IRC Meetings

[Mask]

Many thanks to everyone who could make it, and especially to Paula for staying awake for so long!

With this post, I hope to summarise my own take on what happened last night.

First, the agenda items:

Recent bannings, and why

1. Recent bannings. We explained why Daniel Sottlemire aka Howard and Maynawe were banned.

Changes to spell system
2. We explained (in almost exhaustive detail) what the new spell slot system will involve.

Wider reaching consultation on changes to game mechanics
3. We decided that it would be a good idea to create a new forum for discussion of game mechanics, pending changes to said mechanics and how existing mechanics should be changed. Members of this forum would typically be DnD gurus who are qualified to comment on the nitty gritty. To join, send me a private message on this forum with a brief description of how you would be able to help out.

Ways to promote more small scale immortal assisted role playing
4. We discussed ways to promote small scale immortal assisted role playing. One of the problems of being an immortal and attempting to initiate a role-play is that it is hard to know who is the mood for role playing, and how exactly to 'insert' yourself into the story. Three ideas were suggested:


1. A new command called 'rprequest <NPC name>'. This would enable players to indicate to immortals that they'd like to roleplay with a given NPC. Some people commented that this could cause a continuity error if different immortals role-played the same NPC on different occasions. However, I think such a drawback is small compared to the possible benefit such a command might bring.

2. A 'contact other plane' spell. This would be cast by a PC, the results determined according to the table given in the PHB, and an imm would answer the questions posed.

3. A 'wish' spell, which would require an imm to come and make the wish come true.

It was noted that all of the above are dependent on an imm being available and inclined.

Any other business

The 'any other business' segment was when players could bring up any concerns they have about the game. For the most part, people seemed to be concerned about two issues:


1. The allocation of heroes. It was suggested that our current hero allocation system is flawed, and that thenumber of heroes that any one player may control should be restricted to 1 or 2. The immortal team pointed out that sometimes there isn't any choice in who can take on such a position, when for example, there is only 1 level 50 priest of a particular faith etc.

To allow for more choice and a greater chance of having an active player running a faith, it was decided that non-priest characters will be considered for that faith's 'hero' position and will be able to run the faith. The ideal would be for a priest, but in the absence of one, a non-priest can do it.

2. The newbie council. It was suggested that the process of selecting people onto the newbie council is not transparent, in that the players at large do not know who is being considered, why and when, or when players who were considered were denied, or why they were denied.

It was noted that almost the only reason the newbie council exists is to help newbies. Also, it was noted that there are people who are not on the newbie council who would like to be, as it is perceived by some as a benefit.

Some ideas for allowing other people to help newbies were suggested and to change how the current newbie system works were as follows:

1. Allow anyone to apply to join the Newbie Council using an in-game command. The application could then be voted on using an in-game method by existing newbie councillors and immortals. If approved, they can become an approved 'answerer'.

2. When an someone asks a question, one of the 'approved answerers' will claim the question, and all other 'approved answerers' will be notified that the question is being handled.

3. The questioner and answerer will speak to each other using a channel that can be heard by all 'approved answerers'.

4. When the question has been answered, other 'approved answerers' will be able to grade the answer on a simple scale of say 1 to 5.

5. People who are consistently unhelpful will be removed from the 'approved answerers' list.

It was suggested that if such was implemented that the identity of the questioner and answerer not be revealed to the people who would grade the answer.

The point of such a complicated system would be to allow anyone who wants to help newbies be given the means to help them, and also that people who are not helpful are removed fairly quickly and transparently.

The final item we spoke about was the difference between 'mudding' and 'role-playing'. We defined 'mudding' to mean the process by which you make sure your character has the best equipement, skills, spells, level etc. Role-playing is defined as when you interact with others while playing the role of your character.

Everyone agreed that most people like both occupations, and enjoy the fact that Forgotten Kingdoms straddles the fence between pure hack and slash and pure role-playing (such as a MUSH). Most people admitted to preferring to concentrate on one or other of the two depending on how they felt on a particular day.

There was some discussion as to the definition of a 'twink', who some people regard as someone who has more levels than hours. I will attempt to define a twink here and now as someone who spends the vast majority of their time (>90%?) mudding and very little time roleplaying (<10%?).

