Accessibility of Gathering Spaces Outside Cities

[wizturbo]

We kind of have this already with wagons, but generally speaking wagons are incredibly restricted.

The tribal camps work this way actually.  If you log out in the Arabet camp and it relocates, you move with it...of course the relocation isn't determined by PC's, it's just a set rotation, but still there in concept.

I imagine an encampment (that's really a wagon with non-wagon room descriptions) could work the same way as you described though?

[Jingo]

It's a shame wagons are underutilized. But it's no suprise when you consider why.

[Fujikoma]

I think it would be great to have smaller, significantly more vulnerable, craftable wagons... no npcs on board. Are these a thing?

[seidhr]

Re: more quit/save rooms wanted

Unfortunately, it's not as simple as just flipping a flag on a room to make it into a "save" room.  Save rooms are only found in specific zones (as in, all the rooms in zone X are save rooms, 0 of the rooms in zone A, B, C, D... are save rooms), and that means they are on a different weather system and all kinds of other bizarre behavior that one might not initially take into account.  They are also limited in number.

Also please do not go out and fill a crate with a billion rocks just to make your tent OOCly hard to steal.  That is very meta-gamey.

[Armaddict]

Also please do not go out and fill a crate with a billion rocks just to make your tent OOCly hard to steal.  That is very meta-gamey.

I would consider it more meta-gamey to roll up on a gathering of tents with items set up to show it's an active camp and rolling the tent that probably has people sleeping in it.  Hence the discussion of the thread.  Which is saying that in order to avoid both of those events happening, there could be other things.  Otherwise, players are left with working with what code there is to have possible things be possible.

[seidhr]

I would consider it more meta-gamey to roll up on a gathering of tents with items set up to show it's an active camp and rolling the tent that probably has people sleeping in it.

I wouldn't consider it meta-gamey at all - perhaps inconsiderate or unrealistic, but not meta-gamey.  Additionally, putting a few items in a tent and using 'arrange' on them should also not be a way to declare that forevermore this tent is populated and should be respected as inhabited, virtually.  Presumably the inhabitants do leave, from time to time, (beyond when their players are logged in).  There's no way for someone stumbling upon the tents randomly to know what their status is unless they have knowledge of the place's specifics, somehow.

[BadSkeelz]

I wouldn't consider it meta-gamey at all - perhaps inconsiderate or unrealistic, but not meta-gamey.  Additionally, putting a few items in a tent and using 'arrange' on them should also not be a way to declare that forevermore this tent is populated and should be respected as inhabited, virtually. 

This has the added benefit of allowing us to murder your virtual family. We need more of that, right? People like having their virtual family members murdered? That's all I remember from that thread.

[Armaddict]

I would consider it more meta-gamey to roll up on a gathering of tents with items set up to show it's an active camp and rolling the tent that probably has people sleeping in it.

I wouldn't consider it meta-gamey at all - perhaps inconsiderate or unrealistic, but not meta-gamey.  Additionally, putting a few items in a tent and using 'arrange' on them should also not be a way to declare that forevermore this tent is populated and should be respected as inhabited, virtually.  Presumably the inhabitants do leave, from time to time, (beyond when their players are logged in).  There's no way for someone stumbling upon the tents randomly to know what their status is unless they have knowledge of the place's specifics, somehow.

This, therefore, creates a double standard in terms of what is acceptable.  You say it is metagamey to make it take effort to dismantle a camp.  But it is not metagamey to ignore efforts required to dismantle a camp.  I find this logic terrifying in the hands of a staff member. 

Edited to add:  Particularly since all that one does is say that you have to take out a bunch of rocks and decide if it's worth it for you.  A delay, so that said people in said camp can return from the virtual venture you said they must be on at any given time that they return.  There was no talk of it being 'completely untouchable', ever.  So I don't know where that came from.  What did get said, was that there were measures to make your camp harder to random dude coming along and taking it down in no time flat, giving -some- ability for it to stick around.

