Idea for linkdead folk

[Cuusardo]

Since the code gives a CREATING tag in the ldesc of people who are writing messages on IC boards, how about give a LINKDEAD tag to people who lose link somewhere?  I think that would save the headache of sitting and trying to talk to someone sitting in the tavern (especially if they're near death and bleeding all over the place) and have them not respond.

Or would that be too big an IC breech?

[Xamminy]

I believe that people would find this jarring.

[JollyGreenGiant]

Add it in such a way that it shows up when you look at them, but not when you look at the room.  I'm all for something like this.

[Krath]

I can imagine the huge influx of Assassins and Pick-pockets if this was implemented.

[sjanimal]

I like this idea.  I'm not sure that it's the right solution, but I think that something needs to be done.  I loose link a lot, and often end up deing as a consequence.  I consider this to be an important issue that affects playability.

[Tamarin]

I can imagine the huge influx of Assassins and Pick-pockets if this was implemented.

Having played an elven pick with AI agility, and having stolen large quantities of coin from LD people, I know that the staff are watching, and they'll seriously crap down your throat if this were to be abused.

[Fnord]

Something needs to be done.

Either it should just be okay to rape, kill, and steal from linkdead people, or it should not be okay at all to do anything to them. I vote for the latter.

The problem is: If too much protection is given, and Gru the elite is warrior is kicking my ass, I drop link and then scream bloody murder. My take is: If someone is encountered LD, they should be left alone. If someone goes LD in the middle of a fight or situation, than too bad for them.

How to code or enforce that... not sure. Gotta make coffee first.

Editio... okay, had my coffee. Person goes LD, secret code timer starts. After 30 mins or whatever, they are flagged. Any aggresive action to the player gets a special echo just for the attacker to please try again later.

[Tamarin]

I imagine it would be similar to the quit timer...if you go LD and you are "still too excited", then people can attack you.  Otherwise not.

However, I don't think this will happen.  What if you've been stalking someone for game days, and you finally shadow them into a locked apartment, and you're just about to backstab, and they go LD?

I don't like it.

[Fnord]

What if you've been stalking someone for game days, and you finally shadow them into a locked apartment, and you're just about to backstab, and they go LD?

Read what I wrote again. You'd be able to backstab them all you like if they went LD when you snuck in. If you found them LD, and they'd been LD for 30 mins (or whatever), then it would be different.

[Tamarin]

I don't see how they are going to be able to code this so that the game realises you've been stalking them for an extended period before they went LD as opposed to walking in once they are already LD.

And then even if that were the case (that you have to be -in- the room where they go LD), that could still be abused.  You bring someone to your apartment, and they go LD, and you immediate get up and grab a mace to smash their face in with.  This is a little bit (a lot actually) uncool, because your decision to act on a pkill shouldn't be based on whether or not the person is LD.

[sarahjc]

I've seen people actually quit out to avoid certain death of a PC. I think the staff could easily handle the same abuse with LD pcs. I'd like the LD notice idea. I think it would be cool to tack this onto the extra line of your main desc idea.  If the staff picks up on you link dead they can auto change your secondary desc to.  

The Pink rhino has been sitting here sun struck for a few days.

Now as for people in the desert, well unless you can get back in right quick. The coded NPC's out there are not gonna care to much that you are sun struck, food is food.

However I also agree that it sucks to have your Computer crash, then come back and find your 10 day ranger dead. To maybe cut down on that, is it possible to put a timer on link-dead desert PC's. Like maybe ten minutes and they will insta-log out?

Then again, this could also be twinked by people that don't have certain abilities as far as the quit command goes.

I don't like the LINK DEAD sign on people when you walk in. Same reason I hate the CREATING sign. It's too jarring.

[Dracul]

I would be highly against any code protecting them....you go linkdead... .

But an ooc thing for the other players woudl be nice. Sometimes you might be sitting around and thinking/waying and not visibly emoting, etc. You might come up on someone like that, or you might come up on someone linkdead.

Ive had it that I tried rping at someone linkdead...and then they ended up being like an npc...no comments. Its an ooc thing too.

