New Code Idea: Timeline command

[jriley]

Reading a post from fellow returning veteran Vesperas*, it reminded me of an idea that I had a couple of weeks ago and wanted to propose.  The idea is for a timeline command.

Basically, you'd type 'timeline' at the command prompt and it would output something like this:

Code Select Expand


Lord Tektolnes Rose to power during the life of your great great grandfather.
At the time of the Mantis Invation, you were 12 years old.
At the time of the Fall of Luir's, you were 14 years old.
At the time of rise of the Plainsman, you were 18 years old.


Why do this?  Because it's kind of hard to keep track.  I mean if you've been playing for a few years you've seen a lot of game history, but then you switch characters every few months and it's tough to keep track of how old your individual characters were at different points in the game**.


* http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/index.php/topic,39395.msg547224.html#msg547224
** ""Know, oh prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the sons of Aryas, there was an age undreamed of...""

[brytta.leofa]

When I write up a new PC, I usually work out his age at Important Dates in History.  (The timeline page on armageddon.org shows the current date at the bottom, so you can arithmetic it out.)

[Lizzie]

That's great Brytta, but a lot of significant moments in history, and historical figures' existences, were never added to the timeline.

[Beethoven]

This feature would be great for me as a new player--and as someone who can't do a math problem to save her life. I heartily approve!

[Marauder Moe]

Might I suggest that this can be done outside of the MUD code.  Perhaps some enterprising player who's also a coder would undertake it.

[spawnloser]

That's great Brytta, but a lot of significant moments in history, and historical figures' existences, were never added to the timeline.

So... what makes you think that these things would be added to a 'timeline' command as suggested?

[Lizzie]

Things like - Kurac no longer has a shop or an estate in Allanak - even though help map hasn't changed and still shows Kurac's presence, and the timeline indicates Kurac is still there, and welcome, and doing business there.

Things like - following the sinking of the Borsail estate, lava started moving south of the city, stopped for now, but there is most definitely a river of lava that wasn't there before.

Things like - the halflings were either drowned/burned/blown into extinction, or mutated into kryl, or otherwise no longer haunt the north road and kryl do - which they never did before.

Things like - there are huge fucking holes in Tuluk, and the UnderCity no longer exists.

Why wouldn't these things be on the timeline?

[spawnloser]

Because, demonstrably so, they're not on the timeline in the documents.  What makes you think that if they aren't added in one place that they would be in another?

[Kiara]

Because, demonstrably so, they're not on the timeline in the documents.  What makes you think that if they aren't added in one place that they would be in another?

Maybe there is not a "reason" as to why they weren't added. Maybe it's not because said events weren't considered important enough, but rather because the current timeline hasn't been updated in, like, forever.

It's a nice idea.

[spawnloser]

Actually the current history timeline has been updated not too very long ago.  If your beef is that the history documents aren't being updated, WHY DO YOU THINK THIS EXTRA TIMELINE WOULD BE?  That's what I don't understand.  It's another thing for the staff to have to input information into so that when you use the command that it gives the proper response.  The history timeline is a simple HTML document, easy to update.  This feature that's being asked for couldn't be less complicated... which means it's LESS likely to be updated any more often, in fact it is more likely to be updated less, which means it'll be generally useless in short order.

[LauraMars]

Actually the current history timeline has been updated not too very long ago. 

1579 (Year 39 Age 21)
    An army of gith holds Allanak in an extended period of loose seige...

I guess if you consider over two years ago to be "not very long."

[Kiara]

Actually the current history timeline has been updated not too very long ago.  If your beef is that the history documents aren't being updated, WHY DO YOU THINK THIS EXTRA TIMELINE WOULD BE?

I never said I thought it would be. 

I still think it's a novel idea.

[spawnloser]

I guess if you consider over two years ago to be "not very long."

Actually, I don't consider that to be very long, all things considered.  It wasn't updated for over twice as long previously.

Still, the important thing you didn't bother to answer from my last post, I'll ask it again.  If your beef is that the history timeline isn't being updated, why do you think this new timeline would be updated any more frequently?

[Kiara]

I think the question hasn't been answered because if any of us do, we'd in effect be calling out the staff for being lazy and incompetent. I'm not about to go there.  =P

[racurtne]

I do seem to recall somewhere that one of the staff posted that the HRPT in December wasn't worthy of a note in the history page.

[Nyr]

Updating the history page is on a to-do list, but it's a bit low on the list.

[Kiara]

Updating the history page is on a to-do list, but it's a bit low on the list.

That's the impression I had. I can't necessarily disagree.

[jriley]

Updating the history page is on a to-do list, but it's a bit low on the list.

That's the impression I had. I can't necessarily disagree.

Yeah, I agree as well.  Which is why it isn't done.  Why is it so difficult for staff to update the history page?  Because one staff member has to propose an updated history document, a second (senior) staffer has to review it, a third staff member (this one technical) has to split it into HTML so that it will sit nicely on the web page. 

It's a broken process. 

But if you had a command in game, you could actually harness player creativity (which is somewhat more abundant) to get the job done, because then you could get something like:

Code Select Expand


> timeline suggest current During this year, a massive volcano appeared to the south of Allanak, around the same time that there was a problem in the Borsail estate.  Speculation was rampant, but nothing solid was ever disclosed to commoners about the incidents.
[bold]Your suggestion has been received, thanks![/bold]


Then when staff flip through the weekly bugs/typo/ideas, they could simply approve, edit or deny each event as it's submitted. 

