. Please upload the transcript, like Wintermute asked, for us to take a look at the discussion.
A fully edited (as this is going to be one heck of a log) log will be made available to all players regardless of them attending or not so we can all get on the same page. Let's make this less specific and a bit more broad. I'm less interested in the very specific examples and more interested in the more broader or sweeping issues.

A bug fix on a kiosk or change to a mag-lev entrance is going to have a very low overall impact on the game. I'm not saying it's not important, or that is isn't information I am interested in hearing, it's just not in the spirit of the town hall meeting. It's more something to bring up in a one on one conversation with me, or in a topic on the ideas board.

Instead of talking about a specific issue for the mag-levs, perhaps we should put 'transportation between sectors' onto the agenda and discuss transportation in general, see if there are larger issues at play. Anyone agree?

You're right Slither. I'm new to the game, but I think it's reasonable to say that minor issues should be talked about in bug reports and PM. The town hall meeting should cover topics in a broader fashion, like talking about how transportation and the economy should work, trying to get as many opinions in as possible.
I can not be there, as i will be out of town, but I did want to bring up something I think needs attention. I would like to see a system setup where player names are not readily visible until that other person allows you to see it. Salem mmo has a great setup for this, where peoples names are blank, and you can name other people whatever you want, guy who stole from me, guy who helped me, etc. Once you become kin, their real name is revealed. I imagine this would involve quite a lot of coding changes, but I think it would be awesome for keeping names IC, and adding more mystery!
@mindkontrol

Cybersphere has a similar style. However I do not see the problem with the actual system. Get's a bit using too? Yes. Does it work? Yes.

@Meeting

This is rather simple to ask but is there a way to setup an actual usage of a bed to sleep when there is one available? It looks a bit weird to have someone sleeping in the bed but the bed unoccupied.

I thought about a UE system that allows people to jump start their characters so as not to be to mediocre or less than mediocre at what they are supposed to represent. The systsem involves taking an 'advance' amount of UE of like 30 points. The catch? While online you gain no UE whatsoever for as much time or maybe more than the amount advanced. So if a person takes 30 points for ten straight days of logging at the same amount of time that 3 UE would have been give out that day, they get none whatsoever. You can only perform advance once a month, up to X amount of times (once X is used you can no longer request and advance) and up to Y points. 30-45 perhaps.

Probably a stupid idea.

Slither has said he's looking for more general issues to be discussed, rather than specific features and such. But there's already a system in place to 'jumpstart' a new character, because you get a percentage of your last char's total UE when you make a new one. Which also means the longer you play your characters, instead of hopping from char to char constantly, the bigger the bonus you get on the new ones.
I think it's necessary for there to be a discussion over the issue of staying themely and avoiding meta behavior, as well as ways to curb the ongoing problem with it. It's an issue that affects the game as a whole, and has been a bit of a problem lately despite significant staff efforts to curb it.

I also think a discussion over the in-game economy in general would be useful. Pretty much all major (OOCly known) changes with the in-game economy in the past have been before there was such a large number of active corpie PCs. I've already seen some changes ICly related to it, but in general things will have to be looked at in a different light now.

General big topics :

Risk/reward in the mix versus risk/reward as a corpie.

Don't know to properly word this without at least offending 5 people and starting a pointless discussion that should be done during the town hall.

i'm just not certain that the current rewards for sticking to the mix aren't outweighing the mix. The unique 'pull' on the mix seem to be very diminishing to the point where it seems easier to get a job on gold and do your stuff there.

Of course , to each his own form of RP And what they want to do with their character and we all want an active and busy gold instead of the wasteland it has been.

Of course , i have never rp'ed a function on gold and avoid it like the plague , so can't really have a fair judgement on it.

You have a very good point there, and this is something I've spoken to Johnny before about, but generally there has been a bit of handwaving and massaging of things to allow a self-sufficient corporate culture to build, because Sindome has never before really had this opportunity to build any kind of truly active corpie playerbase. There are also some previously GM-only functions in the game that are now 99% in player hands, as a result. But it has reached the point that GM attention should shift back to nurturing the 'mix life' and giving more characters, especially new ones, hooks for plots and such on Red.
Xenode is correct regarding our pouring lots of efforts topside. We realize that at the moment things are skewed a bit while we figure out what the proper balance in terms of wealth, gear and power to disperse to keep things moving in the right direction but without taking away the thrill of the chase / reward of acquiring wealth, gear and power through RP.

Most of you don't realize that this is the same way we built The Mix. It's a tried and true system that is thus far serving us well.

This is a game about the haves and the have nots.

Not just the have nots.

Not everyone RPs the same way. The bigger the divide and the larger the seperation between topside and the mix the better. We want things to be easy topside and hard in the Mix. If you want to RP wealth and affluence you go topside. If you want to RP street life and fighting for survival you go to the Mix.