[Akaramu]

I've seen people actually quit out to avoid certain death of a PC.

That would be such a pointless thing to do. The staff could easily come up with 1001 nasty things to do to a character if the player twink-quit - such as making them log in in the arena with 2 mekillots, or resume the death scene virtually and notify the player of their characters death... I dont know if this is done, but I could easily imagine it.

An automatic logout after a fairly long period of time, such as an hour, might be a good idea to implement. It really can be jarring when linkdead characters occupy barstools and tables all day. And I doubt any twink-quitter would want to risk being linkdead in the wilderness for an hour before the logout kicks in.

[Cuusardo]

My reasoning for wanting this was because of all the times that there's a linkdead PC standing around some random spot, someone goes to talk to it, and the PC does not respond.  That would be an OOC way for people to know something like "Okay, my friend isn't ignoring me, she's linkdead.  I'll pretend she's krathstruck."  Something like that.  It would just be a little OOC tag in the ldesc, and nothing more.  You could still smack your friend around for being a dufus, or your friend could get arrested, etc etc.

See what I'm saying?  This wouldn't be able to be abused any more than the CREATING tag when people are posting a rumor on an IC board.

[Lazloth]

I think it would be cool to tack this onto the extra line of your main desc idea.  If the staff picks up on you link dead they can auto change your secondary desc to.  

The Pink rhino has been sitting here sun struck for a few days.

Why not throw it in assess -v with the rest of the semi-ooc info?

[Bestatte]

What if a bit of code was added, so that when someone is truly linkdead and you try talking to them, you get the same message as when they use the "gone" command?

If all you're trying to do is talk to them, I think this would solve the problem in those situations. It would also prevent a templar's player from feeling the need to "punish" someone for ignoring them or risk face by pretending they didn't try to get their attention.

The echo to everyone else would be invisible, so no one would ever know you were trying to talk to them in the first place. And then you can just RP out the situation however you see fit.

[Fnord]

I was thinking along the same lines as Bestatte, and think that's a cool way to handle it.

It also goes back to the question of what is truly linkdead? Imms can tell if you go LD or if you are LD. I don't know if they can tell for how long, but that would be great if they could. So if a player goes LD a timer starts. For, say, like 30 mins after going LD, they're fair game to fuck with as usual, after 30 mins they're considered truly LD. That would eliminate any cheese from dropping link to get out of trouble.

[Bogre]

What if you've been stalking someone for game days, and you finally shadow them into a locked apartment, and you're just about to backstab, and they go LD?

Read what I wrote again. You'd be able to backstab them all you like if they went LD when you snuck in. If you found them LD, and they'd been LD for 30 mins (or whatever), then it would be different.

*shrug* Figure they went to sleep in their apartment. Just makes the job easier for you.

ARM is harsh, people. Everybody looses characters to linkdeath sometimes. And it sucks a lot. But if it's something planned and special and suddenly they go linkdead, kill them anyways.

[Cenghiz]

I hate...

1. You see a linkdead char in a remotely safe place.. You think "Oh, he'll log back in in hours." and go away... Then you come back some time later and see that he's dead.
You're sure there are no aggreessive NPC's around 100%. That's the work of another player. Then you see someone else linkdead the other day. She's in remotely safe place, standing with a few NPC warriors. You still want to be sure, wish up and wait for some time till the imms see your wish and log her out. Time passes, you get bored, go visit somewhere and come back just to be told that he was killed by another PC.
Somebody has taken his time to find out that the PC's linkdead, then walk away and hurl arrows to kill avoiding the NPCs' assistance.

2. You see someone sleeping in the desert. You're likely to steal IC already. When you assess the char you find out he's exhausted, so you think "OK... I can emote safely before stealing. He'll lose something, at least let him entertain a little." With your first emote the char goes linkdead and in an OOC fury, you draw your dai-katana.
.....
So, it's a messy situation. Something explaining that the char's linkdead would be real read bad. Some people will _for sure_ abuse it.
Also I don't want linkdead protection to take in place. Some people will try using it to gain an OOC advantage. At least the protection shouldn't be an instant protection.

