Facilitating finding RP with a small playerbase

[Beethoven]

Supified's objections make sense, but I'm not sure I agree with LetaSpringle's. I would personally rather be twinkishly robbed or murderized IC than give up and eventually just drop the game because it's dismal and lonely.

[Kavrick]

Supified's objections make sense, but I'm not sure I agree with LetaSpringle's. I would personally rather be twinkishly robbed or murderized IC than give up and eventually just drop the game because it's dismal and lonely.

I agree with this honestly, I don't think the majority of people who play Arm play it for the PKing, I'd rather the majority have better access to interaction than the game dropping because people think the game is dead when they log on.

[Tranquil]

I wouldn't do this 'where' command by region zones. Tavern only would be fine.

[tiny rainbow]

What Armageddon has is a different type of RP, and if it was just the same as everywhere else, then there would be no reason to come here instead, so chipping away at the things that make it unique is literally the worst thing we could do.

The ships passing by thing is a real, important issue that's been talked about it before. But being able to OOC instantly check where people are with a command doesn't solve it, as people from other games have said..

for taverns, "mix"/"mingle":

You take a while to look around, assessing the crowd:(this takes a while, so people don't just walk in, check, then leave)
There's always people around, but it seems pretty busy right now. Though people say it was busier a few hours ago. (OOC: 4 player characters are or were here within the last 10 minutes, 6 during last 30 minutes, 9 this past Zalanthan day)
(while avoiding people on opt-out/in stealth)

Making it so you know where is busy is the obvious thing, and it'd be way better than having to spam a who command often which means you'd still miss people logging in to look, then logging out again.

I think this would be a horrible thing to do and make the game feel much more OOC, those other games don't have the secrecy element so it doesn't really matter since they don't have anything worthwhile to be interested in,

This sounds like sour grapes, especially since those other games now frequently have larger who sizes than Armageddon does.

Hi. Maybe think carefully when being rude to people you don't know on a game like this, because it might be someone who played a few different characters that I got the impression you liked
...No despite the assumption, no, I've not had any issues with larger MUDs personally. But I literally can't repost again some of the horrific things I read about, from new players that left other places to join here, because it's not allowed to talk badly about other MUDs.

It's a lot less effort to RP somewhere that's already known for being stricter, than to try reinvent the wheel when everywhere else seems like back in the stone age still.
If someone wants to find a big amount of people roleplaying, the OBVIOUS choice is commercial games, which have thousands more people than any text-based game.
...And if numbers were the only thing that mattered, that would be the OBVIOUS choice
...But only going for quantity makes it a lot more effort to find anything worth spending the time on, and the chance of finding intricate plot-based RP is like finding a diamond in sand.

[mansa]

I bolded some lines I thought were important in these comments:

I like Mansa's suggestion, but at the same time I'm not sure if it's a good idea for the game to let someone know they're the only active player in a particular population center.

edit: Maybe if it's below a certain threshold it just says "There are fewer than x people in..."

The problem with Mansa's version is it will threaten to further enhance the problem. If someone logins to Allanak and they see no one is playing in Allanak they might log off.  Harshlands way similarly has this flaw.  If you want to play with x person and they're not on maybe you just log off. 

I think more ooc facilitation is long time coming and desperately needed, but it can have cons more so than just too much IC information.

The solution being discussed in this thread would help facilitate pushing players towards populated locations asap. To solve the problem of players not going to taverns because they see no one there, I don't think that can be programmed. That requires a cultural shift on the part of the playerbase for players to be willing to be the first one in a tavern.

You feel this needs a cultural shift to get players to be the first in a tavern. I agree! That's why I think it's a bad idea to encourage people to go to places already populated by telling them where everyone is. That discourages people from going anywhere else.

I don't see how it is ever a bad idea in a roleplaying game to tell players where other players looking for roleplay are hanging out. The player can use that information to go to a populated tavern, or use that information to go to an empty one.

option c) They can use that information to be discouraged and log out if the populated tavern is in a different city.

without the change they would go or not go as their character would do and run into other people or not. If they spend 5 minutes to get there maybe they'll stick around another 5 minutes and someone else will come along.  With the change you encourage them to just not do that.

I agree with the statement that "Is anybody in this area?" and you check, and there is no-one in your area, so you log out.
However, the other statement is, "Where is everybody?", which is also a very important to players who have the time to search out people.


