Matchmaking Updates

[Kinaed]

Greetings,

We finally got our matchmaking algorithm working. Now that people have experienced it for a bit, how is it looking and feeling? Any suggestions for refinement?

Kind regards,
Kinaed

[Temi]

Something I felt was that if I didn't even know who the person was, it was hard to arrange to RP with them without OOC communication. I had an idea that maybe it could be good if you could set a hook for people being matched up with you. Then somebody gets matched up with you, they get, 'Don't know Temi? You've
heard her name mentioned recently as someone who is looking at getting her dog better trained.' or something like that.

[Dreams]

Something I felt was that if I didn't even know who the person was, it was hard to arrange to RP with them without OOC communication. I had an idea that maybe it could be good if you could set a hook for people being matched up with you. Then somebody gets matched up with you, they get, 'Don't know Temi? You've
heard her name mentioned recently as someone who is looking at getting her dog better trained.' or something like that.

Maybe if both people get it? I didn't realize it was one sided - if both people get the match notification, then both have the incentive, and both people get the QP for it, rather than just one or the other.

[Taunya]

I'd like it to be brought more in line with the pvent system: option to accept or reject a match, list the current quest in your score.

Perhaps an option as well to alert your target that you're looking to rp with them in a public locale, usable when you're in a room with the public flag. It would help for meeting people that you've never met before and might have no idea on what you could contact them about. Another option is to let the game pick a public place to run into them.

Perhaps the QP reward should be mutual for both with the system.

[KING]

Both people matching at once would be ideal, both in terms of OOC communication and as an incentive to actually rp therein. Also maybe having an accept/reject option -- though frankly, that may get awkward if you get rejected. I'm not opposed to it though.

While I haven't gotten to actually make my matches yet, having them instated has been really cool, I love the whole concept.

[Helena]

Maybe the matchmaker should only find targets amongst people on whererp: that would avoid a lot of false postive, and further help those who are actually seeking RP.

I also like the idea of giving a room for the people to meet. If one of the match is in a public room, that could be that room, or a random public room otherwise. That helps avoiding messengers, and I believe it's easier to find an IC reason to go to a given room than to meet an unknown person. That could also spread the RP in less usual places.

[Satoshi]

Vis a vis matchmaking I have several observations and comments.

I think the biggest one for me: Option to accept/reject so that you don't lose the one you want to do, or deny ones you won't, like the pvent. I had several fire off in a row the other morning and most of them were for the same person, but by the time I was actually ready to RP (I was doing some mechanical things while I woke up) I had gotten a third or fourth one for someone else, and thus didn't get the reward, even though I had already initiated a meeting with the person from the matchmaker.

I also got matched with someone multiple times that, IC, my character is avoiding. Would have been nice to just boot those so I didn't get 3 matches in a row, each going at me for not meeting it.

RE: both parties knowing: I actually like that they don't. That way if I am busy, otherwise engaged, or on my way from point A to point B, I don't need to feel bad about not following up on it. Both people knowing puts a sort of obligation on the match, or worse, could make you feel like the only reason people are RPing with you is to get the incentive. If you absolutely can't think of a way to engage with them normally in an IC manner, send them a pboard and try to hash it out there, I guess.

I'm unsure about adding hooks for it. That could be quite limiting and I feel like, just like whererp, you don't really NEED an excuse to follow up on this, and it's seriously the easiest thing to just... come up with one on the spot. Check their help character info. That's considered publicly available. If you can read it? Congrats, your character has heard of this person. Send them a messenger being like 'You know I've never actually met you and I'd like to introduce myself.' BOOM, reason, made. If you can cobble something from their help characterinfo that would be more useful, like seeing they have a hobby and reaching out to them about that? Even better.

I did just wake up and haven't caffeinated yet, so maybe this is blunt but I will 100% forget to reply to this otherwise.

[Dreams]

Maybe the matchmaker should only find targets amongst people on whererp: that would avoid a lot of false postive, and further help those who are actually seeking RP.

I also like the idea of giving a room for the people to meet. If one of the match is in a public room, that could be that room, or a random public room otherwise. That helps avoiding messengers, and I believe it's easier to find an IC reason to go to a given room than to meet an unknown person. That could also spread the RP in less usual places.

I disagree on the 'where'.

It is specifically targeting idle people to make them NOT idle. If it targets only those on where, there will be times all of those are already in scenes.

Just because someone isn't on 'where' doesn't necessarily mean they are unavailable or unwilling to RP.

[galaxgal]

A 'matchmaker accept' would be nice, since the implementation as it stands doesn't seem to account for the wind-up time of inviting a specific character to RP (messengers, esp. on low infra, them having to walk to the place, possibly after sorting their inventory out or throwing on their social outfit of choice, take a bath, etc can all be factors.)

Almost all people I've met have a HELP CHARACTER, and that can give some context for inviting them over for booze/tea, so I don't think knowing the character strictly needs to be a prerequisite? After all, I think part of the point is connecting the player to new/unfamiliar characters.

[Helena]

People convinced me help character is enough to find a reason to meet someone, and that limiting the match to people on where is not what we want.

I'm still believing suggesting a random room to meet could make things easier, if not funnier.