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I've adminned at another community, and I know the lengths to which people will go to avoid a ban. They'll switch ISPs or swap out their ethernet cards to change their MAC address. Without human monitoring, there's simply no way to keep someone off permanently. However, this is getting off topic. Subjects pertaining to account management, technical hurdles and keeping those we want out out permanently are more in the realm of the devs.
Perhaps the way to keep things balanced is to have a constantly shifting universe wherein the conditions to stay on top change all of the time. These shifts would take place once all of the mission strings for that particular section had been completed for all of the nations. All of the strings in all of the nations would work to set up the next shift. Wherever a player mission string weaves into the main story in the following example, I'll put an asterisk.
For example, let's say that your work as a pirate fighter before the last shift* was good to you. When the dust settles, things have worked out so that you're the leader of the StarZits, baddest space pirate gang this side of the Herpes Nebula. Your weapons and ships are supplied by a Serco slave colony a few jumps away*. You stay in power by controlling the flow of supplies to an outlying mining station, and grafting off of the incoming mineral shipments*. The local NT Enforced Sanction committee (patrol group) has been trying to best you for weeks and petitioning the trade consulate for aid*. Their requests for backup have gotten caught in the bureaucracy. As it works out, you own the sector, and you're getting rich as a Hutt in the process.
Then, things start to shift.
An Itani low/midlevel gunrunning mission string that's been running for the past week or so pays off*. Simultaneously, the Serco counter-insurgency high-level mission ends in failure, as it was planned to*. The colony that's been manufacturing weapons for the StarZits revolts, and declares itself an Itani principality. With no convenient weapons source, and a sudden lack of Serco complicity, you're considering yourself dead. However, the Neutral request finally gets through the red tape, and the consulate pieces everything that's been happening in the sector together. They don't like the way the Itani are grabbing power in the area. However, it will take a month for the Embargo Fleet, which has just finished a skirmish with the Serco in the ass-end of space to bring its big guns to bear*. They wonder... Who could help us? You'd better hope you'd been at least civil to the Neuts in the past*, or the sector belongs to the Itani for at least a month, if not longer.
Perhaps the way to keep things balanced is to have a constantly shifting universe wherein the conditions to stay on top change all of the time. These shifts would take place once all of the mission strings for that particular section had been completed for all of the nations. All of the strings in all of the nations would work to set up the next shift. Wherever a player mission string weaves into the main story in the following example, I'll put an asterisk.
For example, let's say that your work as a pirate fighter before the last shift* was good to you. When the dust settles, things have worked out so that you're the leader of the StarZits, baddest space pirate gang this side of the Herpes Nebula. Your weapons and ships are supplied by a Serco slave colony a few jumps away*. You stay in power by controlling the flow of supplies to an outlying mining station, and grafting off of the incoming mineral shipments*. The local NT Enforced Sanction committee (patrol group) has been trying to best you for weeks and petitioning the trade consulate for aid*. Their requests for backup have gotten caught in the bureaucracy. As it works out, you own the sector, and you're getting rich as a Hutt in the process.
Then, things start to shift.
An Itani low/midlevel gunrunning mission string that's been running for the past week or so pays off*. Simultaneously, the Serco counter-insurgency high-level mission ends in failure, as it was planned to*. The colony that's been manufacturing weapons for the StarZits revolts, and declares itself an Itani principality. With no convenient weapons source, and a sudden lack of Serco complicity, you're considering yourself dead. However, the Neutral request finally gets through the red tape, and the consulate pieces everything that's been happening in the sector together. They don't like the way the Itani are grabbing power in the area. However, it will take a month for the Embargo Fleet, which has just finished a skirmish with the Serco in the ass-end of space to bring its big guns to bear*. They wonder... Who could help us? You'd better hope you'd been at least civil to the Neuts in the past*, or the sector belongs to the Itani for at least a month, if not longer.
The only problem I see with restricting a player to one char is that part of the fun of online gaming is having some choice in how you want to present yourself. I'm not sure I would enjoy playing as much if I always had to play as the same char.
