Room echoes for 8 karma players

[manonfire]

Idea: Players with 8 karma would have the ability to send room echoes.

[Saellyn]

Actually that would be pretty neat, but ripe for abuse. Possibly only after a small handful of 8 karmas were tested to make sure they could handle such responsibility?

[Narf]

Actually that would be pretty neat, but ripe for abuse. Possibly only after a small handful of 8 karmas were tested to make sure they could handle such responsibility?

I imagine a small handful would be just about all of them.

Aren't most 8 karma players just ex-staff anyways?

[Saellyn]

No, most 8 karma players I imagine earned it without making staff.

[shadeoux]

I seem to remember a breakdown somewhere on the GDB of the Karma levels of the playerbase, though it was a couple years back if I remember however, I'll see if I can find it bbl....

[Kaineus]

I seem to remember a breakdown somewhere on the GDB of the Karma levels of the playerbase, though it was a couple years back if I remember however, I'll see if I can find it bbl....

Maybe this thread?
http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,45052.0.html

To quote:

Percent of all non-staff accounts at karma levels:
0   93.94%
1   1.66%
2   1.09%
3   1%
4   0.66%
5   0.44%
6   0.41%
7   0.17%
8   0.63%
Total Accounts: 12231

Based on Logins in the last month:
0   47.04%
1   7.31%
2   6.92%
3   8.89%
4   7.51%
5   7.11%
6   4.74%
7   2.57%
8   7.91%
Total Players: 506

Best efforts were made to exclude staff, but it wasn't perfect.

[FreeRangeVestric]

Not a fan of the idea. I think karma is a far too subjective and often, in my experience, inaccurate judge of a player's ability as it is, and giving a player another easily abused ability for it is not something I'm too crazy about.

[Cutthroat]

I appreciate the overall desire to have more room echoes, I think restricting it to just 8-karma players will only make them slightly less rare than they already are. I don't know what I would set the requirement to or if it would even be based on karma specifically, but it's a nice overall idea.

[Lizzie]

I think this would just end up causing more problems than it's worth. Mostly with regards to players assuming that a staff member has done something unfair with their character, since we already know that the majority of 8-karma characters are played by staff. I don't believe there's the kind of rampant "cheating" by staff that some people might assume there is, but I don't think we need to give the nay-sayers any more ammunition, or paint a larger target on the staff.

Let the staff do what the staff does already, with their staff-selves, and let the PCs (staff or otherwise) continue to be the PCs that they are, without taking on coded functions that have historically been reserved for staff.

[Follow_the_escru]

Hemotes are your friend

[long live miley cyrus]

Send in ideas for room echoes, forever.

[Adhira]

Complete aside:

Current staff playing 8 karma characters right now = 0

Also, we no longer grant staff 8 karma on their pre-staff accounts.  When they leave staff they return to play on that pre-staff account.

[ShaLeah]

I'd prefer new staff be added specifically for ambient contribution, staff who's job it is to be nosy, watch players, send room echoes. I don't want players with that power.

[RogueGunslinger]

I'd prefer new staff be added specifically for ambient contribution, staff who's job it is to be nosy, watch players, send room echoes. I don't want players with that power.

Storytellers who don't help with apps and busywork sound nice and all but... what we need is more high level staff to speed along them special applications .

[manonfire]

I think this would just end up causing more problems than it's worth. Mostly with regards to players assuming that a staff member has done something unfair with their character, since we already know that the majority of 8-karma characters are played by staff. I don't believe there's the kind of rampant "cheating" by staff that some people might assume there is, but I don't think we need to give the nay-sayers any more ammunition, or paint a larger target on the staff.

Let the staff do what the staff does already, with their staff-selves, and let the PCs (staff or otherwise) continue to be the PCs that they are, without taking on coded functions that have historically been reserved for staff.

Ideally this would function as a way to bring the surroundings to life. Torches flickering in a tavern, vNPC commoners stepping over corpses on Caravan's, watchful eyes on non-inked PCs in Tuluk, etc.

The handful of 8 karma players I know are, imo, capable and responsible enough to use this appropriately.

Not a fan of the idea. I think karma is a far too subjective and often, in my experience, inaccurate judge of a player's ability as it is, and giving a player another easily abused ability for it is not something I'm too crazy about.

Any sort of system that grants highly trusted players this ability would be heavily policed, as it should be. You abuse it, you lose it.

[CodeMaster]

Every PC has tunnel vision to a certain extent - probably including the 8 karma classes.  An 8-karma player would have to be very careful with these "mortal echoes" to make sure he or she is not assuming any context his or her PC might not have (which seems impossible, although I can only come up with contrived examples).

But, I like the idea.  One compromise would be to allow 8-karma players to modify a room's scent message on-the-fly.  It's not very powerful, but it could give some limited authoring abilities to these trusted players in a similar kind of way.

[Desertman]

I'd prefer new staff be added specifically for ambient contribution, staff who's job it is to be nosy, watch players, send room echoes. I don't want players with that power.

I like the idea in theory but they might not do this because, well, almost everyone would want this designation. This would be a pretty sweet staff gig.

Maybe it could be part of the staffing "rotation". Right now staff rotate amongst the clans and areas in game that they govern. I think this was done to keep fresh staff with fresh ideas moving amongst the clans so nobody got too comfortable or too "stale" in their staffing role.

