Discussion Thread: Karma Changes

[MeTekillot]

So wait, the fact that my characters last a RL year each on average is finally going to get me some karma?

finally

[Riya OniSenshi]

So wait, the fact that my characters last a RL year each on average is finally going to get me some karma?

finally

Just one.

[MeTekillot]

Meh, the only time staff ever notice me anyhow is if I send in account note requests. I am a bad player.

[drunkendwarf]

This, I think will lead to one of two things. Either a mass-storing of just about every long lived character that exists in the game, or the players of those characters feeling extremely frustrated.

I've got a character that's only a couple months away from being 4 real life years old. I can tell you that, after finally digesting exactly what this karma system change was all about, my exact first thought was: "Maybe I should store my character and fire up a high karma one before this goes into effect so I don't lose any points yet." Especially given that I've got a pretty high number of karma points, and I've been playing a mundane guild now for nearly 4 years. I've got a high karma itch that needs some serious scratching and this new system guarantees I won't be able to if I have a high karma character die early on in their life.

[wizturbo]

These changes are fantastic.  

Will all of the extended subguild options be publicly available to review, or will some of them remain secret until unlocked with the appropriate level of karma?

Also, will some sponsered roles be awarded bonus karma points to play with?  Such as a Byn Sergaent might get 3 extra karma to spend on their character, to flesh out their 'veteran' status?

[drunkendwarf]

What I don't like at all is this idea of karma being 'spent' when we choose guild options which are permanent under the current system. A lot of players have spent years building up reputations, proving themselves to be valuable participants in the process. We've always been told that the granting of karma is not only a show of trust, but a reward, for we are then allowed to play certain restricted roles at our own leisure. No need to specapp and wait, as staff believes you can handle it and do well each time. Under the new system, that will be gone.

Karma and the effort required to earn it is, I believe, devalued under this proposed system. You cash in to play an expensive role, and you'd better hope some newbie doesn't come along and kill it early, because you won't get another shot for months. You may not even be able to play something close to what you lost. In effect, karma becomes nothing more than extra special applications, the guaranteed approval offset by that same maddening specapp wait period - which will look modest compared to some of the 'regen' waits.

I would be happier if the currently permanent options remained so. Perhaps the new choices could function on the currency system, as they expand caps and/or fundamentally change the playstyle of certain guilds (ie warriors with magick).

Whole heartedly agree. Make the new choices (subguilds and skill bumps) cost karma. Keep guilds karma-cost free. I think the current system has done a good job of keeping mages from running rampant throughout the mud - this feels like an unnecessary penalty. If I've got 7 points of karma, the staff believes me to be responsible enough to play the high karma guilds properly and with good role play. I feel like I'm being penalized now in that, regardless of how long a high karma character of mine may last, I've now got this forced (MANY months, mind you) wait period before I can play another. That's the only thing I don't like.
Either that, or make the karma regeneration period shorter?
I just hate the idea of creating a nilazi, having them die off quickly (maybe I even get the joy of a link dead death!) and am thus forced to wait MONTHS before I can make another nilazi, or some other high karma character? That part of this seems quite lame to me.

[X-D]

Not only that, what about the karma 4 guilds? Two guilds take one karma slot. If I play a whiran and it dies two weeks later I now have to wait to play a krathi because that karma is currently used.


Also, ALL muds that use the karma buy system have a grace period of a week or more before the karma is deducted. Just because of that early death.

Do you plan on putting in a grace period? I mean Hell, if you have karma you don't get newb res anymore. Which was alright before because if you died in an hour or two you simply put in for a carbon copy. But now, you can't even do that.

[wizturbo]

I just hate the idea of creating a nilazi, having them die off quickly (maybe I even get the joy of a link dead death!) and am thus forced to wait MONTHS before I can make another nilazi, or some other high karma character? That part of this seems quite lame to me.

