Whoinvis Discussion General /WDG/

[Puciek]

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.

Oh I almost missed that. No no no no no. If you want to fake death without mages help, well, get a mask, move to a cave and stay away from town. Or just wrap a character to escape to another city. But if you want to continue playing in town and have a realistic stab at being invisible, you will have to parley with mages and risks that come with it.

[Voxumo]

I'm going to be blunt and forward here. I've played almost every role possible on this game, in a general sense. I've played a knight for two ooc years, I've played brotherhood members and mages equally as long. I've played inquisitors and reeves. I fully understand the annoyance of being unable to find a wanted character, but I've also been on the receiving end of being caught in a surprisingly thought out way. I've played 26 different characters over the course of six years, so I'm not blowing steam out my ass when I say, I fully understand the frustration of both sides.

However... This change is going to solve nothing. The group who is pushing for this change, primarily made up of lawful types, are under the delusion that removing whoinvis, which let's be honest is what they really want, is going to solve all of the their problems and make it so that it's so much easier to do their job... But it's not. Whoinvis isn't what's stopping lawful characters from making arrests, lawful characters and ic mechanisms are the culprit. Those who hide under whoinvis will hide all the same whether or not they have whoinvis. Infact this will only make more difficult, as now that they know they will be actively hunted via who list, they will hide twice as harder. Yet what will be the lawful types scapegoat then, when they eventually get their wish of whoinvis being completely gone? There will be no scapegoat and as such they will realize it is their methods that are the cause for their failures, not some ooc system.

Yes this is harsh of me to say, but I'm so tired of seeing the entitlement and whining going about the game when something doesn't go one's way. And yes, I've done this in the past, though I've made an effort to curb it myself. It's always first to blame some ooc mechanism, never to blame one's own methods. Nothing about whoinvis has changed in the last 6 years, likely longer, except of course the most recent change with it shutting off upon log out. In those previous years, we've seen both sides, lawful and unlawful, be successful in killings and arrests, despite whoinvis existing. It never proved a problem until recently. Yet when nothing's changed about it, why is it only now a problem, with a relatively new batch of players? Hmm?

I mean let's be honest here, we don't see the unlawful types throwing a hissy fit when lawful types hide under whoinvis, and use it to their advantage. Infact that's the whole reason whoinvis was created in the first place, so that knight's could catch mages unaware, as mages would typically only cause havoc when they saw knight's/order weren't on. It was a system made for the lawfuls who are now pushing for it's eradication. It's quite humorous if I'm honest.

This change is pandering in the simplest form, though I can't blame kinaed for this. She is met with a very vocal group, the same vocal group who has pushed for equally ludicrous notions in the past, such as one alt per guild, or limiting alts in general. Though we've also learned that while they may be vocal, they aren't the majority.

Of course I don't expect this post to be met with warm words or kind critiscim, but I'm done being nice when it comes to drastic changes to the game. I'm done pretending the systems of the game are the vast majority of the issues encountered.

In short, whoinvis isn't the problem, it's the players who are the problem.

[Niamh]

I haven't seen any "lawful types" complaining about whoinvis, and I'll make this a gentle warning about personal attacks before they can get into full swing.

It's dangerous to assume you know who is behind something and point a public finger of blame at them. You wouldn't like it someone did it to you, so lets not do it to other people. Lets talk about the pros and cons of the whoinvis change - not who we personally believe is a problem player and who isn't. That kind of thing helps no one, and is almost always based on (usually incorrect) assumptions to begin with.

Whoinvis change - pros and cons, opinions, etc., yes please. Personal attacks or finger-pointing at players or groups of players we imagine are responsible, no.

[Voxumo]

I haven't seen any "lawful types" complaining about whoinvis, and I'll make this a gentle warning about personal attacks before they can get into full swing.

It's dangerous to assume you know who is behind something and point a public finger of blame at them. You wouldn't like it someone did it to you, so lets not do it to other people. Lets talk about the pros and cons of the whoinvis change - not who we personally believe is a problem player and who isn't. That kind of thing helps no one, and is almost always based on (usually incorrect) assumptions to begin with.

Whoinvis change - pros and cons, opinions, etc., yes please. Personal attacks or finger-pointing at players or groups of players we imagine are responsible, no.

I'm not pointing fingers at anyone specific, which I could easily do given replies to the general board post on the game. When I say lawful types, I mean those in positions of the order, knights and reeves, or those whom characters generally icly are in support of those groups. If you would like, I am prepared to go back into the ooc meeting logs and find every instance of whoinvis being mentioned as a problem. Infact, I think I will to prove a point.

And just because I am pointing to a group as being the primary group pushing for a change, does not negate many of the points I brought up. This change to whoinvis will change nothing, except make people even more paranoid and likely hate filled. Whoinvis is not a problem and has not been a problem for many years. The problem lies in how people approach finding someone.

Also I do have to point out, this is an incredibly hypocritical statement. It's not fine to point fingers at those in favor of the change, but it's fine to lump every whoinvis user together and punish them all.

[Niamh]

If someone was posting here pointing fingers at a specific group of players who they believed were abusing whoinvis they would receive a similar warning. That is a comparable situation. The other is not.