To each their own, everyone is playing their part in the story. The game isn't about wealth and power, it's about roleplaying. Wealth and power are IC goals to motivate a character and get them moving which in turn generates RP. That is perfect for the Mix.

Gold is about getting things done. Corporations produce things. TV, drugs, medical care, cybernetics. The more players we have topside the more pieces of the economy we can put in play and make available to all levels of the game. The more players we can put in positions of power within every faction the better. We want to empower as many players as we can so they can better create RP for everyone around them while at the same time using their experience to define the 'role' they are in for the future, to make a mold out of it where applicable so that we know what jobs and roles there even are.

Green is about suburban life so far as I can tell.. that's still under heavy development by all of you.

Blue is about the same but it's swanky, ultra rich and elite.

We want players on every level. That means giving the topside players tons of money and wealth at a rate that would astound a mixer.

However, we also impose higher costs on everything for topsiders. Your 130c a night cube motel is replaced by a 35,000 chyen a week house in a suburb next to a park that your corporation pays half your morgage on and a 30 minute communte to work on the mag-lev.

To me that sounds like my IRL life. To someone else it might sound like a chance to try out a career path they are curious about or a chance to live as a rockstar or the founder of a tech startup. Is there something wrong with those characters co-existing in the world with criminals? No. So what's the problem guys? Do you sign on to Sindome to accumulate wealth for your character or do you do it to RP?

It's almost like we've indoctrinated Mixers against corpies so badly that it's bleeding OOC. I had a hard time understanding topside or its importance until I played a corpie. My hope is that the town hall meeting will go a long way toward bridging that gap.

Okay, got a great list of stuff right now. Thanks everyone! Look forward to hearing all of your thoughts this weekend!
An area I'd like to see developed is the *obligations* corpies commit to.

Loyalty. Non-disclosure. Ass-kissing. Work for someone powerful and privileged? Pay for it with expectations of conformation and jumping to demands, or get fired for being an uncooperative oddball.

Morals. Secrets. Competition. Work for a profitable corporation? Earn your place by playing ball, screwing competitors, and exploiting externalities (in economic terms), or risk your position if you don't have the stomach for it.

Callousness. Superiority. Classism. Deserve the gifts of wealth and power? Of course you do - and the filthy unemployed don't, and neither do those incomprehensible deviants who *choose* to be employed in the ghetto.

What do Mixers and Corpies have in common? Each live in an environment where there are power (different kinds), influence (different ways), money (different sources), expenses (different magnitudes), and exploitation (no difference at all - anyone smaller or less ballsy).

When the corporate world in Sindome matures to the point where, individually and collectively, Mixers can be exploited raw for the corporations' benefit, and the corpies who make the decisions to do so have to live with themselves even behind their prejudices and entitlements, *that's* when one of the promises of Sindome will come true.

An area I'd like to see developed is the *obligations* corpies commit to.

Loyalty. Non-disclosure. Ass-kissing. Work for someone powerful and privileged? Pay for it with expectations of conformation and jumping to demands, or get fired for being an uncooperative oddball.

Morals. Secrets. Competition. Work for a profitable corporation? Earn your place by playing ball, screwing competitors, and exploiting externalities (in economic terms), or risk your position if you don't have the stomach for it.

Callousness. Superiority. Classism. Deserve the gifts of wealth and power? Of course you do - and the filthy unemployed don't, and neither do those incomprehensible deviants who *choose* to be employed in the ghetto.

What do Mixers and Corpies have in common? Each live in an environment where there are power (different kinds), influence (different ways), money (different sources), expenses (different magnitudes), and exploitation (no difference at all - anyone smaller or less ballsy).

When the corporate world in Sindome matures to the point where, individually and collectively, Mixers can be exploited raw for the corporations' benefit, and the corpies who make the decisions to do so have to live with themselves even behind their prejudices and entitlements, *that's* when one of the promises of Sindome will come true.

Not to regurgitate an old post, but this sounds like it was a great meeting - at least from the posts here on ideas for topics. Is the transcripts from the actual town hall available to read?
http://www.sindome.org/town-hall-05-10-14-raw-log.html
I'm new to Dome, however something I think would be nice to have in the future is the actual skills and ability to create items people require in the game: e.g.- scrounging skill to find a piece (such as a capacitor) that is good on a trashed board. Depending on skill level tied to Luck, Perception and Intelligence modifiers with specific tools as well as their quality rating (which could be created by another skill of smelting, casting with access to a furnace or creating one illegally in a trash heap or in the badlands and digging up clay in the badlands to make the cast, melting junk metals in ceramic bowl and pouring them into the cast and selling them) determines the number of identifiable "good" components and removing them without destroying them (dictated by stat modifiers and skill competency) to sell them to a techie with a skill to create new chips/boards/widgets for the medical/security/weapons/etc. Each items quality created dictates price and expected performance. All perfect product components in the hands of a "Legendary Grand Master" of their skill set could make highly coveted products and their fame makes them a target for those below them in status to help balance supply and demand. Cyber parts could be looted from corpses for a little black market wacko doc to start a business without a license, chemists make a more pure product for druggies with lesser side effects than dirty bathtub batches, corpies then have more reason to hunt down mixers in the red district (or hire assassins to do it for them) to maintain their own wealth (or increase it) or hire individuals for their skillsets. This also allows for corpies to knock one another off to acquire their peeps, or try to bribe them away, and of course kill competitive advantages.

