Geas

So basically you use OOC information with your characters..

I am kind of curious about the purpose of this command.

It really seems like those of you who favour the who list are using it as a crutch, or haven't had to experience negative consequences of being who on. One doesn't really need to prepare for the roleplay he might engage in today by scanning the who list. Instead, have your character follow a routine or patrol looking for other characters without the list. Characters aren't clairvoyant, and communication/distance is supposed to be a boundary in game.

I'd really like a wizard opinion on who: what exactly is the intended purpose of the who list?

Why, if it's to be an OOC command, are only characters met ICly displayed?

What benefits does who really give that aren't an abuse of OOC information for IC use?

A who on/off toggle seems to acknowledge that there could be abuse, and that it's one's responsibility to go who off if he doesn't want other players to who-locate him. Why the compromise?

Why are there some in-game abilities that allow for asymmetrical use of the who list? Who off stops you from viewing the list, but a changed shortdesc will remove you from the list without disabling your access.

The who features worked fine for how many years? I don't see any reason to change it now. If you have such a big problem with it, go who off, problem solved.

If having 'who on' makes the game easier to play then so be it. Let people who like having 'who on' keep it on. This game has such a small playerbase (yeah, there's nothing wrong with that, but its pretty obvious the number of people who play this game is not that high) doing anything to make the playerbase even smaller seems like a terrible idea.

ganandorf wrote:The who features worked fine for how many years? I don't see any reason to change it now. If you have such a big problem with it, go who off, problem solved.

It does not "solve" the problem, if you understood the meaning of "using OOC information" in game. It does make it better.. but if people are not roleplaying their characters (using OOC info rather than IC), everyone will still suffer in the end.

arxthas wrote:

ganandorf wrote:The who features worked fine for how many years? I don't see any reason to change it now. If you have such a big problem with it, go who off, problem solved.

It does not "solve" the problem, if you understood the meaning of "using OOC information" in game. It does make it better.. but if people are not roleplaying their characters (using OOC info rather than IC), everyone will still suffer in the end.

Logging in and out are OOC problems. Solve those before the who list.

ICly, everyone 'exists' or 'is logged in' at all times.
OOCly, you have to check the who list to see who are currently avoiding the OOC problem of logging in and out.
The problem? That not everyone is playing 24/7.

ICly, things like mind calls, et cetera, would always warrant an immediate reaction. If sleeping, you'd be woken (most likely) by the voice in your head.
OOCly, those things are co-ordinated by a look at the who list.
Is this abusing OOC knowledge? No, not in my opinion.

Zehren wrote:

arxthas wrote:

ganandorf wrote:The who features worked fine for how many years? I don't see any reason to change it now. If you have such a big problem with it, go who off, problem solved.

It does not "solve" the problem, if you understood the meaning of "using OOC information" in game. It does make it better.. but if people are not roleplaying their characters (using OOC info rather than IC), everyone will still suffer in the end.

Logging in and out are OOC problems. Solve those before the who list.

ICly, everyone 'exists' or 'is logged in' at all times.
OOCly, you have to check the who list to see who are currently avoiding the OOC problem of logging in and out.
The problem? That not everyone is playing 24/7.

ICly, things like mind calls, et cetera, would always warrant an immediate reaction. If sleeping, you'd be woken (most likely) by the voice in your head.
OOCly, those things are co-ordinated by a look at the who list.
Is this abusing OOC knowledge? No, not in my opinion.

The solution is not to abuse the who list. The solution is, unfortunately, more code that needs to be developed.

What we need is a way for tells received while offline to be stored until login, and then displayed as something like "You remember that about <time> ago, someone said <message>".

In addition to that, there needs to be some sort of echo on tells: one should be able to determine if the tell was received, simply for the sake of playability. It's not uncommon for a person to receive a tell and be able to act upon it, but is unable to respond in affirmative due to lacking a tell device. At least knowing that the tell got through could make this easier.

The day tells get a 'delivery confirmation' is the day we give players the ability to check who is in game (or who was around if they are saved for later delivery) regardless of 'who' on/off toggle status with the simple recourse of a call miracle or tell ring activation.

per wrote:The day tells get a 'delivery confirmation' is the day we give players the ability to check who is in game (or who was around if they are saved for later delivery) regardless of 'who' on/off toggle status with the simple recourse of a call miracle or tell ring activation.

And I realized that...meant to go back and edit my post when I got back to this thread (just got back from work). Alas, it seems an imperfect system will have to do. I'd still like the delayed delivery, but delivery confirmation is, I agree, a terrible idea.

I'm still not sure how using the who list is abusing OOC information... Except in the case of pvp, it's not really a problem. I think it encourages interaction.

Zehren wrote:Logging in and out are OOC problems. Solve those before the who list.

I agree. I am kind of interested in knowing exactly how to account for someone missing. Not just one of the "player theories", but an official statement.

Desiderea wrote:I'm still not sure how using the who list is abusing OOC information... Except in the case of pvp, it's not really a problem. I think it encourages interaction.

This does not "hurt" anyone in the sense that they are PvP'd or so. But that is really irrelevant. The "hurt" it does is that your character is not doing what it was supposed to do. The part about playing your character consistent with the idea of what your character should be like.

