Announced Roles Peak Hours Requirement

[Twilight]

One of the most important requirements is playtime. You need to be able to play steadily, and at least part of your time during peak hours.

I see this verbage or some variation in many of the Staff's announced roles.  Could occassionally we get a templar or noble PC where this does not apply, so that the people who don't tend to play peak times would get at least the opportunity to apply in good faith?  I'm not asking for every role opened like that, just an important one once in awhile.

[jhunter]

Actually from what I've seen it is done on occasion.

[Eternal]

What is considered peak or off-peak?

This is something I've often wondered... I'd imagine around 8pEST/5pPST would be right, for American players.  What times do other people find to be peak hours?

Edited to add:  What time do 'off-peak' players usually play?

[Halaster]

I actually worded it "at least part of your time during peak hours" intentionally so that some off-peak people could apply - as long as they could at least part of their time play during peak hours.

[Angela Christine]

I'm sure it is disappointing for some people, but it makes sense.  Ultimately if you are in a special role you want your clan imms to be online at least some of the time that you are.  Otherwise you'll never get any meaningful interaction with the important NPCs in your clan.

[Beux]

It seems a bit unfair to the offpeak players. Not in that they miss out on getting to *be* a templar...but that they miss out on having on around. Roles should be offered regardless of timezone, and made to fit the player...that way they might actually bring more life and activity to offpeak play.

[MarshallStaxx]

I usually play offpeak times (anytime from 5am EST to 5pm EST) and now I think of it, I have only ever seen a PC Templar once. Maybe some might say I'm lucky, as I hear they can be mean-ass muthafuckers!
I would like to see more high-level roles offered to off-peak players.
Example... I hardly ever see my sargeants in the Byn, making it difficult to advance/join any plots. It's gonna make graduation difficult too.

[Pantoufle]

I don't think it makes sense at all.  It is discrimination, plain and simple.  This fact cannot be argued against.

It would benefit the game tremendously if there were roles available to both off peak and peak hours of play, this way you can expect to encounter a templar at any time of day, not just during 8:00 pm EST.

Now, that said, I've played more than my share of nobles and I am an off peak hours player, so that's not to imply that the option isn't there.  It most certainly is.  But there seems to be some who allow it and some who don't.  It's the ones who don't that make me wonder: WHY!?  Honestly, why wouldn't you want a templar available to off peak hour players that (s)he can harass?  It's as though you only want people encountering templars when the who list is 50+ and not at any other time.

You're hurting the game and diminishing plotlines when you refuse someone who logs in from a European timezone.  When 20:00 EST equals 2 in the morning for someone else, don't expect to see them showing up to a single RPT.  But that doesn't mean they can't have an impact just because of what time it is.

The off peak hour players comprise largely of independants who are only too happy to eat out of the hands of a noble or templar who will throw a plot at them.  Why on earth would you want to restrain that from happening?  It seems like there would be nothing to do for a noble or templar logged in during off peak hours, but you'd be surprised.  My nobles had plenty of interaction because, thereto again, off peak hour times are filled with independants who are thrilled to a) have someone to interact with and b) go on fun little errands/missions for a spot of cash.

[Ardan]

It would benefit the game tremendously if there were roles available to both off peak and peak hours of play, this way you can expect to encounter a templar at any time of day, not just during 8:00 pm EST.

....

You're hurting the game and diminishing plotlines when you refuse someone who logs in from a European timezone.  When 20:00 EST equals 2 in the morning for someone else, don't expect to see them showing up to a single RPT.  But that doesn't mean they can't have an impact just because of what time it is.

You can play a templar off-peak. One Imm even mentioned that they were happy to have me take on the role as I'd be around to give off-peakers some cuddly templarate interaction. I would imagine that some Imms make it an absolute requirement for some of their roles as they may want to be able to monitor your play at least occasionally and this might not be possible with timezone differences but the roles for off-peakers are available in my opinion.

[Jherlen]

Yep, you're right Pantoufle, it's discrimination. The reason is simply because off-peak players suck and are second-class to those of us who play peak times, thus you don't deserve special roles.

/sarcasm

Maybe it's because if a staff-member can't log in off-peak, they don't want to sponsor PCs who play at times they'll never see? Having a leader PC in your clan who you can't monitor is probably bad. You won't see when they screw up to punish them, and you won't see when they do well to reward them. That's not a good situation.


