[Poll] City Metric, City Report, City Forecast, and Seneschal

[Kinaed]

Greetings,

How is everyone finding this system thus far? Any suggestions or refinements at this time?

[Taunya]

I can't really make much use of it in my player's position. I think one free vote for the masses per OOC month would be nice to spice things up and get more people invested with it.

[Voxumo]

I put mixed, because well frankly aside from knowing the system is in, I don't notice it. I don't see it being talked about, I don't feel any effects from it, it just doesn't seem existent. I personally have not had any encounters with it, be it influencing it or whatnot.

[Kinaed]

Our newest staff member, Praen, will be teaming up with Ismael to change that very soon.

I am keen to hear about improvement suggestions. I'll be making a separate post regarding some next steps for the system (though they're probably not immediate until we get the base system calibrated).

[Noobus]

As one of the players who has been affected by at least three different metrics so far, I have to say that I really have no complaints about the system as of yet-- but would suggest that when lawfulness is at superb-- legendary? The reeve mobs the game spawns should be a bit tougher than they currently are, I had no qualms beating two who were teaming up on my character and had taken a total of 15 HP damage afterwards. I know that they are not there to like, completely replace the PC aspect of it but owning two reeves when lawfulness is that high is... eh.

Edit: Okaaaaaay, maybe I had a few more suggestions that what I made above.

Gate Guards: I love these buddies and I know there are ways to avoid having to deal with them but can we pretty please have them check against stealth and -only- kick folks out if they spot them? -- this is mostly for reasons like spying... among other things. Having them as all seeing as Guild guards is just kinda meh.

[Misstery]

It's too soon for me to know either way. I do agree you should be able to sneak past the gate guards and there are tweaks that could make this better, but too new of a system for me to have a strong stance - voted mixed.

[SilverMoon]

yes, I would have to say, I haven't really been effected by it, although I know that they are there and do have an effect. Also, I can't really do anything to influence it, since the amount of ip you need in order to vote is so high.

[Gerolf]

One of the problems I have been having is getting people to vote. The first week we had a lot of good participation, but the last two weeks, even after IC letters and OOC nagging, for some reason the GLs and Nobles just aren't voting (except for a few).

I have been affected at least twice so the affects are noticed and I think have lead to interesting RP but I can tell there needs to be a culture shift to get better participation.

[Dice]

I voted negative because, while I am somewhat positive toward the concept of the system, in practice I'm not sure it's working at all. So here is a list of issues and suggestions I personally have:

1) Cycles are too fast. There's no real time to politic about who should vote for what when it's cycling every week. I think this is partially behind the lack of participation Gerolf notes.

Suggestion: Two weeks or even a month per cycle would be ideal, to give people time to RP around the current state of things.

2) Cycles are poorly announced. You have to type city report to even be told they're coming.

Suggestion: Cycles should be announced on log-in with the other yellow text alerts when they're imminent.

3) It is extremely unclear what a 'vote' means, which is personally holding me back. Is this my PC saying what they think is important? Is this my PC working to divert resources in a specific direction? I would like for votes to be clarified somewhat. Probably the most interesting and plausible explanation is that the COuncil is allocating a certain amount of discretionary funds every cycle - this does make the system into an actual 'vote', sure, but without knowing what we're ICly doing when we vote, I don't know how to RP about it, and so I use the command without ever bringing it into RP.

Suggestion: Define what a 'vote' is ICly in the helpfile.

4) Votes are silent and utterly opaque, related to point 3. If everyone but you votes for some other concept you thought was important, you can't really react - you can't go challenge people about it ICly because you don't know what to RP. And you can't figure out how you would RPA trace who voted for what, or even if it's possible, because of the nebulosity of votes.

Suggestion: Hand-in-hand with 3), make it clear if votes can be tracked and how to respond to them ICly.

5) The shifts themselves are also silent and opaque. They just happen, and are limited solely to the city report screen. IC_events summarizing the effects of each week's shift would go a long way, I think, toward making them feel real and present in the world to those who are not otherwise involved.

Suggestion: Automated IC_events with every cycle turn posting which metrics shifted the most and what coded consequences will now happen due to these shifts. Word these carefully so they feel like real reports where the code can just plug in the relevant terms.

E.g.: "The City Council has voted with its monthly funds to tackle issues of <domain>. <domain> will be a secondary priority. Council members allocated the least funding to <domain> and <domain>. Given the Council's investments in Lithmore, <domain> is <improving/declining>, now <rank>. Experts expect <coded consequence> to follow."

6) There definitely needs to be more delicacy around the implementation of the metrics. Right now, the bad consequences feel so starkly punitive - being locked out of foreign quarters, getting diseases very easily and quickly - that city report just becomes a way to try and escape these negatives asap. If you check, you'll see we're moving toward equilibrium in everything - a trend I expect to continue as we all fight to avoid these negatives that feel more unpleasant rather than RP-building.

Suggestion: Soften the negatives. Diseases should require 'more' of the bad behaviors that spawn them. Guards blocking the FFQs should maybe only trigger sometimes, as well as being sneakable past. Etc.

[Gerolf]

3) It is extremely unclear what a 'vote' means, which is personally holding me back. Is this my PC saying what they think is important? Is this my PC working to divert resources in a specific direction? I would like for votes to be clarified somewhat. Probably the most interesting and plausible explanation is that the COuncil is allocating a certain amount of discretionary funds every cycle - this does make the system into an actual 'vote', sure, but without knowing what we're ICly doing when we vote, I don't know how to RP about it, and so I use the command without ever bringing it into RP.

Suggestion: Define what a 'vote' is ICly in the helpfile.

4) Votes are silent and utterly opaque, related to point 3. If everyone but you votes for some other concept you thought was important, you can't really react - you can't go challenge people about it ICly because you don't know what to RP. And you can't figure out how you would RPA trace who voted for what, or even if it's possible, because of the nebulosity of votes.

Suggestion: Hand-in-hand with 3), make it clear if votes can be tracked and how to respond to them ICly.

I can actually respond to this: As Seneschal I know exactly who voted how, and there are two ways to vote.

You can vote in the affirmative: city support <metric> <reasoning> (Note the reasoning needs to be added to the help file). This is a vote to try and improve that particular metric.

You can also vote in the negative: city subvert <metric> <reasoning>. This is a vote to try and decrease a particular metric. Maybe the hospital is making hella bank selling remedies to illnesses and they think by improving health they may not have their mad piles of gold to roll around in (a far fetched example, sure, but you get the point)

Which brings us to the how did whomever vote. No need for RPA, just go ask Hunapo. He can tell you. Note, can is different then will.

The problem has been getting everyone on the same page to vote for the same thing. Often those who do vote don't vote until Sunday or Monday and the cycle ends on Tuesday which gives me very little time to check the report and try to find the people who aren't toeing the line.