quit out here? or not?

[Lerl]

I'd like to see a command that tells you if the specific person you are looking for is currently quit out in the room you are in.  In other words, there should be an easy way to tell the difference between a dead comrade and a person who is just not playing as frequently.  It would cut down on the awkward times when you are roleplaying that someone is sleeping and then having them walk in from outdoors.  I expect it would be keyword based and that searching the entire player file based on keywords is something that would require some serious work by one of our code guru's to do efficiently.  Maybe place it in the low priority bin of things to do?
Lerl

[Tamarin]

Yeah...I can see this heavily being abused.  Think about it.

You walk into a room, and discover that someone you've been longing to kill has quit out of that room.

You become fanatical, devoting your hours to just sitting there until the person logs in again.

I will go flat out and say this is a horrible idea.

[spawnloser]

Names work as keywords, so one can always search for that.  Still, I think this is something that could wait...there are more important things that could get done and this doesn't seem to be a huge issue...if it is, though, IMMs could possibly help with things like this.  I would ask them about that, though.

[creeper386]

Hmm... Yeah. It's not a huge issue because it's absolutely unneeded. Any way to tell if a person is logged out as opposed to dead seems to want to be taken out. Even though being logged out is an OOC thing.

If you try to way someone you can't tell if they are logged out now. Why should you have a command to tell if they are logged out from a certain room. Not only would it not be that useful ... Well, it'd kind of make the change to contact pretty stupid. Especially when it was something handy for OOC means(And no I don't mean seeing of someone is logged in to go hunt them.)

Creeper

[spawnloser]

I do believe the issue is a, "Hey, my buddy is in this clan with me and is probably logged out in the barracks...but I haven't seen him in a month real time.  Is he dead or have I just missed him every day for the last 30?" kind of thing.  In these types of instances I would suggest talking to others in the clan and if that doesn't work, the clan IMM.  I KNOW for certain that a clan IMM has told me once before whether someone in the clan I was in at the time was dead, retired or simply on vacation.

[Twilight]

The PC you are looking for, assuming the PC is alive, is not spending three months in the barracks.  The PC is out, as a VNPC essentially, doing whatever they would be doing.

Thus, I would have to say no.

[spawnloser]

Okay, I'm not for the idea...but still, depends on the clan.  Some clans have you training 8 days a week, morning and afternoon...some are 9 days a week.  Your character, in these clans, would be at training and others would be able to check around with other VNPC's to find out if he had been at training or not in the last IG year.

[creeper386]

Well, if you REALLY should know everything thats going on, you'll probably be in close contact with the staff member and know already. If your friends up and gone missing. It's not THAT hard to email the staff in charge and have them do alittle investigating to figure out rather they were their virtually or not.

Often if your clan has a clan board some staff members will post about people being killed. Or people that are missing and such. That's always a good place to start. Although I don't think all staff members do it, it's nice when they do.

Overall though, I don't think it should be that easy. Most of the clans aren't incredibly small. They have a fairly large gathering. So you can go for sometime without seeing people. Even friends. Oh well though. If you think you should know, and must desperately have the information. You can email the staff member in charge and see if they agree with you.

Creeper

[spawnloser]

So...basically you're agreeing with me.

[Anonymous]

Good point uberjazz.  Giving someone the opportunity to OOCly ambush someone is not a good thing.  

Twilight thats a good idea:  them being a active VNPC.  Yet, that's another subject perhaps?

Overall, it seems we mostly agree that in most clans the difference between someone being logged out in a clan room and being dead often should be possible to be known.

I personally don't think it should take a week or two or waiting for the player to log in, and a week to email and get a response from an immortal to know this.  By then it often doesn't matter anyway since you wouldn't respond to it IC as it would be "old news".

The interesting plot lines involving the characters just disintegrate.  This is since they must roleplay around the whole subject since they OOCly don't know the "obvious" knowledge needed to roleplay it correctly.

For example, a girl and a guy in a clan are beginning to love each other.  One of them doesn't log in for a month, and another opportunity for love presents itself.  How do you roleplay it?  You can't be grieving the old love since you don't know if she's dead.  You can't pretend the relationship blossomed as you don't have her consent.  You often can't pretend the first relationship never happened either.  Be mysteriously unavailable and try to roleplay around your OOC lack of knowledge instead of embracing a new interesting plot development for your character?

Anyway, I accept the thumbs down judgment of my fellow mudders on this subject.  Thanks for your input.

Lerl

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

What if there were a sticky added to the OOC board, where one could log in as a guest and announce that their character, by name and not by clan or short description, would be absent for a short period of time?

This certianly borders on OOC, but my argument is that not knowing if someone is dead or alive is unrealistic in many cases, and hampers roleplay in many cases. As long as someone is not dead, they would log in and state a simple IC explanation for their absence, defining no ICly sensitive information.