My suggestion, take one location and declare it the "Recommended Off Peak City", a place where off-peak players are encouraged to play so that they'll all be near each other in a geographic area, thus more likely to run into one another. With a higher concentration of off-peakers in one place, you could then get more mileage out of creating an off-peak leader or two in certain clans that could support them.

[MarshallStaxx]

My suggestion, take one location and declare it the "Recommended Off Peak City", a place where off-peak players are encouraged to play so that they'll all be near each other in a geographic area, thus more likely to run into one another.

What next? Maybe all us off-peakers should wear little six-pointed stars on our sandcloth sleeves?
On one hand I hate this idea, coz it isn't too far removed from Zalanthian apartheid. On the other hand I like it because it means there would be more chance of PC interaction instead of hours of solo RP.
Hmmm.

[Nao]

I like the idea of giving off-peak players a place to run to, or even constantly play at and meet up for some interaction a lot . If you could actually concentrate those 10 of the 15 players that might be online during off-peak in one place, I would actually run into someone even during the day.
It's like having taverns for some interaction, just on a larger scale

In clans it seems to be just the lack of things going on and the lack of players that keeps off-peak leaders rare (this seems to be one of the things that keeps off-peak players out of clans). Declaring a recommended off-peak city, or even a few off-peak clans might boost things here, too.

The problem with PC leaders in sensitive roles seems to be that you need off-peak imms to monitor them.

So what we really need is more immortals that can be around at off-peak times and organize things. Imm-material that's gonna apply during the next round, anyone?  :wink:

EDIT: On a side note - I was positively surprised when I made a Tuluki character recently to frequently see a templar PC, even at the strangest hours. This got me quite some interaction and even got me wrapped up in a little plot. This made the difference for me between another boring character leading his daily life and one that was neck-deep into all kinds of things - thumbs up!

[Angela Christine]

I live in the Pacific time zone, but I often get insomnia and end up playing during off-peak times, in seemingly deserted locations so I feel your pain.

My suggestion, take one location and declare it the "Recommended Off Peak City", a place where off-peak players are encouraged to play so that they'll all be near each other in a geographic area, thus more likely to run into one another.

What next? Maybe all us off-peakers should wear little six-pointed stars on our sandcloth sleeves?

No, you wear the six-pointed star on your hand, and only when you play in Tuluk.   :wink:

You wouldn't be forced to play in the "Recommended Off Peak City", it would just have more support for off peak players.  More support than any area of the known world currently has for off peak players.  It wouldn't be discrimination or segregation, because off-peakers would still be free to play anywhere.


I still have a niggling little problem with it though.  Most of the staff that are often available off-peak would have to be assigned to clans in the ROPC to make it work, because having a whole bunch of nobles and templars or other special PCs with no OOC support/oversight wouldn't be good.  So you'd have the few staff around concentrating on one city.  Most of the "leadership" and law enforcement PCs would also be in that city.  

Problem 1:  The chosen city would have an unbalanced degree of power during off-peak times.  If the WHO shows that 12 players are on, and 10 of them are sitting in the tavern with you, then you know that no one is watching the store in the other towns.  Well, except for the NPCs, but left to their own devices NPCs are dumb as dirt.  So if you want to commit acts of aggression against an opposing city this may be the perfect time to do it!  The other city won't be able to respond in a timely manner, because most of their leader PCs

and clan imms are sleeping.  Even 6-10 people can do an incredible amount of damage if there are no PCs opposing them.

Problem 2:  The other city would be in danger of becoming a twink's paradise.  Go ahead and steal all the furniture from the apartments, no one is going to see!  Kill random NPCs that happen to wander into areas with only VNPC witnesses, no one is going to catch you!   If any staff are on they probably have most of their attention focused on the ROPC, so you can do whatever you want.

Problem 3:  Lack of inter-city conflict.  I know, this sort of sounds like it conflicts with the first one.  But assuming that you aren't willing to launch a raid against a ghost-town, you won't have much inter-city conflict at all because there is nobody there to plot against.  There usually isn't a whole lot of inter-city conflict anyway, but it would be a bummer to know that it wasn't even an option.[/list]


I'm not a huge Kurac fan, but the only way I can see this working at all is if the ROPC was Luir's Outpost.  Choosing either of the main cities would upset the balance of power between them.  Red Storm is ubercool, but the roles are limited both by the small population of the village and the environment.  Luirs doesn't have nobles or templars, which would suck, but they do have other kinds of special roles -- in Luir's Kurac family members are sorta kinda like nobles.  It does have a shortage of clan options, there is nothing stopping other merchant houses or organizations from setting up a PC presence but most of the time the only clan with a big presence there is Kurac.  The different departments within Kurac are almost like sub-clans, but not quite.  