I'm not going to argue with you about it. You can discuss the topic at hand, which is debating whether or not the whoinvis change is or good or bad using civil discourse, or you can move on from the thread.

[Voxumo]

If someone was posting here pointing fingers at a specific group of players who they believed were abusing whoinvis they would receive a similar warning. That is a comparable situation. The other is not.

I'm not going to argue with you about it. You can discuss the topic at hand, which is debating whether or not the whoinvis change is or good or bad using civil discourse, or you can move on from the thread.

(Removed by Staff - Two warnings in advance)

I will cease talking about this until something substantial is added to the original discussion. Though I will add this link to a previous poll/topic discussing whoinvis, as I feel many of the posts in the topic are relevant to this discussion.

[AlwaysShunny]

As someone playing a lawful type, I don't think anyone on our end is complaining due to not being able to catch people on whoinvis. Investigations are usually long, and it isn't as though there's been a dry spell either. Someone was pyred just last month, and people were whipped this week. All due to long, drawn out investigations. No one is bitter or disillusioned about catching anyone.

I think this is a fair implementation to the Whoinvis system. The XP cost doesn't seem too taxing, and it could help counter the incentives for discouraging non-consensual roleplay.

[Voxumo]

As someone playing a lawful type, I don't think anyone on our end is complaining due to not being able to catch people on whoinvis. Investigations are usually long, and it isn't as though there's been a dry spell either. Someone was pyred just last month, and people were whipped this week. All due to long, drawn out investigations. No one is bitter or disillusioned about catching anyone.

I think this is a fair implementation to the Whoinvis system. The XP cost doesn't seem too taxing, and it could help counter the incentives for discouraging non-consensual roleplay.

To be fair, I mentioned the arrests due to that being a talking point someone raised in the topic I linked to and before. Something along the lines of "Am I expected to just camp this location where this player frequently is, in hopes that I catch them when they log on?" hence where my arrest point was made.

Though I still have to ask, what's changed with the whoinvis system to require this punishment to players? And it is a punishment. We've seen a decrease in people using whoinvis, even referenced by kinaed in the ooc chat. So why exactly is this needed?

I mean someone can still get non-consensual rp while whoinvis. For example, I could be running whoinvis, and walk into a scene with a mage committing magery, which via policy would give them the right to pkill me. The only difference not using whoinvis provides is characters being able to be hunted down via wholist. "Oh we know character A is on, so let's search all the likely locations they would be until we find them."

[Lei]

I've got a strong opinion about this issue: I think whoinvis is fine, has been fine, and shouldn't be altered.

The decision to penalize use of the whoinvis command directly affects any character who operates on a covert basis. Any action they want to do covertly will now be considerably less attractive because of the (soon to be) required payment.

Me, as one example: Am I gonna go pickpocketing in the Queen's Tavern without whoinvis on? Probably not. Am I gonna look at a wholist that's only seven people deep and attempt an armed robbery? Not without whoinvis on, I'm not. Heck, I'd be wearing that code even with 25 people logged in. It's too damn easy for folks to ACCIDENTALLY connect the dots where crime and OOC knowledge of characters are concerned. I certainly don't need to give them any help in the process.

So what happens when I feel too poor to pay the (presently undecided) whoinvis cost? I'm just not gonna criminal? Poof. There went that RP opportunity. Better find another plotline. Something lawful, probably.

IMO, this is absolutely a crime tax. Do we really need an OOC crime inhibitor? My vote is a solid no.

[Kinaed]

From my perspective:

- Staff expressed disapproval for 'living in whoinvis' behavior weeks ago because that is not what whoinvis was designed for and it was affecting TI's "stickiness" in terms of retaining player logins.
- This was discussed at OOC Chat and generally endorsed by the pbase at large as problematic for TI's environment. It just didn't feel nice to login and see 1/4 of the wholist anonymous.
- The early changes to whoinvis to make it turn off when people log in were to curb the 'living in whoinvis' behavior. We were open about that, and at the time the people using whoinvis that way were quite broad in terms of demographic. In fact, I habitually was one of them, I just hadn't considered the impact on the game.
- The behavior reduced, but some players ignored the underlying message, and continued to 'live in whoinvis", which had been publicly identified as an abuse of the command.
- This leaves staff with the heavy burden of continual education, etc, arguing with people about what they believe to be natural behaviors, etc. Basically, the solution was flawed.
- So we aimed to fix target the problem - not the people, but the problem - of 'living in whoinvis' by introducing an appropriate, behavior-targeting solution.

Players who feel disadvantaged can say we're targeting them personally, but that's egocentric. This is a systemic change that was raised because a problem was identified, and it wasn't resolved through our initial solutions. It's unrealistic to expect whoinvis to remain a command to hide behind, particularly when staff have clearly indicated that is not its purpose.

Whoinvis was created to allow players, when there was sufficient need, to execute short term RP in secrecy.

The fact that players openly say they need to hide behind it, that they're disadvantaged without it, and clutch it like a lifeline tells me that whoinvis is systemically enabling an unintended, tangible IC benefit. That is DEFINITELY not what whoinvis is for.