And no, I'm not invested in this, but this is one of those cases where people find uses of code to accomplish things that -should- be in someone's grasp...and in a shoddy way even (not very effective)...and you call it meta-gamey?

[Lizzie]

Reason it's metagamey on the other side (we've already established that it's metagamey to fill a box with rocks and why we should be able to overlook that for the sake of believability):

>A small tent village.
Half a dozen tents in a variety of colors and states of repair circle a broad swath of
the desert here. In the center of the circle, a campfire is kept flickering merrily by
any of the various members of the rag-tag group of wanderers. Etc. etc. etc.
Uncoiled and dragged along the ground, a length of rope is held by a tow-headed toddler.
Twin boys, each with striking blue eyes and gangly limbs, play in and around a tree-carved wooden chest.
A stern-looking half-elven woman watches the children protectively with a chipped obsidian dagger in hand.

>A random wanderer wanders by.
>The random wanderer thinks, "Oooh. Free stuff."
>The random wanderer gets a length of rope.
>The random wanderer gets a chipped obsidian dagger.
>The random wanderer struggles to lift a tree-carved wooden chest.
>The random wanderer walks east, dragging a tree-carved wooden chest behind.


That is why people resort to filling chests with rocks in tent camps: to *reduce* (but not eliminate) the chance that some random wanderer will wander by and ignore the virtual world completely in exchange for grabbing the coded goodies.

[CodeMaster]

I don't think anyone needs to be frightened.    Putting rocks in a tent is "gaming the game [or code]" because your character is using OOC code mechanics to impose constraints on other players.  Now before they can act ICly, they have to figure out what you did OOCly.

It's pedantic, but rolling up someone's camp without emoting isn't "gaming the game" because you're not using OOC code mechanics to impose constraints on what other players can codedly do.

[Fujikoma]

I don't think anyone needs to be frightened.    Putting rocks in a tent is "gaming the game [or code]" because your character is using OOC code mechanics to impose constraints on other players.  Now before they can act ICly, they have to figure out what you did OOCly.

It's pedantic, but rolling up someone's camp without emoting isn't "gaming the game" because you're not using OOC code mechanics to impose constraints on what other players can codedly do.

But by that logic, subdue would be. Just, you're present. Say I have too much stuff, I set it down, elf runs off with it, fine. I rent an apartment, and, here, I'm using what's codedly available to place restrictions on what other players can do. I mean, sure, anyone with a particular skill can overcome this barrier, but you don't even need that skill to move a box of rocks.

[CodeMaster]

I should've written "you're not abusing OOC code mechanics to create IC effects in the game world".  Using code stuff for what it's meant for isn't meta at all, but I stop derailing.

[Fujikoma]

get crate
leave
pour crate ground
roll tent
get tent
e (whistling innocently, tent slung over ^me shoulder)

[whitt]

e (whistling innocently, tent slung over ^me shoulder)

Can't use targeting in a move emote.  Some people. *shakes head*

[FantasyWriter]

Also please do not go out and fill a crate with a billion rocks just to make your tent OOCly hard to steal.  That is very meta-gamey.

I don't think I've ever seen this happen, but it actually seems pretty In-Character to me to weigh something down in order to make it harder to steal.

[Inks]

Makes sense. Never thought about it or used it and likely never will but it's like tent pegs. If there was 4 rocks not a billion.

[FantasyWriter]

Peaking of tent pegs... weighing down your tent would help keep it being blowing away by massive sandstorms of doom.

[Inks]

Yeah exactly.

[seidhr]

Using a few things to weigh down your tent is totally fine.

It's just that someone earlier in the thread was talking about how you could take a big container and put vast numbers of low-weight objects into it in order to make it too heavy to lift up, as the container, for anyone but a half-giant and a real OOC burden to remove from the tent.  That's something I'd hate to see done (though I don't think I have ever seen it done, fortunately!)