On the other hand independants are usually welcome, and since it is a centrally located trading post it is easy to find excuses to visit and people from all over the known world do stop in.  Even nobles from the big two stop by occasionally.  So it would be possible of many PCs based in other cities to spend some of their off-peak time in Luir's.  You can run into all sorts of people there.  Northerners, southerners, almost anybody.  It isn't weird for tribal PCs to spend time in Luirs (unless they are from tribes currently in conflict with Kurac).  You can sometimes find both owned and rogue/free muls there.  Elementalists are tolerated (with certain conditions) so you can encounter both gemmed elementalists from 'Nak and ungemmed/rogue/tribal elementalists from all over the world.  Hunters, grebbers, traders, crafters, spies, thrill-seekers, addicts . . .  everyone goes to Luir's.  

I suppose it could work.

[Halaster]

I don't think it makes sense at all.  It is discrimination, plain and simple.  This fact cannot be argued against.

Hahahah, that's got to be one of the most ridiculous things I've read in a while.  If you really want to feel like a victim and scream discrimination, fine.  But, please.  I don't want people who can't ever log in during peak hours for the clans I oversee because I play peak hours, and I want to see them online when I'm online.  That's it.  If you don't like that.. tough luck.

But there seems to be some who allow it and some who don't.  It's the ones who don't that make me wonder: WHY!?  Honestly, why wouldn't you want a templar available to off peak hour players that (s)he can harass?  It's as though you only want people encountering templars when the who list is 50+ and not at any other time.

See above.  Especially with templars, I want to have some overlap in the times I can play their NPC superiors and the times they're online.  I don't mind if they're not a "peak hours" player, so long as they're able to log in sometimes during peak hours.

[Beux]

Fair do's for the reasonings behind wanting peak players. But I recon if you swung it the other way...and made sure that there *were* off-peak 'superiors' we might actually start to attract more european players. I'm sure there are enough european mudders in the entire world to make our off-peak who list '50'...we just don't have them...and we should...because we rock.

But we don't, because not enough time is invested into off-peak play.

- More off-peak imms
- More off-peak RPT's
- More off-peak superiors

=

More off-peak players.

I can tell from these boards alone that we have plenty of off-peakers already. My bets are they just don't log in a lot because they know it's going to be deserted.

[Cuusardo]

There's your catch 22.  Off peakers aren't logging in because they "know" it will be deserted, but it's deserted because they aren't logging in.  My suggestion is for off peak players to log in more often regardless of "knowing" it will be deserted, because if more log in, the less deserted the mud will be during those times.

Recruiting more off peak players is always good too.

[ashyom]

Hal and Jherlen nailed it on the head on why staff often ask for peak-time players.  Also, a majority of players are on during peak, and it'd suck if they wanted to join clan X or Y, but couldn't because the only leader pc played off-peak.  Yes, I know the converse can be argued, but fact is, we prefer having leader pcs who can have higher impact on the pbase in whole.

Make sense?
Ashyom

[Halaster]

I will add, by the way, that one of my PC templars isn't entirely a peak-hours player.  Their playtime overlaps with it, a couple of times a week, which is all I wanted.  The rest of the time I don't see them online, they're during off-peak hours.

[Morfeus]

You know, it is hard for off-peak players. You have troubles to meet all Nobles/Templars/Merchants. Often you have problem to meet -anyone- IG because there is less players on during off-peaks. Less IMMs too, probably less IMM attention in general and a lot of solo-rping. I always thought off-peak players got used to that. Yes, it is not fair. But look up at Halaster's post, however it is not fair it makes sense. He said it a bit roughly, but he is -right- and you -know that he is-. Would you really want to play a templar without -any- IMM support? Trust me, you would not.

I am happy to hear that "playing during peaks sometime" is enough for southern templars now. And I like being happy more than being grumpy and jealous.