As Adhira mentioned, you can get upto +3 karma awarded via special application.  So following your example, you have 7/7 karma and make a nilazi, reducing you to 3/7 karma.  Your PC dies by some terrible bad luck.  You can special app, get 3 karma, and make a new Nilazi immediately.  So you wouldn't have to wait months unless you've special apped a lot in the past.

[drunkendwarf]

 You can special app, get 3 karma, and make a new Nilazi immediately.

No, I can special app and wait for the special app approval process, which may or may not result in me actually playing said character in however long it would currently be taking to get a special app approved. If my special app even gets approved. Right now, I literally can immediately apply for another high karma character, and be playing the next day.

So you wouldn't have to wait months unless you've special apped a lot in the past.

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but don't you only get 2 special apps a year or something? How is this anything like being able to make new, high karma characters as often as I please, as it stands now?

[IntuitiveApathy]

The formal decision is that no, we will not be retrofitting any existing PCs when the changes come in.

Fair enough. The change is awesome enough that I think most of us will take it in stride. But I think the issue was also impacting enough to at least bring up for discussion.

Similar to others who've responded, I don't think the policy of no retrofitting will be as impacting as you suggest.

Consider your example - if a player has come up with a concept, I would hope that they had tailored (oh ho) that concept to the limitations of the character system as it was.  What would the point have been, other than feeling disappointed right from the start?  I don't know about you but unless I'm actually intent on burning a special app I'm not seriously going to consider a character concept that I can't actually achieve due to game/code/IC restrictions, whether that's becoming a master tailor through a subguild or what have you.

Of course, if you had dreamed of something that wasn't possible under the current system and voila, the new system actually makes it possible, well that's only a little different - again, you've only yourself to blame for any disappointment that stems from that.  That aside, nobody's stopping a player from revisiting their "fully realized" concept again in the future, under the new system, and if I were in those shoes, I'd actually be happy that it'd even now be possible for me to go there one day?

I'm more concerned about the impact of guild hybridization, which encompasses things like potentially increasing the frequency of magick (what happens when everyone and their dog can throw a spell around?), player-player interaction (increase through more trade/requests for raw goods due to more crafters?  decrease through more availability of higher skill craft items being sold to shops, and therefore not having to go visit player merchants/agents/etc?  guild sniffing becoming harder?), clan dynamics (will clans still look to hire x guild over y guild, will clans become more or less accepting of things like magick, etc.).

I'm sure the staff have discussed all of those and more before deciding to go down this route, and I assume they've only decided to go ahead because they see a net benefit for introducing the new system.  Again, I really think it does benefit casual players the most, which I think is really a HUGE benefit to the game, because this game is hardest on that subset of players.  If we can continue to open up the game to casuals as well, I think we'd see a lot of people coming back to play, and many more newer people deciding to stick around after dipping their toes into the sand.

One hope (more than a question, because I know it's already been said the actual skillsets of the subguilds won't be discussed), is that certain intangibles might be included in the new subguild selections.  Wilderness/ranger quit, anyone?   (it'd be so huge for casuals!)

[Zoltan]

Guys, it'd be a MAXIMUM wait of like three months. With the Nilazi example. That's not that long.

I make plenty of use of my karma and the regen time doesn't seem that bad. Hopefully it'll make the really high karma classes that much more special. But yeah, an eight karma person could roll up a sorc once every 5 months if they die right away. That doesn't sound bad to me.

[Akoto]

I certainly wouldn't allow the opinions of a vocal minority, those who want to limit magicker PCs, to influence the design of this system. It's a few people out of many players who don't post, and when they pipe up, such ideas are almost always laughed at. 'Oh, do we hate mages this month? I thought it was rangers, and bards were last month.' That's been the joke for as long as I've been here.

I'd just like to see the guild and race options remain permanent, as they are now. People earned them through good play, they've potentially had them for years, and they get a great deal of fun and satisfaction out of them. The folks who have this karma are skilled and trusted role-players, the sort who wouldn't typically provoke the minority to call for changes.

