Automated Bribery

[Pariah]

It would be nice if certain things were able to be automated in the bribery field.

Take gates in Allanak:

Say you wanna go out the gate during the night.

Maybe we have it go.

>List
The burly gate guard has:
1. Opening the gate for one hour, 200 coins.

Buy 1
The guard nods and turns to yell, "Open the gates!"
The gates open to the west.

I would assume that they would be totally up to being bribed for this purpose.

[Riev]

I'm still open to the idea of a side door or Sally Port that acts like tavern rentals for backrooms.

rent self
You pay 200 coins and the guards hustle you through the sally port.
Inside the Gates of Allanak (N, S, E)

[FantasyWriter]

I brought this up a while back. I also wanted it to have a chance of alerting any PC templars of your passage.

rent self 200
You pay 200 coins and the guards hustle you through the sally port.
Inside the Gates of Allanak (N, S, E)
[25% chance of alerting a templar]

rent self 500
You pay 500 coins and the guards hustle you through the sally port.
Inside the Gates of Allanak (N, S, E)
[5% chance of alerting a templar]

rent self 1000
You pay 1000 coins and the guards hustle you through the sally port.
Inside the Gates of Allanak (N, S, E)
[1% chance of alerting a templar]

[Lotion]

you can quit out at the gate. yes, it's bad that there's a lot of game mechanics that are best dealt with by either going afk or logging out (mount stamina regen or waiting out poison in a safe location), but seeing as how these seemingly aren't going anywhere you gotta accept the flaws with the game and play around it

[FantasyWriter]

you can quit out at the gate. yes, it's bad that there's a lot of game mechanics that are best dealt with by either going afk or logging out (mount stamina regen or waiting out poison in a safe location), but seeing as how these seemingly aren't going anywhere you gotta accept the flaws with the game and play around it

What?
No one is complaining (in this thread) about how the gates work or calling it a flaw.

Currently, you can wish up and bribe gate guards with differing success.
There is no harm in asking for additional features, or in Riev's suggestion, the reskinning of a current one.

[Riev]

Hell, make it so it only works for certain people. Check clan status... GMH/Noble/Byn only. Indies and tribals and elves? No bribes accepted.

You could do a lot with it, to reduce animation times and differing responses.

[Lotion]

you can quit out at the gate. yes, it's bad that there's a lot of game mechanics that are best dealt with by either going afk or logging out (mount stamina regen or waiting out poison in a safe location), but seeing as how these seemingly aren't going anywhere you gotta accept the flaws with the game and play around it

What?
No one is complaining (in this thread) about how the gates work or calling it a flaw.

Currently, you can wish up and bribe gate guards with differing success.
There is no harm in asking for additional features, or in Riev's suggestion, the reskinning of a current one.

This feature would not improve the game, it is a bandaid for problems that players have discussed here at length already.

[FantasyWriter]

What problem am I missing? Closed gates are a feature not a bug.

[Pariah]

I wouldn't call them a bug but what if you log in a dusk and only have 20 minutes to play?  Just log off versus do something useful?

[Lizzie]

I wouldn't call them a bug but what if you log in a dusk and only have 20 minutes to play?  Just log off versus do something useful?

What if you're a Byn runner and your contract out in the wastes goes into overtime, or you're a Jal employee doing a sewer delve that you thought would only take an hour but it's already been 1.5 hours and you have to log out in 20 minutes? Do you order staff to transport you to the city? Do you stop the entire RPT to make them take you back? Or do you - just wing it and hope for the best?  Stuff happens. You wing it. You can also check the website to see what time it is, before you even log in.

[dumbstruck]

I wouldn't call them a bug but what if you log in a dusk and only have 20 minutes to play?  Just log off versus do something useful?

You can also check the website to see what time it is, before you even log in.

@Pariah yes. Do something else. There is a cool 1/3 of the time I won't log in when checking because of the dusk closing shops and the gate stuff (when in Nak). I refuse to log in and idle, and when 1/3 of the time a majority of the shops are inaccessible (many of them for 30 minutes out of every 90), I will just do something else. And if I remember to come back? I might log in when the time is better.

Is it good for the game? Not if you want people to be in it. But it's 'realism', right? Inconsistent as hell 'realism'.

[Riev]

I wouldn't call them a bug but what if you log in a dusk and only have 20 minutes to play?  Just log off versus do something useful?

What if you're a Byn runner and your contract out in the wastes goes into overtime, or you're a Jal employee doing a sewer delve that you thought would only take an hour but it's already been 1.5 hours and you have to log out in 20 minutes? Do you order staff to transport you to the city? Do you stop the entire RPT to make them take you back? Or do you - just wing it and hope for the best?  Stuff happens. You wing it. You can also check the website to see what time it is, before you even log in.

