Gladiator Clan

[nauta]

All three, really: masks, doubling echos, speed.

But, as mother says, it doesn't matter what happens in the Arena event, as long as the family is all there together for it.

I'm 110% behind a Gladiator Clan, whatever manifestation. 

Re: population count)  I'm of the camp who thinks that having more options inspires more creative RP, even if there are only 10 players online.  Done right, I can see a Wyverns working out just fine. 

My first characters really wanted to be Wyverns, but it closed just after I joined.

[Akaramu]

Re: population count)  I'm of the camp who thinks that having more options inspires more creative RP, even if there are only 10 players online.  Done right, I can see a Wyverns working out just fine. 

I think it could work as a sort of 'rotating' clan opening with role calls whenever Gladiators open up. Kind of like Tor / Fale or the Tan Muark were opened and closed over the years.

[650Booger]

Is this more to do with the way combat works in Armageddon, the masks or just how any sort of frantic activity would play out with our codebase?

I think it's all three of these.  and above all the double echoes (this may be unavoidable with current code).

I'm sure it's an amazing experience as a player though.

What if we could just vastly simplify the echoes that are produced.  limit them to movements, player emotes, critical hits, and deaths? 

[bardlyone]

Re: population count)  I'm of the camp who thinks that having more options inspires more creative RP, even if there are only 10 players online.  Done right, I can see a Wyverns working out just fine. 

I think it could work as a sort of 'rotating' clan opening with role calls whenever Gladiators open up. Kind of like Tor / Fale or the Tan Muark were opened and closed over the years.

I like the idea of it being the Wyverns, or a subset of them. But with the understanding that *unlike how it seems Oash and gemmed work* it is basically the prerogative of the players of nobles in Borsail whether or not they want to fill out that flank/wing/whatever of the clan.

Then, I dislike the idea that all noble employees must be aides (or double as one), but for some reason only for Oash that is not the case. A while back I had a pc who tried to join Fale to be just a bard, and the person who hired them was fine with it. Went to enroll at the Atrium (because instrument lessons) and was basically told that no, you have to double as an aide, and follow all this aide training course stuff too. But being the one group in Allanak that does formal instrument lessons, and with hiring caps and allocation of slots for underlings for noble pcs... >.>

[Reiloth]

I like the idea of a subset of the Noble Houses that offers Commoner employment. Oash's happens to double as 'Magickers', but the other ones could be Gladiators for Borsail, and Bards/Troupes for Fale.

I do like playing Aides, but I can see what Aruven is talking about for sure. I don't think there really is a 'hiring cap' for Nobles when it comes to paying people to do odd jobs. So they aren't on payroll, but they might be 'working' for that Noble. Akin to the Partisan system in Tuluk, but less official.

[IntuitiveApathy]

THE BLOODBALL RULES ARE PERFECT IN EVERY WAY


Also the regular gladiator/bloodball get togethers are fantastic examples of player effort aligning with great staff assistance. If people weren't getting something out of them I figure they'd have stopped by now, right? But for spectators - yeah, I imagine it isn't super fun. All the more reason to join a team!

I too have a -very- dificult time actually following the action on the sands, and have to just pretend in my RP that I know what's going on.  The repeated echoes are too much to follow.

Is this more to do with the way combat works in Armageddon, the masks or just how any sort of frantic activity would play out with our codebase?

I don't mean to disparage Bloodball as an event - I think it's great that people have taken it upon themselves to start something new and put on an event for us all, and I actually look forward to them.  So thank you to everyone that puts these together! 

That said, I think there's certainly room for improvement. 
(I do recognize there can only be so much done with the current code, so some of the suggestions below may not be achievable.)

Speaking as a spectator:

• The arena room names are difficult to make heads or tails of - instead of the chradens and platforms and things, maybe simple location relative room titles such as Arena Corner NW, Arena Centre East or something along those lines, would work better.


• There's also no real way to see who has the ball on demand, or what is going on with the goals (are they hurt, uninjured, unconscious, etc?) which is pretty important if you're trying to figure out how the match is going.  If there was either someone announcing on a frequent play-by-play sort of basis (though that would require someone that could watch and make sense of the ongoings) or if there were some automatic echos or something, that would be helpful I think to help track that stuff.


• I get the idea behind the masks, but maybe having one team use masks while the other team uses something else entirely (hoods?  facewraps?  etc) would be helpful to be able to make sense of what team is doing what as well.  It'd be nice to be able to see which player is which too, since it'd be great to know who does well and be able to cheer for your favourite.  Ideally, I'd just rather not see masks or whatever at all, since as well..

