Plot System Ideas

[Kinaed]

Greetings,

Staff are reviewing the plot system for how we can improve it to meet both player and staff needs. Do you have any ideas to share? Please tell us how we can improve the system here! Thanks!

[Taunya]

Definitely having multiple contributors able to edit/add to a plot would be good.

[Niamh]

A way of handling staff and player updates that keeps edits in chronological order. It can be difficult to keep track of updates.

[Whisper]

I haven't used the plot system much myself. It struck me as kind of hard to figure out and I am still not really sure what purpose it serves other than to help keep track of ongoing RP storylines. That said with what little I do know I think it would be good to make it bit more like the rumor system in that others who are involved in it can easily see whats going on and add their own comments or events to it. Maybe the creator of the plot could set who can access it at what level (read or edit) and add people as needed? Organizing it like a timeline as Niamh suggested would be ideal too as you would be able to follow the progress in a more organized fashion.

[Puciek]

So few suggestions from me, in the order they come to my noggin, not by importance.

1. Plot type. I think it would help everyone if we could load up a plot type/template like with assets. Whether it's investigation, donation, confirmation plot etc, and then being able to search/filter list of plots by it.

2. Ticket-tracking system for it. A very common thing with plots, especially when someone new starts using it, is the unbearable wait between filling it and when it gets processed, time which can take a week or so (especially when it requires player input) but during this time you get no information of progress. A simple "Current status" field which points out that the plot is "Waiting for input from a Player X" (where X is either name of contributors or literally X to not give out secrets), or "Waiting for processing from staff" etc would go a long away. Especially if there could also be small list of recent 5-10 changes in the plot status, together with dates. Heck, this would be nice to have for request/typo/bug board too.

3. As mentioned above make it more like a thread, where staff and player can add posts, rather than a single entry with multiple fields that people keep editing to hell. This would go great with some serious renaming, where "plot create" could start a new plot, and "plot advance" would submit a new post in that plot. Plot advance could then be used by anyone who is set as a contributor, and only once all contributors submit their actions for the plot staff moves to process it. This not only removes the "problem" of puppeteering other players that we have now in plots but also make sure that if you contribute somewhere, you will know what's going on, where right now you can be a contributor but not get a share of it (so you won't even know how are you used).

4. Allow us to add a rumour for when the plot is processed, just like we can ic_event. I often use run plots that are "noisy" but I also don't want them to be noisy before the plot is processed to save on awkwardness. It would be cool to be able to add a rumour that will be posted when staff processes it.

[Helena]

If we are going to a massive change of the plot system, I would be in favor to a more fundamental change than just an interface overhaul. Allow me to explain what I mean, and offer an idea...

I find it quite not friendly to have various interfaces for plots, ic_events, rumors, bids, IP related things, city metrics, and maybe others that I don't know about yet. When we consider those things, they all serve the same goal: asynchronous RP.

Let's imagine the "plot" command had to deal with all this.
- we would first create a draft, and share it with contributors.
- contributors, add to the draft, write a public event ttogether,
- the public event is associated to an effect (on city metric, on someone's IP)
- contributors can choose to remain hidden, explaining how they do so.
- when agreement is done, they can publish it.
- published plots are visible by staff, all, a circle (guild, race, freemen...), or some characters.
- people of other circle may attempt to have access to it, using IP (maybe coordinating through a plot)
- when published, people of the circle can comment the event, like the rumor system.
- people having access to the plot may plus or minus its score, to give everyone a hint of how it is received.

Then we could use "plot list" to see the different events we are informed about, "plot draft" to see the different draft we are contributing on, "plot create" to create a new one, and "plot comment" to add to an existing plot. The simpler the interface, the more versatile it is, the better.

That would allow two antagonist characters to write a summary of a scene they had they think should be public (ic_event), that would permit someone to meaningfully support his guildleader, that would permit a guildleader to affect a metric meaningfully. That would allow us all to share informations accross timezones more easily. That would allow people to request staff intervention.

In brief, I'm in favor of a great asynchronous RP tool.

[Starstarfish]

1- The ability to share "closed" plots with others. An investigation is complete and might not any further commentary or work from staff or others, however, it may still be important to ongoing RP or RP that comes up after it is officially "closed" from a staff standpoint. Sharing the plot is helpful to RP as "passing on the paperwork" etc.

2 - An option to use QP to push something to the front of the pile, so to speak. Or an option to mark something as needed by X date. If you are planning an RP Event etc or something wherein other players are waiting on you and need something by a certain date to make it work, it can be difficult/stressful/awkward.

3 - Option to use IP and have it "locked in". There's been times I've submitted a plot and had the IP ready to be used for something, but when it's processed, the IP rolled over and then wasn't available depending on the timing of when a plot is submitted.

[wimple]

I don't like the idea of even more fields for plots or tying it into other systems. Frankly, the idea of tying it into events, metrics, and everything else is nightmarish to me. Even categories - this just seems limiting to me and makes me not want to use it, because then I worry more about if I'm using it incorrectly or if I have ideas that don't fall into a neat category. I'd rather have open-ended.

Have contributors being able to edit it would be great. Having it timestamped when it's updated so it's chronological would be great. I like the plot create / plot advance thread sort of idea.