Jobs of Zalanthas - aka things you spam for coins

[path]

We need a shop that sells shovels. I don't think they're OP.

[evilcabbage]

so we want to make karma acquisition an even -more- complicated system than it already is...

by adding a subset of "ability to roleplay"?

because roleplaying poverty in a believable manner basically falls under ability to roleplay.

let's try not to overcomplicate karma and focus on what this thread is actually about.


also, a rock turn-in would be nice for chits. blockies are worth three, heads are worth two, hands are worth one.

then you turn those in for meal and water tokens, or maybe even coins if you so choose.

i don't think anyone wants to see coins go away - because without these jobs, how exactly do you get coins? you craft something, or find stuff and sell it to a shop that may already have been filled up or sold out of coins because of some lucky guy basically selling shit to get EVERY SINGLE LAST COIN?

without jobs offering coins, there's almost no way to actually get money that doesn't rely on PCs who already have a finite amount of coin to actually offer.

[Riev]

I'm just all for jobs that require skills/talents that EVERYONE can have. While you may not be great at it, everyone can attempt skinning, or foraging, or cooking. This is why rock breaking, mining, dung shoveling... they're all great ideas because even if you don't pick a skillset with any crafting, you can still find a way to pull coin out of the game.

Worse comes to worse, there IS always murder. I don't think people murder enough NPCs because "I really wanted that needle case".

[path]

I'm just all for jobs that require skills/talents that EVERYONE can have. While you may not be great at it, everyone can attempt skinning, or foraging, or cooking. This is why rock breaking, mining, dung shoveling... they're all great ideas because even if you don't pick a skillset with any crafting, you can still find a way to pull coin out of the game.

Worse comes to worse, there IS always murder. I don't think people murder enough NPCs because "I really wanted that needle case".

I would like more murder.

[Jihelu]

To be honest it was a really nice needle case.
And I did need five of them.
....
The boots also sell for like 30 sid




I'd like to see some strange random jobs that come out of left field. Like, go to the Gaj, look at the boards, "Templar so and so announces the addition of a 'BLANK'" or something.

I'm surprised there isn't an obsidian mine. I think there are like, slave mines or something, but then why is there a templar that buys obsidian from the free people? A mine with a 1small or 2 charge to go in and mine or perhaps it is required you give some obsidian to the guy at the door on leaving for use would be cool.

[Riev]

I'm sorry, you haven't mined enough obsidian, friend.

[Ath]

I'm just all for jobs that require skills/talents that EVERYONE can have. While you may not be great at it, everyone can attempt skinning, or foraging, or cooking. This is why rock breaking, mining, dung shoveling... they're all great ideas because even if you don't pick a skillset with any crafting, you can still find a way to pull coin out of the game.

Worse comes to worse, there IS always murder. I don't think people murder enough NPCs because "I really wanted that needle case".

I would like more murder.

Well, I mean... there is a place that some know about that buys corpses.

As for your thoughts on making Jobs "Fun".  How would you do that while also balancing it so that it cannot be abused?  I mean, if I make it so that deposits are easier to hack, that just means someone can make more money more quickly.  Now if we put a cap on how much you can turn in one IC day, that just means that someone comes back the next IC day and turns in more items, or they give it to their friend to turn in.  These are things that we see.  There was a time where Hose Jal would only take certain amounts of Salt (still does), but players would circumvent it.  I'm not saying they were abusing it, but you all find a way... ya sneaky hoodlums. 

[nauta]

As a newbie, I never really liked the automated jobs (Salting, Shitdigging, and Glass/Obsidian Hacking), so I hold the (probably minority) view that we'd be fine without them, or that we could just neuter them and relegate them to mere RP devices (wherein you don't get sid from them and can't get rich from them, although perhaps you can get food/water/ale from them).

I do like 'tasks' that encourage interaction, so I like some jobs (hunting, logging, mining for precious stones, grebbing for rags), and I like the idea of salting and the fact that it encourages people to find a friend and go to a specific spot to potentially interact with other grebbers.

[WarriorPoet]

Nix all this shit, says WP.

Make 'em beg and whore and kill for their coins.

I have nothing valuable to add to the conversation.

[Hauwke]

I think instead of the chit thing, make the folks that buy the things just sell supplies.