I was rethinking my idea, and I think presenting the exact number of people in the area is an incorrect way to do it.   I still think we should tell the current players where the other players are, but presenting the exact number of them is the wrong way to do it.


Perhaps it could be modified in groups of 5?

>who
Immortals:
---------

There are 0 visible Immortals currently in the world.

There are 38 players currently in the world, other than yourself.
---------
Zones:

There are between 5 and 9 players in Allanak, Labyrinth & the Vrun Driath area
There are between 5 and 9 players in Tuluk & the Gol Krathu area
There are less than 5 players in Luir's Outpost & surrounding area
There are less than 5 players in Red Storm & surrounding area
There are between 5 and 9 players in the Tablelands area
There are between 5 and 9 players elsewhere in the known

Or other phrases to use to separate the volume of players into words.
"a few" - less than 5
"some" - between 5 and 10
"lots" - between 10 and 20
"many" - more than 20

[Brytta Léofa]

What if it used the new Tavern flag, and showed you how many people were in each tavern?



>where
Immortals:
---------

There are 0 visible Immortals currently in the world.

There are 38 players currently in the world, other than yourself.
---------
Zones:

There are 4 players in the Gladiator and the Gaj
There are 6 players in The Storm's End

I think this is a great idea, and a good way of dipping our toes in the water of "do we want this kind of OOC tool."

Please don't include hidden people in the count? Both to protect sneakies and to discouraging perma-lurkin'.

[Armaddict]

TL;DR Giving any sort of OOC knowledge to be used in game will usually have unforeseen consequences that have be accepted and acknowledged.  Mostly, I think it's better that if we want to have other players included in play as much as possible, we should probably stop making pushes for everything everywhere all of the time.

Please don't include hidden people in the count? Both to protect sneakies and to discouraging perma-lurkin'.

Sneakies kind of throw a chink into this whole thing.  This all seems well and good now, but as criminals gain an automatic RP finder where their RP is nicking your gear or robbing your house while you're away, it won't be long before we have people talking about abuse of this command.

Honestly, this is one of those things that isn't needed.  It wasn't needed before when we had low player counts.  The only thing that has changed since then is that we have a simultaneous demand going on, to have things outside the cities be fleshed out and good for people, while also wanting things inside the cities to be readily available whenever we want them.  The game is 'based' on consolidation in the cities, and 'based' on public areas being main meeting spots (note:  When I say 'based', I don't mean we're playing it wrong.  I mean that innovations over time have lowered the availability/need of public spaces.  We've made apartments more available, we've made the desert easier, clan footlockers aren't your best hope for out-of-backpack storage, etc) Over years and years, we've fleshed out those other areas, grown the playerbase to support it, and just called it good, but in reality we can't be talking about how we hate playing in cities because they're more dangerous than the wilds and less fulfilling, then also demand that we have congregation spots filled up with people all across the known.

[najdorf]

Whatever it is, a nosave toggle will make it better. I wouldn't want to be able to radar detect magickers in grasslands and go hunt them. If someone purposefully wants to be out of this zone broadcasting, vague or not, they should be given the right to do so.
Or perhaps, make it IC and -barrier- preventing it. (sorry if it was mentioned before, too lazy to read all right now.)

[Armaddict]

Whatever it is, a nosave toggle will make it better.

Derp, you might have mentioned that earlier but I didn't think of that.  That does address a good amount of crap.

[mirk_o_loio]

Just make it a toggle.

'Set available'
And your location shows up.
Make it auto turn off if you leave the room/hide.
Poof, issue solved.

[whengravityfails]

Agreed. If people don't want to show up in the count, let them toggle it off. Keep the count to bars only for people looking for RP. I think the problems people are concerned about are a lot less of an issue than they realistically are as opposed to the very real frustration people keep mentioning about being unable to find RP at times.

[Supified]

I think this would be a horrible thing to do and make the game feel much more OOC, those other games don't have the secrecy element so it doesn't really matter since they don't have anything worthwhile to be interested in,

This sounds like sour grapes, especially since those other games now frequently have larger who sizes than Armageddon does.

Hi. Maybe think carefully when being rude to people you don't know on a game like this, because it might be someone who played a few different characters that I got the impression you liked
...No despite the assumption, no, I've not had any issues with larger MUDs personally. But I literally can't repost again some of the horrific things I read about, from new players that left other places to join here, because it's not allowed to talk badly about other MUDs.