Some immortals said that they preferred to leave such players out when running roleplaying events, that they felt that such events were more of a reward to players who concentrate on roleplaying and that the rewards of mudding were self-evident: greater character power. These immortals also stated that if exclusive-mudders came on an immortal run RP event, they would be significantly more powerful than exclusive-roleplayers, and risk spoiling the event for the exclusive-roleplayers.

I think that this issue is one which requires resolution, as what one immortal might label a twink is perfectly natural to another. For several players, they don't have much opportunity to role play, for example, if they are in Australia. As the only avenue open to them in this scenario is mudding, rather than role-playing, I don't feel that they should be punished for this. I don't think that anybody should be punished if they are prolific mudders, so long as they also roleplay.

Speaking for myself, the label of 'twink' should be reserved for someone who muds exclusively, only role playing where necessary to further their mudding. A definition like 'a twink is someone who reaches level 50 in less than 50 hours' is too simple and lacks all context.

That is a not so brief summary of what we discussed. The immortal team will discuss how best to deal with changes to the newbie council, heroes and attempt to reach consensus amongst ourselves as to the definition of a 'twink', and what should be done with such people.

I think the meeting was a success, and my thanks to everyone who came along. We will have another one in 1 to 2 months, and will post before hand to allow others to suggest agenda topics.

Thanks to everyone who came.

Martin/Mask

[Argentia]

Thank you for the recap, but is it possible for those of us who couldn't attend the meeting to obtain a log of it? If so, it would be wonderful. Thanks!

[Duranamir]

Would it be possible to have a summary of the Spell slot changes for those who were not present ?.

Duranamir

[Theillik]

I'd love to see IMM run rps. Some of my best experiences have been with heroes and mobs run by IMMs...In fact, sometimes I wish I could hop on non-important mobs and engage PCs.

[Ellian]

I'd like to see if people are interested in having another IRC discussion. Back in September we decided tentatively on holding them bi-monthly, and seeing as it has been two months, I thought I'd bring it up.

I'm thinking probably the best time to hold meeting number two would be either after finals but before people get too busy with the holidays, or in early January.

If people are interested, we could use this thread to compile and decide on subjects for the adgenda. If we decide on a date for the discussion, this thread could also be used for any admins or imms interested in sponsoring, mediating, etc. to volunteer a little bit of their time.

Thanks,
Jayson

[Ellian]

I'll start.

We'll probably want to recap the topics discussed in the first IRC meeting, which have been summarised here:

http://www.forgottenkingdoms.com/board/ ... php?t=4444

At the meeting we can discuss what has been done concerning these topics, what still needs to be done, and how it will be done. And hopefully on a couple of the topics we can say yes, this has been handled, it's done, we can lay it to rest.

Jayson

[Solaghar]

I definetely would love to get the chance to talk some stuff out at a second IRC meeting. While I'm basically a creature of the Underdark, there are some matters there that could definetely bear discussion while a few things of common interest to everyone could certainly get a chance to be hashed out and I wouldn't feel intrusive to place my opinion in as well, despite being generally uninformed regarding the situation on the surface

[Dalvyn]

Some topics that I think should be worth discussing.



- What to do about low stats ?

The new system allows someone to select a very low Charisma and/or a very low Wisdom with few negative consequences. Currently, they will only miss on several quests (and maybe get worse prices in shops); but I believe the consequences should be way bigger (compare it with penalties for low Strength about how many things you can carry and melee damage, or penalties for low Dexterity about how many things you can have in your inventory and AC, or penalties for low Constitution and hit points and move points, or penalties on the learning rate from low Intelligence).

- Holes and bugs.

Something I hate to see is: experienced players using their knowledge of "holes" in the system or "bugs" in areas to gain unfair advantages instead of reporting it. An example: an experienced player making a lowbie wizard and asking a high level fighter to raze again and again the basement of the House of Wonder to find weapons and shields that can then be sold. It makes no sense that a school would ask you for a 2 platinum fee then later allow you to steal items for 20+ platinum from the dummies set up for training. It might be a good idea to set up an easy channel (mail address or something else) to report such "holes", and a relatively quick process to fix them.

- Needed areas.

In some sense the counterpart to the previous point (which basically aimed at removing holes that only experienced players would know and (ab)use): what kind of areas do we need? I would guess something for level 5-15 characters to make coin. Are there other niches that need to be filled?