In fact staff have, and will, assist with transporting you back to the city if you had to quit ooc due to timing constraints.

But what will happen in this case? I won't attend the RPT and add my play to the scenes, because you told me it would take an hour and now you have cut into my IRL time.

Every time I attend an RPT, I remind myself why I usually DON'T and its because the game disrespects my time as a player.

[Lizzie]

I wouldn't call them a bug but what if you log in a dusk and only have 20 minutes to play?  Just log off versus do something useful?

What if you're a Byn runner and your contract out in the wastes goes into overtime, or you're a Jal employee doing a sewer delve that you thought would only take an hour but it's already been 1.5 hours and you have to log out in 20 minutes? Do you order staff to transport you to the city? Do you stop the entire RPT to make them take you back? Or do you - just wing it and hope for the best?  Stuff happens. You wing it. You can also check the website to see what time it is, before you even log in.

In fact staff have, and will, assist with transporting you back to the city if you had to quit ooc due to timing constraints.

But what will happen in this case? I won't attend the RPT and add my play to the scenes, because you told me it would take an hour and now you have cut into my IRL time.

Every time I attend an RPT, I remind myself why I usually DON'T and its because the game disrespects my time as a player.

The game isn't disrespecting anything.  When there's an RPT, it's usually a player who's organizing it. That player can only attend that RPT if that player is available to attend it. If that player can't log in during that specific time, then the RPT generally won't happen at all.  If you want RPTs to occur when it's convenient to YOU, then it's up to YOU to run YOUR RPTs at your convenient time.  Not everyone will show up for it. And that's their prerogative. I've cancelled RPTs due to lack of players available when I'm available. It's disappointing, but that's the nature of games where the players come from every corner of the world.  My available time window is someone else's dinner time with their family, or they're fast asleep because it's almost time to wake up for work.

The only way to avoid this is to ONLY have players who come from one time zone, and require that they set aside a certain day and time exclusively for game play.  That - is not this game.

If you only have 20 minutes to play, why would you -want- to spend it leaving the safety of the city at dusk, when you know that by the time you accomplish anything, it will be pitch black, there'll probably be a sandstorm that you can't see in, and you're likely to be eaten by a grue?  You can play how you want, but being a really REALLY left-field outlier does not mean that the game has to accommodate your very limited, restricted, specific needs.

[Riev]

I would like to reiterate that the point of this thread is not about RPTs or times. That was tangential.

This is about wanting to bribe soldiers to get past the gates.

[Pariah]

Well some sway will happen in threads from time to time.

But yeah, I'm just really interested in getting past the gates when the need arises without having to bother staff and get wildly different results depending on who answers.

[FantasyWriter]

I would like to reiterate that the point of this thread is not about RPTs or times. That was tangential.

This is about wanting to bribe soldiers to get past the gates.

Maybe they are mad that your solution would take away something some people like complaining about?

[Riev]

I think its better to just debate the points of it.

Could it be done?
Does it make sense that the world allows it to be done?
If you don't want it to be done, are the reasons purely about OOC time constraints?

[Pariah]

I guess my take on it is this.  If I really wanna be out at night, I can just stay out or log out at the gate and cheese it like Lizzie suggested by looking at the main site and seeing what time it is and just login at dusk or the opposite quit at the gate, wait till dawn log back in.

But that sorta feels a slight bit twinky to me to do that, while I understand there are no rules against it, just rubs me the wrong way, personal preference I guess.

I'm all for hitting up your local private or higher (or whatever rank can open gates, I forget now) and roleplaying it out.  But as we know, there are times when you're dicking around and you've tried to contact a half dozen people and they just aren't on or available.  I know a good chunk of my play sessions are LOGIN CONTACT CONTACT CONTACT CONTACT CONTACT CONTACT, think fuck, nobody awake, let's go do hoodrat shit!

And yes, you can go wish I'd like to interact with the gate guards to bribe my way out, and if staff is allowed and gives a fuck, they might indulge you.  The reason I ask about automation is because it takes away the "Is staff feeling nice" component and makes it purely coded.

Maybe one day Usiku sees my wish and goes, granted, give him 200 coins and he'll open the gate, or another day she's pissed off and goes, no fuck you, animates the guard and steals all my coins because I bothered her with a wish. (Using this as an extreme case) and honestly not really gonna cry if they did make a guard in Allanak be a slimy opportunist corrupt piece of shit, because, "Welcome to Allanak." but I would like that reaction based on code.

Say the system rolls 1-100 when you try to bribe them:
80-100: They open the gate for 100.
60-79: They open it for 200
40-59: They will open it for 500.
0-40: They tell you to fuck off and notify the templars you tried to bribe a gate guard.

