imbuement looting.

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petros
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Re: imbuement looting.

Post by petros » 21 Aug 2011 08:26

amberlee wrote:But i guess its too much to ask you to listen to what the actual players in the guilds ask for.
I know, cause i listen to some of them every day through the facebook chat.
No, it's not too much to ask me to listen. But are you listening too? There is a right set of wizards to send this to, and it is their prerogative to make the decisions and the changes. If it's something you feel passionate about, I would highly suggest sending those suggestions and potentially even writing the descriptions. I'll put it another way. If you wanted help with an art project, would you go to a rocket scientist, or would you go to an artist or art teacher?
amberlee wrote:btw saving racks doesnt thematically fit with any guild in genesis.
So why shouldnt they get racklogs in all guilds aswell since racklooters is actually a problem?
There is a big difference between saving racks and providing a logging utility to players. Saving racks would not be necessary without Armageddon. We have Armageddon because of system/game limitations on memory usage, etc. Without a system necessity like Armageddon, saving racks would pose absolutely no value whatsoever. Our decision to make saving racks global was motivated by this realization - that players should not have to spend time and effort to accommodate for a limitation in the game.

Logging racks, on the other hand, are necessary solely because of player behavior. Good guilds typically don't deal with issues of rack raiding, while evil or free-join guilds typically do. I'll leave the interpretation of that up to your imagination. But I would argue that part of playing an evil or free-join guild where you struggle with rack issues is very much part of the roleplaying experience. Sure, it's inconvenient. But so is always having to watch you back when teaming with other evil companions because you never will be quite sure of their intentions. It's the classic chaotic evil archetype (if you follow D&D). I stress again, I'm not the GM of AA, so I have no idea what is the right thing to do here. Now, if you consider AA to be a lawful evil organization rather than a chaotic evil one (and the GM agrees) you can certainly make a case for creating a more formal structure supported by code that will allow order to be maintained within the ranks of the Army.

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Tive
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Re: imbuement looting.

Post by Tive » 21 Aug 2011 09:55

Iliana wrote:The "you weren't there, so you shouldn't know" can be dealt with by having an npc who is in the room all the time. They could be the one that tells you who took what etc.
There was something like this in the guild I was in while playing the polish mud (Arkadia). We did not have racks as such, but an NPC who you would ask for equipment and he would hand it out to you. When you were leaving you would not simply put stuff in racks but gave the gear to him and he sorted the rest ;P In theory it could be a good excuse of having an option to ask him who took what and when (even if we did not have that functionality there)
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Makfly
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Re: imbuement looting.

Post by Makfly » 21 Aug 2011 10:57

I suggested the thing with the NPC as well, in the previously quoted talk with Novo. I specifically mentioned taking a que from the old Mercenary guild, with the corrupt NPC that you could bribe, to bring you some random item from one of the other droprooms.
In addition there are plenty of good suggestions here as well. The cleaning troll already present in the AA guild being the most obvious choice for "equipment-accountant".
Therefore...
petros wrote:I'll put it another way. If you wanted help with an art project, would you go to a rocket scientist, or would you go to an artist or art teacher?
I view you (& Gorboth) as their boss, not someone completely unrelated. At the very least close colleagues. I presume others do the same.

So, instead of being so stand-off'ish...Can't you just point ALL guildmasters to this thread and say "Hey guys, here's some player-feedback for all of you to look at and seriously consider"?*

It's okay to be a bit cooperative and "serviceminded", especially in the face of player frustration.


*If they aren't read the player feedback from the forums already, as I certainly hope they do, but have seen no indication of, personally.



EDIT: This quote just boggles my mind, coming from someone in charge of many aspects of the game:
But I would argue that part of playing an evil or free-join guild where you struggle with rack issues is very much part of the roleplaying experience.
I can't even begin to understand this train of thought from a game-designing standpoint.
Mortimor Makfly - Gnomish Xeno-Anthropologist

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Kas
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Re: imbuement looting.

Post by Kas » 21 Aug 2011 12:25

But I would argue that part of playing an evil or free-join guild where you struggle with rack issues is very much part of the roleplaying experience.
So evil guilds (plus the free-to-join ones) should suffer from this tragic issue, but not the good guy because of theme.