The system would not be a UE spend for these particular skills, which may need a differentiating term like "crafting" that uses skill and stat modifiers (as stated above) with a number of times attempting to "learn by doing" with a rating of 0-1000 with "doing said craft" successfully 50 times (this could be any variable the GMs see fit) before being able to advance, but the crafter has no idea they advanced at all until they've reached 100 rating points with a name change in crafting (similar to skills: like useless to terrible) or by having someone identify their work (for a price). As you get closer to the unknown 1000 craft rating, you also have a fame/infamy rating tied to it that is difficult to shake which could be a blessing or curse in game (such as NPCs "know of" a guy who might be able to get their hands on some good capacitors for a price. Show some flash and I may be able to remember their name).

Anyway, this is concept, please don't be bogged down in details, though I would be happy to help if you would like me to!

Sindome has its own system, Ruscion. Once you've gotten into the swing of things, you'll catch on. No need to stand alone out in the badlands by yourself for hours on end digging up dirt. RP. That's what we do here. Leave the DSL mentality of grinding mechanics behind.
Not trying to make it DSL mechanics, but you know where I'm coming from :P I'm not trying to take away from RP, I think its critical to make this work, but with that said it changes jobs from "carry this there" or "Stacking some crates for SHI" to a job and skill development on your own terms that can attract "bad" attention if you get "too good" at said job.

Being able to build a 'sub-par sandwich' for instance, can be worth something to some folks and not to others. It may not give the nutrition needed to heal at an accelerated rate or it could even make you sick, but you learn from it (with variables) until you can create a sandwich (with medium quality ingredients) that is on par with a slice of cheese pizza. This in turn causes execs to want to eliminate competition.

You simply don't have time to do it all yourself and you would gear crafts with skills and stats you focus on for your job, so to speak. Someone proficient in pistol could gather mutated rat meat from killing them and looting them. You don't buy special knives to filet them that go bad after use, the meat can go bad after a period (not like it was ever good), the quality of the cut could be a factor in value, but the one doing the work doesn't know until they bring it to someone that can give an appraisal (NPC or PC, if the skill for trading doesn't let them know already factored with Int and Luck).

These examples are for the concept, not to try and make it like something else you have prejudice thoughts toward or turn it into a grind. Just adding color to the RP and give reasons to interact without having to sacrifice the GMs focus away from the bigger picture RP. Somewhat of a loose structure of stuff to do besides go to the bar and drink, or run all over the dome for deliveries. I assume (which is usually bad to do) that the Candymen out there already have some structure similar for creating their merchandise, though I don't know for certain. To keep folks from multiplaying and gaming the system it could limit the number of times you do a craft per day, it's not set in stone, I'm just trying to convey an idea.

You are misunderstanding something. Sindome does not have a farming mechanic. The jobs you have listed (and there are more you haven't discovered yet) are there for the purpose of providing new players with a means of acquiring small amounts of cash to keep them afloat until they find a real job. You may not have realized this yet, but the amount of money you can earn from this system is hard capped. You're not supposed to get rich off this stuff or depend upon it. You're supposed to go out and find your own way of making money from other players. There are mechanics that provide support sometimes, but there are endless possibilities for jobs that aren't supported by code.

You could make money just by sweeping a floor. There are people who run items for others or pass along information and make money that way. Maybe you can offer to watch someone for other people and charge them for that. Take pictures of pretty girls... etc. Want to build or work on cars? Pump auto tech and start advertising. Not getting any business? Start bugging people who make enough to own their own car. Try to sell them a better security system. Are they still not buying into it? Hire someone to break into and steal their car, then ask them if they're ready to invest in what you have to offer. This is the sort of stuff you should be thinking about.

Now I understand you're probably going to get offended by this, and I am definitely coming off as a bit aggressive here, but Sindome is not about busywork. There is so much more you have yet to discover, and you may not even learn about half the things that are available to you to try before your character bites the dust. Focus on the RP.

Also put ideas in the Ideas forum please.
Etc, I'm not offended at all. I was just trying to throw food for thought out for the Town Meeting info (not realizing it's the wrong year, which is my bad).

Linekin, see above.

To all, sorry about the waste of time reading my posts. I'll leave it be.

Ruscion - this was just a link of last year's topics. I think Slither said in the post on the Town Hall Meeting 2015 that he'll be posting a new topic thread for any suggestions on what to talk of in that one once they get the date/time nailed down.

It's never a waste to read someone's ideas. I would just hold off (or stockpile them up) and post them on that upcoming thread.

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