(Just spitballin)

That way it's just code.  It's not Usiku baby just threw up on her and she's pissed off so fuck you!  It's not influenced by how busy the staff is at the moment watching a GMH try and have sex with everyone he can and doesn't wanna get pulled away to come open a gate.  It's just code, doing what code does, regulating the system.  I mean after all, we are playing a mud, so we care about the code to an extent otherwise we'd all be taking turns throwing out five page emotes and then idling while others take an hour to respond like a proper Mush.

[RheaGhe]

I think this code is a little more complicated than it might seem. And that while it is a novel idea. Giving people the ability to bribe the gate guards automatically allows a lot of... Situations to occur that I might not like and that players in general might not like.

Extreme Situation 1: The klepto has stolen 5,000-500,000 sids worth of stuff from people in the last 2 in game days. Everyone knows it's him, he's admitted it's him in public, and he's even bragged about it. It's night time, and someone finally starts chasing him around who can eat or ignore the crim code for attacking him. But he escapes before said Sergeant/Templar/Whoever can use incriminate on him.

He makes it to the gates, bribes the guards and is off into the night never to be seen in Allanak again.

Moderate Situation 2: I am a raider, I know the times when the gates open and close, and I know if I'm smart, I can catch less careful grebbers or hunters unprepared while grebbing. And have a decent length scene because they know they can't really get away. I can use this time to entertain them, and then as the sun rises, "Shit, I'll see ya another day I guess. Guard's'll be out here to help ya in a few moments. Dun' worreh though, 'mma gonna getchu!"


Trivial situation 3: I am a newbie hunter who cannot afford the gate bribes, experienced hunter Amos, has been going out and slaying chalton and scrab I rely on to train, every day, at first light, every morning, preventing me from advancing. I have no real choice but start preying on more risky animals, or making longer journeys out. Zed refuses to allow anyone to accompany him on hunts for RP reasons(He's a hidden magicker.)

At all levels it creates an imbalance. From the very top end, to the middle with raiders. It is definitely something staff should have a stake and control over. And not something that should be automated because there's enough potential ways I can see at first blush to turn it into an exploit or a way to deprive people of conflict.

[Pariah]

While it's fair to worry about how it could be abused, I don't think it would be much higher on the list than how a guy can murder someone and climb one wall and be "safe" in Allanak.

Log off for a day or two and come back and it's like it never happened.

I think the majority of the use cases would be legitimate and sure there could be these edge cases, but there are plenty of ways to cheese your way out of these situations now, the positives outweigh the negatives.

[RheaGhe]

While it's fair to worry about how it could be abused, I don't think it would be much higher on the list than how a guy can murder someone and climb one wall and be "safe" in Allanak.

Log off for a day or two and come back and it's like it never happened.

I think the majority of the use cases would be legitimate and sure there could be these edge cases, but there are plenty of ways to cheese your way out of these situations now, the positives outweigh the negatives.

So I decided to think on this and do a proper list of pros and cons/positives and negatives.

Pros
1. Hunters can get out of a city at all hours of the day. This opens some interesting gameplay ideas.
2. Strips control from staff hands and places it into the hands of an arbiter that doesn't have preferences.
Cons
1. Removes an aspect of control and theme from the game world. Allanak is supposed to feel confining.  Same for cities in general. This is an element of the games theme.
2. Removes control from staff and removes their ability to monitor the potential overuse of this mechanic.
3. Allows potential corner case exploits to be used to avoid IC consequences for actions.
4. Disadvantages city stealth even further, but not making those potential marks wait inside the gates to leave till day time.
5. Requires significant coding to make sure that this functions in a themely fashion. For example why would a Guard Let Jo'Gemmer out, and charge him less than Jo'Amos.
6. Remove some of the uniqueness from a couple places as the cities with gates open at night.

[Armaddict]

I don't mind if this is done or not, but I'd like to point out the consistent trend of people looking for ways to do things with maximum ease and thus minimal interaction required.

Where we have a whole sluice of quiet complaints about the lack of interaction in Armageddon, spawning threads tangentially related...it might be best to realize that we're still actively looking for ways to avoid each other in the name of convenience.

[Pariah]

I don't mind if this is done or not, but I'd like to point out the consistent trend of people looking for ways to do things with maximum ease and thus minimal interaction required.

Where we have a whole sluice of quiet complaints about the lack of interaction in Armageddon, spawning threads tangentially related...it might be best to realize that we're still actively looking for ways to avoid each other in the name of convenience.

It's a wish in one hand, shit in the other situation.

I WISH we had the players in the roles that would make needing code outside of magick and combat not really required.

However, with what we got, all we get is the SHIT in our hand when we want to do something.

In a perfect world yeah, we'd all be playing and controlling our own little segments of the game, but that's just straight impossible right now.

So I'd rather the code make things more automated, it can always be turned off down the road if we somehow recruit another 40 people to play during prime times for both EU and US.