Speaking as a participant:

• The masks make it difficult to do what you want to do.  Let's say I want to go attack the guy with the ball.  But in actual coded commands, it's actually really quite difficult to pick out the right target at any given time, which is a OOC/code problem rather than an IC problem: my character can see who has the ball as an immediate situational thing, but I as a player can't easily parse the code to translate that into coded targets.  Typically tried to solve that problem by looking at 1.(team)mask, 2., etc but if people have moved around then that all goes out the window again.  Also imagine that you're trying to see who has the ball in their inventory as that scrolls by, when combat and movement and all the echos are also scrolling by.  It's slightly easier if the player recognizes mdescs/equipment of opponents and can link it to OOC remembrance of character names to use as keywords, but it's still not solving the root of the problem, and given that it's frantic enough to actually try to do what you're trying to do in the first place, trying to further enter commands to even figure out how to do that is just way too much.


• As also mentioned, the rules could use some tweaking and clarification as well, to avoid situations where people don't really know what to do.  Certain rules may not jive well with the code either - for instance, requiring that the ball be thrown but not being able to melee the goal, which doesn't work with the mercy toggle once the goal is unconscious.


• It would be nice if there was some kind of modifier inherent to the Bloodball item itself to being disarmed, since aside from waiting for it to be thrown, there's really no way to get it out of a combatant's hands - and there's really no way to beat a combatant that has the Bloodball either, given the very large coded disadvantage you have as an unarmed person trying to fight an armed person.  Either that or somehow have it mitigate that unarmed vs. armed disadvantage, so there's some chance that the ball carrier can be taken down by the other team.  If everyone's armed instead it would solve that problem, and further the ball carrier would potentially be disadvantaged especially if they're not trained in bludgeoning weapons/two-handed style.  The ball carrier being at a disadvantage is ideal IMO, except that if everyone's armed, everything suddenly becomes much more dangerous and there's far greater chance of PC death (which is against the rules!), and it would also quicken the matches to such an extent to where they may not be as entertaining as well.

And overall, the doubling of the echos inherent to the arena floor makes life that much more difficult for both spectators and participants alike, and this is from the point of view of someone that's participated in quite a few HRPT spamfests in the past.

Some way to slow combat down a bit in the arena would also be great.. I once suggested a time slip type thing for HRPTs, but pie-in-the-sky given code and all that.

[bardlyone]

My only gripe about bloodball matches is the masks.

If I'm there to cheer on someone specific, there's a good chance I should be able to pick out who they are. Since I can't pick out who I'm there to cheer on, I'm not as invested. The rest of it's all aces, from the spectator perspective. For me at least.

[solera]

I agree. I could follow it without too much straining before the masks were used.

[wizturbo]

Not a fan of the masks either.  They have a time and a place, but shouldn't be the norm in my opinion.

[Hauwke]

Ive never watched a bloodball game, but I have participated in everyone for the last few months and speaking from experience on the field itself, The biggest issues have been pointed out, the massive debuffs given by being unarmed is ridiculous, all three of one team can be spam disarming the ball guy to literally zero effect because of it. Especially since most of the people who play are fairly long lived pcs (relative to some of course)

Next issue I have had a few times is punching my own team, legit a huge ooc hinderance because of the masks. My pc has no interest in punching them, I think as someone said Hoods or scarves instead of two masks. That will go a llooooooooooooong way to making it easier. For both groups of people.

As for the chadren issue,I have been on the arena floor enough times to remember them all, but I can see how it would be an issue for others, maybe rename them the NW chadren etc. Instead of first second third etc.

The rules of bloodball can be quite confusing, and often I think it devolves into rough circle for a good ten minutes followed by an elf dying. That about sums it up I think.

[Reiloth]

I think there's a way to make the masks not cover your sdesc, but still be 'on', so PCs can reference it in their emotes?

[BadSkeelz]

Make them helmets instead.

[Reiloth]

Make them helmets instead.

I forget, but I think this makes them mdesc hiding rather than not hiding at all. At least I remember the mdesc hiding masks hid your mdesc when you wore them on your head. I forget if that's a 'code' thing or just involved with those particular masks.

[BadSkeelz]

If there's an item that hides Mdescs in game right now then this is the first I'm hearing of it.

I've never seen a bloodbowl game so I don't know the precise source of the complaint, but can definitely second the notion that a crowd of people all with the same sdesc (whether it be masks or hoods-up) is a confusing thing to follow. Especially in the Arena where it's difficult to keep track of where someone is.

[nauta]

Another thing about the arena (IIRC): you can't 'look' at the individuals on the arena floor.

