Quit Revamp

[Feco]

I'm /sure/ it's been discussed, but I think its worth discussing again.

Quitting.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who gets hell from a girlfriend/boyfriend/spouse/etc. when it comes time to quit.  I'm also sure I'm not the only one who has non-emergencies I need to leave ASAP for.  I also dont think I'm the only one who wants to do fun things, but cant always go far or to new places cause I need a quit room.  I think /all/ characters should be allowed to wilderness quit (aka Camp).  I also think it's easy to avoid abuse and give rangers an advantage.

1) Bedrolls/tents.  Just add a 'use', which allows the user to quit.  Give it a 30 second delay and a 'You begin to set up camp' echo.  No need to actually set up the object, it acts virtually.  User has 20 seconds to quit.  Now, everyone can quit, but they have to spend coin AND carry extra weight.  Bedrolls would be the cheap/light alternative.  Tents have coded benifits already.

2) Rangers stay how they are.  Those crafty bastards don't need extra equipment or time to set up.

I think this is a fair alternative.  Get on with discussing and linking me to past discussions.

I'm not sure what 2.Arm is like in this aspect, but I want to do this stuff in 1.Arm, and I can't imagine it's really that complicated.

[Nyr]

It has been discussed a few times even on staff side; it is not something we are going to put in for Arm 1.

This will be possible for Reborn.

[Feco]

I guess that's it than.

I'll close with the following:

[Akaramu]

I'm guessing that the greatest concern is abuse - people instaquitting to evade other PCs, or wildlife that is hunting them. Maybe Arm 2.0 has a solution for this that the code for Arm 1.0 wouldn't support.

Atonement logs people out 15 minutes after they disconnect (just close the game client) anywhere, but they are vulnerable to being robbed / killed during those 15 minutes. That isn't a horribly bad solution, I think.

[drunkendwarf]

I'm guessing that the greatest concern is abuse - people instaquitting to evade other PCs, or wildlife that is hunting them. Maybe Arm 2.0 has a solution for this that the code for Arm 1.0 wouldn't support.

Atonement logs people out 15 minutes after they disconnect (just close the game client) anywhere, but they are vulnerable to being robbed / killed during those 15 minutes. That isn't a horribly bad solution, I think.

Wait...is this the case already? You're automatically logged out after being LD for 15 minutes?

[racurtne]

That's another MUD, Arm doesn't log you out when you're LD. The staff have to do it, I believe.

[SMuz]

I'm guessing that the greatest concern is abuse - people instaquitting to evade other PCs, or wildlife that is hunting them.

To be fair, rangers can already do this and I don't think they're abusing it all that much. And if they did get in a fight earlier, the game has quite a long timeout before they can quit.

[drunkendwarf]

Yup, I don't see any real case for abuse of this given the whole "You're too excited to leave!" and the fact that rangers can do it already. I've not experienced any abuse by rangers of this that I've known about. I would love to have this ability for non-rangers. I brought this up many years ago and saw it shot down then as well, and that was before Arm2 was even in the picture so I don't have high hopes for it now. Probably capping out at the top of my wish list though.

[Akaramu]

If someone abuses it with rangers, staff can just block their ability to play rangers. If everyone had ranger quit, it would be more difficult to fix.

There's quite a few possible situations where someone is out in the wilderness and shouldn't just be able to quit out to avoid IC issues or problems. For instance:

-Person who gets thrown locked out of Allanak (doors closed) with no water and no mount as punishment. With ranger quit, they could just log out until the gates are open again or until their friend logs in to save them.

-Person is low on stamina and trying to rest when (insert hostile mob) wanders in. Person quits out during the short moment before (insert hostile mob) initiates combat.

-Non-elf on foot is being chased in the desert, has avoided a fight so far by insta-fleeing, but can't run much further now due to stamina. Group of people is actively looking for them.

Rangers can quit because they can be assumed to find food and water on their own during offline time. The same is not true for others, they are helpless in the wilderness.

