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.

[Nyr]

If we don't trust staff members to do it with their avatars, we also shouldn't trust players to do it with their PCs, regardless of karma level.

[Desertman]

I think you should be allowed to do room echoes if you vote the maximum number of times today.


Vote twice per day here:



Vote once per day here:

[FreeRangeVestric]

i voted, wats teh comand 4 ekos?

[Harmless]

I am afraid of the slippery slope of giving people new powers due to karma even if they have no coded advantage.

Back in the day there was a game called Dragonrealms I played. If you were a certain level and at least 10 levels above another player, you could "thump" them and completely mute them for about half an hour.

Of course, thump was inevitably abused at some point when someone's emotions got the better of them. In the end thumping was just another stupid little thing people did to piss each other off.

I don't want the sanctity of room echoes spoiled by someone besides a non-player being able to do them. Room echoes should mean something. When a player is in the room with me AND throwing out echoes, I will lose my sense of what the game's rules are. Sort of like how a game master in my P&P games is the only one making the NPCs talk and do stuff.

(I am exagerrating a touch, but I am just expressing why I dislike the idea in general, MOF.)

[Molten Heart]

Emotes are powerful RP tools.  What do echoes do that emotes can't?

[Jingo]

It would be great if we could emote for our mounts. How great would that be?

[Desertman]

It would be great if we could emote for our mounts. How great would that be?

Always wanted this.

[Saellyn]

A large inix snorts angrily as the short, stumpy dwarf looks onward. The inix then turns around, lowers its back end, and promptly craps on the ground.

[Is Friday]

8 karma players nowadays go through a very long vetting process. And if you're worried about them "ruining your day" with room echoes, you must not fully grasp just what IG powers an 8 karma player already has. I'm laughing to myself how ridiculous denying room echoes is for players who can play psi or sorc characters because of "abuse potential".

[Nyr]

8 karma players nowadays go through a very long vetting process. And if you're worried about them "ruining your day" with room echoes, you must not fully grasp just what IG powers an 8 karma player already has. I'm laughing to myself how ridiculous denying room echoes is for players who can play psi or sorc characters because of "abuse potential".

An 8 karma player can ruin your day, undoubtedly, but in the end, they are just one character.  The most they can do to you is power-emote virtual reactions.  Add in the ability to echo (again, something not even staff are allowed to do nor can they codedly do this with their avatars) and yes, you have an open range of abuse potential, and you can't even separate the character from the emote.  Staff animations are already taken as gospel often enough.  The same goes for echoes.  Either everyone kowtows to the person with 8 karma that's flexing their echo power and going over the edge with what they can do, or everyone starts blatantly ignoring them when it doesn't suit them, because "those echoes are from a player, not a staffer."

It's a terrible idea.

[manonfire]

[Is Friday]

I suddenly have far less respect for tier 8 of the karma system if this is not a trust granted.

[LauraMars]

What use would people have for this, really?

Also, wouldn't it lead to people being able to sniff out an 8k player and make OOC decisions based on that (wow local echos happen so frequently around Faithful Lord Lightlicker...they must have 8 karma, I won't assassinate them, staff favorite?!)

I can respect people wanting more ways to make the world come alive, but I think the idea has problems.  You can achieve a lot of atmospheric detail using the emote command already.

[seidhr]

Fully agree it's a bad idea.

You can already do this with the emote command, you just have to include yourself in the message somehow.

Code Select Expand

echo A hot wind blows into the tavern from the street.
vs.

Code Select Expand

emote A hot wind blows into the tavern as @'s silhouette momentarily darkens the doorway leading to the street.

On some level, it brings some accountability to the messaging without staff supervision.  You can already be wildly irresponsible with just emote, but at least people know who is doing it.

Code Select Expand

emote clenches his fists and raises them overhead, red beams of glowing pink lightning shooting from ^me eyes and streaking to the city walls, disintegrating them instantly!

[Desertman]

You know what's never a bad idea?

Voting.

Vote twice per day here:



Vote once per day here:

[valeria]

I think there's already plenty of opportunity to make the scene around you seem alive just by using regular emotes (or abuse the setting if that's your intent).  I would strongly encourage people to spend more time making your character part of the world, and the world a part of your character, in your emotes.  I don't know what I could do with a room echo that I couldn't do with an emote, except be "anonymous."  So, I really don't have a strong feeling one way or the other about this.

[charas]

It's a terrible idea.

I hate to agree with Nyr, but here we are.

Moreover, the karma system, as we all know, has its flaws. Even if it is the best solution we got so far. I generally don't like the idea of ascribing even more weight to it.

Lastly, I agree with some of the posters here: use the emote tools already available to you to breathe life into a scene. Incorporate weather, terrain, passing carts, vnpcs etc...

[James de Monet]

Now I'm imagining components and cantrips for a poop witch.

Thanks, Rathustra





>A foul odor arises around the poopsmith, and his face becomes strained as he begins an inpantstation.

[Nyr]

I suddenly have far less respect for tier 8 of the karma system if this is not a trust granted.

I've already said it two times before, but if we don't let staff do it with their avatars and we trust them to be on staff...why would we ever trust players to do that?  We explicitly trust (and train) staff in doing echoes and in the best way to do them objectively from a staff perspective, yet we do not allow or even code this for their/our avatars.  It's one of the things we don't do as staff because it can be abused too easily and the temptation to abuse it is too high; the same goes for players because we come from that same playerbase.  When you are playing your character, you are playing your character.  You consider the virtual world and how it applies to your character.  Period.  You do not control the virtual world.  Templars are probably the one exception in this area because they can control life and death explicitly, and even they do not have the power to slant their actions beyond the existing emote code, and they're ultimately accountable to their staff team.