Sorry if I derailed a little.. That's my two 'sids.

[X-D]

My suggestion, put the void back in.

Maybe change the name and message, but if somebody goes LD just have the mud send them to the void (diku timeout room) after a set period of time...ten minutes or more....maybe with no message when it does so, that way it is easier to RP around. Have the mud log anybody who goes to the void that way complaints about abuse can be easily checked on.

[ShaLeah]

My suggestion is that people linkdead for more than 15 real life minutes be purged from the mud.
I hate linkdead. Linkdead sucks.

[Cuusardo]

ShaLeah's idea is also a good one.  Having LD people autopurged after fifteen minutes would prevent a lot of problems as well.

[Xamminy]

Personally, I'm of the mind that people that have gone linkdead know that they did, and this game was never designed to be fair.  It was designed to be realistic.  I'll refer everyone to the overview page where it says that if you think that someone was mean to you, they probably were.  If you go linkdead and someone does mean things to you, well, you should have quit...or logged back in to quit.  Now, if someone abuses the fact that you were linkdead, we are watching and will spank that person.  I believe that everyone can roleplay around someone being unreactive...but abusing that person simply because they are unreactive is abusing OOC information.

[flurry]

If you go linkdead and someone does mean things to you, well, you should have quit...or logged back in to quit.

I don't know about anybody else, but I'm rarely if ever linkdead by choice.   And if it's for any length of time, it means that I can't reconnect.

That said, as long as someone's not going out of their way to take advantage of someone because they are linkdead, I'm not that bothered by it.

[Agent_137]

I don't know about anybody else, but I'm rarely if ever linkdead by choice.   And if it's for any length of time, it means that I can't reconnect.

[Cuusardo]

If my ISP craps out without warning, I don't want to have to suffer IC penalties for OOC shit happening IRL.

[Xamminy]

We don't offer ressurections to people that have their ISP go down, or computer crash or anything along those lines.  That would suggest some amount of protection from these events.  Why should we, when we don't provide any protection from these already, offer some other form of protection that people can simply ignore anyway?

[Angela Christine]

We don't offer ressurections to people that have their ISP go down, or computer crash or anything along those lines.  That would suggest some amount of protection from these events.  Why should we, when we don't provide any protection from these already, offer some other form of protection that people can simply ignore anyway?

Because an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure?  Resurections are always a little akward, "Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated, I was just knocked unconcious.  'Tis just a flesh wound!"  If the corpse has been looted or their has been a reboot since the death then a resurection is going to be even more complicated.  Resurections suck.

Personally, I'd recomend that if a person is idle for an hour they get logged out automatically.

- Idle instead of linkdead, because a dropped link is not always detected.

- An hour because if you are unable to reconnect or return to your keyboard within an hour, there is a good chance you have a physical connection problem (power outage, telephone lines down, ISP down, etc.) you have fallen asleep at the keyboard, or you wandered off to get aq snack and forgot you were playing Arm.  If you aren't back within an hour you probably aren't comming back any time soon.

- An hour also prevents people from dropping link to avoid trouble.  Only a fool will drop link to get a "free ranger-like quit" an hour later, because anything could happen in that hour.  An hour also lets people that were planning to victimize you give you a few minutes to return, if you disappeared after 10 or 15 minutes they might be worried that your unexpected disappearance would ruin their chance to kill/rob/maim/raid you, so they wouldn't want to wait to see if you were able to re-establish your link.  With an hour limit, if they wish they can afford to wait 10 or 15 minutes before proceding to have their way with your inert PC.

- As an added bonus, this would eliminate annoying linkdead or afk tavern-sitters, some people really hate these guys.  Newbies that don't know how to quit out properly would also fair better by being auto-quit after an hour, rather than being robbed blind and then left standing around naked until the next reboot.


AC

[Agent_137]

I agree with AC, though I wouldn't mind the time being more than an hour. I'd rather it 2, but that's just a fine point.