Code Select Expand

Jasun has been seen leaving the city and heading north. His kank appeared to be laden with bags of gold and silver, and he had a rather determined expression on his face.

(OOC: Gone for two weeks.)

You'll note that there is no mention of City, Village, Short Desc, Clan, or anything else to directly pinpoint the character. Anyone who knows Jasun will understand, and can play this as though they've heard IC, per the IC rumor boards. Folks who don't know Jasun are SOL.

Of course, I think that the Board should be monitored constantly, and that anyone who violates the rule of logging as a guest, posting IC places or persons, should be dealt with very harshly. Banning and Karma loss strikes me as proper punishment.

[spawnloser]

Actually, Venomz, this has been done by people in the past...not on any particular thread, but I know it has been done.

[creeper386]

The problem is, you may not know that they are alive or dead. The difference is not knowing rather they are there virtually or they aren't there. Perhaps it's known that they are dead, but they could very well be out shirking duties, ran away or on some secret mission, to who know what.

Things like this require some work around, but if you can't way an OOC day or two for the information ... You're probably going to be asking for it when they are only GONE for a day or two. If you've already waited an OOC week and they haven't showed up. Waiting awhile longer isn't going to hurt. See, things IC have to be adjusted to the fact that players won't be online all the time. Therefor their characters won't always be around, and you know...

YOU DEAL WITH IT. It's a simple thing.

Alot of people already post on their OOC clan boards that they are going to be gone for awhile. Or going to be absent. Alot of people just email their clan staff member saying so. And if the information isn't there, well the staff member could at least looking into some things and at least make a decent judgement of rather the person is still around or not.

Again, you deal with what you have. The way PCs are in the world are never going to be perfect. They well be there some days. Not there for others. Oh well.


Creeper

[Lerl]

I get you creeper386.  I tend to fall into the trap of wanting to turn the game into a delusion where I desparately have everything make sense in one peculiar way or another.  But as I believe you are saying,  sometimes on some things you just have to just do your best with limited information and go with the flow.  
Lerl

[Gilvar]

There are also times when you quit out in a room and are not nescessarily sleeping there.

Like you might go into the barracks, with your entourage, dismiss them and say something like "I have business to attend to."

emote turns and walks out into the hallway.
quit;x

and equally when you log into a room does not mean you are just now waking up there. You most likely were doing virtual stuff. While you COULD be just waking up there, its not always.

I am against such a command.

[Rindan]

I think a better solution is simply to improve the OOC communication through the staff.  In other words, if someone is going to vanish for a week or two for OOC reasons, then they disseminate that information through the staff.  It might even be worth while if key figures vanish and don't tell the staff that they take it upon themselves, knowing that they are still alive virtually, to disseminate the word that they have not vanished ICly and are still around virtually.  I don't think that within clans this is at terrible problem, as I know at least in the clans I have been in the staff has done a good job explaining when someone has gone missing ICly, verses when they are simply not playing OOCly.  If someone goes missing ICly, they generally do a good job posting a rumor explaining that the disappearance is IC and not OOC.

The bigger issue with independents and player run clans where there is no message board and the restriction about where someone can be are much looser.  In those cases it is much easier for a PC to wander out into the desert, vanish, and have everything that the player just stopped logging in.  In that case I am not sure what the solution is.  I imagine one solution would be to inform an imm that your character died and hope they pass on whatever information is needed.  

The other solution would be to drop your leader an OOC note telling them that you are no longer being spotted ICly in the area, and it isn't just because you are not logging on.  The biggest problem with this is that while this might seem like harmless OOC information, as that wonderful piece that Thanos once wrote on telling information like that showed, that information might not be so harmless.  You really should not do this.

I think the best solution is just to work through the imms.  If you are going to do a player run organization, just find an imm who is going to sponsor the effort.  When I say sponsor I don't mean get someone who is going to build you a clan headquarters or animate NPCs for you.  I mean just find an imm who is willing to handle the occasional OOC duties, like informing your PC that someone has gone missing for IC instead of OOC reasons.  You might never use the imm and they might never do a single thing for you, but at least there is someone out there who is keeping an eye out for your group and, in the very least is a person who understands any OOC issues where you would need an imm that arises.  I imagine getting someone to just keep an eye out for you would be relatively painless.  Just drop the account a note explaining what you are doing and what your goals are, and ask if there is anyone who would like to keep a watchful eye out for your group.

[Angela Christine]

It would be nice to know if -anyone- had quit out in some rooms, particularily private rooms.  If you have a locked room or apartment of your own that no one else should have access to, then it would be nice to be able to tell if someone is there but logged out.  But it probably doesn't come up much.


AC