Discussion Thread: Karma Changes

[Cutthroat]

Staff are still working out the regen rate, so I think it's not safe to assume that we're going to be waiting a month per point just yet.

if the staff thinks you have played too many of "x" they will ask you to stop doing it for awhile. They ALREADY do this.

That's true. But they have to notice, and then they have to hope you'll listen to them without them taking away the option. This new system is more hands-free in that regard.

This system is telling them that they'll have to sacrifice it - and worse - if their 8-karma character gets PKed by a noob after a day's play they would have to special app an equal replacement, OR play mundanes for the next 5 months until they regen that karma back again.

Well, no, not necessarily. The system is apparently fluid enough for staff to consider putting in a grace period if something goes wrong. How long it will be is anyone's guess at the moment.

It's a slap in the face to the people who have already earned it and who have been enjoying it, with the staff's blessings, up to this point.

As someone who has earned and enjoyed karma, I have to say it doesn't feel like a slap in the face at all.

Sure, you're spending these points for cool roles, which I'd really like to play and even have some written concepts for. But the benefits to that single drawback are potentially huge. I believe this will lead to players taking risks in moderation, leading to intriguing PCs. PCs that aren't necessarily out of the norm due to their accrued wealth or skill (though they might be), but due to uncoded things like longevity and clout. This will lead to fuller storytelling and roleplay, which I believe we're all here for. And although we might not be able to play magickers and muls anytime we want, we'll be able to play them enough that when we do get a chance to, it will be a fresh and interesting experience.

That's just my opinion, though. How the game changes due to all this remains to be seen.

My only real concern is the regeneration rate of these points. I think a month might be a bit too harsh, but I'm willing to work through it and let staff tweak it if they decide to roll it out with 1 point/month.

[IntuitiveApathy]

I will say that I have a minor concern about karma review, though. It would suck to possibly lose some karma because I'm not logged in nearly as much these days, despite the fact that I'm the same player I was back when I earned my karma. But I think that might just be paranoia speaking. 

That's my concern too, so my solution is that I'm not going to ask for a review!    

[brytta.leofa]

Something like that, Unless you use one of the 12 spec apps you get a year to do it.

I was about to "correct" you, but you're actually right.  Holy chalton, that's a lot of special apps.  I thought we were allowed two a year or somesuch.

[Oldarmer]

Change is scary.

This however seems more transparent, and a transition to make karma more defined and dimensional as it's always been poorly implemented, being a combination of a trust tool and race/class limiter.

It sounds like it streamlines work some for staff and clarifies some criterion, which is good based on staff turnover and the human nature of the game.

There's been some good feedback, constructive, helping shift and shape the stated change. These will likely have some impact and make it better.

Then there's the rock throwing, neagtive language, my strategy is better, or significant changes that as everyone knows will unlikely to be taken into account or change anything.

Self-defeating, so that in the end, one can act defiant, injured, ignored, marginalized and build on that ever growing chip on the shoulder.

Most of the folks who post on the gdb are intelligent and well spoken (written). One can easily tell the postive from the negative by their posting style and the language/words they use. Those that want to be positive contributors and see their input have a opportunity to make a difference, they adjust their approach, and the others don't.

Over the years one learns to read the gdb, pay attention to the constructive positive folks, and just smile and nod at the negative/nay sayers.

[Synthesis]

All my non-mundane high-karma PCs have been pretty shitty, so I'm just looking forward to using the points for skill-bumps and snazzy subguilds and whatnot.

It will definitely be nice to have combat or semi-combat PCs who can also create mastercraft items that aren't merely food recipes.

[Cutthroat]

The main problem with taking away the karma system entirely is that you're left with a situation where staff are too subjective. One staff member might approve your sorcerer, while another might feel you don't have enough experience yet. With the karma scale, at least everyone has agreed upon where you are already. It's a fairer system, overall.

The other problem is that karma also exists for the player to know how much he or she is trusted, on a standard scale. Without karma, players would have a vague idea at best how "good" they are as players.

A couple people posted about karma review... actually, I believe account notes currently carry with them the possibility that your karma would decrease. So if you were brave enough to get account notes before, you should still be brave enough to get them after the changes go into place. 

[jstorrie]

Something like that, Unless you use one of the 12 spec apps you get a year to do it.

