Character Storage and You

[Dakurus]

I am not personally aware of a situation where a storage opportunity has been denied. We don't say, sorry you have to play that character or don't play at all. We have in the past, put a storage request on hold, while we work with the player to have them tie up loose ends or resolve things that "in the middle" in game before storage. Sometimes these resolutions happen in game, the player doing them, sometimes we assist. As I inferred in the post above, we expect that one have enough respect in ones fellow players and the game to do this. We expect that since we're playing a mature, community based and community reliant game that we all will have some degree of patience. The staff benefit, the story and game benefit, and the other players who play in that story benefit. Armageddon is a game that requires maturity, responsibility, and respect, and yet, somehow even with those scary words (for some folks), it's still a game; one that is deep, immersive, engaging, interactive and most of all, fun.

[Eloran]

Characters in leadership positions should not be allowed to store unless cleared by their immortal heading the clan/tribe first.

Other than that, I'd support this.

[NoteworthyFellow]

Characters in leadership positions should not be allowed to store unless cleared by their immortal heading the clan/tribe first.

Other than that, I'd support this.

Indeed, I'd like there to be a no_self_store flag that staff can place on an account for reasons such as IC leadership, vital plot importance, or abuse of the self storage feature.

The second aspect of that gives me pause, slightly, because if you find yourself flagged unable to self-store, and you haven't abused it nor are you in an IC leadership position, you'll have a pretty good idea that the staff, for some reason, consider you ICly important.  It's possible that one can be important to a plot without realizing it.

[Twilight]

70+ characters.  1 stored.

Why do we need this feature, again?

If anything, people who store lots (currently) should be looked at more critically.  For the rest of us, would this feature matter?

[Morgenes]

To put some of this in numbers, since we started using the request tool for storages (2007ish) there have been almost 11,000 storage requests.  Approximately 40% of ALL of these are resolved within a day.

Of all 11,000 storage requests, FIVE have been for unclanned characters.  Of those 4/5 were resolved within 5 hours.

Code Select Expand

clan      datetime_requested      datetime_resolved      elapsed
0 2007-05-21 02:17:45 2007-05-22 19:56:04 41:38:19
0 2007-06-30 16:46:10 2007-06-30 21:50:06 05:03:56
0 2007-08-31 21:30:22 2007-09-01 01:09:20 03:38:58
0 2008-10-29 05:07:15 2008-10-29 10:23:27 05:16:12
0 2009-02-11 15:08:18 2009-02-11 15:08:46 00:00:28


I really don't think the process we have in place is that cumbersome.  Also if I were to code something like this I would only allow it for non-clanned characters and with some of the time-elapsed, and staff override limits discussed above.  Given that there have been five of these in the last three years, I don't think the development time is worth it.

[NoteworthyFellow]

To put some of this in numbers, since we started using the request tool for storages (2007ish) there have been almost 11,000 storage requests.  Approximately 40% of ALL of these are resolved within a day.

Of all 11,000 storage requests, FIVE have been for unclanned characters.  Of those 4/5 were resolved within 5 hours.

Code Select Expand

clan      datetime_requested      datetime_resolved      elapsed
0 2007-05-21 02:17:45 2007-05-22 19:56:04 41:38:19
0 2007-06-30 16:46:10 2007-06-30 21:50:06 05:03:56
0 2007-08-31 21:30:22 2007-09-01 01:09:20 03:38:58
0 2008-10-29 05:07:15 2008-10-29 10:23:27 05:16:12
0 2009-02-11 15:08:18 2009-02-11 15:08:46 00:00:28


I really don't think the process we have in place is that cumbersome.  Also if I were to code something like this I would only allow it for non-clanned characters and with some of the time-elapsed, and staff override limits discussed above.  Given that there have been five of these in the last three years, I don't think the development time is worth it.

Wow.  Only five?

Two of those have been me.

Wow.

[Morgenes]

I need to redo the numbers, I missed a piece of the query, reposting soon.

[brytta.leofa]

70+ characters.  1 stored.  ... If anything, people who store lots (currently) should be looked at more critically.

No more critically than those who kill off tens of characters per year, I do hope.  Neither is necessarily bad.  Contrariwise, neither is a great bet for being counted on to hold down a long-lived role.

(And, sure, it sounds like we're arguing over what's more ideology--who should have the control over storage?--than a real, practical issue.)

[Morgenes]

Numbers were wrong, that was for all requests.

There have been 1270 character storage requests, of those 624 were filled within 24 hours (about 50%).

