Exile and its Implementation

[Voxumo]

I happen to like BK's suggestion about the city being put on high alert, though not a fan of the idea that 25 ip can be used to negate negative piety and lawfullness metrics. Would rather see the seneschal working with nobles to do that, since nobles presently have the capability of such.

[Buzz K[ir]ill]

As per my suggestion, this would be high alert for a specific, known target -- and would not affect everyone else. I think it makes sense to use IP to garner forces to act against a specific, known target, regardless of metrics (or perhaps in adjustment to metrics). If 25 seems low, make it 50. Or make each 'perk' cost individually/more, so that the authorities are forced to choose which ones are more important (gate guards or tower guards?). Or make 25 have a lower chance of spotting/acting than 50 IP.

Either way, nobles can be involved, since they're a good source of IP and support.

Bottom line, it should be balanced with a cost and a time-limit so that it's used in more severe cases when PC authorities are spread thin and not just as the go-to move anytime a mage crops up.

[Voxumo]

I have to admit my primary concern with anything that involves npcs/vnpcs, is the fact Villains don't have anything similar in their arsenal. Yes mages have alot in their arsenal, but your run of the mill crimain/villain, they don't have spells, so how would this balance for them? You have to remember it's often a sizeable chunk of game going after one person. I honestly don't think that sizeable chunk needs to use vnpcs/npcs and just needs to realize they already have the advantage in sheer numbers.

And I firmly agree with you on that last point BK. I'm in the field that any of these should cost easily within the range of 50-100 ip, and should be limited to say 2 or 3 uses by the seneschal during their term. Both of these make said uses more valuable and not just the go-to solution.

[LonelyNeptune]

Exile in its current state is an awful feature that needs to be heavily revised or simply removed. It doesn't have a place in an RP-focused game.

vNPCs should never be used to take agency away from players during a crucial plot point, especially not 'off-screen'. When a player is teleported to an OOC room, all that RP is being bypassed.

Exile needs to be revised to avoid bypassing RP. Either the character should already be captured, or they shouldn't be teleported off-grid at all. There are many good suggestions in this thread as to how the grid can be made hostile towards an exiled character who chooses to linger. I'm happy with either solution, but I favour the latter.

It's been said that capturing someone to exile them is not historically accurate - well, neither is suddenly being teleported by the Powers That Be.

A lot of this has been covered by others before I got here, but I don't want to be silent. Just throwing my feedback into the proverbial hat.

[Kinaed]

Greetings,

I haven't been available to field this (or even read it thoroughly, so my apologies for that off the bat) because I've started a new project irl while I'm still working at client site.

From my skimming, some emails I've received, and staff commentary when I've logged in, I'd like to ask any player carrying a metaphorical pitchfork to please calm down. I have the impression this topic has carried on and wound up with plenty of misinformation and/or miscommunication going around, not to mention people riling one another up behind the scenes. I haven't had the time to correct misassumptions, but some of what I've heard from afar is pretty wild.

On that... this is a game. No one's life is going to be destroyed, rent go unpaid, or a real life dead body found in a basement over any of this. For those of you pissed off at me personally, I don't have a basement.

Macabre humor aside, one reason I did bother to pop on and post here is to clarify a few rumours/things I've seen go around unchecked that probably need correction so we're all on the same page and have the same context, particularly prior to the OOC Chat:

Is it heresy to kill a mage by any other means than the pyre?
Not according to any help file, that's a player interpretation. Criminals are buried on unsanctified ground, and arguing jurisdiction with the Reeves for a criminal mage seems an IC thing to do. In the staff view, the Order is ICly free to decide what is heresy and what isn't... provided they don't bite off more than they can chew.

On that, staff have made it quite clear on multiple occasions that the Queen and Holy Synod are behind the scene stop gaps and system mechanisms in place to provide a framework and, if necessary, a failsafe for extreme PC behavior in the Seneschal, Justiciar, or Grand Inquisitor. This stopgap will not be removed, so take that as you will, but please don't waste anyone's time being pissed off and angry about the game structure. We're open about it and it's there for a reason.

If you have questions or concerns about this, please chat with me in game.

Exile in its current form has no place on an RP Mud, and TI isn't PvP.
That's subjective and thus a matter of opinion. I respect people's opinions even when they are counter to my own, and would appreciate the same respect in return. People who cannot provide that respect cannot participate in discussions because my role and that of my staff isn't to be anyone's punching bag. I request everyone please keep this in mind when raising issues that upset them. It's okay to be upset, but please draw the line at becoming abusive towards staff or other players. This will also go a long way to making sure we hear you rather than having to shut the conversation down for anyone's sanity, be it that of others or our own.

Isn't exile the equivalent of a closed emote?
No. A closed emote is using the open flexibility of the emote system to improperly force an action on someone and is against policy.

TI is a non-consensual game, and people can do things to other people that those people don't like, provided the RP and system supports it. There are multiple "proper" closed system actions that players can use to execute attacks against one another, from casting spells on one another to walloping one another with swords, to complaining to the Cardinal. There are also multiple places where vNPCs and NPCs take action against players, sometimes influenced by players, sometimes not: mobs attacking, levies being collected from assets, vNPCs broadcasting alarms on guild channels, shops refusing to serve players, calling characters names, the blacklist, the redlist, and even stripping characters of guild office when the the situation calls for it.

Some people feel exile is "without RP" (or enough RP, or the right kind of RP that they themselves would sanction or whatever), or they believe it is an inappropriate way to bring vNPCs to life. That is an opinion to be respected, but it remains an opinion. Meanwhile, the closed emote comparison, whilst evocative to the RPI community and great for persuasion purposes, is fundamentally flawed.