As far as the new sub-guilds and other options, I am fine with those costing because they advantageously tweak the character. The current karma races and guilds do not. Let them be the free baseline, with all other modifications costing karma. Everyone wins.

[X-D]

BTW, the Average wait for special apps this year is more then 35 days...just FYI.

Just 3 months...Yes, 90 days is not that long, its only a quarter a year.

* X-D rolls his eyes

[Reiloth]

I certainly wouldn't allow the opinions of a vocal minority, those who want to limit magicker PCs, to influence the design of this system. It's a few people out of many players who don't post, and when they pipe up, such ideas are almost always laughed at. 'Oh, do we hate mages this month? I thought it was rangers, and bards were last month.' That's been the joke for as long as I've been here.

I'd just like to see the guild options remain permanent, as they are now. People earned them through good play, they've potentially had them for years, and they get a great deal of fun and satisfaction out of them. The folks who have this karma are good and trusted role-players, the sort who wouldn't typically provoke the minority to call for changes.

As far as the new sub-guilds and other options, I am fine with those costing because they advantageously tweak the character. The current karma races and guilds do not. Let them be the free baseline, with all other modifications costing karma. Everyone wins.

Agreed in all respects.

[Gimfalisette]

I certainly wouldn't allow the opinions of a vocal minority, those who want to limit magicker PCs, to influence the design of this system.

How do you know it's a vocal minority? How do you know that staff is, for some reason, choosing to listen to a vocal minority (if there is one) rather than to their own game-design plans?



It's fine to have your own opinion and position on things, please do. But please don't attempt to speak for anyone but yourself, or to denigrate decisions as supposedly being made in response to some hypothetical minority, or to elevate your own position as being that of some hypothetical majority.

From a numbers standpoint (yes, I must go there), none of us players know what number of players are in any "camp" on this.

[X-D]

Actually Gimf, the statement was made by a staffer. and is what he is answering too.

the statement amounted to "With all the complaints of overabundant mages, why are you guys all complaining about this change?"

Here it is...from Talia.

Also it's a little deliciously ironic that a karma system change which sprang from staff's listening to the feedback of players over many years (about supporting casual play, making for more flexibility in guilds and subguilds, limiting magickers, making karma more transparent and fair, etc etc) has now spawned a thread about how much players don't trust staff because staff don't listen.

The bolded being the vocal minority, and the people often laughed at when the guild/mage hating threads pop up.

[IntuitiveApathy]

Guys, it'd be a MAXIMUM wait of like three months. With the Nilazi example. That's not that long.

I make plenty of use of my karma and the regen time doesn't seem that bad. Hopefully it'll make the really high karma classes that much more special. But yeah, an eight karma person could roll up a sorc once every 5 months if they die right away. That doesn't sound bad to me.

Can staff clarify - will existing policies concerning limiting the number of certain guilds/races/etc running around in the game at any given time still be in place under the new system?  Or is part of the intent of the new system to introduce a natural sort of limitation for this by using the karma regeneration timer to prevent people from continually rolling higher karma characters?

[EldritchOrigins]

Will this change how players lose karma?  Lets say I receive a point of karma for having a long lived character one time, but none of my following characters ever live long enough to be considered long lived.  Is it possible to lose that one point of karma (or karma for other things) for lack of future performance?

What about those that already have karma?  Will there be some way for them to know which category the karma they have falls under?  For example lets say I had 4 karma.  Is one point for having a long lived character, is another point for good communication and the other two for good role-play?  Or will all current karma not fall under a category with only future karma being categorized?

[Sephiroto]

The karma change proposal is awesome because of what it adds to the game and I am ecstatic about the new possibilities this will bring to the game.  Sure, it prevents players from playing several high-karma PCs in quick succession, requiring them to either stay alive a while, or play lower-karma PCs in the event of death, but the irony of this situation is that players with karma are responsible enough to not over-play their karma.

