Player Annoucements - Opening up options

[Pariah]

So I have long thought this, but it was spurned to front of mind by @Kavrick Gab of the week human tribals thread where @Kaathe says he even kicked around letting people manage their own virtual tribes.

Right now I feel we have a HUGE missed opportunity with the rules around player annoucements, sure I can play tea parties and drunken ragers all day till my fingers fall off with Player Annoucements but if I'm playing a long lived hunter in search of a crafter, I have to run around the world and leave WRITE BOARD posts all over the place hoping that someone reads them and psis me.

Seems a bit lopsided.

I think we should open up the rules for recruiting from Player Annoucements broadly.  If you wanna create an IG group, or seek out others efficiently, you should be able to be like:

SWM, Allanak, Seeking companionship on lonely hunts from 7pm-12amish EST. Will you be mine?

I'm being sarcastic, but you get the idea.

We have people dying all the time and trying to come up with concepts, some concepts are heavily reliant on others, like full crafters, so if they die on their Bynner #200 and see a post that I'm looking for folks to hang out with and here is my playtimes, they will probably be inclined to make something that has some interconnect ability with said homie.

SWM, Tuluk, Seeking others to join his sekret witch cabal and make magickal butterflies and inwardly say "Fuck the Sun King" while living on a razors edge of death daily. (Hardcore Mage Mode)

I'm being extreme with these examples but right now PA is sorta a waste of board space or can be abused and twisted into doing what I want it to do easily with some well worded "Events" I decide to host, but that would be shitty so I'm trying to do things the right way.

Only negative I could really see from opening it up for recruiting is that you'll get those of us who OOCLY like to play with each other ending up in the same groups character after character and murderhobo'ing it up.  But lets be honest with discord and all that they are one pm away from that anyways.

[Kavrick]

I just wish players grouping up to do stuff was easier, but all the red tape and ooc rules makes it extremely difficult. I've wanted to do a roll-call for some sort of pah tribe, either dwarf or human for a couple of months now, but all the hoops you need to jump through to get it done makes it not worth the effort.

[Lizzie]

I don't want the game played outside the game. The LESS we do that, the better. Providing yet another method of pre-arranging things OOCly to occur in-game means - my mindbender can't intercept your attempt to meet that crafter. My murderhobo can't discover your character's plans and ruin them. My templar has no chance on his spies secretly befriending your character for the express purpose of plotting against your character's boss. None of these things can happen if all the arrangements have been made outside the game, where my character is incapable of discovering what those arrangements are.

[Coda]

It's not that hard to find people to want to group up with you, it's just a matter of getting to a level where you can actually support someone new, or team up with someone who is able to keep themselves alive.  I haven't had any issues, at all, with finding, joining, or creating groups entirely in game.  I think Kavrick being off-peak exacerbates the issue for sure, but even when I'm on an off-peak play schedule, there's always people if you go out and find them, instead of worrying about whether your piercing skill is moving above jman or whatever.

[Pariah]

I don't want the game played outside the game. The LESS we do that, the better. Providing yet another method of pre-arranging things OOCly to occur in-game means - my mindbender can't intercept your attempt to meet that crafter. My murderhobo can't discover your character's plans and ruin them. My templar has no chance on his spies secretly befriending your character for the express purpose of plotting against your character's boss. None of these things can happen if all the arrangements have been made outside the game, where my character is incapable of discovering what those arrangements are.

I'm not talking about having a group chat going 24/7.  More a, "I'm an established hunter, there are no crafters, who wants to play a crafter who's normally around 7pm-12pm EST in the only city that matters Allanak."

But even if you are worried about that, that's extremely simple to do currently, if people wanna cheat, they are gonna cheat.  I've had people discord me asking for help IG multiple times, and I deny them cause I'm not a dirty cheater, but they easily can do it.  Why do you think people still have their icq, aim and other screen names still on the forums?

It's not that hard to find people to want to group up with you, it's just a matter of getting to a level where you can actually support someone new, or team up with someone who is able to keep themselves alive.  I haven't had any issues, at all, with finding, joining, or creating groups entirely in game.  I think Kavrick being off-peak exacerbates the issue for sure, but even when I'm on an off-peak play schedule, there's always people if you go out and find them, instead of worrying about whether your piercing skill is moving above jman or whatever.

I haven't had a "terrible" time doing it either, but it would be way more efficient to be able to ask for a crafter or ask for a hunter type character to play with, than to just randomly hoping someone decided to make a character.  I know there have been times I died where I'm like, "Fuck, wonder what the game really needs right now?" If there was a bunch of people saying they needed more Bynners, I'll probably play a bynner to help out the game world instead of hunter #100.

[Kaathe]

Why don't you just throw an IC hunters meet and meat party, and post that?

Roles and needs move pretty quick in this game. I don't encourage people to build whole PCs around what they think people will need. 

Obviously I'm not at the level where I can say yes or no to this. Just my player take.

[Pariah]

Why don't you just throw an IC hunters meet and meat party, and post that?

Roles and needs move pretty quick in this game. I don't encourage people to build whole PCs around what they think people will need. 

Obviously I'm not at the level where I can say yes or no to this. Just my player take.

I mean sure, if I'm looking for ways to loophole the rules I could very well do that.

But my hope was it could be altered for playability instead of me just working around the rules.

[Coda]

Throwing a party is not loopholing the rules.

[Pariah]

Throwing a party is not loopholing the rules.

It is if I'm me, I don't really care about parties and such, while I show up to a lot of them, it's mostly just to benefit my character or find people to sell too.  I could throw you a party every week, but I'll be expecting you to buy my timeshares while you're there, not just supplying drinks for funzies.

[dumbstruck]

Again the artificial barrier between IC and OOC that pretends to exist for immersion while at the same time you can't do stuff like /smell/ 96%+ of the world.