I was about to "correct" you, but you're actually right.  Holy chalton, that's a lot of special apps.  I thought we were allowed two a year or somesuch.
[/quote]

We are presently allowed more special apps than we could use in a year - even if we instantly suicided every PC after it was approved - given the current long turn-around on special applications. The cap's kind of a moot point.

[Lizzie]

You get 3 special apps per year. The "monthly" thing is that you can space the three no sooner than 1 month apart, each.

So - you can special app, get denied, and wait 30 days to special app again. Get that one approved, that one dies in a week, and you have to wait 30 days from the date you apped that one, before you can app a third. And then, you can't app another one for another 9 months, because you will have used up your 3 per year allotment.

On the other hand, they don't normally address special apps that often so it would end up being more like 1 every 4 months, simply because it takes that long to get approved or denied.

Also, a denial counts as one of the 3 you're allowed. So if it gets denied, you only get 2 more apps that year. I believe this was a pretty thick bone of contention when they implemented this change. I have only submitted one special app since I started playing this game, and it was denied, so I've never actually played a special app character.

However, I probably will start submitting them once this karma thing is implemented. Why waste karma on a character concept when I can special app it instead? It'd take less time to get an answer back from a special app, than it would take to regen karma. So I could tag-team it. Spend karma on a character, then special app the next one. By the time I go through both of those characters, I'll probably have enough karma to do another of the first idea's guild/race again. And the next one would get special apped - and the next one I'd use karma.

It's convoluted, but no more than the whole system itself. But it will mean -more- special apps for the staff, not fewer. It will just make special apps more useful and more attractive.

[Voular]

The main problem with taking away the karma system entirely is that you're left with a situation where staff are too subjective. One staff member might approve your sorcerer, while another might feel you don't have enough experience yet. With the karma scale, at least everyone has agreed upon where you are already. It's a fairer system, overall.

The other problem is that karma also exists for the player to know how much he or she is trusted, on a standard scale. Without karma, players would have a vague idea at best how "good" they are as players.

A couple people posted about karma review... actually, I believe account notes currently carry with them the possibility that your karma would decrease. So if you were brave enough to get account notes before, you should still be brave enough to get them after the changes go into place. 

One staffer can give you all of your 8 karma. Or two. Or which ever are subjected to like you.

I bet you money, hard money, that alot of staffer won't go through the trouble grow a pair and go against the grain of some senior staffer over an issue such a singular's players karma level.

[Kol]

I will say that I have a minor concern about karma review, though. It would suck to possibly lose some karma because I'm not logged in nearly as much these days, despite the fact that I'm the same player I was back when I earned my karma. But I think that might just be paranoia speaking. 

Not logging in as much won't lose you any Karma, the longevity karma point is pretty much automatic if you've played a year at least with no bad notes.

As far as the magicker after magicker thing. I think if someone wants to make water/stone/wind/fire/shadow/lightning over and over again, they should be able to. There does exist a large part of one of the major cities in the game devoted to these. They are not as rare as all that. For nilazi,muls, sorcs, and psions I agree they should be rarer. So, excluding magicker hate, I can see why people that like to play elementalists would be a little put off by this. The ones that can be gemmed are far more abundant, and should be, than the others.

I don't play them that often myself but I have enjoyed a couple of the ones I've tried. When people express their hate and how much they are for anything that prevents others from playing magickers all the time if they so choose, it makes me want to make more of them just to spite them.

I disagree, and despite weather you choose to go make magicker after magicker just to spite me, I'll continue to do so.

Lets say I choose to play 6 krathi's in a row, and I'm rolling up no 7 because I like Krathi's and I've earned the right to play them as much as I damn well please,  it gets accepted, I get in game, set him up, and start kicking ass.

Now lets say Mansa has just got enough Karma to play his first Krathi, and would love to do so. He rolls him up, apps him, and gets denied due to the fact there's too many running around already, and I just took the last free spot.

Why should Mansa have to wait for my 7th Krathi to die? I just played a straight 6 of them, sure, I can move plot, kick ass, get that templar in my pocket, and have mud-sexx with that whiran while flying over Nak. But I'm doing it for the 7th time, sure, different people, different place, different life goals, but it's pretty much the ssdd scenario. For Mansa and his new, original Krathi, it wouldn't have been, but he can't play it right now, 'cus I can make this douche live for ever. Sorry Mansa, you have to chill on the back burner.