[Feco]

I suggested it based on playability, not realism.

I also think a delayed set up time would discourage instaquit.

[drunkendwarf]

I suggested it based on playability, not realism.

+1

If someone abuses it with rangers, staff can just block their ability to play rangers. If everyone had ranger quit, it would be more difficult to fix.

There's quite a few possible situations where someone is out in the wilderness and shouldn't just be able to quit out to avoid IC issues or problems. For instance:

-Person who gets thrown locked out of Allanak (doors closed) with no water and no mount as punishment. With ranger quit, they could just log out until the gates are open again or until their friend logs in to save them.

-Person is low on stamina and trying to rest when (insert hostile mob) wanders in. Person quits out during the short moment before (insert hostile mob) initiates combat.

-Non-elf on foot is being chased in the desert, has avoided a fight so far by insta-fleeing, but can't run much further now due to stamina. Group of people is actively looking for them.

Rangers can quit because they can be assumed to find food and water on their own during offline time. The same is not true for others, they are helpless in the wilderness.

Yup, and we could come up with a ton of other ways in which it could be abused before the character in question has actually been in a fight. But why don't we ask the staff how often they find rangers abusing this? There's plenty of other ways to abuse the code as well. Ways that don't affect playability. And yet they're still in the game.

[SMuz]

You could abuse quitting indoors easily.
- Peek/pickpocket a PC near a tavern, hood up, then run in and quit before they look at you.
- Do similarly hostile thing - throw a punch at a templar, harass someone, then quit. I've seen someone actually swing his fist at a templar then quit.
- Pretty much the whole rinth. Attack or be attacked, run into a quit room, hide until the quit cools down, or just run far enough and quit, even while that PC you backstabbed is looking for you.

There should be better ways of punishing those abusers instead of punishing the whole playerbase for a few bad apples.

[Feco]

Rangers can quit because they can be assumed to find food and water on their own during offline time. The same is not true for others, they are helpless in the wilderness.

I don't think we should make this assumption.  Non-rangers can quit in wilderness rooms, they just have to be designated quit rooms, like caves, holes, broken wagons, etc.

Let's be honest.  Being able to quit in the wilds is akin to making camp.  Rangers camp.  Being able to quit in the wilds helps exploration.  Rangers explore.  Quitting anywhere can be abused.  Make it so only one guild can do it, lower abuse potential.

Let's not try to make it more than it really is.  Rangers can quit in the wilderness because it sort of just makes sense, and it's a halfway decent way to control people abusing wilderness quit.

I'm just saying it would be nice if everyone could, for playability sake.  We could even give RP tools (tents, bedrolls), or impose limitations or disadvantages (cost, weight, delay) for non rangers to make it seem "fair."

But, I doubt we're covering new ground if it has been discussed to death on player and staff side.

D:

Seeing as Nyr made it clear it has been discussed before, I say at this point, let's just hope it spurs conversation again staffside.  It's the only real thing we can hope for, seeing as they call the shots and makes the changes, one way or the other.  Even if we have to wait till 2.Arm, as crappy as that may be.

Nothing wrong with conversation, which I assume is the reason Nyr didn't just lock the thread.


EDIT:  Thread was started on my phone.  Impressive, no?

[Nyr]

It's not always about controlling abuse.  Sometimes it's about game balance.  Sometimes it's about a lack of desire to make every guild the same.

[Feco]

I'm just not sure how much quitting can be considered something that needs to be balanced.

I just see quitting as purely OOC, and I call it "camping" just to sort of avoid it being jarring.  

I suppose if it's about controlling who goes far in the wilderness, than it does a wonderful job.  But some non-rangers can't even /accompany/ a ranger someplace far away, for fear they'll need to quit and can't.

Emergencies, I realize staff is lenient.  I've had staff quit me out in an emergency.  But just having to go run a surprise errand, or attend to something in real life isn't always an /emergency/ we should be bothering staff for... but it's a legitimate reason to quit.