I'll try and explain what I mean here by abuse and temptation.  It's a big shiny red button that says "I can make anything happen."  That far too easily bleeds into doing things that benefit your own character, things that punish your character's enemies, things that move towards more OOC PC cliquesh behavior, etc.  It lends itself towards players taking player or even character discipline into their own hands rather than leaving that up to staff.  It makes players RP police.  While it may have some benefits, all of the potential detriments--especially the OOC ones--are pretty hefty.

[armacc]

Am I the only one thinking it would all dissolve into fart and poop type echoes?


The loud sound of cloth tearing fills the air,  followed by a distinctly pungent scent whose intensity might level a half-giant.

[Zoan]

You know what's never a bad idea?

Voting.

Vote twice per day here:



Vote once per day here:

STOP SUCKING UP.

[lordcooper]

He works at a computer company in New York.

[Harmless]

Staff base their decisions to award karma on a set of categories. Each category has a list of criteria which players need to meet in order to gain a karma point. No more than two karma points can be awarded in any one category area and the longevity category is limited to one karma point only.

Categories:

- Longevity

- Good communication

- Ability to roleplay

- Proven understanding of magick and its place in the game world

- Proven understanding of cultural and racial structures

- Contributes to the game

- Leadership

If someone can prove to me why the suggested idea for echoes is related to those criteria for gaining karma above I will quietly applaud you. (Good luck. It wasn't meant to be related to it because as Nyr says, this is a bad idea.)

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I've gotta be honest - I'm failing to understand the reasoning behind not allowing 8-karma players to produce echoes. I understand the possible detriments, but then again, the possible detriments of a sorcerer or mindbender would seem to outweigh the possible negatives of world echoing. If I had the ability to echo, I'd use it to produces echoes that had nothing to do with inflicting situations on targets.

The wind howls loudly over the walls of the canyon.

A roar can be heard from far across the Salt Flats.

To the north, a pack of gortok join one another in howling at the black moon.

A silver-scaled serpent slithers across the path of the Byn unit.

Maybe I hold myself to better standards than what Staff and other players believe people would hold themselves too? I dunno. I'm content with no one but staff having the power, but the argument against granting players the power doesn't hold a ton of water for me, either.

[Nyr]

We hold ourselves to such a high standard in this regard we won't even allow ourselves to do it.

You aren't holding yourself to a better standard, you're just holding up your hand and saying "Zalanthas Defiler's honor, I won't screw this up if I have this ability, I really promise, I'm a good boy/girl."

We're saying "Zalanthas Defiler's honor, we won't screw this up because we won't give ourselves this ability so as to remove even the appearance possibility of favoritism, bias, or benefit to our own characters.  We won't give that ability to any PC account regardless of karma they have because they got that karma playing characters in the gameworld, not animating the gameworld.  You can be sure that when an echo happens, it is either scripted (meaning your staff created it) or from a staffer (meaning they are accountable to the rest of staff and the staff hierarchy), and it represents the virtual world itself coming to life."

It's something we explicitly forbid staff to do with their avatars.  We don't have the code in place to even allow staff to do this with their avatars.  It stands to reason that we feel world animation and representation of the gameworld in this manner is something staff should be doing with their staff accounts rather than with any PC they create.  Staff can only do this from their staff accounts, providing separation between them and any potential character they might have.

If you have 8 karma and you want to animate the virtual world, put in a staff application.  Until then, you are limited to things your character can affect directly.

[Desertman]

You know what's never a bad idea?

Voting.

Vote twice per day here:



Vote once per day here:

STOP SUCKING UP.

So jelly you should change your avatar to a jar of Smuckers.

Haterz gonna' hate.

Vote twice per day here:



Vote once per day here:

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

You know, Nyr, I still don't completely agree with the reasoning, which was that the potential for abuse or the potential for the supposition of abuse outweighs the good.

However, your last post quite clearly showcases staff thought and the reasoning behind staff thought on such a matter, so I'm with you.

[long live miley cyrus]

Send in ideas for room echoes, forever.

No karma required!

[mattrious]

8 karma players nowadays go through a very long vetting process. And if you're worried about them "ruining your day" with room echoes, you must not fully grasp just what IG powers an 8 karma player already has. I'm laughing to myself how ridiculous denying room echoes is for players who can play psi or sorc characters because of "abuse potential".

An 8 karma player can ruin your day, undoubtedly, but in the end, they are just one character.  The most they can do to you is power-emote virtual reactions.  Add in the ability to echo (again, something not even staff are allowed to do nor can they codedly do this with their avatars) and yes, you have an open range of abuse potential, and you can't even separate the character from the emote.  Staff animations are already taken as gospel often enough.  The same goes for echoes.  Either everyone kowtows to the person with 8 karma that's flexing their echo power and going over the edge with what they can do, or everyone starts blatantly ignoring them when it doesn't suit them, because "those echoes are from a player, not a staffer."

It's a terrible idea.

Totally agree with Nyr. I mean there are so many potential problems that could crop up with this. What if there are two 8 karma players in the same room and they're both attempting to drive the scene? What if a staff member is also in the room and attempting to throw in echos?

Large and massive boulders are tumbling from the sky.

The boulders suddenly vanish in mid-air and nothing remains but a eerie and quiet calm.

Suddenly the boulders appear out of no-where and slam into you! Knocking you into the western canyon wall.

I say let the staff do their job. They are trusted with this type of ability and in turn know how to enhance scenes and how to properly feed echos into a room.