Basically it helps the players to help the staff.  Help them to help us, right?


I'd really like to know how old my character was when the volcano happened for example, but I don't have a very firm IG date on it and even if I did, I'd have trouble converting from age (which is in base 10) to King's Age (which is base 77?).

[Vanth]

Things like - Kurac no longer has a shop or an estate in Allanak - even though help map hasn't changed and still shows Kurac's presence, and the timeline indicates Kurac is still there, and welcome, and doing business there.

Things like - following the sinking of the Borsail estate, lava started moving south of the city, stopped for now, but there is most definitely a river of lava that wasn't there before.

Things like - the halflings were either drowned/burned/blown into extinction, or mutated into kryl, or otherwise no longer haunt the north road and kryl do - which they never did before.

Things like - there are huge fucking holes in Tuluk, and the UnderCity no longer exists.

Why wouldn't these things be on the timeline?

Because they're less than a RL year ago?

[spawnloser]

Updating the history page is on a to-do list, but it's a bit low on the list.

That's the impression I had. I can't necessarily disagree.

See, this is my problem with implementing this idea.  If it is low on the priority list to update what we already have, why should it be any higher on the priority list to update yet another thing that is almost identical but with an in-game interface?

[Lizzie]

Things like - Kurac no longer has a shop or an estate in Allanak - even though help map hasn't changed and still shows Kurac's presence, and the timeline indicates Kurac is still there, and welcome, and doing business there.

Things like - following the sinking of the Borsail estate, lava started moving south of the city, stopped for now, but there is most definitely a river of lava that wasn't there before.

Things like - the halflings were either drowned/burned/blown into extinction, or mutated into kryl, or otherwise no longer haunt the north road and kryl do - which they never did before.

Things like - there are huge fucking holes in Tuluk, and the UnderCity no longer exists.

Why wouldn't these things be on the timeline?

Because they're less than a RL year ago?

How does that have any relevence whatsoever, with the topic at hand? New players wouldn't know that the hole in Tuluk's street is less than a year old, because they wouldn't know that there's a hole in Tuluk's city street. They wouldn't know to ask, because they're new. New players show up knowing ONLY what they read about. Many don't contact helpers, because many come from games where helpers aren't very helpful. If there is no mention of a hole in the middle of Tuluk, but there IS a help map_tuluk that doesn't show any holes in it, then the new player won't know that they should even question the existence of a hole - until they fall into it.

They would not know that the UnderTuluk no longer exists, becuase the documents state clearly that it does exist. They have no reason to question that. They have no reason to be curious about the volcano south of Allanak, because the documentation doesn't mention that half the world blew up and now there's a volcano south of Allanak.

New players have no reference from which to create their characters' backgrounds, except for what they read. And if over a year's worth of information is missing from the documentation, then it's no wonder they show up confused and frustrated. Surely in the last year, someone could've added the line "there was a big freaky thing that happened in the last year. Tuluk's Undercity no longer exists. The north experienced a huge flood and the halflings were eviscerated. The south had this big ripping volcano with a river of lava running between Allanak and Red Storm, and there were pits and blockages on the North Road between Allanak and Tuluk, the latter of which has since been cleared. There is also a new moon in the sky, which didn't exist as of the previous entry on this timeline."

[Cutthroat]

Right now, much of this information is not at all that hard to find even if you're a new player. What can't be found IC, in the documentation or in staff posts on the GDB is not necessarily common knowledge.

This thread is a sticky in Staff Announcements: http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/index.php/topic,37225.0.html and describes all the events from the recent HRPT that new characters that now originate from various parts of the world would likely have some idea about.

The Armageddon MoTD that shows up when players log in includes:

  Important links for new players:
  Discussion Board: http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/

Any new player that doesn't want to get lost will likely take the advice and at least have a brief look at the GDB.

And Staff Announcements is the first forum on the list, practically begging to be checked.

I also think more new players come to talk to the helpers than one might think.

I think that is good enough for now, until staff can get around to updating the history page.

[Nyr]

stuff

To counter your rant, I would ask instead if any of this is important to a newbie.  I don't think intricate details (world-affecting or no) affect your average new player.

To counter each specific example, a newbie probably doesn't care about the hole in the road, and we're not going to map holes; that's kinda stupid.  They won't know UT doesn't exist, but they can't start there, so the question wouldn't necessarily arise.  They aren't curious about the volcano, but if they were, they could ask another PC, which would be good for a newbie.

I get your point that we could add stuff (and I've already said it's on a list to do, my list, to be exact), but I think you could have made your point in a less butthurt/ranting fashion.  I can't imagine what would happen if even half of the naysayers towards anything Armageddon staff does or doesn't do instead offered to help fix it instead of offering their "helpful" passive-aggressive responses. It's one thing to say it's not up to date and could be updated. It is quite another to spout off in a holier-than-thou fashion to an Administrator, working your way towards the opinion that something very minor is destroying the fabric of the newbie experience.

It should be updated.  It will be updated.  My apologies to the original poster, but I'm going to lock this thread--I know it would be useful to have this information up to date and we'll get on it soon.