I doubt it adds anything to the game experience except just more _fustration_ for the evil players. Designwise, it's a roadbump and people may see this as discrimination.

Regarding AA, who is in charge of the guild?
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gorboth
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Re: imbuement looting.

Post by gorboth » 21 Aug 2011 13:36

Hi guys,

This is sort of something to bring to me if you aren't sure who the GM of a guild is. I'm functioning as AoD, and thus take care of GM related issues if a GM can't be found.

Keep in mind, too, that I am really not reading the forum or listening to FB chat much lately. I very much do care what is going on in both places, it is just that in the Summer, my time is heavily impacted by RL matters, and I have to choose carefully how to spend my time. Given the promotional gearup that is in place, it leaves me little more than crumbs for anything else.

So, please mail me about this issue in-game, but realize that nothing is going to happen until after promotion gets off the ground. All wizard projects that I am responsible for have essentially been put on hold for this much more all-consuming issue.

G.
Mmmmmm ... pie ...

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Re: imbuement looting.

Post by Amberlee » 21 Aug 2011 14:13

Well why not get rid of that archaic system right here and now?
Appoint caretakers that love to fix code. You speak very highly of Lavellan i hear? :p
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If you ask for my opinion here, you will get MY opinion, not that of my character.

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Re: imbuement looting.

Post by Amberlee » 21 Aug 2011 14:23

petros wrote:
amberlee wrote:But i guess its too much to ask you to listen to what the actual players in the guilds ask for.
I know, cause i listen to some of them every day through the facebook chat.
No, it's not too much to ask me to listen. But are you listening too? There is a right set of wizards to send this to, and it is their prerogative to make the decisions and the changes. If it's something you feel passionate about, I would highly suggest sending those suggestions and potentially even writing the descriptions. I'll put it another way. If you wanted help with an art project, would you go to a rocket scientist, or would you go to an artist or art teacher?
amberlee wrote:btw saving racks doesnt thematically fit with any guild in genesis.
So why shouldnt they get racklogs in all guilds aswell since racklooters is actually a problem?
There is a big difference between saving racks and providing a logging utility to players. Saving racks would not be necessary without Armageddon. We have Armageddon because of system/game limitations on memory usage, etc. Without a system necessity like Armageddon, saving racks would pose absolutely no value whatsoever. Our decision to make saving racks global was motivated by this realization - that players should not have to spend time and effort to accommodate for a limitation in the game.

Logging racks, on the other hand, are necessary solely because of player behavior. Good guilds typically don't deal with issues of rack raiding, while evil or free-join guilds typically do. I'll leave the interpretation of that up to your imagination. But I would argue that part of playing an evil or free-join guild where you struggle with rack issues is very much part of the roleplaying experience. Sure, it's inconvenient. But so is always having to watch you back when teaming with other evil companions because you never will be quite sure of their intentions. It's the classic chaotic evil archetype (if you follow D&D). I stress again, I'm not the GM of AA, so I have no idea what is the right thing to do here. Now, if you consider AA to be a lawful evil organization rather than a chaotic evil one (and the GM agrees) you can certainly make a case for creating a more formal structure supported by code that will allow order to be maintained within the ranks of the Army.

Firstly, thank you for proving my point about you once again.

Let me ask you this then.
What is the point of having a guild that no one wants to play, or have a guild that the players in it doesnt wanna log on because they know they will have to start from scratch with the farming of equipment again.

You speak of theme, but you are completely blind to the fact that good game design trumphs everything else ALL THE TIME.

By the way, who is the Arch of Players?
And who is the Arch of Balance?
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If you ask for my opinion here, you will get MY opinion, not that of my character.

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Re: imbuement looting.

Post by Booger » 21 Aug 2011 14:44

Kudos to Petros for reading and trying to explain things. And for repeatedly explaining the same thing again and again without exploding.