This would help in some cases more than masked bloodball games. For instance, you could look at the gladiator and see what weapons they have or gear and then comment on it.  It of course also helps distinguish different players on the same team.

[Reiloth]

If there's an item that hides Mdescs in game right now then this is the first I'm hearing of it.

I've never seen a bloodbowl game so I don't know the precise source of the complaint, but can definitely second the notion that a crowd of people all with the same sdesc (whether it be masks or hoods-up) is a confusing thing to follow. Especially in the Arena where it's difficult to keep track of where someone is.

I don't think there are mdesc hiding masks currently in the game -- But when there were, they would hide your mdesc by being worn on the head. Just sayin'. Dunno if that happens with all masks if you make them wearable on the had, or if it's a particular javascript program, or what.

[BadSkeelz]

If there's an item that hides Mdescs in game right now then this is the first I'm hearing of it.

I've never seen a bloodbowl game so I don't know the precise source of the complaint, but can definitely second the notion that a crowd of people all with the same sdesc (whether it be masks or hoods-up) is a confusing thing to follow. Especially in the Arena where it's difficult to keep track of where someone is.

I don't think there are mdesc hiding masks currently in the game -- But when there were, they would hide your mdesc by being worn on the head. Just sayin'. Dunno if that happens with all masks if you make them wearable on the had, or if it's a particular javascript program, or what.

Hmm. I guess people want to be anonymous in these games, then?

I'm assuming that each team currently gets the same mask. What if instead of a singular "blue mask" object, you instead had a series of color-coded masks for each team: a blue gortok mask, a blue hawk mask, a blue goudra mask, etc. Double them up for the "red" team (or however these games are divided). Now you have people who are both anonymous AND distinct from one another.

[Reiloth]

If there's an item that hides Mdescs in game right now then this is the first I'm hearing of it.

I've never seen a bloodbowl game so I don't know the precise source of the complaint, but can definitely second the notion that a crowd of people all with the same sdesc (whether it be masks or hoods-up) is a confusing thing to follow. Especially in the Arena where it's difficult to keep track of where someone is.

I don't think there are mdesc hiding masks currently in the game -- But when there were, they would hide your mdesc by being worn on the head. Just sayin'. Dunno if that happens with all masks if you make them wearable on the had, or if it's a particular javascript program, or what.

Hmm. I guess people want to be anonymous in these games, then?

I'm assuming that each team currently gets the same mask. What if instead of a singular "blue mask" object, you instead had a series of color-coded masks for each team: a blue gortok mask, a blue hawk mask, a blue goudra mask, etc. Double them up for the "red" team (or however these games are divided). Now you have people who are both anonymous AND distinct from one another.

HMMMMM. I'm almost wondering if the new Ascii changes Nathvaan coded could be used for the Bloodball games?

So certain masks are coded 'Team Red' and others are 'Team Blue' or whatever.

(I also haven't seen a Bloodball game, i'm just speculating!)

[Rathustra]

The masks are intended to make it easier for players to identify team-mates on the fly, especially in pick-up games. Also they look badass. Though perhaps not when scrolling your prompt.

[nauta]

The masks are intended to make it easier for players to identify team-mates on the fly, especially in pick-up games. Also they look badass. Though perhaps not when scrolling your prompt.

They definitely make it hard to follow as a spectator, though.  Here's an idea: Could you use the 'he is carrying a large bag' code to accomplish this?  Give the red team red bags filled with rocks and the blue team blue bags filled with rocks, then you could see the sdesc and know which team they are on.  Plus, you'd get your fails in!

Code Select Expand


A black-haired rough-looking male is standing here.
- he is carrying a large red bag.


[Renenutet]

Guys, quick question about the masks. Should we just lose them entirely? Or would adding a really clear and unique keyword as the first word in the short description work?

ie A yellow insectile half mask
A red, long-tongued, beast-faced half-mask

[John]

Templar robe code! That would be awesome and the best of both worlds.

[John]

Just to expand. A mask (or robe) that adds "in a Gorton mask" to the end of an sdesc would let spectators follow gladiators while make it easy for participants to target the other side.

[IntuitiveApathy]

Just to expand. A mask (or robe) that adds "in a Gorton mask" to the end of an sdesc would let spectators follow gladiators while make it easy for participants to target the other side.

This would be great!

[solera]

If there's an item that hides Mdescs in game right now then this is the first I'm hearing of it.

I've never seen a bloodbowl game so I don't know the precise source of the complaint, but can definitely second the notion that a crowd of people all with the same sdesc (whether it be masks or hoods-up) is a confusing thing to follow. Especially in the Arena where it's difficult to keep track of where someone is.

It's like a big battle of Kuraci vs gith.