There have been 60 storage requests without a clan, 45 (75%) of the time these were resolved within 24 hours.  52 (87%) were resolved within 2 days, only one took longer than three days.

I'm still not convinced (with the arguably more reasonable numbers) that this is necessary.

[Twilight]

I don't disagree, brytta.leofa

Fortunately, I am averaging at or under 7 characters a year.  Less if you count the time from before the account system.

While not necessarily bad, I personally find storing to be distasteful.  For myself and others.

[Fathi]

While not necessarily bad, I personally find storing to be distasteful.  For myself and others.

Can you explain why? I'm genuinely curious.

[spawnloser]

I agree that making storage easier would be good... but I disagree with there not being SOME control by staff.  If characters could be flagged as NO_PLAYER_STORE if they are involved in plots and if staff have the option to remove the option entirely from people that abuse storage simply because they don't like their stats... under these conditions, I would support players being able to store their own characters.

People who don't like their stats enough to store, commit suicide. And someone who couldn't store because their character was involved in plots would just not log in, or commit suicide.

...and I'm sure that the staff notices this and makes the appropriate account notes about a player that does this sort of thing.

[RogueGunslinger]

...and I'm sure that the staff notices this and makes the appropriate account notes about a player that does this sort of thing.

I'd certainly hope so. But I assume this does little to keep them from doing so though.

70+ characters.  1 stored.

Why do we need this feature, again?

If anything, people who store lots (currently) should be looked at more critically.  For the rest of us, would this feature matter?

Wow. Because everyone does exactly what you do. 

* RogueGunslinger rolls his eyes

Morgenes paints a pretty clear picture though. If you can't wait a day for your storage, than you're an impatient little bastard.

I'm an impatient little bastard. And so are most of the people I've met in life.

[SMuz]

Pfft.. just write your next character's stuff in Notepad while you're waiting for the imms to store. Doesn't take long.

[UnderSeven]

I like what SMuz has to say about it.

My thoughts are that a lot of these storages occur because of very poorly thought out character concepts.  I know for some newer chars this is more acceptable, but for longer time players I think you would have more fun with a well planned out concept and stats really isn't that big of a deal.  If they are to you than perhaps you're playing for the wrong reasons.  My problem with this idea is that every character does take a certain amount of work.  If we make it easier for the players to store (and in some cases we're talking about people who probably didn't think up a char in advance) then you have someone tossing up a paragraph of stock desc, stock background and then storing when they don't like their stats, or don't like their situation, maybe within a day all the while staff have to actually put work fourth.  I think self storage would create overhead and further encourage the throwaway pc who gets dumped over stats and never really had a concept in the first place.

[Riev]

Everyone always acts so elitist, like "If you do this, you aren't playing by the right standards." and I feel like its a very harsh way of putting things.

I've had "stock" characters turn into things I never could have imagined. I've -never- stored a character, I usually just go out and decide to fight something big and end up getting reeled to death. I am BAD when it comes to that, but I have that disease where you constantly re-make DnD characters because you get another idea on something that would be really cool to do, and so you never get past Act I of Neverwinter Nights.

What was I talking about?

[Jingo]

Everyone always acts so elitist, like "If you do this, you aren't playing by the right standards." and I feel like its a very harsh way of putting things.

I've had "stock" characters turn into things I never could have imagined. I've -never- stored a character, I usually just go out and decide to fight something big and end up getting reeled to death. I am BAD when it comes to that, but I have that disease where you constantly re-make DnD characters because you get another idea on something that would be really cool to do, and so you never get past Act I of Neverwinter Nights.

What was I talking about?

My life story.

Looking through my account notes, I've had maybe too many stores.

Usually it happens early in a character's life when I have problems breaking into a clan, or just really getting anywhere other than tavern sitting. I eventually come up with a concept I'd rather play instead and then store.

[FantasyWriter]

All of my stores have been for spec apps or sponsored roles, I believe.

One was because I couldn't play him "properly" anymore due to a RL restriction on time.

[5 day lifespan]

I dig that. Maybe add a timer. Say, you have to be 5 days old to be able to use that ability.

5 days?!?

DAMMIT!

[Maso]

5 days old?

Or 5 days played? The latter would be ridiculous.

[Jenred]

Since returning Im still having trouble remembering to use the request tool.

But of all the "wish" storage requests I've had, I've never had one take over 30 minutes.

[Myhrrn]

http://www.armageddon.org/request

. Character related
.. Storage

[SmashedTregil]

5 days old?

Or 5 days played? The latter would be ridiculous.

5 days old. By the time you hit 5 days played, odds are you've made atleast ten conscious choices to ... not die.