Reputation zones are broken.

[Olrane]

Reputation is a mechanic that is irrelevant to most characters, so I'm going to assume that this hasn't come up enough times to be a widely acknowledged problem.

There is, however, a very BIG problem with the way reputation zones are handled, and it is having a serious detrimental effect on neutral characters who need to use evil tactics. That is to say, of course, thieves. Outlaw style evils a la Sathonite clerics don't need to care a lick about reputation because they're either in the closet or entirely revealed.

OK, so the problem in detail:
As far as I know, there are only a few reputation zones and they are incredibly broad. Elvandar zone, Arborea zone, Ironhold zone, Asador zone, Naarved zone for example.
These make sense, generally, in open areas.
However! There are secluded areas in the middle of and on the outskirts of these areas that simply do not make sense to be reported as in those reputation zones.

Elvandar: Halforc house, High/Blood Elf forest, city sewers, tundra.
Arborea: City sewers, tchark rift, various caves and ruins - I've even heard reports that Isyanyr goes here!

Etc. etc.

It's necessary, I think, to code in a "No-zone" in which all secluded areas, caves, dungeons, etc. can be placed. There need to be some playgrounds for the use of certain moves, where people simply don't visit often enough OR they would have no reason to report. I can't imagine a halforc or a blood elf ever having anything to do with Elvandar.

[Skragna]

The faeries are also Arborean, as I recall. I agree with Olrane here. We need something to replace reputation AND karma. With both, it's really, really hard for thieves or closet evil characters to play ICly, or they become exposed in an instant. Re-zoning reputation could be more useful than removing it entirely.

[Delmon]

I agree with Olrane. There has to be places where reputation does not make its way back to cities.

[Zehren]

There is the west amward, so things may be possible to practise over there. The problem, IMO, is that it makes no sense for the areas outlined to have any impact on reputation whatsoever.

I agree with Olrane here. We need something to replace reputation AND karma.

The karma system, IMO, is the most flawful and boring thing IG.

[glasp]

1. I think it is a bit unfair to call it "broken".

Some of us put in a significant amount of hours each day for the game and its players. We have full-time jobs and in order to get stuff done means neglecting other areas of life, like social activities, girlfriends and other fun. Some of us even go the extra mile to try and pick up comments and ideas from players (and trust me that I've spent many, many hours just in communication - mails, notes, etc).

To call something that is not yet implemented, just slightly wrong or not coded for "broken" is disturbing for me. It takes effort to add this. The system works. Is it complete/final/perfect? No.

Now, I did not code this system but I would not want to be the one hearing it.

2. You are not entirely right. But I will not tell you details either.

3. I agree karma and reputation are not 100% systems. On the other hand, they were implemented for a reason, which in my personal opinion, is perhaps even more valid now than back then. And that has more to do with how players play (or perhaps rather not play) the game rather than what systems there are.

[Olrane]

Sorry for the harsh tone of my words.

I admit, I was simply frustrated and panicked because I did not expect to go from slightly positive reputation to maximum negative reputation while I was training in what I thought would be a safe area.

I should have simply tested it slowly.

I don't mean to be ungrateful. You wizards put in a ton of time making this a great game for us to play. We'll always have feedback, though, and we just hope that you continue to take as much of it as you have in the past into consideration.

I do like the reputation and karma systems in general, and they're a huge advancement over the previous systems. I still do wish to have some more low-impact if not no-impact reputation zones.

[glasp]

No worries. Maybe I was a bit harsch too.

But the point I wanted to get across was that there's a lot of work and feedback to wizards can be done in good and bad ways. After too many "change-stuff-so-my-character-gets-stronger" requests or "the xxx sucks" notes you do not get exactly motivated to spend another X hours that day to fix stuff. Not saying that this was the case here.

So on a slightly different topic (sorry, I'll use my wiz powers and shift focus a bit), to get the eyes and ears of the Glasp (highly personal opinions - might not reflect what other wizzies/admin think):

1. Suggestions/feedback should be worth the effort in time. While we can always strive to extend the realism in the game, which is always great, it is not just always worth the effort to spend four months of making a more realistic mushrooms-system (even though some 2% player-base alchemists out there would probably go bananas if they got it). The time spent to spend must be moderate and the gain high.

And with high I mean, ((nearly) all) people getting more out of the MUD.

The goal should (IMHO) be to improve the current fun and pleasure for everyone in a sort of a fair way. Like, how does the MUD work in general and what can we do to improve it? And the cost of doing so must be fairly reasonable, even "small" things like fixing a bug might take 1-2 hours. This is usually a poor wizard's time that remains of a day when getting home from work...

2. Suggestions should not be related to changing the game balance for one person/group. It is of course a gray zone, but most of the stuff was heard before (the forums are sort "on repeat" sometimes) and when it's about your own character(s) in particular it sort of loses some of the objectiveness. Many times the suggestions are valid from a realism point of view, but they imply great changes to game balance. In my eyes it's a bonus if when making such requests you find a way to balance it so that the total change in balance = 0. Balance changes are fine, but they need a very good motivation too, so there must be some good effort behind such a note.

3. Suggestions should be written in a short, grammarly correct (that's maybe incorrect I know - but hey I'm wiz ), summarized and to-the-point, nicely-formatted English that does not force wizzies to spend time reading between the lines or missing the motivation for X or Y. And when writing notes in-game I like them to be properly wrapped at column 80 without carriage returns. Sorry for sounding picky, but this is a real time saver.

4. I probably forgot something. In general I believe a good suggestion is the one that has not been pitched before, meets (1) (2) (3) and has priority 1 (i.e. your favourite "you-get-to-change-one-thing" suggestion). Stuff that isn't really thought through isn't oftenly that good. We do care about mushroom-suggestions too (other wizzies might care more), but this is different thing.

[per]

There will not be any mushroom-boots, or mushroom-based armour.

[Zehren]

There will not be any mushroom-boots, or mushroom-based armour.

It made perfect IC sense!

[lanyara]

IMO, is that it makes no sense for the areas outlined to have any impact on reputation whatsoever.

Fully agree with PO Zehren.

The karma system, IMO, is the most flawful and boring thing IG.

Fully agree with PO Zehren.

And I also agree with PO Olrane.

If you take the tchark rift, which NPC would venture there? A merchant from Arborea? Unlikely.

Reputation must work in an IC way. If no NPC goes to the tchark rift and then would report to other people, reputation can not be affected at all in any way.

Additionally, some setups do not make a lot of sense either. For instance, sneaking in a goblin camp - why should this have any effect on your reputation? There are too many assumptions done by the code and it often negatively impacts playability.

The karma system is however much worse than reputation. I've ranted too often against it so I don't want to do so anymore, given that I think I made the points against it and they are still valid. But the best solution would be to simply remove it and give back control over the roleplay to the players again, rather than cling to a faulty system that will never work for various reasons. It is unworthy to have the karma system for an otherwise good MUD that focuses on roleplay. The karma system gave so many playercharacters all the wrong ideas about "how to roleplay".

Last but not least on the topic of reputation, in an older thread I wrote that "evil" characters need more ways to improve their reputation. That is still valid.

Bribe is one simple suggestion (and the whole "charity" donation part can be called bribing just as much). so extend it. Where are the Robin Hood types?!

[Desiderea]

Last but not least on the topic of reputation, in an older thread I wrote that "evil" characters need more ways to improve their reputation. That is still valid.

Yes, this would be nice.