Downtime and the IC time

[Angela Christine]

A quarter of a year has passed in which nothing happened.  How will this extended downtime effect IC events?

Do clannies and others paid by the month get paid for the missing time?  

Your rent has expired.  Since you haven't been able to make any money, will you be able to afford to renew it before someone rents it out from under you and takes all your stuff?

You were supposed to do something in X amount of time, will you be able to make some clever excuse for why you can't have it done on time?

[Lavalamps]

Did the in game clock still tick while the server was down?
If not, we can just pretend it never happened! :wink:

[Malken]

It is dawn on Terrin as we speak.

[Gimfalisette]

I also would really like to know whether there has been an IC gap or not. I asked the staff in this thread: http://www.zalanthas.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=27240  But there has been no response yet.

Someone has to decide, whether the players or staff, if the 10 days of the game being down is just time we were all VNPCs in Zalanthas or not. My preference is "not."

And there's the question about whether the game clock has been actually running or not. I really hope everyone's apartments haven't run out of time and etc.

[Angela Christine]

I'm pretty sure that time has passed.  The game clock is now attached to real time.

[Seeker]

I am soooo doing a Rent Dash all through the Big City as soon as the game comes on.  

If Ginka doesn't come on when I am at work, I bet I can have my PC's name on the lease of one of the best apartments in every building within the first twenty minutes.  All just chockful of surprise goodies.  MMMmmmmm.



Seeker.

[psionic fungus]

Yeah...  That's what we -don't- want. =p

So, I propose that before the game is opened to players, the Staff makes a 'run' through and makes sure that everyone who was renting an apartment whent he game went down is set up with a 150 days of rent.

[Only He Stands There]

Considering all the Serious Business going down in-game before the clock stopped ticking, I'm really, really hoping we're going to pick up where we left off.

[Angela Christine]

Considering all the Serious Business going down in-game before the clock stopped ticking, I'm really, really hoping we're going to pick up where we left off.

Maybe there will be an IC explanation.  

Like, everyone was getting really stressed out, so the leaders of every city and town declared a month long holiday for everybody!  

Or, there was a big storm out of the south that kicked up a big cloud of spice, a

Spice Storm!  Everyone was totally wasted and got nothing accomplished . . . yet remembered to eat an drink regularly so they didn't get sick.  The storm continued for weeks, as storms are prone to doing.  Eventually everyone overdosed, passed out, and forgot everything that happened during the spice storm.  

Or the Dragon came back, threw every life form in the known world into stasis so they wouldn't pester him, then ate the entire world supply of cactus candies, because he has a massive sweet tooth.  Once there were no more cactus candies, he got bored and left.  Shortly after, everyone recovered and went on with their lives.[/list]

I'm sure we can think of something plausible.

[Marauder Moe]

Aside from rent timers, is it really so hard to simply ignore it?  I doubt there's any groups that really need to keep track of the calendar or seasons.

Just don't make a big deal out of it.  Don't berate merchant PCs for orders being late a month.  Don't demand two month's worth off backpay.  Don't remark that it's been forever since you saw your friends.  In the unlikely case where the timegap really does become unavoidably evident, just say "Has it really been that long?  Huh, go figure." and move on.

[Bebop]

Aside from rent timers, is it really so hard to simply ignore it?  I doubt there's any groups that really need to keep track of the calendar or seasons.

Just don't make a big deal out of it.  Don't berate merchant PCs for orders being late a month.  Don't demand two month's worth off backpay.  Don't remark that it's been forever since you saw your friends.  In the unlikely case where the timegap really does become unavoidably evident, just say "Has it really been that long?  Huh, go figure." and move on.

Pregnant PCs

PCs with Rent

PCs will have a very large time in their life in which they aged but have no memories, that doesn't seem like much fun.

I don't see a good reason why we shouldn't start where we left off actually.

[Marauder Moe]

Other than rent, which is coded, as I mentioned, how is what I said different from starting where we left off?

[Tisiphone]

Other than rent, which is coded, as I mentioned, how is what I said different from starting where we left off?

Possible answers:

SimDesert (animal and weather patterns)

Coded aging

Any IG timers Imms might have up for whatever reason (the silt horror invasion takes place on Barani. Oops, you only have an hour to prepare!)

[Forest Junkie]

I'm gonna be pissed if I lose all of my phat loot.

[mansa]

It's going to be awesome renting all these apartments.

[Bebop]

Other than rent, which is coded, as I mentioned, how is what I said different from starting where we left off?

Time will have passed with nothing happening for a quarter of a year O.O

Pregnant PCs will not be able to RP their pregnancies correctly, what if they intended on losing their kid or having something monumental happening.  

What if anyone planned on something mounmental happening within a certain time frame? Or season or what have you.

Pay period will be screwed up.

There will be a lot of confusion etc etc etc.  I think it would be much less confusing to keep the IG date the same.

[Marauder Moe]

Well my assumption was that changing the game time may not be a trivial matter.  If that is the case, having the players simply ignore the time gap is a good solution for most things (apartments would have to be dealt with somehow).

If you were pregnant, ignore the month.  Have your pregnancy continue where you left off.

I find it unlikely that anyone has planned anything based on a certain season or month.  If you planned something in, say, "two months" right before the downtime, just ignore that last month and have it two months from game up.

I already said don't demand back pay from the downtime.

There won't be that much confusion, not if we all agree to not be confused.   :roll:

IG dates are simply not that important.

[Gimfalisette]

I agree with Moe. I vote for ignoring the time gap and going on as usual. Rent is the only thing I can think of in game that is actually coded and will affect characters based on the lost time. I'm willing to deal with that, if we can just ignore the lost 10 days of play time.

[spawnloser]

Bebop, it's not that complicated.

I'm with Moe.

The only thing that worries me is the apartment thing... and that some people may take advantage of the situation.

[Aruven]

I wouldn't worry about it, the staff are normally on top of this stuff.