It does increase interaction which is good, but if this is the way it should be used needs to be clarified by the admin. The help file says "this is OOC information" and as far as I know it is not supposed to be used in game. That means that it should not even remotely affect the character play to character idea consistency. I could picture that it might be good idea to allow to use it in this way, but from the current written text in the help file, I find this interpretation difficult to make.

arxthas wrote: It does increase interaction which is good, but if this is the way it should be used needs to be clarified by the admin. The help file says "this is OOC information" and as far as I know it is not supposed to be used in game. That means that it should not even remotely affect the character play to character idea consistency. I could picture that it might be good idea to allow to use it in this way, but from the current written text in the help file, I find this interpretation difficult to make.

Whimsical impulsive characters could be likely to just suddenly decide 'Oh, I'll go there and see if I see this or that person.'

Show all on the who list! Rise up my proletarian brothers and we shall overthrow the bourgeoisie!

arxthas wrote:The "hurt" it does is that your character is not doing what it was supposed to do. The part about playing your character consistent with the idea of what your character should be like.

But, I'm still acting completely in character... It's stuff my character would normally do. I just know who I might run into.

Desiderea wrote:But, I'm still acting completely in character... It's stuff my character would normally do. I just know who I might run into.

Well, previously you said...

Desiderea wrote:I might see "Oh, so-and-so is on. I needed to talk to him." and go looking for him, or just hang around town where they might be.

.. which is quite different. There you are acting on the OOC information.

And even if it is something your character normally would do, does not mean that your chararcter would have gone looking for him at that particular point in time.

Geas is a game we play for fun, one mans fun is another mans frustration.

Playing alone is not why we join a roleplaying mud and keeping who is playing in the game a secret does not in my personal opinion encourage interaction.

In all honesty I would be down a mine or up in the mountain picking herbs but when that special friend does pop up on who then I can place myself where I MAY or MAY NOT find him. I dont think that is criminal mis use of the WHO command.

arxthas wrote:

Desiderea wrote:But, I'm still acting completely in character... It's stuff my character would normally do. I just know who I might run into.

Well, previously you said...

Desiderea wrote:I might see "Oh, so-and-so is on. I needed to talk to him." and go looking for him, or just hang around town where they might be.

.. which is quite different. There you are acting on the OOC information.

And even if it is something your character normally would do, does not mean that your chararcter would have gone looking for him at that particular point in time.

Of course the character would go looking for him at that particular time - that is what happens, after all.

This is also nitpicking, in my opinion, and would only serve to lessen roleplaying and interactions, and make the game less fun.

I really don't think much change is needed to the who list.

Urlyth wrote:Playing alone is not why we join a roleplaying mud and keeping who is playing in the game a secret does not in my personal opinion encourage interaction.

I agree that it does not encourage interaction. I also do not think we play a RP game where RP is put in the second spot (as it clearly is if you use OOC information). But some people seem to have a hard time to understand that the help file says "OOC information". Regardless of their "favourite excuse" for using it.. The wonderful nature of humans I guess. Is it because they don't understand that this sets aside RP or that they do not care about it (even though others obviously do their best to follow the rule at their own expense)..? Even if you say "this is the way the OOC list should be used" which I agree with, the help file says "OOC information". So despite of your own preference, I think should follow the rule if you expect others to do the same when the rule you highly respect is the topic.

Let's take a second and step back from the fun/unfun debate.

Abusing the who list to coordinate with others gives you an unfair advantage over those who don't abuse it. This affects all players, even those who go who off.

Your character's uncanny ability to have "hunches" is significant, and I don't feel comfortable knowing that other people find this ok. Every time I get a tell and I'm somewhere far from town having seen no one all day, I cringe.

You can say "go who off" all day, but that only affects my personal play, it does nothing at all to stop others from abusing who in what they consider a benign manner.

The only way to make players follow rules like not to "abuse" the who list is by disabling the who command listing altogether (in regards to seeing other playerchars that is).

Players would then solely have to rely on what is available to them IC:

- ask npc who he has seen
- talk on the guildline
- ask others who they may have seen and so on

A hybrid system like now won't work at all, at least not as far as trying to mandate players to comply to it.

It is virtually effortless for any dedicated good or evil character to increase "scanning" activity by looking for different hunting grounds when he notices a potential target on the who list. They don't HAVE to act on this OOC information, they simply have to wait until this OOC information becomes legit, i.e. IC information. Which happens the moment you see this other character.

Turning OOC information into IC information is, right now, not that difficult, especially easier for the good side, and somewhat more difficult for the evil side.

Note btw, I am just pointing out what should be done to make this consistent, rather than spend time complaining about player behaviour again and again.

My personal preference is quite different to the status quo - I would make the who command an IC command, make it suck away mana, allow it for who off people as well, but suck away even more mana for them. There could also be an independent command which would only list how many other players are playing at any given time, independent of whether one is who on or who off. (If you are who off, you don't get this information at all which I am not sure why not ... )

Also note of course that by forcing everyone be who off, interacting with other characters will become a bit harder. I am not sure if this would be good or bad, though I do tend to think it would not really improve the current situation much and rather worsen it a bit.

But it could be tried for a @week or so.

Whilst I agree with some of the points raised I will add this last comment..

Do you not think doing away with the WHO list altogether will just push more people to use ooc messaging (yahoo, msn, etc...) I think personally this would be MUCH MUCH worse than having the current list left as it is.

At least now the small amount of ooc abuse as some see it is in my opinion much preferable than some of the ooc messes that have been caused in the past.

The WHO list should not be abused where possible and brains should be engaged on how its used. If the facility is there and we know our friends or a particular person is playing we have the opportunity to then go find them ON FOOT or whatever without sending tells that would in game be clairvoyant. Its a heads up command only in my opinion.