I've heard some heinous thing staff did! Player X is telling me this is all a staff conspiracy! How dare you?!
Oh for- really? Well, that sounds awful, but whereas we can sometimes do dumb things like implement a system with issues and fail to address people's concerns for a week because our real life and paying jobs have to take precedence... it's a pretty big jump from that to conspiracy. Then again, conspiracy theories always seem to come up time and time again, so I've long ago come to the conclusion staff are a convenient scape goat. So, if people don't trust us, that sucks, particularly because correcting these accusations is next to impossible without releasing IC information that staff have no business sharing. So, with no other solution, I have to reiterate that we're not being paid to wade through bile, so whatever people think of us, please be mature and respectful.

What does this exile room actually say?
The exile command transports the character to an IC "saferoom" similar to the travelling room. It has a description that informs them their character has been exiled, but has reached an undefined place of safety. From there, they have three options: 1) liquidate for 100% RP XP return regardless of rec_level, 2) remain in their safe space and use the courier to attempt to influence a change of heart or otherwise meddle from afar, or 3) spend an equal amount of QP to what the Seneschal spent in IP to return to the grid.

I gather the above doesn't make some people happy, and as mentioned several times, we're happy to look at and adjust the system to make it better.

Thank you for your time in reading this long post that may be slightly off-beat to what's been said thus far - I will read this thread thoroughly tomorrow when I have free time.

[lkbalboa]

As GI here, if the Dvi situation had been carried through normally and he had been exiled (and I'm not going to bring up theme arguments at all in this) off-grid, it would have cut off all RP I had done trying to investigate where he might be and set up traps. It cut off all RP that the Knights have done to this point, letting code take care of the capture they had been tasked with. It cut short all the RP Dvi had set up for himself. It cut short the RP caused by the attack on the Justiciar, with none of the Reeves able to help capture the mage in retaliation. Prisca Connor was tasked with redeeming herself by aiding in tracking the mage, but that would've been cut off because of a coded command. The RP that Aureliane might be having in the Knights Keep, hiding from a mage that targeted her, would have been abruptly cut off. And etc, as it was a consistent and constant source of roleplay I witnessed on both my characters separately, a Daravi mage flying about the city causing havoc.

This is not an attack on the player that used the IC means at her disposal, or the way it was handled, or a discussion on whether or not things were missed OOCly that affected IC matters. It is a condemnation of the automation of PC death. The exile command as it stands is not a tool that promotes further RP or aids RP in any way. It kills it, and I don't think that belongs on this game. If someone is going to be permanently-deathed it should not be automatic, it should require PC action and role-play; even killing someone on this game requires so many hours of RP before initiating.

That isn't to say the concept doesn't have merit! At its heart, I think that a command where a PC's ability to act on grid is hindered by not being able to visit lawful shopkeepers and being harassed by lawful NPCs could stimulate RP, as the character is hunted down by PCs. However, the exile command as it is, needs to be changed and removed until it can be implemented in a fashion that promotes further RP for PCs and does not take RP away.

[Kinaed]

There is no automatic death, just an option granted to a player to get 100% of their RPxp back for having created enough RP to earn it regardless of req_level. There were two other options available.

Every single piece of "RP cut off" above would have been just as cut off if someone else had PKed the character or the character just chose to walk away. Or hid in a room for 25 years til things died down.

The only person even potentially jipped here was the exiled player.

[chronodbu]

The issue is that the RP being cut off side of the argument is that there's no satisfying end to said RP lines with this.

With the implementation of this command, there's no longer a point in playing an antagonistic character that relies on any form of combat as part of what they're doing. All someone has to do is get some IP from other players and effectively push an 'I win' button to remove them. It's not -satisfying- for anyone involved and it makes the whole line of RP feel pointless.

PK is cool. It's a backbone of the game and without it, we'd lack a very beneficial feeling of danger, but when it's done in a way such as this it just doesn't feel good for anyone involved. All it does is cause bad feelings and add a toxic quality to the playing atmosphere.

The idea of Exile is a great one. It looks amazingly cool in conception, but it really needs more RP components to make it something that fits in a Roleplay environment. The current state of the command is detrimental to RP and the hard work put in by antagonist players as well as any lawful types involved in their counterplay.

[Buzz K[ir]ill]

Exile as a coded system went into the game quite quickly mid-story and was subsequently used to codedly force a hard-to-catch mage out of play at the cost of a mere 25 IP. I don't think there's anything that can be said that will convince me that this is acceptable. In my view, it should never have been allowed to happen the way that it did, and there were multiple points at which it could have been prevented. That's still my stance, and I'll not belabor it further.

Moving forward, I think we need to remove, delay, or otherwise make optional the coded transfer that places the exiled player off-grid. The exiled should be making the choice to flee in response to the announcement -- they should not have this choice code-forced upon them at the moment the exile is approved. TI may be non-consensual, but until now, it has never supported godmodding.

The exile announcement says three days to flee the Kingdom. Therefore, the exiled should have at least 1-2 OOC days to either 1) go out in a blaze of glory, 2) beg the authorities to reconsider, or 3) accept their exile and flee. If they don't accept exile in time for any reason, they can pay QP to safely get off grid after the window has passed.

[vaxin]

Hey guys.

I think that staff knows our opinion on the current implementation of exile now. I trust them to take that into account.

It was my choice to liquidate in the room when I was given the options. I was annoyed at the time. Personally, my only problem is the equivalence of QP and IP -- one is an IC currency, and one is an OOC one. Just let people return at the hit of their assets or some such.

Sometimes RP gets cut off. It sucks, but eventually a new storyline always fills the void. Any conspiracies or OOC anger is silly, it's a text-character that died. God knows I have pkilled people for worse reasons.