I also agree with this last post from ctishman, a truly dynamic game will present the kind of opportunities he describes.
I also agree with this last post from ctishman, a truly dynamic game will present the kind of opportunities he describes.
It's virtually impossible to ensure that RP occurs in an RPG, and its certainly impossible to ensure this by enforcing it with moderators.
I was long involved heavily in the MUSH community. Alot of MUSH-heads took their RP very seriously indeed. The most extreme cases were Elendor Mush, which had a very lenghty training and review process before anyone was even allowed to RP, and the various Dune Mushes, which had the policy that any RP had to be submitted to an admin and reviewed before it could be said to have actually happened. The Mush based on Robert Jordan's WoT series wasn't much better.
Of course, this didn't really do anything but frustrate people. Elendor Mushes review process was so lengthy, that most people would never finish it and most people gave up and stopped bothering. RP of varying quality happened anyway without official approval, and most people who wanted to get some enjoyment from the game generally by and large had ignore the official rules supposedly thier for everyone's enjoyment. Dune Mush was even worse. Basically, the only people with enough knowledge to know what characters were legitimately supposed to do where the people running the MUSH, and they were little disposed to revealing the MUSHes 'secrets' so that everyone would have some ideal what his motivations were supposed to be.
I met alot of really good RPers at Elendor and Dune mush, but I did the vast majority of my RPing online at far less tyranical MUSHes (granted usually with a far inferior quality of RPer).
The real trick to getting people to RP is to remove as many 'gamisms' from the game as possible, and encourage emmersion in the game. If the game resembles a FPS frag-fest, don't expect the RP to look much like anything other than language of taunts and jeers and stylish irony. Because that's what real people do in such contests, and the ones practicing 'sportsmanship' are largely doing what good sports do - keep thier mouth shut. However, take the same combat game and make it a team sport that rewards teamwork (we've gone from Doom to Team Fortress), and suddenly the type of roleplay starts to resemble military radio chatter and the more experienced the players and the better the game the more true this is.
If you want to encourage people to talk with each other in a way that resembles the characters that they supposedly are acting out, you have to make the way that the player interacts with the game closely resemble the way the character interacts with his world. Realistic RP will naturally follow, and perforce social pressure to adhere to these conventions will rapidly evolve. If everyone else is chattering in precise military language, expect most players (never of course all of them) to rapidly adopt the lingo of the community. If most players are engaged in the language of commerce with its bravado, feigned closeness of friendship, and hesitance to show or give offence, then expect most players to emmulate the general tone of the community. If most people are shouting profanity or talking about OOC topics, then expect most new players to do so to.
You have to give players a reason to RP, and social consequences for not doing so. If players that don't use the military lingo (and it must be admitted macho exclamations are a part of this) are shunned as teammates, and /ignored, most people will quickly figure out its in thier interest to play along. If people refuse to do business with players that don't show some modicum of business tact, then most players will - at least when they are trying to do business. If membership in an elite group of PC's, and advancement within same, is predicated on adhering to the RP standards of its members (what ever they may be), then you will probably adhere to them at least whenever the 'boss' comes around. Finally, ideally there should be well written NPC's that you can interact with in a limited way (conversation paths) who speak using a particular and memorable idiom. This always encourages players to emmulate the flavor of thier favorite NPC's.
Star Trek MUSHes have never had a problem encouraging players to act like Klingons.
In my experience, the very very best thing you can do as a designer is make your comm system less like an IRC chat room, and more like a radio (or whatever real world interaction you are trying to emmulate). You should allow players to operate on different frequencies (secretly if they desire) so as to exclude conversation they don't want to hear, or don't want others to hear, while simultaneously allowing for invitation to as large of groups as is desired. You should encourage los communication by making it easy to do. 'Send message to my target' should be a key, as should, 'Make my target my targeted teammate's target'. Most messages should be limited to 'Everyone in system', not everyone in game, and the convienent chat areas that encourage OOC friendships (always a good thing) should be located outside the primary area of IC interaction. In this case that means 'In station'. Likewise, OOC chat areas should not easily communicate with IC ones. If you are chatting in station, it shouldn't normally be heard by people 'in space'.