Maybe having a stint on the "Fun Staff Role With No Paperwork Responsibilities" designation would be a good thing for them to add in. It would give staff members an opportunity to relax and take a break from serious staff responsibilities, and also have a couple of staff at any time who were focused solely on just making random fun world "things" happen for the players.

[Rahnevyn]

Every PC has tunnel vision to a certain extent - probably including the 8 karma classes.  An 8-karma player would have to be very careful with these "mortal echoes" to make sure he or she is not assuming any context his or her PC might not have (which seems impossible, although I can only come up with contrived examples).

But, I like the idea.  One compromise would be to allow 8-karma players to modify a room's scent message on-the-fly.  It's not very powerful, but it could give some limited authoring abilities to these trusted players in a similar kind of way.

Code Select Expand


>sniff room
It smells like an 8 karma player has been here.

>hide


[Zoan]

Idea: There should be room echoes 8 karma players can only see.

"Everyone shies away from your magnificence."

[Zoltan]

I don't like the idea in the OP. Leave that sort of thing to the staff.

Which kind of dovetails into the sidebar about a pure interaction staff position, which is something else that I don't think would work out. Ideally, the present storytellers fill that sort of role even while having to handle other various requests, administrating their clans, and so on.

Such a narrowly-defined role would put a hefty expectation on the staffer, and would inevitably lead to an imbalance on where these now-expected interactions take place in the game world. I think it could very quickly devolve into a perceived favoritism thing.

[Desertman]

I don't like the idea in the OP. Leave that sort of thing to the staff.

Which kind of dovetails into the sidebar about a pure interaction staff position, which is something else that I don't think would work out. Ideally, the present storytellers fill that sort of role even while having to handle other various requests, administrating their clans, and so on.

Such a narrowly-defined role would put a hefty expectation on the staffer, and would inevitably lead to an imbalance on where these now-expected interactions take place in the game world. I think it could very quickly devolve into a perceived favoritism thing.

There is already perceived favoritism.

That is never going to change.

Having a staff role solely devoted to providing random fun "small scale" things to the playerbase and its players isn't going to change that/make it worse, in my opinion.

Some of the coolest things I can recall staff ever doing had nothing to do with huge RPT's, or clans, or Houses, but with small little meaningless quests they gave my pc through NPC's to fulfill. The sorts of quests or jobs that didn't have anything to do with the big picture, were easily and simply mostly player ran, had very defined starting and stopping points (so further interaction wasn't expected or sought), and provided a bit of fun and atmosphere to the world that wasn't usually there.

[Zoltan]

I don't like the idea in the OP. Leave that sort of thing to the staff.

Which kind of dovetails into the sidebar about a pure interaction staff position, which is something else that I don't think would work out. Ideally, the present storytellers fill that sort of role even while having to handle other various requests, administrating their clans, and so on.

Such a narrowly-defined role would put a hefty expectation on the staffer, and would inevitably lead to an imbalance on where these now-expected interactions take place in the game world. I think it could very quickly devolve into a perceived favoritism thing.

There is already perceived favoritism.

That is never going to change.

Having a staff role solely devoted to providing random fun "small scale" things to the playerbase and its players isn't going to change that/make it worse, in my opinion.

Some of the coolest things I can recall staff ever doing had nothing to do with huge RPT's, or clans, or Houses, but with small little meaningless quests they gave my pc through NPC's to fulfill. The sorts of quests or jobs that didn't have anything to do with the big picture, were easily and simply mostly player ran, had very defined starting and stopping points (so further interaction wasn't expected or sought), and provided a bit of fun and atmosphere to the world that wasn't usually there.

You have a good point there, though I don't think adding a whole new category of staffer is necessary for those things to happen.

[Rathustra]

Just to reiterate what Adhira said - not only do staff not get 8 karma right out of the gates, but they also revert to their 'mortal' karma when they resign. That means that I will return to 3 karma when I'm done making a mess of things.

On top of this staff are also limited in what karma roles they can play, depending on the number of non-staff PCs that are currently playing high karma roles. This means that if there are, say, five poopazi currently playing, my application for a mutant dwarven poopazi (focus: become a fecal overlord) will be declined. Indeed, if I am busy amassing dried mantis dung for my dungolem and a few more poopazi app. in, I can be asked to stop playing for a while, so as not to imbalance the level of poop-conjuring going on in game.

So I'd say that if you've run into (what you think is) a 6/7/8k class/race in the last few years - it was most likely a player!

[lordcooper]

I'd actually like this to be given at one or two karma.  We're mostly a responsible bunch.

[The Lonely Hunter]

I'd actually like this to be given at one or two karma.  We're mostly a responsible bunch.

You have a very kind outlook and I commend that, sir! However, I would strongly disagree based on my own limited observations. That isn't to say some of them aren't responsible enough, surly there are, but I don't think that should be the line. I've seen a few playing mid-karma range classes that just left me wondering how it happen and slamming my head on my desk.

I like the idea but I would be afraid that once these echoes started some people would OOCly assume that someone present was currently playing a high karma guild and change their IC actions. If such a change did happen, I wouldn't want it to be made public knowledge.