Countless times have I seen an unarmored Bynner and gone: Go shovel shit dude.
Honestly for city bound folks that can be one of the 'only' ways to get some sort of cash flow started and removing it in favor of chits and supplies will ultimately hurt newbs as much as it would benefit them.

[evilcabbage]

As a newbie, I never really liked the automated jobs (Salting, Shitdigging, and Glass/Obsidian Hacking), so I hold the (probably minority) view that we'd be fine without them, or that we could just neuter them and relegate them to mere RP devices (wherein you don't get sid from them and can't get rich from them, although perhaps you can get food/water/ale from them).

I do like 'tasks' that encourage interaction, so I like some jobs (hunting, logging, mining for precious stones, grebbing for rags), and I like the idea of salting and the fact that it encourages people to find a friend and go to a specific spot to potentially interact with other grebbers.

some of these jobs you want neutered so badly are the only way to actually get money for certain people, in any way, shape or form. it would be a bad idea to remove them entirely, or make them just 'rp devices'.

even the immeasurably awful twinks push coin into the economy by actually twinking money and buying shit (from pcs) which enables them to buy shit from others. if nobody did these jobs, we'd all be relying entirely on clan pay (which is utter garbage) to try to make ends meet. good luck owning an apartment on 300 coins every half an ingame month.

[Lizzie]

It would be nice if someone could get coins, maybe 1 coin per, for picking up empty mugs around the bars and returning them to the barkeepers.  It would result in a very small amount of sid and get the clutter of mugs, etc, off the bars.

That'd be awesome, *except* during those times when the bar is full and lots of screen scroll is already going on. Most players know to hold up on the bar-clearing activities til the RP slows down. Some don't know, or know, but don't really understand that spam-cleaning is just as annoying to watch during "a scene" as spam-getting-20-feathers-from-your-bag-filled-with-stuff and giving them to the guy buying them. The guy with the feathers -could- just go to another room and do the spamming where there's not a "scene" occurring in the bar. But the guy clearing the bar -in- the bar - can't do that.

I'm all for making a coin or two by cleaning up, and I'm fine with spam, as long as I'm not trying to pay attention to something other than the spam

Just so we're clear, I absolutely wouldn't want the return place to be IN the bar itself. Both lower-end bars have kitchen-esque areas that are less busy.

I know you're talking about picking the mugs up, too, but I think any annoyance there could be handled through RP.

It's an ooc annoyance, not an IC annoyance. I've been a bartender and a waitress in a bar. I can poke my fingers through 10 handled mugs, one finger through each, in less time than it takes me to speak a single sentence. In the game, it just flat out doesn't work that way. You're stuck picking up one at a time, and each one consists of 2 lines of text. One with text, one blank line. A black-robe templar could come in and demand that you all bow, and you wouldn't even know he was there by the time you scrolled back to see what you missed in the spam involved in collecting 10 mugs of ale (even if you have the agility to carry 10 mugs). It'd be worse if you didn't have the agility:

get mug bar
get mug bar
get mug bar
get mug bar
e
drop mug;drop mug;drop mug;drop mug
w
get mug bar; etc. etc. etc.

So now you're imposing TWO rooms with your spam instead of just one.

No spam. Please.

[Hauwke]

To be clear, I am not against changing the jobs. But it just needs to be done in a way that doesnt ruin the fact some folks rely on those for their early game coins. My runner example is just one of a few


I know plenty of folks who will do the job until they no longer need it and only then.

[path]

I'm just all for jobs that require skills/talents that EVERYONE can have. While you may not be great at it, everyone can attempt skinning, or foraging, or cooking. This is why rock breaking, mining, dung shoveling... they're all great ideas because even if you don't pick a skillset with any crafting, you can still find a way to pull coin out of the game.

Worse comes to worse, there IS always murder. I don't think people murder enough NPCs because "I really wanted that needle case".

I would like more murder.

Well, I mean... there is a place that some know about that buys corpses.