It's a lot less effort to RP somewhere that's already known for being stricter, than to try reinvent the wheel when everywhere else seems like back in the stone age still.
If someone wants to find a big amount of people roleplaying, the OBVIOUS choice is commercial games, which have thousands more people than any text-based game.
...And if numbers were the only thing that mattered, that would be the OBVIOUS choice
...But only going for quantity makes it a lot more effort to find anything worth spending the time on, and the chance of finding intricate plot-based RP is like finding a diamond in sand.

I appreciate your response and I need to clarify my intent is not to be rude to you.  If I came off that way I apologize.  The point I guess I am trying to make but didn't actually articulate is that Armageddon has long had the sense that it was the prime RPI game and the best and while this may have been true in the past, I feel that this feeling has also greatly contributed to where it is today.  A sort of sense of no urgency to improve due to already being the best.  Regardless now of if some of the remaining players still feel that way, the stark reality is the court of public opinion does not seem to agree anymore.  So when someone posts something implying the "we're the best" mentality, it really rubs me wrong, because I think it's been a harmful view that the culture of Armageddon has long since clung to.

So again, I apologize for not communicating well, it isn't my intent to insult you and I Think there is valuable discussion to be had here.

[Beethoven]

I think it's a bit of a strawman to act like any of us are saying numbers are the only thing that matters. Personally, I just think that the numbers we have currently are unsustainable. I don't need thousands of players. I don't even need the old days of 70+ at peak. I just want enough that I feel like the world is alive again. Otherwise people will give up and there'll be 0 players, or maybe 1 guy every now and then who likes the single player experience.

[Alesan]

I think it's a bit of a strawman to act like any of us are saying numbers are the only thing that matters. Personally, I just think that the numbers we have currently are unsustainable. I don't need thousands of players. I don't even need the old days of 70+ at peak. I just want enough that I feel like the world is alive again. Otherwise people will give up and there'll be 0 players, or maybe 1 guy every now and then who likes the single player experience.

I do think we need to give credit where credit is due. The last players left will be those who believe the system is fine the way it is. All 5-10 of them.

[GreenTransient]

Personal opinion only, I would honestly be most interest in regional information, and have it be a toggleable option.

Immortals:
---------

There are 0 visible Immortals currently in the world.

There are 38 players currently in the world, other than yourself.
---------
Zones:

There are 4 players in Allanak
There are 2 players in RSV
There are 4 players in Tuluk
There are 4 players in Luirs
There are 3 players in Southlands
There are 6 players in Tablelands

and so on, again with the option be toggle on/off.  You will show up in who as a player currently in the world regardless.  Then if you should decide you are interested in attracting RP (and have accepting that all RP does not equal positive RP) then toggle your zone flag.     Even though it would absolutely be an ooc construct, knowing what regions are active would at least likely impact where I gen up my next PC.

[LetaSpringle]

Personal opinion only, I would honestly be most interest in regional information, and have it be a toggleable option.

Immortals:
---------

There are 0 visible Immortals currently in the world.

There are 38 players currently in the world, other than yourself.
---------
Zones:

There are 4 players in Allanak
There are 2 players in RSV
There are 4 players in Tuluk
There are 4 players in Luirs
There are 3 players in Southlands
There are 6 players in Tablelands

and so on, again with the option be toggle on/off.  You will show up in who as a player currently in the world regardless.  Then if you should decide you are interested in attracting RP (and have accepting that all RP does not equal positive RP) then toggle your zone flag.     Even though it would absolutely be an ooc construct, knowing what regions are active would at least likely impact where I gen up my next PC.

There are 38 players total. 23 of them are okay with you knowing that area they're in. The rest are in the game but not telling you where. I like this.

[Supified]

Personal opinion only, I would honestly be most interest in regional information, and have it be a toggleable option.

Immortals:
---------

There are 0 visible Immortals currently in the world.

There are 38 players currently in the world, other than yourself.
---------
Zones:

There are 4 players in Allanak
There are 2 players in RSV
There are 4 players in Tuluk
There are 4 players in Luirs
There are 3 players in Southlands
There are 6 players in Tablelands

and so on, again with the option be toggle on/off.  You will show up in who as a player currently in the world regardless.  Then if you should decide you are interested in attracting RP (and have accepting that all RP does not equal positive RP) then toggle your zone flag.     Even though it would absolutely be an ooc construct, knowing what regions are active would at least likely impact where I gen up my next PC.

