Inactive in RP

[phoenixdoll]

I didn't realise that, no! But, still, that basically forces me to reverse how I naturally rp. With my friends in private I make long poses. I make shorter quicker ones in public scenes.

[Satoshi]

I also disagree with the recent change, not only because I find it to be an alarming jump from the actual problem outlined here, which seems to be something that happens a lot (problem: people are going inactive and taking 20ish minutes to respond. Solution? Anything over 5 minutes is bad and are mechanically punished).

TI has been a hallmark of a game where the scenes shift based on the people playing and you find people who you played well with and sit down and have fun. The frankly astounding amount of OOC tension over small irritants has been a major strain on my enjoyment to the game. All of Policy states that staff isn't telling you HOW to RP, only setting policy to help you make the game better, and what you CAN'T RP. Now with this decision, staff has decided to make policy on HOW to RP. It turns the game from a welcoming environment to a more selective one.

I do not enjoy games with faster paced emotes. I've tried many of them. They lose detail, they become about the numbers, everything becomes copy and paste. Small gestures that are immersive, details, interesting writing, all of this shines with slightly more time to pose. All of it can be done within a good amount of time. But when RP devolves into 'get it out as fast as possible' it starts losing fun. It makes sense in huge scenes were people are overwhelmed, to speed up a bit. But thats how you start missing or ignoring people, how you cut quality, how you, essentially, make scenes less unique. Because you end up needing to pick between responding AS FAST AS POSSIBLE or threading in some details.

And let's be honest, the issue was never 'boohoo some people take a little longer', it was 'some people are flagrantly dropping off the game and holding it up with EXCESSIVE wait times for SMALL poses. Usually because they are multitasking or not paying attention, which affects the other people in the scene (often in those situations I feel that my RP with someone isn't as important or engaging if they need to be doing something else.)

[Puciek]

I didn't realise that, no! But, still, that basically forces me to reverse how I naturally rp. With my friends in private I make long poses. I make shorter quicker ones in public scenes.

What about if this didn't apply in !rp rooms (and some hand picked others like ahalin etc)? This way its guaranteed to be a private scene, without random people wandering in and suddenly being in a scene that may be of long-emote nature, and not so easy to escape. Would that help? Gives you a reason to adjust the offices/phomes as !rp and also use them.

[Dreams]

Greetings,

I've had a few of our newer players complain (and have recently seen in a review) comments about players who are actively in RP scenes being slow or idling out on one another.

Culturally, it's impacting whether people want to play TI because they can log in and start RPing with someone who does one emote per every 20 minutes, or otherwise idles out in the middle of a scene.

I'm considering implementing some code remedies to reduce this. For example, we already give people an RPxp bonus for emoting within 5 minutes of the previous emote in the room.

What else do you think we could do, codewise or otherwise, to help players be attentive to the scenes they're in and their RP partners?

Kind regards,
Kinaed

I'm going to bring everyone's attention back to the original post of this thread. It was about people being unusually slow and/or idling out on one another. It was not about people who don't pose within 5 minutes. (I've actually tried this multiple times, but I didn't do it by actually quoting the thread.)

I also want to note that, in this posting, it mentions that people already get an RPXP bonus for posting within five minutes of the previous emote, so the incentive was already there. So with the newest proposed change, it's either "bonus or no RPXP", which means the bonus is no longer an incentive, because it's standard - it's simply what people get. Because if they don't RP within that time, they don't get anything.

I also want to put this up, as it's something that is pinned on our Discord channel:

Kinaed11/29/2019
@here I just received a concerned voice about people complaining about other people's playing styles on Discord. I've had a bit of a look, and I agree that people "raising" their pet peeves is generally a turn-off and potentially offensive. TI does not have "emoting standards" and is open to a broad range of ideas about what is enjoyable for people. Please make your peace with that.

And I believe the most current decision negates that, and says that shorter/quicker styles are more appropriate and will be rewarded, while longer ones will not be rewarded at all.

[galaxgal]

I guess my other question is if it's a private scene then why does the RPXP penalty matter. Slow private RP is, by design, already very low RPXP gain, so the only part of this experience I understand as a massive negative is getting a nag prompt (that I do agree should probably be toggleable like all automated warnings if it isn't). Like if I'm being purely mercenary here, if my butt has landed in Ahalin I'm more concerned about how much death XP I'm about to get and that's from a cynical, mechanics-only PoV that doesn't account for the emotional weight and importance of those scenes. They don't need RPXP to be worthwhile.

Again the impact is very low in bigger rooms, you basically get 5 extra minutes per person to write and that's assuming it's a three or four person room with strict turns. By the time the first person poses you can already start thinking about your response. It's not "pose in 5 minutes or die", it's "if you are in a public room please don't leave time-stressed people hanging for 10 or more."

[Dreams]

I guess my other question is if it's a private scene then why does the RPXP penalty matter. Slow private RP is, by design, already very low RPXP gain, so the only part of this experience I understand as a massive negative is getting a nag prompt (that I do agree should probably be toggleable like all automated warnings if it isn't). Like if I'm being purely mercenary here, if my butt has landed in Ahalin I'm more concerned about how much death XP I'm about to get and that's from a cynical, mechanics-only PoV that doesn't account for the emotional weight and importance of those scenes. They don't need RPXP to be worthwhile.

This is assuming all private RP is... well, this kind of private. But for those characters who, by the nature of their jobs, RP in private almost all the time (confessions, investigations, etc), it can mean that certain character types who HAVE to see people privately are being punished even more severely than they already are - code already rewards the people who pose quicker.

So, for a priest who has nothing but confessions lined up for a week (yes, this happens), and those tend to be intense scenes, those priests should not be allowed RPXP? Sure, for the people coming to the confession, it's once in a blue moon. But for the people taking them, it's constant, and thematic.

[galaxgal]

And in many of those cases the RP is going to be random and involuntary for the person who isn't the priest, knight, doctor, reeve detective, etc. I think that's actually a strong impetus and responsibility to ensure the scene keeps moving lest the subject of that type of RP be tied down for hours with potential major social consequences for asking to leave. Confession is the only one I can think of where that's not the case.

[Dreams]

Confession is the only one I can think of where that's not the case.

And confession is the majority of my RP. Confession, or people coming for personal guidance, or many other things. Things that it would not be thematic nor proper to have a full room of people present for.

Thus, my response.

[nemovonfish]

For the people on a time crunch, have you tried saying "Hey I've only got an hour - could we have a quick pace, please?" in Osay? Because if the answer to that is "No, I'm going to four-paragraph effortpost at you." then they're the asshole. Punishing the entire player base if they don't emote at your speed even when you're not there is not a good move.

[Rey]

Hello! I'm pretty new to TI and after hearing this rule I almost left. Today I had my first RP scene and it was between me and one other wonderful player just talking in the Town Hall. Now since I'm brand new rpxp is sorta important to develop my character concept, so I don't like the idea of being punished especially because sometimes I need to review a cultural help file or just take time to think. I was constantly checking the time.

My post clocked in at 5-6 minutes so I barely made it and sometimes I didn't. Now I didn't see no rpxp just a lower amount, but if I had seen none that definitely would be demotivating. The time limit sorta made a really fun RP stressful.

Just wanted to throw my 2 cents in as a new player.