As for your thoughts on making Jobs "Fun".  How would you do that while also balancing it so that it cannot be abused?  I mean, if I make it so that deposits are easier to hack, that just means someone can make more money more quickly.  Now if we put a cap on how much you can turn in one IC day, that just means that someone comes back the next IC day and turns in more items, or they give it to their friend to turn in.  These are things that we see.  There was a time where Hose Jal would only take certain amounts of Salt (still does), but players would circumvent it.  I'm not saying they were abusing it, but you all find a way... ya sneaky hoodlums. 

I'm not sure there is a balance. I don't know enough about game design, but if we're choosing between an exploitable system and a boring one, I would hands down choose exploitable in favor of fun!

Cabbage makes a good point here, that those same sparkle-armor twinks getting rich on spam jobs are putting coin into the economy. They're the very same people my con artist was able to swindle on the regular, which was fun for me. I hope it was fun for them.

That's why I suggested making compelling poverty role play karma awardable. It isn't about that being the solution. It's about finding a solution that rewards the behavior we want to see instead of penalizing everyone for behavior we disapprove of. Right now the people who've been twinking out on, for instance, salt, are being rewarded. They're still engaging in what I would consider relatively boring roleplay, but they're enjoying the payoff of that in the form of getting their character set up the way they want to see it. That's sort've awesome! Those players are finding ways to feel interested in and satisfied with their characters. I would argue that as they continue to play and explore the potential of the game, eventually their character goals will change and they'll become more interested in elaborating other parts of the world.

I've actually seen this happen with a lot of new players as they become more sophisticated. As Hauwke says, lots of more experienced players use these jobs to set up (hopefully quickly) to the point where they can move on toward establishing other parts of the story they want to explore. That's also awesome!

[Hauwke]

We could do a pro v con, pro in this case is for the change to chits.

Pro's:
It is somewhat more realistic, no idiot is going to pay a hundred sid each every single time.
It helps distribute tools.
It solves the water and food issue for newbies.

Cons:
It removes the ability to get set up as easily and in a timely fashion for those that want to get to a 'set up' point.
It may unfortunately slow the economy. Because less sid going around.
It could be a rather confusing system for newbies.


Just by looking at that, its about even. And some may not agree that they are good examples for either side of the argument.

[Bahliker]

Track toodan. You all know what I'm talking about. Automated quests. Because when you boil it all down that's what these things are, they're quests. Incredibly boring quests just ripe for grinding. You've taken the "go acquire an item for me" staple of role playing video games and combined it with the "tap to pick up the turd" mindlessness of mobile apps. The obsession with creating the perfect fantasy Stone Age poverty simulator that hit its peak in the mid-2000s has created a monster. I said it then and I'll say it again: isn't this work done by slaves? Aren't the pcs the ones that should instead be investigating and slaying unspeakable horrors for fun and profit?

We played fable 3 like it was nobody's business. We killed those mini games- the guitar playing, the black smithing, the bar tending ("a perfect pour!") -because it was the most efficient way to make money enough to buy property, which was necessary if you wanted to win the game without thousands of your citizens dying. One hour of grinding a button-timing mini game that was decidedly NOT fun in order to bypass three hours of monster slaying to reach the same profit goal. I did it to save time and reach endgame quicker. But why even include a bypass that reduces the fun? If it takes too long to "critter grind" as an adventurer then up the coin drops or whatever and either omit the mini games or leave them for completionists and achievement addicts.

So this is where Armageddon comes back in. Some jobs are valuable to player clans. Let those materials-gathering exercises become profitable as demand from GMH or indies dictates. Let's ditch the rest. At least make them less command spam and more rp tool with a small payout in the end. Then why not introduce a little Toodan in our lives? We have a small player base and an imaginative staff so a lot of the small jobs that are both interesting and profitable can be set up by a storyteller with the desire to do a little GMing. By another name, quests. With some work we could have automated systems set up for much more interesting, challenging, exciting tasks all around the game world. I love the courier idea. I love the rat buyer, maybe he trades a bowl of strew and cup of water for the contribution to the pot. Let's have a bounty board npc for escaped slaves, wanted criminals, rogue magickers, all randomly generated and placed from time to time. Let's see some more unrentable residences in the city to lock pick or climb your way into, to seek out randomly generated valuables among the dozens of randomly generated pieces of worthless junk. With npcs that may or may not be home and may or may not cause you to crimflag when you get caught.