Also, a thought just struck me (yes, it hurt) the higher the Karma of the role, the more staff have to watch and monitor you, just because my last 6 Krathi's didn't decide to go rampaging through tuluk riding a 'Met and tossing pillars of fire on every silk-clad merchant he see's, dosen't mean I won't get bored and do it with this one.

Now, not only does Mansa NOT get to play with his burning desire to play a Krathi (see what I did there?  ) but because he chose to play a regular joe indie ranger, he also gets overlooked when his ranger does something that little bit spectacular that would have given him another thumbs up, because staff were too busy monitoring me and my fireball flinging self.

Now under the new system, not only can I not hog a space in that group like I've been doing for the past 6 months, but Mansa gets to play with his Krathi, and staff don't have to bother constantly monitoring me because I'm a higher karma role than him. Spread that across the board, and after a while, it makes sense.

Not only do I stop hogging all those spots you so love, staff don't have to sit there and watch me all the time, because I can't hog that spot, or their attention, for at least another two months. And hell, in that time, Mansa's Krathi not only did epicly well, and got him another point of Karma, it also moved along plot that changed the game a little. And to top it off, died! So I can happily play my fireball tossing pyromaniac self into the ground again until he dies, by which time, if I've played him right, I should be able to app for another anyway.

I think if you actually thought about how this system will work, and how it affects the playerbase as a whole, it might not be such a sore point. Yes, you've earned the right to play that high karma guild, but if you can't keep one alive for very long, why should you be able to re-roll another, then another, then another?

Your complaining because your afraid that if you spend your CGP on a guild choice you want to play, and get killed before your CGP has a chance to regen, you wont be able to play another straight after? So what? I've had special apps that died after two hours of playing, yhea, I was pissed, I didn't however, demand a change to the special app system because I earned the right to play that special app, and demand another.

If you want to play a HG Nilazi after you play your current HG Nilazi, you better be able to keep your HG Nilazi's alive at least 3 months.

Which, by the time you have the karma to do so, you should be able to do without too much difficulty.

[Zoltan]

The main problem with taking away the karma system entirely is that you're left with a situation where staff are too subjective. One staff member might approve your sorcerer, while another might feel you don't have enough experience yet. With the karma scale, at least everyone has agreed upon where you are already. It's a fairer system, overall.

The other problem is that karma also exists for the player to know how much he or she is trusted, on a standard scale. Without karma, players would have a vague idea at best how "good" they are as players.

A couple people posted about karma review... actually, I believe account notes currently carry with them the possibility that your karma would decrease. So if you were brave enough to get account notes before, you should still be brave enough to get them after the changes go into place. 

One staffer can give you all of your 8 karma. Or two. Or which ever are subjected to like you.

I bet you money, hard money, that alot of staffer won't go through the trouble grow a pair and go against the grain of some senior staffer over an issue such a singular's players karma level.

Are you trolling?

I would bet soft, pretend money that if one and only one staffer were to plunk all the karma a player has into their account, there may be some discussion about it. And it doesn't take "a pair" to "go against the grain". If I were on staff and questioned something like that, I'd talk with the staffer in question, a producer, or maybe even make a related topic on the IDB. It's not a big deal to ask someone for some objectivity.

[Cutthroat]

You get 3 special apps per year. The "monthly" thing is that you can space the three no sooner than 1 month apart, each.

So - you can special app, get denied, and wait 30 days to special app again. Get that one approved, that one dies in a week, and you have to wait 30 days from the date you apped that one, before you can app a third. And then, you can't app another one for another 9 months, because you will have used up your 3 per year allotment.

On the other hand, they don't normally address special apps that often so it would end up being more like 1 every 4 months, simply because it takes that long to get approved or denied.

Also, a denial counts as one of the 3 you're allowed. So if it gets denied, you only get 2 more apps that year. I believe this was a pretty thick bone of contention when they implemented this change. I have only submitted one special app since I started playing this game, and it was denied, so I've never actually played a special app character.