Either way, I'm not particularly affected by it.  I can regularly get long slots to play in (and can avoid any real issues with the lady in time, generally)... but I know someday it's gonna happen.  I can't get to x-area for y-reason, but I really should go.  I'll have to just drop link, and hope for the best.  I'm also sympathetic for people who may have to regularly experience that.

Shrug?

[Taven]

Yup, I don't see any real case for abuse of this given the whole "You're too excited to leave!" and the fact that rangers can do it already. I've not experienced any abuse by rangers of this that I've known about. I would love to have this ability for non-rangers. I brought this up many years ago and saw it shot down then as well, and that was before Arm2 was even in the picture so I don't have high hopes for it now. Probably capping out at the top of my wish list though.

This is slightly off-topic, but still a way that quitting out could be revamped. I don't like that when I'm sparring I get "You're too excited to leave!" and I have to hang around until that timer is gone. Having played several militia PCs, I can say that it's really annoying when you have real life things to do, and can't quit because you were sparring. I've seen people just opt to go LD in the barracks, since there's no hunger code after an hour and they needed to go do things. This works, but it seems silly to me.

Why not just make it so that in a fight with only sparring weapons involved, you don't get the "It's too excited to leave!" message?

I'm not sure how hard that would be to code, but I don't think it would be abused. I mean, certainly there's probably a way that someone could think of to try, but I don't think it would be common, and staff could handle the oddball abusers.

[Nyr]

I'm just not sure how much quitting can be considered something that needs to be balanced.

Sometimes it's about a lack of desire to make every guild the same.  (I wasn't necessarily saying that quitting needs to be balanced.  I was saying that there are many reasons we may not want to pursue something.)

[Feco]

Eh, I don't have any more to say on the matter.  Content agreeing to disagree until Reborn rolls around and there is further discussion.

[FantasyWriter]

Arm 2 has code built in to auto-log out idlers and people who have lost link.

I think this is a reasonable enough addition/change for Reborn.

One of the "advantages" of the lack of ability to quit out that I like is that it makes world exploration difficult for 90+% of characters.
This keeps rare things rare, secret things secret, and leaves hard to reach/find places hard to reach/find.

Also having "half" guilds (assuming that this is still how staff intends to handle skill selection) will enable more people to be able to use this ability as it exist now.
Assuming "ranger" as it currently is is split up into, say: survivalist and hunter, everyone will get the change to play a survivalist warrior or survivalist vivaduan or a survivalist assassin who insist on collecting his own hard to reach poisons and cures. Even though it takes 10 plus hours of play to reach them and you can only log in two hours a day.

[wizturbo]

Sometimes it's about a lack of desire to make every guild the same.  (I wasn't necessarily saying that quitting needs to be balanced.  I was saying that there are many reasons we may not want to pursue something.)

In my opinion trying to differentiate guilds based on OOC abilities isn't the answer.  This is purely an OOC ability with shabby IC justification, and greatly limits the gameplay for everyone else.  I would say this is the #1 reason I do not play the game as frequently as I'd like.  If it's a concern about abuse, make it unlock at a certain karma level.  But if all it is achieving is giving rangers a perk, why not give rangers something ICly cool instead and make this vital OOC capability more widely available?

[a strange shadow]

Sometimes it's about a lack of desire to make every guild the same.  (I wasn't necessarily saying that quitting needs to be balanced.  I was saying that there are many reasons we may not want to pursue something.)

In my opinion trying to differentiate guilds based on OOC abilities isn't the answer.  This is purely an OOC ability with shabby IC justification, and greatly limits the gameplay for everyone else.  I would say this is the #1 reason I do not play the game as frequently as I'd like.  If it's a concern about abuse, make it unlock at a certain karma level.  But if all it is achieving is giving rangers a perk, why not give rangers something ICly cool instead and make this vital OOC capability more widely available?

This. Players who can't reliably devote large blocks of time to the game shouldn't be forced to either play less or play rangers.