Two questions should be at the center of every part of a game like ours: does it generate interesting situations, and how much more fun is it with more than one player involved? Additional rpg questions to ask next are: does success make us feel satisfied with our characters, and do we feel like we gained anything from the effort regardless of success?

[solera]

Shit shovelling has never been a mouse tapper for me. I find myself unable to separate myself from the stink. It has formed part of who my PCs are, or were before they climbed out of the muck.
I like having to have the option of playing with myself, either because, breed, asocial human, or OOC offpeak, or sick of people.
We build our stories around the bones of code, which includes the grinding that virtual PC's have to suffer every day of their lives. Fortunately our PC's can escape, but until they do, the day is measured in shovelfuls and fatigue and skins of water and sids for food.

[Bahliker]

Maybe it's not like this any more, but the last time I remember digging for dung it was with a byn pc that spent all of his free time there. He made thousands of sid doing so. He ended up filthy stinking rich. I found it boring and just let him have it, going back to the compound to be poor instead. The fact that the real impact on character behavior is upside-down for that sort of job nullifies their value as gamified tools of struggle. In other words, you're electing to be broke if these are the jobs you take on. So hypothetically why not just go full hardcore and rp the job for no coded coin? People elect to play in the rinth in the same way. You can leave any time you want and start making fat bank, but you stay because that's who you want to play. I guess what I really mean is, the code can't ever simulate an economy that produces poverty while staying gamified (partially because it's like three different types of economies rolled into one). So if you want poverty, just play poverty.

I had this conversation with path a few hours ago. I eventually conceded that these shitty jobs have a place, the way the game has evolved. If that struggle is your bag, I guess go for it. But I stand by my four questions, as they relate to a majority experience.

[a french mans shirt]

Chits sounds great. I like playing low-class and poor people, but I also like to play a lot sometimes, and often this means finding ways to avoid accumulating coins. A way to earn chits at a lower rate than what the coin-giving people take in the value in your greb, but the first way is safer, makes sense and takes advantage of people with fewer skills. ( i.e. the ability to defend themselves.) When I play merchants, burglars, etc. and I go salting or mining in caves, I have this constant feeling like, 'this job is too dangerous for me,' and I almost always could work at half of what I was paid and survive just fine.

[Ath]

I am really appreciating everyone's feedback on this topic.  Its opening my eyes a bit on some areas that we may need to look at down the road.  It sounds that most of the jobs are pretty well received, none really need any major adjustments (except one that will need to get looked at at some point).  Seems the chit system could work, but may need to be looked at closely for balance.  One thing I did want to bring up is that these jobs are also a great way for Off-peak players to make some coins so they can keep an apartment or be able to get equipment.

So a moment off topic... how do you like this thread and the other thread that I posted asking for feedback?  Is this something you'd like to see more from Staff?  Does this ruin any sense of immersion or secrecy to the game at all for you?  Is this helping you at all if you're a new player?

[Riev]

Even if none of our feedback is used, I (at the very least) enjoy the fact that it feels my opinion might be useful. My immersion in the game isn't ruined by knowing that I can buy a shovel at <x> place or that "its financially a better option to do <y> job". These are things I think you would find out in game anyway, but admittedly I'm less of a decent Roleplayer than I'd like to be, so I could be wrong. It invites discussion, and while it requires a little more effort to stay on topic, the playerbase tends to be very polarized when given a decision of A or B, and that has -got- to be great for staff, to see all sides of a problem.

[valeria]

I strongly appreciate staff opening up such topics for discussion.

[Jihelu]

I enjoy being able to know about 'basic' functions of the game and have them discussed.


If you opened a topic "Alright lets talk about the spells Krathis get" I'd think that be a little much and kind of silly as most players won't deal with fire mages on a personal level.

Now if you opened a thread "Lets talk about food code" or something, that'd be something cool as well. As more people are likely to use cooking then fireball.

[Hauwke]

I enjoy the chance to 'argue like a little shit' politely about the game.

[path]

I like your topics, Ath. This last spring or early summer I felt like some of the discussions got a big bogged down with griping. I couldn't figure out what to do about it. Nauta did some nice posts to redirect. I think this helps more though, because you're on staff and you do a nice job keeping the discussion moving.