However, I probably will start submitting them once this karma thing is implemented. Why waste karma on a character concept when I can special app it instead? It'd take less time to get an answer back from a special app, than it would take to regen karma. So I could tag-team it. Spend karma on a character, then special app the next one. By the time I go through both of those characters, I'll probably have enough karma to do another of the first idea's guild/race again. And the next one would get special apped - and the next one I'd use karma.

It's convoluted, but no more than the whole system itself. But it will mean -more- special apps for the staff, not fewer. It will just make special apps more useful and more attractive.

The wait period makes this unappealing if your PC dies before your special app is approved, and I suspect staff will easily catch on to the special app process being used frivolously. (Which I recall was one of the reasons the maximum number of special apps per year was adjusted in the first place.)

Voular, the issue of staff corruption's been addressed in another thread that derailed from this one, but basically, I don't see that as something that would actually happen. Staff really do seem to check each other, even if many players have been skeptical about that.

[Voular]

The main problem with taking away the karma system entirely is that you're left with a situation where staff are too subjective. One staff member might approve your sorcerer, while another might feel you don't have enough experience yet. With the karma scale, at least everyone has agreed upon where you are already. It's a fairer system, overall.

The other problem is that karma also exists for the player to know how much he or she is trusted, on a standard scale. Without karma, players would have a vague idea at best how "good" they are as players.

A couple people posted about karma review... actually, I believe account notes currently carry with them the possibility that your karma would decrease. So if you were brave enough to get account notes before, you should still be brave enough to get them after the changes go into place. 

One staffer can give you all of your 8 karma. Or two. Or which ever are subjected to like you.

I bet you money, hard money, that alot of staffer won't go through the trouble grow a pair and go against the grain of some senior staffer over an issue such a singular's players karma level.

Are you trolling?

I would bet soft, pretend money that if one and only one staffer were to plunk all the karma a player has into their account, there may be some discussion about it. And it doesn't take "a pair" to "go against the grain". If I were on staff and questioned something like that, I'd talk with the staffer in question, a producer, or maybe even make a related topic on the IDB. It's not a big deal to ask someone for some objectivity.

No. I am simply pointing out the fact that the karma system is as much flawed from the inside as it is to us. It makes no god damn sense, it's an illusion of choice. We have no idea if we're all given karma at a relative pace, or karma for the same things. Since we can hardly compare, nor are we notified by staffers (usually?). My opinion is that it would be easier to do away with it. The counter-argument is that the karma system lets staffers know who they can trust and who they can't. And I do not believe we have such a huge playerbase that the ones who can't be trusted with certain roles can't be identified easily. The account notes themselves should be good enough for that, and the karma points should be turned into informative and lengthy bulletins on your account notes. So when we put in applications, the staffers can look them over - discuss if needed - then approve. I would rather wait a week on my sorc, than to play 12 years to accumulate enough karma.

[IntuitiveApathy]

A couple people posted about karma review... actually, I believe account notes currently carry with them the possibility that your karma would decrease. So if you were brave enough to get account notes before, you should still be brave enough to get them after the changes go into place. 

Well the thing is, we don't necessarily know what we were awarded our karma for, or more accurately what categories each point falls under.  And staff warned that if our existing karma doesn't fit into the category limitations, it could be wiped as excess.

So I'd rather not take the risk..

[marko]

I'm totally going to be out of karma now!

I think a month to regen a karma point is too slow.  Two weeks is a better timeframe.

But, if staff can regen karma faster manually (like for good roleplay or whatever) then I'm good with that.  So instead of putting someone to 8 karma they could raise someone at 2/6 to 3/6.

As to how karma is granted I wouldn't speculate on that.  That's an issue for staff and it has its own checks and balances.  This new system is meant to be an improvement on the current system and I support the staff on their efforts to make the system more dynamic.

[Adhira]

It was good while it lasted.

Thanks for the constructive feedback.  We've taken some things in to account and have already made some changes to the wording of a category heading and some of the criteria.

We're still discussing the karma regen rate and some kind of appeal system/grace period.  These things seem important to players and we agree they could do with some looking at.

When we have the system ready to go we'll link you to a karma webpage that will outline the system and how it works in full.  Expect to hear more on the subject of subguilds in the next couple of weeks, once the helpfiles are finalised.

Locking this thread now.