- Where to put the effort (and the players)?

We currently have roughly 3 or 4 parts in FK. Waterdeep-Silverymoon-Golden Oak-Shadowdale, the "Good"; Zhentil Keep - Westgate, the "Evil"; Skull Port; and Menzo. As far as I know, the Good have nearly all the areas (including shops, trainers, quests, ...) they need. This might not be the case for the other three parts. Now, should we spread the (currently very limited) building efforts between all those parts, or should we concentrate on some parts and perhaps give up on others (for now), either for lack of building resources, or for lack of players, or for both? Plus a similar question from an imm resource point of view (create roleplays for all four parts or concentrate on some of them only).

[Ellian]

As for holes and bugs, lalowing a builder revision team to operate and take a look at old areas is the best suggestion, as posted by Ellian. Let people take a look at these old areas, identify the problems with them and stop them but also make certain that, as you said, that you're not removing options for people which will make the game too rough. I've been playing a wizard on the surface a little lately and without friends or assistance, it's difficult to make money. I'd say more areas like Melee Magthere in Menzoberranzan would help people with this sort of thing.

Needed areas. The real question I have been wondering is, even if areas are needed, can they even get into the game at this point in time? I don't claim to know what goes on amongst the imms and all, and I of course realize that this game is maintained at their leisure for our benefit, without being paid or getting anything in return. I know that players cause a lot of trouble and it's a lot of hassle, all of these things I understand, and I don't blame people for not coddling to our every need, but then many players here have been playing for a long time, putting a lot of time and effort into our chars, and trying to help out as best we can to put something back into the game.

I think these two paragraphs from one of Solaghar's posts on the subject of what to do with the Underdark definitely hold some merit for further discussion at the next meeting.

The first paragraph refers to an idea posted in the builders' discussion forum:

I think the mud could benefit from an area revision team, to go over old areas and revitalize and bring them up to current standards.

Reasons for such a team include:

1. Forgotten Kingdoms has been around for nearly six? years now and over this time building standards have changed and evolved. Some older areas don't fit current standards.

2. Areas need to be updated to work properly with new code.

3. Some areas have broken room exits, typos, obscure keywords, bugs, quest issues, etc. that weren't caught in their revision process.

A new forum could be opened, similar to bug reporting, to report area problems. The area revision team would follow up on these posts and bring up the area in question on the test port for any necessary editing.

Any thoughts on this idea?

Jayson

The questions, pertaining to this, to answer at the meeting: How to implement a program like this? Who would be willing to collaborate on it? What exactly are current standards for building, or perhaps what would the player base like the building standards to be?

The second paragraph I quoted from Solaghar brings up a few more questions.

1. The establishment of the Newbie Council was one of the early ways the admin team metered out, or delegated, its "responsibilities." (I use the word "responsibilities" loosely, meaning just the things people commit to or volunteer to do for the mud.) What further steps could be taken now to further spread the game's work load out among those willing to help, easing the strain on the busiest and most committed members of the FK community?

2. When people who have taken certain "responsibilities" (used loosely again as we are all volunteers here) on the mud need to attend to real life matters, or take a break or what have you for an extended period of time, can and should someone else (or more than one someone elses) be appointed to fill the vacancy left by those people?

3. What seemed to be a dominant theme in the first meeting was the issue of transparency in several matters. Should there be more transparency about the status of the members of the admin and imm team, or should it be left to the individuals' discretion?

Thanks,
Jayson

[Kirkus]

Here are a few Items that I feen need to be addressed. Since I more than likely will miss any meeting, I will throw what points I have here and any that share my opinions can take it and run...

Organizations. In the past I believe we had a stipulation that said for instance, if you have a character in say the harpers you were not allowed to have another character be in the zhents. I feel this is out dated. I feel it is time to give a measure of trust to our playerbase. This rule in fact is, in my humble opinion, stagnating the growth of out evil base. Few might think of joining the Zhents but when given the option they might decide not to because it would inhibit a serious portion of rp from their other characters. I also think that someone useing cross information would be too easily cought to worry about. Simply strike them and show that that sort of thing is not acceptable.

Prestige Classes. We had some cool ideas being thrown arround but none seem to be being put into action. What is going on with that?