I was long involved heavily in the MUSH community. Alot of MUSH-heads took their RP very seriously indeed. The most extreme cases were Elendor Mush, which had a very lenghty training and review process before anyone was even allowed to RP, and the various Dune Mushes, which had the policy that any RP had to be submitted to an admin and reviewed before it could be said to have actually happened. The Mush based on Robert Jordan's WoT series wasn't much better.
Of course, this didn't really do anything but frustrate people. Elendor Mushes review process was so lengthy, that most people would never finish it and most people gave up and stopped bothering. RP of varying quality happened anyway without official approval, and most people who wanted to get some enjoyment from the game generally by and large had ignore the official rules supposedly thier for everyone's enjoyment. Dune Mush was even worse. Basically, the only people with enough knowledge to know what characters were legitimately supposed to do where the people running the MUSH, and they were little disposed to revealing the MUSHes 'secrets' so that everyone would have some ideal what his motivations were supposed to be.
I met alot of really good RPers at Elendor and Dune mush, but I did the vast majority of my RPing online at far less tyranical MUSHes (granted usually with a far inferior quality of RPer).
The real trick to getting people to RP is to remove as many 'gamisms' from the game as possible, and encourage emmersion in the game. If the game resembles a FPS frag-fest, don't expect the RP to look much like anything other than language of taunts and jeers and stylish irony. Because that's what real people do in such contests, and the ones practicing 'sportsmanship' are largely doing what good sports do - keep thier mouth shut. However, take the same combat game and make it a team sport that rewards teamwork (we've gone from Doom to Team Fortress), and suddenly the type of roleplay starts to resemble military radio chatter and the more experienced the players and the better the game the more true this is.
If you want to encourage people to talk with each other in a way that resembles the characters that they supposedly are acting out, you have to make the way that the player interacts with the game closely resemble the way the character interacts with his world. Realistic RP will naturally follow, and perforce social pressure to adhere to these conventions will rapidly evolve. If everyone else is chattering in precise military language, expect most players (never of course all of them) to rapidly adopt the lingo of the community. If most players are engaged in the language of commerce with its bravado, feigned closeness of friendship, and hesitance to show or give offence, then expect most players to emmulate the general tone of the community. If most people are shouting profanity or talking about OOC topics, then expect most new players to do so to.
You have to give players a reason to RP, and social consequences for not doing so. If players that don't use the military lingo (and it must be admitted macho exclamations are a part of this) are shunned as teammates, and /ignored, most people will quickly figure out its in thier interest to play along. If people refuse to do business with players that don't show some modicum of business tact, then most players will - at least when they are trying to do business. If membership in an elite group of PC's, and advancement within same, is predicated on adhering to the RP standards of its members (what ever they may be), then you will probably adhere to them at least whenever the 'boss' comes around. Finally, ideally there should be well written NPC's that you can interact with in a limited way (conversation paths) who speak using a particular and memorable idiom. This always encourages players to emmulate the flavor of thier favorite NPC's.
Star Trek MUSHes have never had a problem encouraging players to act like Klingons.
In my experience, the very very best thing you can do as a designer is make your comm system less like an IRC chat room, and more like a radio (or whatever real world interaction you are trying to emmulate). You should allow players to operate on different frequencies (secretly if they desire) so as to exclude conversation they don't want to hear, or don't want others to hear, while simultaneously allowing for invitation to as large of groups as is desired. You should encourage los communication by making it easy to do. 'Send message to my target' should be a key, as should, 'Make my target my targeted teammate's target'. Most messages should be limited to 'Everyone in system', not everyone in game, and the convienent chat areas that encourage OOC friendships (always a good thing) should be located outside the primary area of IC interaction. In this case that means 'In station'. Likewise, OOC chat areas should not easily communicate with IC ones. If you are chatting in station, it shouldn't normally be heard by people 'in space'.
