Moar Wilderness?

[LANS]

Hmmm.
Patrols are rather boring if done alone and only searching room after room, but I imagine they are meant to be boring and not repeated often.
Mages can and have evaded capture virtually endlessly. Come on guys, you can do a lot of party tricks to make yourself incredibly hard to trap. All it takes is carefulness and a proactive mind. Making the wilderness grid bigger will only mean living in the city less relevant, knights having a much harder time doing anything, people having trouble meeting up, and a lot of MUD resources spent that will not be utilised.
The system is designed for an outed mage to LOSE. You stand alone against an inexhaustible anti mage war machine. But it doesn't mean that you are doomed to die. What you do need is a goal so that the chase does not become eternal.

[wimple]

I haven't really gone through all of the wilderness lately, but I have done some deep-searching of small locations recently, and I really can't imagine anyone being able to do the entire wilderness at once without losing their mind. If you are scening with a partner (yes Knight numbers are low, but I'd imagine hunters/trackers could be hired or brought in if it's a matter of a regular patrol to partner with), you will not be able to get through the entire wilderness in a pass because it would take too long while participating in the scene, and that hits the recommendation of not being able to do 100% at most. If the most you can regular do while scening is a quadrant or section, it shouldn't really be an issue. These patrols also bring risks, even with cover scent being used.

If people are being caught right away after running, is it because of the wilderness being small, their lack of knowledge of where the hidden holes are in the wilderness, or the tracking ability of the Knights? Is it the wilderness that's the problem or is it just other factors? And are the majority of people being caught right away? There are at least two long-term mages that have never been caught and are lose on the grid. Non-orderite and non-mage, but it seems like these things come in bursts. No mages caught for several months, then it's like dominos where a bunch get brought in, then a dry period again, etc.

It sounds like wilderness has been expanded as much as it can be. I'd think if you take out the hideholeys for more general rooms, that just makes the patrols easier and faster. Too many hideouts, people without experience in the wilderness will just get caught in the regular rooms since they can't find them.

[Geras]

How would folks feel about something like this - add more wilderness, but with only a very small number of token hidey holes, and reduce the mv costs to search and to movement in general?

[Geras]

And wimple - my issue with the quadrant system is that if someone is sitting in one quadrant you can flush them out after 4 searches. And switching quadrants without getting caught can be pretty challenging.

And LANS - re the hiding tools, keep in mind not all elements have that. So those powers are distributed very unevenly.

[wimple]

How would folks feel about something like this - add more wilderness, but with only a very small number of token hidey holes, and reduce the mv costs to search and to movement in general?

I feel like this would make it way easier to catch people. If there are less hidden holes, then I don't have to search individually in rooms, or I just need to pay some hunters to map out the wilderness and I know where all the locations are and it makes the sweeps much faster. If you want it to be harder to search, more stat checks, hidden exits, or rivers or other terrain are what makes a difference.

As to your response about quadrants, I really don't get it. If two Knights together can only search one quadrant on a given day because they are RPing and having to search so much stuff, then they'd have to wait until they're able to scene together again to search the remaining three sections. I recently did a search of a single location with someone that had maybe 15 rooms (way smaller than a quadrant of the wilderness) the scene took a good 3 hours and was my only scene for the evening and we didn't see everything there was to see. I'm not even sure they can do a quadrant together if they are really searching or tracking in each room, eating, and posing.

If I was a knight pair and doing that, I'd be lucky to do a quadrant in a scene, and it'd take at least 4-5 scenes to do the entire wilderness. I'm not going to be able to login every day in a row to be able to do that.

Further, for a search to be successful, I actually have to find something. I've done plenty of searches where neither of us find things where they should, only one player does, etc. It's all down to rolls, it isn't a guarantee. There's also no guarantee the person I'm searching for is even going to be on should I find it.

I think you might be better off with some randomization in the wilderness with locations for hidden holes being occasionally moved or switched around so the 'go to' isn't always known and it requires a bit more looking by searchers that might get used to a routine.

[Geras]

Wimple - keep in mind you won't literally be hiding generally. Sleeping (astral), casting, teaching, talking... those things.

[wimple]

I really don't understand that as a response to my post. I don't know if it's just because I haven't had coffee yet or if it's because I'm not played a mage. Can you explain in more detail?

[Taunya]

I think he means you're not generally using the 'hide' code in such places, but would be visible and possibly vulnerable.

[Geras]

What Taunya said. Mages don't sit around in bushes in the dark waiting for the end to come.

[Geras]

Could we have more an emphasis on danger as a source of difficulty than inconvenience maybe?

What I mean by that is the main deterrents to doing a sweep of any area in a patrol right now are the costs in terms of MV points and time.

Could we maybe reduce those costs, but give mages more tools (ie spells and space) to deter these sweeps instead, or at least promote a strength-in-numbers philosophy for the Knights? Spells that set selective traps, spells that conceal entrances or create hidden meeting spots, spells that scatter animal companions and mounts, spells that create hostile wildlife, that sort of thing. Some of that exists already of course, but I'm suggesting more options, with the counterbalance being that just getting around to do a patrol would be easier.

Thoughts?