There were others but I have forgotten them.... I will remember sooner or later.

[Dalvyn]

I can answer quickly for prestige classes.

We examined a few of them and the following issue was raised: Most of the warrior-based prestige classes grant some spell-like abilities. Now, those spell-like abilities are not unbalancing in a complete D&D universe because (a) they can only be cast once or twice a day and (b) they are less powerful than real spells cast by real wizards. The reasons for this are multiple: the fact that time is continuous on FK while you can easily say "You sleep peacefully. Eight hours later, ..." in table-top games, the fact that things like resistance, DCs (how "hard" a spell is to resist), and saving throws (how good you are at resisting spells) are not present in FK, and so on.

A concrete example: imagine a prestige class allowing warriors to cast cure serious, bull's strength, and fly. Not only do they become more and more self-sufficient, but they also basically overshadow other classes. For example, since most priests don't get access to heal, let alone mass heal, these warriors become as good as priests as far as healing is concerned. With bull's strength, they get as good as level 50 wizards as far as increasing strength is concerned, and so on.

Therefore, we thought it would be better to first fix those things (e.g., introduce higher-level spells, introduce a slot-based spellcasting system, fix the resistance/DC/saving throws system, and so on) before introducing such prestige classes. So, basically, the idea was set aside for now.

[Argentia]

I would also like to bring up a point about organizations. For many of them, you are required to find and speak to a member of these organizations. But many of the organizations have little or no active players, and any active members rarely log. I would like to address ways that this could be remedied or even circumvented, because as it stands it is exceedingly difficult, in fact close to impossible I would say, to join some organizations because of their lack of active members.

Edit: I would also like to bring up a related issue: inactive players with high positions(or who have very little activity). I understand that people move on or become tired of certain characters, and that is perfectly fine. It happens. But sometimes the absence of certain important characters can be detrimental to the rest of those who play the game, and I would like to find ways to fill that gap.

[Solaghar]

I would also like to bring up a point about organizations. For many of them, you are required to find and speak to a member of these organizations. But many of the organizations have little or no active players, and any active members rarely log. I would like to address ways that this could be remedied or even circumvented, because as it stands it is exceedingly difficult, in fact close to impossible I would say, to join some organizations because of their lack of active members.

Edit: I would also like to bring up a related issue: inactive players with high positions(or who have very little activity). I understand that people move on or become tired of certain characters, and that is perfectly fine. It happens. But sometimes the absence of certain important characters can be detrimental to the rest of those who play the game, and I would like to find ways to fill that gap.

I also agree that this bears discussion. The idea of player created guilds and organizations for RPing purposes is something that has always appealed to me, but I believe that the restrictions on who can start a group are a bit too much. Base it on a character's RP rather than making sure they have 1000 hours on their character. If a few level 20 characters want to start an RP organization, let them. It'll be as good as the effort they put into it and actually allowing some competition among the groups for members, regulating what they can and can't buy in terms of guild areas and the like, that is fine. Make them build their own guild area like any other area, and limit it in the same way other areas are to be limited. Even make them pay money for access to special trainers or equipment. If they want to start one when they are young and poor they won't have much available, but as they grow in age and power they can continue to add. This alone would help people be more attached to their characters and their friends and give them something to spend their money on.

[Argentia]

I'm not disputing your idea, Solaghar, in fact I like it, but that's kind of something different than what I was refering to. I was refering more to important characters that are rarely logged. For example high priests, guild heros, matron mothers(I don't know anything about them, to be honest, if they are active or not), members of organizations, even gods, who rarely or never are logged. I'm not complaining about this situation, I'd just like to find a solution to it.

[Telk]

I think Dalvyn in response to your question that building efforts should be concentrated on the areas that have hardly been worked on. As it stands there is Waterdeep that has been heavily worked on and then you go below the surface to the underdark where it just isn't worked on (which also makes it to where there are few drow/other underdark creatures and a lack of diversity in RP) Then there are the few other cities that have seen some work but not as much as other areas. I believe the best way to go about it would be to concentrate the majority of the building efforts on the most neglected areas first then work on everything until they are about the same level then evenly distribute the building efforts. If you work evenly on it right now the same problem will persist: there will be the large cities (bigger now) and then the neglected areas. Things will be bigger but the scales will still be uneven.