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Who is cool with getting rid of TELLs? *poll done*
Zaila
Pacific Time
This is an idle curiosity that has been in the back of my mind since the April Fools prank last year, and finally sparked the poll by @emelle's comment in the gold-sink thread. I am not proposing a method by which this would be enacted, but lets pretend there's some appropriately fitting, RP'd event or something that makes it happen (feel free to hypothesize on what that would be in a comment).
Would you (overall) like getting rid of the capacity to use TELLs.
Would you (overall) like getting rid of the capacity to use TELLs.
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This, for me, would greatly alienate who I can/can't talk to in an OOC manner.
My initial instincts are also that it'd take away an important tool for checking on novices, but I suppose the counter to that argument is that it'd make novice chat more active? So I'm persuadable on that front.
"The smell of dusty fur, sweet smoke, waiting and patience, a thing that time cannot kill. The moth that candles won't burn."
Plus, would this also include removing it from mobs as well? Because if so, it'd break functionality of people using their shop mobs for RP and make a pain for admin with multi-mob events.
I could go on in more detail as to all of my no's to this, but I'll leave it at these few as they are the primary. I don't see enough benefit of losing tells or any other current channel forms that would improve immersion more than people just making an effort, as a community, to improve immersion in their own way.
That would hamstring a vital part of talking, newbie helping and initiating rp, getting consent for more snarly rp (If you're doing heavier, darker, etc story lines), and would take you right out of rp if you had to read an ooc SAY.
Tangent: I do, however, dislike the use of an OOC channel for IC ylem coordination. I would prefer an IC tether/ylem channel for that kind of communication so I don't have to join an OOC channel to participate in IC events.
Tl;Dr this won't give any real benefit/gain, because it won't make people group and it'll be a headache overall.
People wanting to buy/sell/trade would need to actually meet up with their clients or suppliers and negotiate fees and terms in person. GMs would need to schedule and host regular meetings with their chief subordinates, while expecting letters from those unable to be physically present, and task a particular member with recording minutes, delegation would become absolutely vital, etc... Just like a RL org. It would breathe a lot of life into otherwise brief or mundane encounters.
I guess it feels like a less drastic change for me because I've spent a lot of time playing an RPI that doesn't have tells. In that game, if you want to RP, you just go to a public gathering place and see what's up, get involved. You don't know what's going on with the people around you unless you actually make the effort to engage with them.
My primary concern would be, as others have stated, how it would impact newbies. It can be intimidating and alienating to require new players to step out of their comfort zone before they're comfortable with the basics.
All that said, Aetolia (along with all the other IRE MUDs) isn't an RPI. The game is so rich with content and mechanics that it attracts all kinds of different players -- people who want to grind levels, write intricate storylines with other characters, become a badass PvPer, a politician, a crafter, a merchant, chill out and chat with friends, or just sit around and fish, and so on and on. Basically, we all go to the same restaurant, but we don't all have to order the same thing from the menu.
tl;dr: My vote is a selfish one. I personally would dig forcing players to be more hands-on with the game world. But I'm not sure if Aetolia at large, with its intention to cater to a whole different range of playstyles, is the right setting for such a big push towards RP focus.
Tells are very useful because they are bright yellow and stand out against the (default) black background. They are good for people who are new to MUDs, who might otherwise not catch GNT (which defaults to white at the start) or other forms of communication, that may be easily overlooked in any number of different kinds of spam. Even says are easy to overlook, because NPCs say things all the time.
It is especially notable for new people using the Nexus client, because the Communications tab defaults to being in the same window as the quests/tasks tabs, meaning if someone is nose-down trying to figure out some quest or task, they might not catch communications from other players until they learn to customize the client.
And the newbie channel, while useful and bright green, can be intimidating or concerning to new players who don't wish to trouble a large number of people, or who are just a bit shy about asking a whole channel for help.
On the one hand, I don't entirely disprove of removing a few methods of comminucation, such as ones that have been mentioned up above.
On the other hand, though, I use tells a lot to handle city things. Particularly when people have trouble finding me, or if I'm dealing with several things at once.
While I'm 100% sure I'd figure out a way to manage without them, I can't deny that they're damned convenient
Cute-Kelli by @Sessizlik.
It would make the world feel bigger, more mysterious, dangerous, and fulfilling to explore. Functions in the game that already exist would have new meaning, such as the letter and board system. I just like the idea of going to a tavern or city center or other hot spot to find people actually taking part in the world. What we have today is most people just ignore the rooms for the most part unless scheduled RP happens, an event, or it's their own personal rp location they always initiate in.
I'm not stupid and I know that our small playerbase requires these instant communications to function for organization. Clans, City, Guild, and Tells make up almost all the communication. I also don't think it's a good idea to change a game's method of operating over a decade into it's life if you're not reinventing it due to extreme failure. This is never going to happen, but it's a thought experiment to shed light on the way we communicate now. I hope the people replying remember this is just a conversation and not some new policy that is actually being considered or will ever be considered by IRE.
Yeah, going to have to back Faerah on this one. RL meetings of more than three people that I can't multitask are often exercises in tedium and "please someone shoot me now"
Additionally, large-scale RP group events are something I tend to avoid because either I can't keep up reading, can't get a word in edgewise, or I'm just bored to tears because I have nothing to do. None of those experiences are gonna breathe new life into an encounter.
I didn't mean to make anybody feel singled out, I was throwing out some loose and general examples. I'm obviously coming from a very different gaming background, and was just expressing my perspective. Some of my most favourite memories from my time as a GM were the guild-wide gatherings, so I was mostly drawing from those experiences. I didn't mean to presume anything.
People arguing against your ideas doesn't mean we're offended or that you've ruffled our feathers, it just means they disagree, definitely don't worry about it.
The point of this thread was "let us all share wildly different opinions while satiating my curiosity and thinking critically about how we all utilize the functions in the game." Polite disagreement like what I've seen here is encouraged!
In these instances, I feel I would likely favor not engaging, over engaging, because it was more than I was inclined to engage in at a given point in time. This would especially be the case if there was a gathering of more than a couple people - ie five or more people at the inner gate or something.
This would, in some cases, lead to the opposite effect for people who are not comfortable with crowd roleplay.
As for some other things people have mentioned, it's still possible to do in-person stuff like trade and meetings. I do this regularly. At times I even tell people that I won't have certain discussions over tells because it makes no sense. Other times, I might be rushed because of RL stuff and the convenience of being able to simply send a tell, get a response or send confirmation without interrupting someone else and what they are doing takes away a lot of stress.
When it comes to assisting with people grouping up, I will simply bring up the good old "get rid of the damn hoods" and "remove havens from the game" argument and you'll be able to see more people who are around because they can't hide. Removing tells won't necessarily see this happen.
Removing org communication sounds ridiculous to me, simply because sometimes an org needs an easy way to rally. I sometimes play with the notion of it being like the market channel where you have to wait a certain amount of time before you can use it again, but I've had a lot of fun and productive discussions over those channels too and those are equally important as meeting up for real.
Aetolia, on the other hand, can work well in isolation. Plenty of people could autobash and chat on discord or craft like crazy people or tweak their systems, and those in-game communication systems are the only things drawing them in to the rest of the world for that portion of time.
But for OOC communications it could be a problem.