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Author Topic: Server Status  (Read 1283 times)

orth

Server Status
« on: January 27, 2015, 11:09:49 am »
A thought occurred ... *watches as people duck for cover* I know GMs get additional information when looking at the server status re locations of characters, deity info, level splits, etc ... and also when a GMN is on a server. Is there any reason why this is not shown to players? I know players can see when GMs are on at the login screen but maybe, for some folks, the decision to play Layo (or pursue some other activity) is made when checking the server status. People might be more inclined to jump in-game when a GM is online thinking there is at least some chance of GM interaction? You can come out from cover now. *waits until Dorg has left whatever shelter he'd been hiding behind* Ha! Fooled ya! I also want poison duration extended further! :)
 
The following users thanked this post: Serissa, Hellblazer, Lynn1020

Alatriel

Re: Server Status
« Reply #1 on: October 10, 2010, 08:06:04 am »
Actually, regarding server status, I would like to see all levels and classes removed.  I would like CR's removed from the examine feature as well.
 

Script Wrecked

Re: Server Status
« Reply #2 on: October 10, 2010, 10:20:14 am »
Quote from: Alatriel
I would like CR's removed from the examine feature as well.


So we can die more often? :p
 

RollinsCat

Re: Server Status
« Reply #3 on: October 10, 2010, 10:35:10 am »
Quote from: Script Wrecked
So we can die more often? :p


*grins* My first thought but on consideration I think she means from pc cons only (am I right?).

I could get behind removing the color/status from the con of other players, to break down the barriers for those people who might in the back of their mind think "they're too high level for me".

but removing them from creatures bad. bad bad!

as far as adding/removing information from server status, it depends on your playstyle and whether you're in the mood for a group or in the mood for rp or whatever, so I'm meh on it. I like seeing class and numbers myself.
 

Alatriel

Re: Server Status
« Reply #4 on: October 10, 2010, 11:45:25 am »
no, actually I want them removed from everywhere.  If it means you die more often... *shrugs*  if it means you solo less often... that would be good.  If you don't know how hard things are anymore before you attack them, then you take less risks, and take out a party.  Also, I want the list of buffs removed from the examine features.  I don't think people should be able to examine things and know exactly which spells they have cast on them, if they've got low stats, etc.  I think removing these things would make it so you would have to rp things out more rather than just using mechanical knowledge as ic knowledge.


but yes, also from PC's.  Because it would cut down on players rping levels instead of rping their characters.
 

RollinsCat

Re: Server Status
« Reply #5 on: October 10, 2010, 12:09:07 pm »
respectfully, can't agree with removing cons from mobs.  It's a nice idea in an ideal game world but there are some realities to this server that make that (to me) a losing proposition:

-server populations are the lowest I've seen it since I joined; finding a group is difficult enough

-it would encourage drafting lower players onto more powerful ones to avoid death

-we already have a division of attitudes about "adventuring" (bashing).  lots of discouragement for this style of play, as I feel it anyway, and making it that much harder would drive away good roleplayers who just happen to like it.

-soul strands.  players with a bad luck streak won't have time to settle into their characters before they're close to perming, if they adventure at all

-solo exploration.  without invis or sneak, who's going to take the chance?  losing that would make the efforts of the team who worked so hard on these areas wasted time.

Soloing gets a bad name over and over, but for some, it's not a choice - it's a reality.  remove the little safety net the con gives them and you'll risk losing them too.

removing cons from mobs would push the game closer to being Second Life with gm interaction and without the fancy graphics, but not everyone wants that out of the game.  so perhaps that will be possible in the future game?  but right now, I maintain it's a bad idea.

my two true anyway!
 

Hellblazer

Re: Server Status
« Reply #6 on: October 10, 2010, 12:25:28 pm »
Quote from: Alatriel
no, actually I want them removed from everywhere.  If it means you die more often... *shrugs*  if it means you solo less often... that would be good.  If you don't know how hard things are anymore before you attack them, then you take less risks, and take out a party.  Also, I want the list of buffs removed from the examine features.  I don't think people should be able to examine things and know exactly which spells they have cast on them, if they've got low stats, etc.  I think removing these things would make it so you would have to rp things out more rather than just using mechanical knowledge as ic knowledge.


but yes, also from PC's.  Because it would cut down on players rping levels instead of rping their characters.


The bio cards that you can look at in game for NPC are skewed anyways. Things that are written as easy can easily kill you. Example. You go around with your fighter level 30 and stumble upon a npc mage of level 18. Although you don't know the level of the mage the card says easy, but boom wail.. dead.. And then again, Woohoo, were a good group. 3 rogues, 2 fighters, a mage.. no clerics cause none in game.. hey it's an easy prey.. TPK few SS etc etc etc etc.