[Nyr]

What I am saying and have been saying is that this is something staff isn't going to do right now for a lot of reasons.  I listed some, one of the chief ones being that despite player opinion, it is the staff opinion that quit is not just OOC.  If you disagree with these points of view, that's fine.  If you'd like, you can read more and even get past staff opinions on it.  There are also plenty of decent player opinions on the matter.  Starting out with "I'm sure this has been posted before, let's discuss it again" is fine; do note that it has been posted before, and the rebuttals/replies/supporting stuff has been repeated many a time.

http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/index.php/topic,40087.0.html
http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/index.php/topic,38289.0.html
http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/index.php/topic,39204.0.html
http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/index.php/topic,35736.0.html
http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/index.php/topic,35705.0.html
http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/index.php/topic,22622.0.html
http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/index.php/topic,20166.0.html

[wizturbo]

I suppose I went about this the wrong way.  There is no reason to argue that wilderness quit changes are needed, that point has already been debated and agreed upon.  It's being coded into Arm 2.0 after all, so obviously that side of the House won the vote.   

The reason for my post on this is I'm a bit annoyed that it won't be turned on for Arm 1.0 so I can enjoy the game now, instead of some indefinite waiting period.   Why wait?  Ranger quit code is in place, I can't imagine it being very complicated to implement for more guilds.  If there is special coding going in for Arm 2.0 to avoid abuse, I suppose I can understand that...but this is one of those issues that really does add a huge suck factor to an otherwise great game.  It wasn't so bad when I was younger and had less RL responsibilities, but it feels pretty crippling now whenever life gets busy.

[FantasyWriter]

my logically assumed answer:

1+2=3

1. Staff doesn't mind it being done in some form or other. (or they would not have coded it for 2.arm)
2. Many small code changes go in all the time.
3. It's not as easy as simply changing/adding a few lines of code, and therefore not worth the time it would take for restructuring v. spending that same coding time on getting Reborn out so that you have have you cake and eat it too.

[Nyr]

The reason for my post on this is I'm a bit annoyed that it won't be turned on for Arm 1.0 so I can enjoy the game now, instead of some indefinite waiting period.   Why wait? 

Perhaps because the two games run on different codebases.

It wasn't so bad when I was younger and had less RL responsibilities, but it feels pretty crippling now whenever life gets busy.

Linked previously, unquoted until now (and bolded for emphasis):

I don't think the current system is going to change at this point.

If you feel that you are going to be severely impacted by your internet connection or real life on a regular basis during your allotted Armageddon time, you should tailor your roles to that.  If you want to play in the wilderness and end up out there on a regular basis, play a ranger (you can quit anywhere).  If you want to play in the cities, know where the quit locations are.  The more socially-based your character, the better (less likely that you'll end up too far from a quit room).  If you know you have to leave in X time, then don't do stuff that will take longer than that. 

In the case of a spotty internet connection, it would be impossible to predict when it will decide to asplode.  Your solution would not address that.  In the case of the network to ginka deciding to go on the fritz, your solution would not address that, either.  The posts in "Ask the Staff" couldn't have been helped.  No one could get to ginka because the network was down.

One solution that exists presently is to wish up if you need to quit out.  Real life does happen, as do emergencies.  Most of the time, most people can probably fire off a quick wish or an ooc that RL struck and they have to go NOW and then drop link if necessary. If your internet connection sucks and is spotty, it's probably better to get that fixed.

and

From Morgenes here on the old blog:  http://www.zalanthas.org/blogs/brideofson/archives/001407.html

Link-dead Timeout [engine default 30 minutes]

If you're link-dead for more than the specified time, you are automatically extracted from the game.

Note that if we chose to use the link-dead timeout, it will allow a ranger-quit for non-rangers with the cost of having to leave yourself exposed for the delay specified.

In closing, please remember that this is just what the engine currently supports, more features could be added, and some, if not all of these might not be used at all.

Posted by Morgenes at January 4, 2008 12:00 PM