The Off-Peak Player

[Pantoufle]

Hahahah, that's got to be one of the most ridiculous things I've read in a while. If you really want to feel like a victim and scream discrimination, fine. But, please. I don't want people who can't ever log in during peak hours for the clans I oversee because I play peak hours, and I want to see them online when I'm online.

Firstly, thanks for the courteous reply.  This has been an interesting discussion thus far and I enjoy seeing a medley of different thoughts on the matter.

I think what would assist players is a time frame more specific than "peak hours of play".  In your example above, Halaster, if you (the imm) cannot login due to work until 7 pm, then that means anyone who stops playing after 6:30 or so wouldn't be applicable -- though in my opinion anything afternoon EST is pretty much peak.  Furthermore, what happens if someone joins your clan and their login times change due to school, a new job, etc.?  Are they out of luck?  I ask this because, for the Europeans, 8 pm EST is probably the latest you'll see them before they trot off to bed shortly thereafter.  So what if someone plays until this time, rather than starting at that time?  It sounds to me like they're going to be unwelcome in your clan (unless you have a broader definition of "peak hours").

I realize there have been and are off peak templars and nobles (I've played some of each).  And I'm thrilled they are given their chance to play.  My statement was aimed at those clans who specifically do not permit off peak templars, etc.  I'd like to think that there is a better solution to satisfying the entire playerbase (and not just a select group) than...

If you don't like that.. tough luck.

On a different note.

we prefer having leader pcs who can have higher impact on the pbase in whole.

Make sense?

You don't need more than a handful of players around at any given moment to have an impact on 50 others who aren't online at the moment.  Moreover, most nobles and templars are rarely interacting with more than a 3-6 players at any given moment.  I know I've had characters of mine who have done things for and been motivated by other characters whom I essentially never saw.  That's the beauty of sending messages and having underlings.

[Jherlen]

I thought peak times were defined as EST evenings, not afternoons. Most people who work or go to school will still be busy during the afternoon, thus not online. I always figured the "official" start of peak times would be about 8 PM EST, which is 5 PM PST - in other words, the official end of the school/work day for all North American timezones.

This is purely my own observation, but it seems like there's an "off-peak peak" that lasts from around 11 - 2 PM PST... I assume this equates to the evenings for European players. I've noticed sometimes upwards of 50 people online during this time. Then, from around 2 PM until 5 or 6 EST, the game population dips a bit down into the 30s or 40s, until picking up again later in the evening. This is all PURELY observation though, and I don't have any documented data or anything to back it up.


Going back to the thread:

:arrow: I think it's hard to expect a "courteous reply" when you went off screaming "Discrimination!!" in someone's face...

:arrow: Most times, I've noticed there seems to be a limit on the number of PC templars/nobles/merchant family members per clan in the game at any one time. For instance, I don't think I can recall a time when there have been more than 3-4 PC templars in any one city at a time, most noble Houses seem to have 2-3 PC nobles, etc. If these limits held, I wouldn't want to see sponsored roles being played in the off-peak times if only a few players (3-6) would benefit. That takes one less sponsored character away from the times when the majority of players could benefit from interacting with them. You could always add an "extra" sponsored PC slot for off peak players, but that probably creates more overhead for clan staff, having to deal with more sponsored PCs than usual. Still, that might be an option.


The above is why I threw the idea of recommending one locale as an "off-peak zone" up for debate. AC expanded on it pretty nicely, too. I think the merits of the idea do outweigh the possible drawbacks; obviously during a certain time period each day one area of the game would be disproportionately represented, but at least all the PCs in that area would have stuff to do, and they could be free to plot with/against each other all they liked. With staff oversight, raids against "ghost towns" are still possible - you'd just have to deal with NPCs responding where PCs otherwise would (and that might even be worse for you.) And yes, this would just be a recommendation, no one is FORCING off peak people to play anywhere.

If you could establish a solid community of off-peak players playing in the same place, and got it to the point where it could sustain a sponsored PC or two, plus their underlings, etc., then it wouldn't be so bad to have them... as long as you had the staff to watch them. If not, you're still SOL. But at least this solution takes care of everything else.

[Twilight]

Halaster pretty much answered most of the lingering questions that had been in my head.  I know there have been off peak nobles and templars in the past.  What suddenly caught my attention is that I've seen that line, or variation thereof, in a lot of the imm sponsored roles lately.

Thanks for the clarification.