Well, let's start out by saying that you're right, and that your post was well-said. I used to RP on the Two Moons MUSH in high school, and everyone stayed in character except in the OOC room. This was probably because of the generally high barrier to entry (Text/Telnet-based MUSHes were dying left and right in 1999 because people didn't understand them). Now, of course there's the problem of reconciling Guild's stated concept of an action-RPG hybrid with the need for immersive chat. As was mentioned earlier, panic causes people to lose focus, and scream for help out of character. What we're seeing there is successful immersion. Their character's in danger, so they panic. How do we make it easy to call for help in-character while panicking?
What about that stacked text command system? make them familiar to as many players as possible.
You panic, and hold the "v" key, then press 9-1-1
(in essence, pressing SHOUT - Request - "Help!")
You need info on a target, and hold the "v" key, then dial 4-1-1
( in essence dialing the quick buttons for Request then Information then Target)
However, if you need a simple chat prompt, you must "v" then type 8-1-3
(in essence, pressing misc-chat-other)
If random chat is no easier to access than the binds, that will encourage usage of the binds.
What about that stacked text command system? make them familiar to as many players as possible.
You panic, and hold the "v" key, then press 9-1-1
(in essence, pressing SHOUT - Request - "Help!")
You need info on a target, and hold the "v" key, then dial 4-1-1
( in essence dialing the quick buttons for Request then Information then Target)
However, if you need a simple chat prompt, you must "v" then type 8-1-3
(in essence, pressing misc-chat-other)
If random chat is no easier to access than the binds, that will encourage usage of the binds.
Will actual voice messaging be employed in the game. Even if isolated to a "team" channel, I think that ups the realism a huge degree for both speaker and listener.
If I'm a noob. . .okay, which I am. . . and I've managed to get into a flag situation. It'd be outstanding to be able to call on my fellow nationals for help. It's instant and in that situation I'm certainly not going to take the time to chat aimlessly (no pun intended). For the people hearin it, they get the panic in the voice.
I think voice on a broadcast, game wide thing would be a bad idea, but for coordinated military maneuvers I'd be great.
If I'm a noob. . .okay, which I am. . . and I've managed to get into a flag situation. It'd be outstanding to be able to call on my fellow nationals for help. It's instant and in that situation I'm certainly not going to take the time to chat aimlessly (no pun intended). For the people hearin it, they get the panic in the voice.
I think voice on a broadcast, game wide thing would be a bad idea, but for coordinated military maneuvers I'd be great.
/me points to the old Itani TeamSpeak server.
That was fun, even if only 3 of the 4 cappers were on TeamSpeak... I would give anything for it to be back up.
/me wanders off to donwload the teamspeak server
That was fun, even if only 3 of the 4 cappers were on TeamSpeak... I would give anything for it to be back up.
/me wanders off to donwload the teamspeak server
Damn. They need to get working on that TeamSpeak Mac client.
/me turns on his TeamSpeak server
This is one of the few times when the apple logo on my cinema makes me unhappy. Teamspeak would rock on the Mac.
It's too bad iChat AV doesn't work for multiple buddies, or it could be used as an alternative to teamspeak on the mac. Maybe in the final version...
ctishman, I think it's time for a new brainstorm. This one has wandered off topic.
ctishman, I think it's time for a new brainstorm. This one has wandered off topic.
You're right. So... where were we? Ah yes.
Closing Statement:
This brainstorm brought forth more issues than the last one did. We mostly covered keeping players in-character, and ways to make roleplaying attractive. We also touched upon roles in the game, glamourless jobs and the blessings or curses of 1337. My thanks to all who participated this session, and I hope that this thread will be helpful in the formation of a better community. By the way, if you have something relevant to add to the topic, by all means do so, but read what's written here so far first.
Closing Statement:
This brainstorm brought forth more issues than the last one did. We mostly covered keeping players in-character, and ways to make roleplaying attractive. We also touched upon roles in the game, glamourless jobs and the blessings or curses of 1337. My thanks to all who participated this session, and I hope that this thread will be helpful in the formation of a better community. By the way, if you have something relevant to add to the topic, by all means do so, but read what's written here so far first.