The lowest that karma will go is 3, so most players won't even affected by the restrictions because 4 or 5 karma is the highest level that most players ever attain.  If a player either a) cannot keep a high-karma character alive for longer than a few months until the karma regen, or b) has a problem playing 3 karma and under classes, then I think there is a problem.  The bulk of the playerbase consists of the mundane because that is the nature of Zalanthas.

Finally, the last thing I want to talk about is responsibility.  You do not need to be a stellar RPer, Helper, long-lived, report-submitting, clan-leading badass to earn tons of karma.  Those things definitely help, but in my experience, players who are responsible and mature earn the most trust (karma).  Exercise discretion and maturity and the karma shouldn't be an issue.

[Gimfalisette]

Actually Gim, the statement was made by a staffer. and is what he is answering too.

the statement amounted to "With all the complaints of overabundant mages, why are you guys all complaining about this change?"

I have just gone through this entire thread, twice, to look for whatever it is you are referring to. Adhira and Morgenes appear to be the only staffers to have posted in this thread, and it looks to me like neither of them has said anything remotely close to this.

I've read the other ongoing thread, the derail, as well, and I do not believe a staffer said anything like this, nor anything about this change being driven by a "vocal minority."

[number13]

People actually string together multiple high-karma characters in a row?

...

Any case, if you happen to be allergic to playing mundanes, it looks like the karma three options are always available.

[Bacon]

Actually Gim, the statement was made by a staffer. and is what he is answering too.

the statement amounted to "With all the complaints of overabundant mages, why are you guys all complaining about this change?"

I have just gone through this entire thread, twice, to look for whatever it is you are referring to. Adhira and Morgenes appear to be the only staffers to have posted in this thread, and it looks to me like neither of them has said anything remotely close to this.

I've read the other ongoing thread, the derail, as well, and I do not believe a staffer said anything like this, nor anything about this change being driven by a "vocal minority."

Not in this thread no. But staff has said such in the past and confirmed that nothing was out of whack with the numbers of magicker pcs in the game as a whole.

[HavokBlue]

The karma change proposal is awesome because of what it adds to the game and I am ecstatic about the new possibilities this will bring to the game.  Sure, it prevents players from playing several high-karma PCs in quick succession, requiring them to either stay alive a while, or play lower-karma PCs in the event of death, but the irony of this situation is that players with karma are responsible enough to not over-play their karma.

The lowest that karma will go is 3, so most players won't even affected by the restrictions because 4 or 5 karma is the highest level that most players ever attain.  If a player either a) cannot keep a high-karma character alive for longer than a few months until the karma regen, or b) has a problem playing 3 karma and under classes, then I think there is a problem.  The bulk of the playerbase consists of the mundane because that is the nature of Zalanthas.

Finally, the last thing I want to talk about is responsibility.  You do not need to be a stellar RPer, Helper, long-lived, report-submitting, clan-leading badass to earn tons of karma.  Those things definitely help, but in my experience, players who are responsible and mature earn the most trust (karma).  Exercise discretion and maturity and the karma shouldn't be an issue.

But what about all the people who've never tried <insert 3+ karma guild/race here>? They finally net enough points to play that drovian (a notably difficult Guild) they've been wanting, and then die three hours in because of something stupid like lack of code familiarity... and then are shit out of luck for however many months it takes to get that karma back? This makes it so a normal application using karma would have a higher down-time than special applications, at least the way they are currently. That's silly.

edit: You might say "Oh, if they want to play a magicker, they can go play a rukkian or a vivaduan instead!" To me, that sounds a whole lot like "If you want to play a stealthy character, and your assassin dies, you can only choose pickpocket or burglar for the next three months!" The magick guilds might be outwardly similar but, in my experience, they end up playing very differently.

[X-D]

I put the quote in the post for you Gimf.

[TOOL]

I like the changes.