As it was said by the gms before, the cards are not reliable. And that's pretty much hard coded into the engine I think. I have never seen any information anywhere that those could be taken out.

Taking the levels and the classes out of the server status page wont stop people from going on lore to see the class. and you will see an even greater dose of metagaming going through tells. People saying. hey what class are you? yeah great let's meet there and do this and that. So in the end it wont change a thing.

And in the end you will have more people winning about it, asking for refunds etc, if you could take that information out. Pretty much would mean a lot more work for the team overall.

I'd rather see more quests, more player driven events, more story tellers night, balls, more impromptus. Than trying to mechanically force a false sense of rp down on people. Cause people who don't want to rp, will find ways not to anyway. And to others, there's time when they need more rp, other times more time to do other stuff, even more so when the server population is dwindling steadily.

Script Wrecked

Re: Server Status
« Reply #7 on: October 10, 2010, 08:21:46 pm »
Quote from: Alatriel
no, actually I want them removed from everywhere.  If it means you die more often... *shrugs*  if it means you solo less often... that would be good.


Because soloing is evil and must be stamped out. We wouldn't want a person who logs on when there's nobody else about to hang around and have fun. That would be wrong.

Quote from: Alatriel
If you don't know how hard things are anymore before you attack them, then you take less risks, and take out a party.


That's a fallacy; being in a party doesn't stop you from being wiped out if you don't know the risk involved.

Regards,

Script Wrecked.
 

Alatriel

Re: Server Status
« Reply #8 on: October 10, 2010, 08:29:57 pm »
Hey guys- chill out.  Just because I said I wanted it didn't mean I thought any of you would agree.
 

RollinsCat

Re: Server Status
« Reply #9 on: October 10, 2010, 08:41:13 pm »
Hey, I'm all for taking the con off pcs.  I think it's a great idea and would help new players feel less intimidated maybe.

oh - and sorry Pseudonym. total derail here...
 

Pseudonym

Re: Server Status
« Reply #10 on: October 10, 2010, 08:43:21 pm »
Far be it for the good folk of Layonara to obfuscate an issue with beside-the-point thoughts and arguments ... my request was for GM presence to be added to the server status. That was it.

Peace!

Also, I did have a thought re poison duration but i'll save that for a separate thread.
 

Acacea

Re: Server Status
« Reply #11 on: October 10, 2010, 09:54:01 pm »
I'm kind of torn on the GM thing, and think I might end up in the minority in terms of why. It's the same reason I am kind of uncomfortable with the whole "sign up for impromptus" type of list. I don't like the thought of the opposite effect, which is the exclusion factor. Should I also look for a GM to be on, in order to catch those that now refuse to log on until some poor soul is setting up for his quest and they all flock hungrily? What about when a GM is monitoring something or just doing testing? Does everyone now log off disappointed when nothing bada big boom occurs when the GM is the only reason they came on?

I dunno. On the other hand, it's really not all that different from them showing up on the log-in screen. I'm just kind of meh on the reasons for it and wonder if people really start waiting for a gamemaster to be on before logging in, will it then also hurt the chances of casual hookups and player event attendance even more than they are already damaged. *wobbles hand* Dunno.

I don't think I really care enough to say no, so why not. It's possible that someone logging on in hopes of DM interaction could promote casual hookups instead of the opposite, just by virtue of them being online, but I don't like the thought of people getting carried away and sending tells to team members who might be doing other things asking if they've got anything planned. Twenty people each doing it one time in the space of fifteen minutes could get pretty aggravating.

I think I would just leave it to the DM team to decide if they want to be advertised or not - if it would have a negative effect on their logging in, by say making them not want to log in if they're not sure they can run something (instead of being able to poke around and do something on the fly), then it might have the opposite effect than intended. Whatever helps their DMing environment and makes them comfortable in trying stuff out should be the winner, I think. If that's full disclosure, awesome. If it's being able to be camouflaged and get used to stuff and practice/decide, or to have a toggle to become incognito, still cool.
 

RollinsCat

Re: Server Status
« Reply #12 on: October 10, 2010, 10:16:33 pm »
*points down*

spoken more eloquently (and with far better punctuation) but my thoughts exactly.
 

Alatriel

Re: Server Status
« Reply #13 on: October 10, 2010, 11:16:16 pm »
Sorry Pseud.
 

Lord Dark

Re: Server Status
« Reply #14 on: October 11, 2010, 01:19:23 am »
It would take out the surprise! If you look at some of the GM involved kudos for RP thread, some of it is there because the players were taken by surprise by the interaction and it added something to their time of playing.

I do like the way Acacea added in that a GM might be on just to practice or test something, the adding of the GM's to the server status may cause a little bit of dread to the GM's who were logging in because they might be worried that they would have to turn down a request for attention. It's hard to turn down someone who's hopeful. And one other thing besides the dampening of surprise is that players may burn out with all the impromptus, that some players may be inclined stop going to planned quests and events because they get GM attention more often.

