A general frustration of mine(and possibly others)

[Onyxsoulle]

So, we all play the game to rp. All of us, there is no other reason for it. But what frustrates me, and others that have brought it up before, is there not being people to rp with. By this I mean using the whererp command. I was just on, there were 20 people on, -4 for the imms(i think they are added to who count). On whererp there were 5 people, and of those 5 only 2 of them were in a public place. And of those two, I was one. So basically, I had the choice of 1 person to rp with, and to be honest, we had kind of exhausted our rp choices from rping earlier. So, what is there to do? Everyone says 'send a messenger', or 'generate rp', I've done these things in the past, but overall the rp is fleeting at best. I understand people only want to rp with whatever current storyline they are currently pursuing, but it's really frustrating when you aren't in any of these storylines. Since I've come back, I already had one player actually send me a tell saying 'the game is kind of boring, i'm just going to stop playing'. If we vote, yes we get more players, but if current players aren't willing to rp with others, we won't retain them.

Personally, I think being able to turn whererp on and off is a hindrance to rp, which is the point of the game. I know there are some rooms that publically shouldn't be known, like say the thieves guild, but I believe(I could be wrong here) that imms can turn off showing up there, basically making the room itself invis to whererp.

" I like to turn off whererp to be able to craft in peace." - use iaw. You won't gain xp but you can craft.

"I'm doing a private scene that I don't want to be bugged in by other players that are out and about." - Lock your doors. People can't come in to your room if it's locked. Well they can with certain abilities, but really that adds rp into the situation.

Honestly I feel use the ability to turn off rp to escape rp they don't want. If someone is summoning sammy the super demon, obviously they don't want to be walked in on. But, it does happen. People walk in on people all the time and find them doing something they shouldn't.

IC and OOC crossover comes into play on this a lot, this I understand. But if billy the mage is the one summoning sammy, and billy chose to do it on the top of the Knight's tower, then billy was kind of stupid. Magic is supposed to be something hidden, not seen and such. Adversely, if billy is summoning them in some private room that no one knows about, or even if they know about it, lock doors, no one knows what you are doing. For all they know you are grinding cooking.

And if you are doing hanky-panky? *shrug* Lock the doors. you could just be cooking, and if you don't lock them, welcome to rp.

I know I'm ranting, and it's been ranted on by other people before, but it really is a pain to not see any places my character could go to rp. And some of it is on me, I could send a messenger to person x to try and get rp. Most of the people I saw, there was really no reason to have my character message them. I could mail people, I have, near as I can tell, 90% of people don't respond to mail(or at least respond to mail from my character).

I think I'm done ranting now.

[Geras]

It's not a bad idea, but somehow you need to make it work with the fact that a lot of mages rely on hiding not quite in plain site to do things like meditate. If you're meditating in a field or a tree hollow or something you don't want people to have anymore of a chance to stumble across you. Does whererp not default to on upon login right now? If not, that would be nice to change - with a few rooms set to !whererp for the reasons you mentioned above.

[Onyxsoulle]

Obviously I can't speak for every mage, but when I have had mages, I always had a one-way exit built in. Also, if I remember it right, I think where lists where your astral form is, not the body, could be wrong here. But as far as meditating in a field, that seems a bit meta to me. If you are meditating in a field, there should definitely be a chance of people coming across you. I know there would be a lot of issues, such as steve wanting to go out at the convenient time there is a person at grassy knoll. But we are also in a game where it's been directly asked for us to rp as our characters would. I know there have been times when I've seen magey places on whererp, I oocly know where that location is, but my character didn't, and he had no reason to go there, so I didn't(even though magey rp is fun).

Maybe adding the !whererp thing to a purchasable thing for housing, but I can see that leading to the same problem again.

[Geras]

Not every mage is going to have a phome yet though, right? So you may be practicing in whatever hidden room you could find. Though you could flag those !whererp I guess.

[Rabek]

There is always a chance someone could wander in on you when you're in a field.

Having RP on makes it less of a chance and more a guarantee that someone will turn into a homing missile and travel straight to you despite no IC reason whatsoever. I've had that happen in reverse with a mage and their army of NPCs finding me almost as soon as I stopped moving and threatening to kill me despite having never RPing with them before. I have RP off when I'm hunting/foraging now.

There's also absolutely nothing wrong with avoiding RP you don't want. Most of the players on TI are terrible and can't write and don't follow theme. When that changes, maybe people will become less hermit-like.

If you want to find RP, go to a tavern with RP on. It nearly always works.

[Voxumo]

Not every mage is going to have a phome yet though, right? So you may be practicing in whatever hidden room you could find. Though you could flag those !whererp I guess.

Well everyone is allowed a free, one room phome, but having the hidden exit is likely where the issue arrises.

Most of the players on TI are terrible and can't write and don't follow theme. When that changes, maybe people will become less hermit-like.

This... This is a problem. If you don't try to help/be an example for new players, or players who exhibit what you are complaining about, then you are a source of the problem as well. If you leave those players to rp with other players who also have difficulty writing interesting poses and who struggle with theme, then it creates a loop as how are they going to see what a truly good pose and proper adherence to theme looks like if they only ever see poor poses and lack of theme?

I know when I started playing this game, I had never played a MUD in my life. I still don't even remember how exactly I found TI. But needless to say my poses were absolute shit, and my first character had no semblance of theme. Was a mage with a pet spider. Recipe for disaster right away. Hell my first week on TI was spent in the almshouse trying to rp with whatever that npc's name is that is there. I never would have known how much of the game there was if two experienced players hadn't taken a risk by rping with inexperienced and naive past me.

As time went on I improved and so did my characters. There is a reason I've had 20+ characters, and it's because it was a learning experience. I've improved my ability to write and pose by following the example of those I've rped with. Yes I may not be on the level of some like Casimir, Ariel, Rothgar, etc, but I wouldn't be where I am now if people had just not bothered rping with me. I likely wouldn't even be playing as I would have given up on trying to get some response out of the npc in the almshouse.

As much as it may make us cringe rping with new and inexperienced players, we shouldn't just give up hope on them.

[Geras]

I think the "homing missile" is the real issue. I don't think it's unreasonable for people to use whererp to find you provided they reasonable have an IC reason to be there, but at the same time I don't think it's unreasonable to not really want to be bothered either.

[Starstarfish]

but at the same time I don't think it's unreasonable to not really want to be bothered either.

If you can't find RP because you can't be bothered trying to find any, eh ... I mean. If we want a MUD and not a one-room MUSH, you might have to go look for people.

Most of the players on TI are terrible and can't write and don't follow theme.

I'm curious how we are objectively measuring whether or not other people can write is it spelling mistakes? I know for myself I might not put out 50 lines emotes like some people but I don't feel that my overall writing quality is low. So what's our measurement here?

[Azi]

I don't want to broadcast when Haizea is having a 12-person petting party in her bedroom!

[Voxumo]

I don't want to broadcast when Haizea is having a 12-person petting party in her bedroom!

Aww, why not? The more the merrier right?