My remaining question is around how this interacts with the immortal rotations.  Will it pretty much not be taken into account at all, in comparison to where people want to move (which I can totally understand).  To give the example of Arm of Dragon, if Halaster is around only peak times, would things be cool for a complete off-peaker if Belenos was around off-peak, or is there a preference towards the imm that has been around the clan longer and is more experienced with it?

[Sanvean]

I strongly suggest all players keep this in mind when deciding to move in RL.  

Or maybe that's not what you meant.

As far as clans and rotations go, it's a juggling act.  Factors that influence it include people's playing times, people's administrative style, personal differences, history with the clan, where they are playing characters, personal preferences and on on.  Yes, playing time is factored in, but it's one of many things.  The same thing is true when we're picking staff - offpeak times are a plus since we never have enough offpeak staff, but only part of the picture.

[Halaster]

To give the example of Arm of Dragon, if Halaster is around only peak times, would things be cool for a complete off-peaker if Belenos was around off-peak, or is there a preference towards the imm that has been around the clan longer and is more experienced with it?

No, there's not a preference in that sense.  In your scenario, a totally off-peak player would be great if one of the staff of the clan were also off-peak (unfortunately, Belenos is more or less a peak-time person too).

[Cuusardo]

I don't particularly care for the idea of moving all the off peak players to one locale.  How would you explain that ICly?

[Jherlen]

I don't particularly care for the idea of moving all the off peak players to one locale.  How would you explain that ICly?

Well, uhh... the off-peak NPCs and VNPCs can stay where they are. What's there to explain ICly? PC populations are an OOC thing, not an IC one.

[jmordetsky]

I wonder if perhaps it's worthwhile to take more then apps in 3s for templars?

It always seem to be that there are 3 active pc templars, then we try for 2-3 nobles per house etc.

What if you started taking apps for 3 templars per time zone? Ending up with more like 5-6 pc templars?

Like 2 EST-CST,  2 CST-PST, 2 PST-GMT

Just a thought. What's the reason for 3s? I'm thinking if we looked at our pc population as a whole, would it hurt that much to up the number of total templars/nobles?

I'm sure we end up turning down a lot of good apps no?

[Bushranger]

So instead of 2-3 templars we have 5-6 templars playing in a still pretty narrow time slot? EST-PST is what, 3 hours differences? How does that seriously cover off peak times?

There are a number of people who don't play anywhere remotely near these times, think outside of the US/Canada. To note I see a number of people playing from places like Turkey/Australia/Japan.

If you really want to recruit more templars I'd prefer to see a wider split. A couple on the current peak times and a couple in off peak (Or 12 hours different from peak times) Certainly would be nice to log onto the MUD at about 6-10pm local time and see roles like this.

That said, I'm quite happy with the way things are and have no complaints with seeing things like we have now 'This role requires you to spend some time playing when the Imm handling this role is online' is a perfectly fine requirement.

[jmordetsky]

So instead of 2-3 templars we have 5-6 templars playing in a still pretty narrow time slot? EST-PST is what, 3 hours differences? How does that seriously cover off peak times?

There are a number of people who don't play anywhere remotely near these times, think outside of the US/Canada. To note I see a number of people playing from places like Turkey/Australia/Japan.

If you really want to recruit more templars I'd prefer to see a wider split. A couple on the current peak times and a couple in off peak (Or 12 hours different from peak times) Certainly would be nice to log onto the MUD at about 6-10pm local time and see roles like this.

That said, I'm quite happy with the way things are and have no complaints with seeing things like we have now 'This role requires you to spend some time playing when the Imm handling this role is online' is a perfectly fine requirement.

Yea I mean, those are just examples. I don't care when they play as long as there is a reasonably player base at that time. We wouldn't want to create a templar role to for a play time base of 3-4 people.

The point of the post wasn't to say stick templars in different timezones it was "We turn down apps, what about accepting more and spreading them out."

If you are however asking for a PC templar to allocated to time when there is less  then 10 people logged in regularly then I don't know what to tell you. That would be a bit of a waste. My suggestion to you then is to stop posting here go to your local book store and leave some flyers around.

[manonfire]

My character works in Red Storm.

Spoiled. All of you.

[Cyrian20]

I have seen special roles that seem to -only- be online during off peak times, I think the issue is that these people die less often so you are rarely going to see an opening for them.