Whoinvis Discussion General /WDG/

[Rothgar]

Dear Players,

Anyone who was at the OOC Chat this week or read the log should be aware that
XP costs to activate whoinvis are coming in shortly. This is just a head's
up that I've placed the change into Azarial's queue, so it can be implemented
at any time.

Warm regards,
Kinaed

There was some discussion on OOC and general board, discuss and please stay civil with one another.

[Taunya]

Desna brought up a good point on the general board-

I would just like to put this out there. If it's going to cost 250 xp each
time you go whoinvis, will there be any xp cost reimbursements to log back in
and return to being whoinvis for each crash that happens? This change sounds
more like a punishment to particular players than something beneficial to the
game. Just my two cents.

Without getting into whether I think the change is good or not, I might recommend whoinvis become something like an affect that lasts says, 3 to 5 hours for 250xp, including over logins.

[The_Last_Good_Dragon]

A critique against the change centered around the idea that enforcing an XP cost to Whoinvis empowers certain groups of players and punishes others who want to manage secret things. This is an Experience Cost; if you are using Whoinvis to facilitate your RP — which is its purpose, not to 'hide' from other players knowing you're online for no RP-related reason — then you'll quickly negate the cost as your RP flourishes. It's Experience; not gold, not stat gain, not anything but a small amount of an imaginary number that you use to progress your character.

[-+[-__-]+-]

I was also going to recommend some sort of max limit XP cost per day, too. Maybe you could get a prompt and confirm that you want to pay the XP, and if you choose no, you go back visible?

[Puciek]

As likely the biggest proponent of capping whoinvis I obviously like the change because, well, it really strayed away from what whois was designed for and turned into a general !RP flag in a game that is supposed to have non-consent RP.

I also agree with the cap idea, like if the cost is 250 per toggle, it can be set that you cannot spend more than 1k per day on it, just to account for crashes etc.

Could also someone explain to me how exactly how whoinvis is a must for them to drive RP?

[kipperialovskii]

I personally fail to see how this penalizes anyone, aside from dissuading people from hiding on whoinvis for extended periods of time. Nor do I see how it empowers anyone, because there are plenty of people that play immensely low-key roles that barely even use whoinivs, and have quite gone 'dark', so to speak.

The wholist is an entirely OOC feature. It exists for the convenience of allowing people to know when others are online (This includes new players trying to get accustomed to the game, and trying to get regular RP partners.). It differs from the 'where' mechanic, because it's not an open invite to RP, it just allows people to know if RP with certain people is a possibility, or so forth. If you feel as though someone is using the wholist to unfairly identify your character, please notify staff, since that seems like a policy issue.

The fears stated in the general note is based on the assessment that people will use this feature to cheat.

While a possibility, cheating is also just that. An abuse of mechanics, used in ways not intended. This would be meta/powergaming at its core, and more likely an issue that should be handled on a case-by-case basis.

[Percival]

Let's be frank. We're asking for this code change because there are players that are avoiding roleplay or the consequences of their actions. Please can this be reviewed on a case by case basis. To remind people, a player who is inactive for a month can be 'wrapped up' by staff resulting in their capture or pyring.

I'm not saying that people that aren't caught within a month should immediately die, but there is a time and place for WHOINVIS and it's not so that you can conduct secret meetings 24-7 with your buddies without the Reeves/Manus/Order/Brotherhood going out to look for you. You have WHERERP to turn off if you don't want to advertise your location.

WHOINVIS shouldn't be removed, but it shouldn't be abused either. Policy cases please.

[Percival]

p.s. I'm aware that people also like to fake their own deaths. We have rebirth and namechanges for that. Perhaps that is something that the staff should open up to QP purchases if people don't want to approach mages.

[Andruid]

I hate to see the pendulum swing too far in one direction as a result of certain players' preferences.

I do understand the concern over losing XP due to game crashes, and I suggest making it a fixed once-per-day cost to start to see how things go. This adds up over a week (1750XP), and over a month (7000XP) of being whoinvis. I think a once-per-day cost will also feel less "punishing" to players if the whoinvis flag continues to reset on login, as some people have crappy connections or may need to relog multiple times throughout the day.

If this doesn't fix the perceived problem, then maybe moving to a 5-6 hour RL timer would be the way to go?

[Puciek]

Let's be frank. We're asking for this code change because there are players that are avoiding roleplay or the consequences of their actions. Please can this be reviewed on a case by case basis. To remind people, a player who is inactive for a month can be 'wrapped up' by staff resulting in their capture or pyring.

I'm not saying that people that aren't caught within a month should immediately die, but there is a time and place for WHOINVIS and it's not so that you can conduct secret meetings 24-7 with your buddies without the Reeves/Manus/Order/Brotherhood going out to look for you. You have WHERERP to turn off if you don't want to advertise your location.

WHOINVIS shouldn't be removed, but it shouldn't be abused either. Policy cases please.

Whoinvis players are not inactive, they can perfectly fine continue all their activities while under it so they cannot be wrapped. And so far the players living on whoinvis did not seem to get to the level of policy breaking for it as far as I know, but als staff sees that there is a problem so... It seems like a reasonable middle ground.