There are 38 players total. 23 of them are okay with you knowing that area they're in. The rest are in the game but not telling you where. I like this.

Seconded. If you know where which zones people are in but as long as there are a few who don't indicate their zone so MAYBE your zone has people in it, that should largely fix the problem of people logging off the second they see no one is in their zone.   The possibility that they COULD be should counter it.  After all, people could already have logged off after trying to way one or two people, so it's at least no worse than present.

[LetaSpringle]

Personal opinion only, I would honestly be most interest in regional information, and have it be a toggleable option.

Immortals:
---------

There are 0 visible Immortals currently in the world.

There are 38 players currently in the world, other than yourself.
---------
Zones:

There are 4 players in Allanak
There are 2 players in RSV
There are 4 players in Tuluk
There are 4 players in Luirs
There are 3 players in Southlands
There are 6 players in Tablelands

and so on, again with the option be toggle on/off.  You will show up in who as a player currently in the world regardless.  Then if you should decide you are interested in attracting RP (and have accepting that all RP does not equal positive RP) then toggle your zone flag.     Even though it would absolutely be an ooc construct, knowing what regions are active would at least likely impact where I gen up my next PC.

There are 38 players total. 23 of them are okay with you knowing that area they're in. The rest are in the game but not telling you where. I like this.

Seconded. If you know where which zones people are in but as long as there are a few who don't indicate their zone so MAYBE your zone has people in it, that should largely fix the problem of people logging off the second they see no one is in their zone.   The possibility that they COULD be should counter it.  After all, people could already have logged off after trying to way one or two people, so it's at least no worse than present.

We all know the others are all in Tuluk. The whole subtle thing eh?

[tiny rainbow]

Even though it would absolutely be an ooc construct, knowing what regions are active would at least likely impact where I gen up my next PC.

That's the same problem as I mentioned before again though, if you think about it - That if people aren't showing in the WHO list, then people won't go there - and human nature means most people won't want to risk going somewhere where there might not be people, when they can go to one they know has people already - so you get an unintended restriction of choice, effectively creating a filter bubble _{(notice also how TED provides a transcript link for the visually impaired, which Google/Youtube refuse to)}

- But to an even worse extent if it's people literally not trying other zones because they're assuming one area is empty, when it's not. Most of the time in some areas, that who list would be completely wrong.

Would be the same problem, making it region-wide just passes on and shifts the problem to an earlier stage really.



Some sort of "group finder" for making characters could be a good idea, that matches when people are logged on and gives suggestions where to play, one one level... But what if people don't want to give that kind of personal information for privacy or personal safety? (and one thing that is very noticeable is that a lot of people who are vulnerable for one reason or another play MUDs, I guess that is part of why I've been fighting so hard to try give this place a chance, I've seen a lot and read a lot of stories, happy and sad - and some very messed up, and a lot of people simply never want to make a fuss about what other players do, or poke their head up above the parapet in internet arguing - another example is even if not designed intentionally sites like reddit and wikipedia have ended up entirely patriarchal, just from their statistics, in a very similar way that a lot of people don't want to get involved in aggressive board room arguments)

Obviously a lot of us have seen these kind of things already in place elsewhere, and noted that they don't work particularly well for what they were intended, even if they were meant that way. Armageddon's different, but not worse.

Same deal with clans too, obviously there's too much IC plot info on clan boards to just browse through without pretty much ruining the game for everyone else, but a few times it was just me left, and a small group coalesced and became busy again, even while avoiding OOC networking because it doesn't feel fair on other people (Sergeant Kea didn't even advertise on the IC rumor boards and still didn't need to), and I wouldn't like it being done to me, so I don't do it either. If everyone acted like that, things would be so much better in so many ways

Again it comes to the same problem that some people would be missing out, through no faults of their own, either:

- Not being able to participate in it for whatever reason,

- Or being on the other side, and being given a false impression of numbers, and missing an opportunity - when sometimes, you can have a wonderful time sometimes even when there's only one other player around who is hidden at first, I definitely learnt that in the Sun Runners, and I think for some people Little jozhal was the first character they met, but that wouldn't have happened if people thought Luir's was empty. Not hiding to rob you. Hiding because she was involved in just about every plot in the game at some point and seemingly nearly every kind of monster that exists was after her.

