Players Avoiding RP

[The_Last_Good_Dragon]

Maybe we need to decrease the length of RP periods - right now, you'll stay active if you emote once every 30 minutes with 2 people in the RP. Maybe that ought to be 15 minutes. That would reset things like hemotes, thinks, etc, but it would also set a little bit faster expectation of response. I don't think anyone would argue they should only be emoting once every 30 minutes.

I wouldn't mind this change at all, but I don't think that it alone would solve all that much; it certainly wouldn't combat the idling out issue. I think without a pointed message about how long it's taking you to pose people will just shrug it off; I doubt most players are THAT interested in the RPXP gain rate. If they're taking so long to pose, they PROBABLY aren't frequently using think/hemote as it is, so the RP gain is already probably on the lower side, but that's mostly speculation from my own experiences.

This change would also be, in a way, a — I don't want to call it a "punishment" as that sounds more harsh than it is so let's just go with gamer parlance — a nerf to players who are good about using hemotes and thinks already, making them do these even more frequently (which can be hard, in some scenes!) to get the same RPXP reward.

[quanin]

Making somebody wait 15+ minutes for an emote because you aren't paying attention is what's bad.

This is, I believe, context dependent. Again, an example I was perfectly fine with--RPing with someone who was doing this while she was working on a paper for university. The expectation was set that she'd be distracted, she gave me the option of doing the scene later, I was fine with the distraction, we went ahead. Are we now saying as a community that's unacceptable?

[The_Last_Good_Dragon]

Making somebody wait 15+ minutes for an emote because you aren't paying attention is what's bad.

This is, I believe, context dependent. Again, an example I was perfectly fine with--RPing with someone who was doing this while she was working on a paper for university. The expectation was set that she'd be distracted, she gave me the option of doing the scene later, I was fine with the distraction, we went ahead. Are we now saying as a community that's unacceptable?

I don't think anybody is ever even suggesting that a private scene arranged by two people going in that any circumstances involving slow or spotty RP is ever discouraged. Rather, that's what it seems that want to promote: if you're going to have to take a long time between poses, be courteous and let your partner know. Don't be in a public place, and if RP does come your way, find a way to excuse yourself ICly or apologize OOCly if the break needs to be more sudden.

But I also don't think that dropping RPXP down a bit in these situations is a problem, or sending a message that this kind of RP is unacceptable. Rather, I feel like these messages would be a "This isn't how the Staff generally want RP scenes to go. If you're okay with that, fine, but be conscientious of others.

[Kuzco]

Some good ideas or notions here. I will join in with Cellan's post, she said all that was in my mind better than I could.
Letting people know that you can't respond fast or are prone to going linkdead for any reason (in your title or your whois) seems basic courtesy.

[quanin]

But I also don't think that dropping RPXP down a bit in these situations is a problem, or sending a message that this kind of RP is unacceptable. Rather, I feel like these messages would be a "This isn't how the Staff generally want RP scenes to go. If you're okay with that, fine, but be conscientious of others.

But aren't we already agreeing to take a hit to our RPXP by taking longer to respond to emotes in the first place? Particularly if staff decide to implement Temi's suggestion (which I'm in favour of, for the record), the XP timer would stop counting after 15 minutes rather than 30. Since the XP timer doesn't care about either how often you emote or how long your emote is (barring that it reaches a certain minimum length, of course), you're already being told either you're active in the next 15 minutes or you get nothing. Since the people emoting more often are, depending on the scene, also the ones more likely to use hemote/think, the people playing while distracted have already opted to give up a chunk of that XP on principle. I can't speak for everyone, naturally, but I have a hell of a time remembering to do that on days when the only thing going on is the game. I'm not going to remember to do that if I'm playing while distracted.

To add to that, are we trying to encourage emoting more often, or using hemote/think more often? Because as stated, you don't get RPXP based on how often you emote, or how long your emote is. If you emote 1 time in 30 (possibly soon to be 15) minutes, you get the same XP as if you'd emoted 10 times in the same period. If we're trying to solve that problem, and I'm not entirely sure changes of this nature actually will, would it not make more sense to take a look at this part of XP distribution? Of course you're still attempting to influence people who perhaps prefer a different RP style than what's considered appropriate, and I don't know that I'm overly a fan of that, but positive reinforcement would be a better approach than negative reinforcement.

If I know a certain type of scene, particularly with a certain type of player, is going to result in some kind of code penalty for me, I'm going to avoid RPing that certain type of scene, or with that certain type of player. Is the potential of other players doing the same, which can present its own problems, worth solving this overall minor one?

[kipperialovskii]

I'd just like to raise a few notions here.

The matter of idling out during scenes was rather closely linked to a player that had multiple accounts (Meaning multiple characters across multiple fields of play). Which ended in a ban.

However, slow posting was always an issue to be had. As well as breaches of emoting courtesy/etc. I don't feel as though a mechanical solution is the wisest approach (=Only in terms of solving the issue of long wait times. Not intended as anything else.=), as it tends to rub off as a cross-grid punishment/restrictive rework. I think that considering, as prior issues were mentioned with Player Perception in the mix, that perceptions may be skewed, and may warrant something more personal.

My suggestion would be to tackle the issue directly, if there are gross issues of courtesy being subverted in such a way that is causing unrest, maybe having a short chat, or pboard notice with the persons that's receiving complaints could nip this issue in the bud, if it's bad enough to require staff attention in the first place.

It just feels like we'd be delving into complex code juggling (If it's much more than the decrease in the countdown timer), when it'd be somewhat ineffectual to do so, if the issue isn't RPXP gains, it's OOC attention and accessibility.