I'll try to explain again, in a simpler way, what I believe Petros has been saying:

If you have problems with people looting your common fridge in your department at work, you don't go complaining to the big Boss upstairs. You talk to the manager of your department, asking for a solution. If he is not available, or if you feel he's unreasonable, _then_ you can go higher. But you start with the one closest connected to the problem.
And if you have a suggestion on how to solve it, you tell him. It's always easier to get something fixed if you can provide the solution as well.


If people agree that this is a global problem that needs to be handled everywhere, you can also go higher up, asking for a global solution. But it's been clearly stated that not everyone sees it as that, both at top level (Petros), Manager level (Novo) and bottom level (Kitriana).
So I suggest moving all this energy and frustration towards your guildmaster and trying to convince him first. And have every member in your guild do the same, to put some preassure on him.

And before demanding a global solution, we have to _have_ a global solution, which we don't. I still haven't heard anything about how to handle eg racklooters in the Merc guild. Who should decide how much you are allowed to loot, and whom to throw out?

So start trying to get your own guild fixed first. If your gm doesn't understand/agree, then perhaps you can ask all your guild members to have a say. If you can show that everyone (active) in the guild wants logging, maybe that can get a betteer impact?

Personally I feel it's ok, at least for the Merc guild, to let people take whatever they want and do whatever they want with it. Since I'm not using the racks, I'm not affected, but I didn't have a problem with the racks being empty or having just poor items even when I did use them. I saw racks as a guild-specific donation box, so it felt natural.
But I don't have anything against some npc keeping logs of who does what in evil-aligned guilds. Would make better sense even than in good-aligned guilds, since in a goody-good guild you trust people to not do bad things like rack-looting, while in an evil guild you need someone to keep people from just helping themselves.
Booger/Cindy/Enigma

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petros
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Re: imbuement looting.

Post by petros » 21 Aug 2011 14:51

Makfly wrote:I view you (& Gorboth) as their boss, not someone completely unrelated. At the very least close colleagues. I presume others do the same.

So, instead of being so stand-off'ish...Can't you just point ALL guildmasters to this thread and say "Hey guys, here's some player-feedback for all of you to look at and seriously consider"?*

It's okay to be a bit cooperative and "serviceminded", especially in the face of player frustration.
Perhaps that is part of the problem, because the only boss in Genesis is Gorboth (the Keeper). As the Arch of Balance, my role is completely isolated to issues of balance. In addition, I am on a couple other teams that I devote my time to (Events and Calia). While I would normally have no problems talking about this in game with affected players and delivering the feedback to the right people to make the changes, I have limited free time in RL these days, and that's just not something that I'm going to be able to do. As I'm writing this, I see that Booger just posted a great note that summarizes the recommended process perfectly.
Makfly wrote:
petros wrote:But I would argue that part of playing an evil or free-join guild where you struggle with rack issues is very much part of the roleplaying experience.
I can't even begin to understand this train of thought from a game-designing standpoint.
You're right. It has nothing to do with game-design. This is my personal opinion (and personal observation) of how players playing different alignments would behave irrespective of the design.
amberlee wrote:By the way, who is the Arch of Players?
And who is the Arch of Balance?
The AoP is Gorboth, the AoB is myself.

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Re: imbuement looting.

Post by Booger » 21 Aug 2011 15:21

Just thought of something that might not solve the problem, but still has a chance of helping: Owners-rack, Valuables-rack and Misc-rack!

Some people fills the racks with items for others to use. Others use them to store their items between sessions. I've always felt that DO has tons more items than the members need - some are very useful, though, and others I don't understand why they are there.
So one rack with items you store and expect to have when you come back (Owners). One with items that anyone may borrow, but they are expected to be returned afterwards, for others to use (Valuables). And a third one for stuff anyone can use any way they like (Misc).
Note: I am NOT suggesting any special code to prevent people from doing whatever they want - this is just names put on the racks, as a way of letting other members know the idea behind the items there. So new members can see which items they are not supposed to touch, and which they can just go and sell, if they so chose.
It won't save you from racklooters who only bother about themselves, but it will give all members a chance to handle the racks in a way that won't upset other members. Maybe more useful for good-aligned guilds?
Booger/Cindy/Enigma

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