[Ibzie]

A command that would merely tell you how many people are in each tavern would assist in social roleplay, but it however wouldn't help if there are specific characters you're looking to seek out to advance various plots. People can be constantly missing each other which can be a problem, especially if it's the time sensitive sort of plot or the people participating just don't have the time to be overtly active.

[Patuk]

Finding out whether or not a specific person is online is a solved problem: you just type CONTACT AMOS. Finding any person with a pulse to emote at is the bigger issue here.

[Beethoven]

I think people are overestimating how discouraged people will be when they see that the taverns in their area are empty.

For one thing, as things are right now, they could walk by the tavern, find it empty, and decide to do the same thing. Taverns have a quit room of their own, and I don't see why someone might not just as easily go by the Gaj, see no one is there, and immediately quit out.

In fact, I think I would be LESS likely to immediately quit out if I knew that I could broadcast my being at the Gaj to others, and that people would know they could come RP with me if they wanted.

If there are two players logged on besides me, but I know that those 2 players can see that I'm looking for some social RP, that's a lot more incentive to stay on than "well, maybe we'll stumble across each other randomly."

EDIT: Plus, it has the added advantage of letting you advertise venues that are currently underutilized as RP hubs, rather than everyone just flocking to the Gaj because it's the only place you can find anyone these days, even if it doesn't make sense for their social class.

[Ibzie]

Finding out whether or not a specific person is online is a solved problem: you just type CONTACT AMOS. Finding any person with a pulse to emote at is the bigger issue here.

It's less easy than one might think. After all, both need to be active at the same time. Certainly, there are people that have the time to spend multiple hours on Arm. However, if a set of people don't, reaching each other can be a game of whack-a-mole. This is exacerbated since one IRL day corresponds to several IG. The further issue presented is, even if you do have time to be active for an extended period of time, you'll either need to consistently contact every period of time or act like a contact-beacon. This costs resources, water and food. Which means that, depending on your IC status, you have to spend further time acquiring resources just to stay online, time you won't be spending roleplaying but focusing on the mechanics of the economy.

ICly, it's also somewhat difficult to comprehend. *Why* am I unable to contact a character that exists and is presumably out and about? Maybe an OOC mailing system would be useful, discussing times and stuff such as 'we can say our characters ate together when we were both offline'. That sort of stuff is interesting. As it stands, another PC may be your best friend in the world, but inexplicably you only talk every few weeks. Have it require giving someone 'trust' to be able to OOCly message you to prevent abuse.

EDIT: This doesn't need to be a "one or the other" case. You can have this *and* another system advertising social area player counts, they don't need to be mutually exclusive.

[LindseyBalboa]

There should not be an IC broadcast system. It will 100% be used, and correctly, to ambush players who come to investigate. If a mugger PC can get someone to broadcast their position at a bar then attack them outside on the way in, why wouldn't they? The idea here is to stimulate social RP with somewhat 'less' of a risk of violence.

However, an OOC where/who system is so ubiquitous in every other MU* it's almost jarring not to have it. I understand that this worked well when there were large amounts of players at any time, but I do think we need to face the fact that we're an online game and prioritize finding roleplay. I don't think it matters if someone checks where and sees nobody is around - if they're only logging in to check that, there's a better chance of them roleplaying with the command than without. In most situations you'd just end up in the exact same position as you are now. However, if I did know that there were 4 other people in public rooms not hidden in Allanak, I would probably be more likely to go out and see if I could stumble upon someone for a scene.

An OOC broadcast would be fine here, too. Pretty much any OOC system to find roleplay will outweigh the possible negatives, and if it's opt-in there shouldn't be an issue.

Before any of this I would first suggest something intermediate and easy to implement - like a recruiting board for new characters, timezone info on clan pay when making a char, localization of characters when making a char, etc. More information given when planning out what to make and where to play.

[Patuk]

EDIT: This doesn't need to be a "one or the other" case. You can have this *and* another system advertising social area player counts, they don't need to be mutually exclusive.

Correct. It is related, but separate from the issue people talk about, and likely deserves its own thread. It already had some discussion not too long ago in the MUDmail conversation, but it (regrettably) seems to have gone nowhere.