Better make it a party even though that probably makes no sense for your character.

And I don't mean that as shade toward Kaathe, either. I see Kaathe often try to get around sillier things to help the game be more playable, because he's working within the enforced barriers people put up/down on things.

But much like people who oppose a global ooc channel for newbie help but absolutely favor of blindering new players into only one race thinking that that will help them /but an actual help channel will not/...

This is not helping.

There is a reason why there are plenty of text based gaming and even people who are into hardcore roleplay in it, but that the RPI genre specifically is dying quicker and harder than the rest. The rules that shape(d) the (dying) genre do not lend to: trust, playability, or flexibility. Let alone enjoyment.

I am all for things that encourage roleplay and player interaction as well as building community.

I wish people were less focused on punishing others and more focused on making things actually inclusive for new players.

To be clear I support the idea. Most people from other games with forums are going to be used to seeing some mention of stuff people are looking for there. Not all. But most. And otherwise it's a pointless board because IC events can be posted on IC tavern boards.

[Coda]

Throwing a party is not loopholing the rules.

It is if I'm me, I don't really care about parties and such, while I show up to a lot of them, it's mostly just to benefit my character or find people to sell too.  I could throw you a party every week, but I'll be expecting you to buy my timeshares while you're there, not just supplying drinks for funzies.

yes, this is what almost every party put on by a gmh, and half the merchant houses are.


sales/networking is one of the major functions of a party both in real life and in the game.

[Beytildana]

Throwing a party is not loopholing the rules.

It is if I'm me, I don't really care about parties and such, while I show up to a lot of them, it's mostly just to benefit my character or find people to sell too.  I could throw you a party every week, but I'll be expecting you to buy my timeshares while you're there, not just supplying drinks for funzies.

yes, this is what almost every party put on by a gmh, and half the merchant houses are.


sales/networking is one of the major functions of a party both in real life and in the game.

This is extremely true in almost every industry. And the other industries around them mooch off it.


There's a reason Vegas has more convention center space than pretty much anywhere else. Because the casino's that own those spaces, can put their hosts in and let them network, find new clients, find people who might be interested in a casino host.

They do it really subtly too. You attend, say, "I-FENCE-IT" A hypothetical fencing convention, for like house fencing. Generally speaking the Casino hosts will walk up, and using employee credentials, walk through the halls, to the booths and talk to people.

Three weeks later, you're sitting at home, and you get an email at your company email, "Regarding I-FENCE-IT and Related Hotel Stay" "Hey we see you stayed at Aria/Skysuites/Bellagio/Delano/Ceasars Palace/Venetian/wherever you stayed. I'm HOST NAME, and just wanted to check in and make sure you had a wonderful time, and any complaints you had got addressed." What follows is a conversation about any issues they had, and then comes the offer, "Well, if you're ever in Vegas again, here's my personal email, I'm a casino host with MGM, and we'd love you to stay with us again, so much sp that my boss just gave me a no strings attached offer for 2 free rooms at (upgraded place from where you stayed.) for you and the kids. I'm so hoping to see you again, in person too, have a lovely day."

This could go nowhere. This could go with you, capitalist and business entrepreneur, spending 5 grand on a poker table at the Mirage(Soon to be Hard Rock.) They are just getting bodies with money in the door.

[CirclelessBard]

So, something like the OP's suggestion already happens with the "Currently Open Roles" post maintained in the staff announcements. The staff recognize the need for certain roles and update their posts as needed.

If players were given a similar leave to say, "hey, there sure are a lot of hunters playing in this area, let's advertise that fact and try to draw in some crafters", or something similar, I think it would only be of benefit to the game and the ability to interconnect.

Where I think the line should be drawn is trying to establish pre-existing personal connections, but personally I don't think OP's idea does that. Characters would still establish relationships organically, and be subject to spying and so on.

One thing that might help is making the local message boards in the main play areas somewhere on the website after logging in without a character. So people can see tavern rumors on the website before making a character. It would help players who are interested in trying to play what they want while also slipping into roles that they feel are more "needed" than others. Then players seeking characters in certain types of roles can utilize the in-game message board to advertise the fact.

[Kaathe]

One thing that might help is making the local message boards in the main play areas somewhere on the website after logging in without a character. So people can see tavern rumors on the website before making a character. It would help players who are interested in trying to play what they want while also slipping into roles that they feel are more "needed" than others. Then players seeking characters in certain types of roles can utilize the in-game message board to advertise the fact.

Clever, worth exploring. But but I'm not sure how I feel about people seeing an aide post and then rolling up an aide PC. Is that good or bad to so oocly target a specific IC role like that? What if the noble is dead? Or the position is filled? Do you just store? I like to think people make characters interesting to them that don't necessarily need others to function, but if what's interesting is entirely "being a helpful minion to someone mostly in my play time" then I can see that being a problem.

But outside that, is there a problem? Are there crafters who have put up rumors asking for hunters and gotten crickets? Vica versa? Nobles without aides? If so they'd use the rumor board, right? And the last one I see in allanak for PC to PC business is from Nov 8th. And tuluk the last one is ... today! Prior to that it was Oct 11th. Luirs was Oct 12th.

Also remember if your role is hugely dependent on having help, do a family role call.

[FantasyWriter]

I would like to see SOMETHING like this.

My proposal:
You post on IG board stating what you need.
If TWO RL weeks go by without the role being filled, you ask staff for help.
Staff copies/pastes your board post and the board it came from into a "classifieds page" thread in staff announcements.

You have given all existing characters a chance to fill with no luck at this point, so it goes out for people who are:
1. Already have a PC that works or may need to "take a trip" to your location or
2. Role up a PC because they don't have an idea for one right now or really like the role you are offering.