RP By Mail

[mattc]

Because letters can be such a crucial part of moving plots forward on TI, and because the art of writing good IC letters can be truly demanding, and because for some characters this can be a very dominant part of RP, I submit the following proposal:

IC Letters should earn RPXP, proportional to the length of the letter.

[Kinaed]

How much are we thinking for how long?

I have to admit to being a bit leery of this even as I think it should be done. My main concern is that people might write extra-long gibberish just for XP. I'm not sure this is a bad thing, and there's nothing to stop people from writing gibberish emotes either.

If we did do this, I'd probably want an account check as well as an immortal check to make sure XP is not given for mailing imms, and imms are alerted if someone mails an alt.

[Zeita]

I would absolutely support this suggestion as well, and have considered suggesting something similar previously. There have been more than a few times where I've had so much mail to respond to that I barely have any time left to RP, and have spent hours at times working on particular letters to get them right. (Note, I personally wouldn't expect hours of rpxp. Really, a token 'thank you' would be enough.) Anyway, I'm not sure how to award it, whether a flat amount per letter, or on a character/line/word count, perhaps.

Also, we'd need to be mindful of people sending duplicate mails to people and consider a way to mitigate that.

Finally, if we're going to do this, can mail writing be hooked into the activity stats as well?

Thanks,
Charm.

[Amdair]

I'd love to see this, as a frequent writer and general lover of having in-game writings. Though many get junked, a lot of letters are left behind when characters die, and history accumulates, making all sorts of fun discoveries for future players! :D

Also, I'd suggest perhaps a flat bonus calculated using total characters and number of letters recently written (so you can't spam mail, or something,) perhaps.

[Callista]

I'm usually against anything that deals with # of characters or length, because I'd rather see quality than quantity. A short missive can be even more important for RP than a 2 page ramble. That kind of thing is impossible to quantify and calculate automatically though.

I guess I'd say have it fall somewhere in the middle. Longer letters may get more of a bonus, but not so much that it would entice people to do it deliberately.

[Kinaed]

Yeah, I gotta admit - I'm one of the people who sees a huge mail and groans at reading it.

Also, I want more books in-game, so maybe writing ledger entries and so on should be worth XP too?

[Kaemgen]

It's a great idea! I love mail. Although I do think there should be some limits on how much xp one can get from mail in a given OOC day. Also, in regards to the length thing, I think there should be limits on that, too.

[Estelle]

*bump*

Any word received on this?

[Marsilio]

You mentioned a reward for books. Would it be possible to have them submitted to staff when complete for appropriate award? I do not think there will ever be too many books being written that it becomes overwhelming for staff approval. It might even be better that staff approves these books as a quality control for one of the most prominent permanent sources of in character information. I would also fully support a system for XP on mail.

[Kinaed]

No word yet, but we know we want to add this at some stage.

Marsilio - we already do that. If you have a book, please give it to us and submit it for QP? You can keep the original copy. The staff make a copy of our own to put into the archives and use for RP plots and so on later.