Up to the GM's, though!
 

Pseudonym

Re: Server Status
« Reply #15 on: October 11, 2010, 01:42:13 am »
Quote from: Acacea
.... if people really start waiting for a gamemaster to be on before logging in, will it then also hurt the chances of casual hookups and player event attendance even more than they are already damaged. *wobbles hand* Dunno. ....


I hear what you're saying, I guess I am looking from the AEST perspective where it is pretty much impossible to actually worsen this situation.

Quote from: Alatriel
Sorry Pseud.


No apology necessary. I was just looking for an opportunity to use the word 'obfuscate'. With darkstorme around, I suffer from a bad case of linguistics-envy and try to pepper my speech with as many multi-syllabic words as possible. Even when it is malapropos I am now attempting to be magniloquent.
 

mixafix

Re: Server Status
« Reply #16 on: October 11, 2010, 03:39:39 am »
Get back to work would ya
 

darkstorme

Re: Server Status
« Reply #17 on: October 11, 2010, 03:42:02 am »
Quote from: Pseudonym
No apology necessary. I was just looking for an opportunity to use the word 'obfuscate'. With darkstorme around, I suffer from a bad case of linguistics-envy and try to pepper my speech with as many multi-syllabic words as possible. Even when it is malapropos I am now attempting to be magniloquent.


Alas, even at your most grandiloquent, you are at best a Camp IV to my summit.  *smiles complacently*

On the original topic of the thread, I would tend to agree with Lord Dark and Acacea w/r to pretty much everything said.
 

Dezza

Re: Server Status
« Reply #18 on: October 11, 2010, 07:38:14 am »
If I may interject from a GM perspective. :)

Being as how there are so few active quest GM's, I must say that when on as GM, once PC's on the server are aware of there being a GM on its amazing how suddenly the RP values triple and everyones using party chat.

Two or three calendered sessions ago I think it was I was trying to run an event for a player outside of my usual timezones. I was asked by no less than 3 players within 10 minutes of starting the event, I didnt know all that well if 'I have time could I run something for them'. This straight away says to me that even in timezones where GM's are supposed to be these people are still not getting any love.

Its clear that players no longer get the level of gm basic interaction it suggests they might get when they come to layo. We have a lot of GM's its true, but most are either inactive and yet still a GM, or working on other projects such as the MMP or Lore, or active and just not erm...active. That leaves a minority of us trying to deal with a majority of stuff for players in game.

If there were more in gameactually active quest GM's I would say yes to Pseudo's idea, no worries at all. But the way things currently stand, from my own GM perspective, I don't want anymore work than I already have. Yes, it's finally come to that, I hate to say it, but it has.

Put simply, there needs to be more active, in game quest GM's for Pseudo's idea to have any merit. Until that happens it will only mean the few of us left doing stuff won't log in anymore for fear of being bombarded with requests.
 

Carillon

Re: Server Status
« Reply #19 on: October 11, 2010, 04:55:51 pm »
I agree with Dezza's assessment of how knowledge of a GM's presence online affects roleplay. I do feel like GMs might become cynical about the underlying motive of roleplay once their presence was easily accessible public knowledge that you could obtain while still online. And if they did become cynical about the great roleplay they were seeing, I think that would really hurt the community overall.

Another concern I have likely does not apply to the vast majority of the people who will read this thread. I do believe that most of our playerbase is quite honest and respects the rules. That said, many of our rules came from an instance where someone abused something, and I am concerned about how abuse of certain situations could increase, should players be able to know definitively that a GM was not watching them. If with a simple click of the server status refresh button you could determine there was no GM online to catch you doing it, how much more likely might some people be to push the line of family friendly RP, exploit the game's AI, or break other rules that could not be detected by an offline GM? It might be worth considering.

While there are certainly some advantages to players being able to see when GMs are online, such as more easily being able to catch a GM to help you out with an administrative issue (broken bank chests, changing portraits, fixing skins, getting characters unstuck, etc. etc.), being able to find and join impromptus, etc., I think overall it would be harder on GMs. There are a lot of reasons for a GM to be online that do not involve running quests and impromptus--testing, fixing an aspect of the world, setting up, cleaning up, mediating player conflict, dealing with server rule infractions ... the list goes on, and most have already been mentioned. And quite frankly, obligation is usually the enemy of productivity. (Ask any college student who has to get that essay done what usually hateful chore they won't stoop to in order to avoid writing it!) Even if the majority of players were respectful and tried not to bother the online GM in case they were busy, I feel like a few players would make logging on feel like an onerous chore for already busy GMs.

In short, it's a good idea and I see the merits of it ... but I feel like there are too many hidden disadvantages that will make it detrimental overall.