I'll try to touch on a few points here. I seem to have earned a reputation for being a person who writes blocks of texts for emotes and I simply cannot imagine why. I'll try to add a few thoughts in here to some of the concerns and complaints that I've seen mentioned.
This Thread wrote:1) Limiting Pose Length
I'll be blunt: if this gets implimented then I'll stop playing. Being able to take a bit of time to sink into a bit of prose is why I play RPIs. I already exceed the character limit on a pose not infrequently; I also don't think that I take too long to pose, it's exceedingly rare for my poses to come more than 10 minutes after another person's despite the length of the poses. I hate to be so black/white about this issue, but it's a nonstarter for me.
I do think that me making these large poses sometimes puts pressure on others to do the same. You don't need to. Pose a length that you are comfortable with and doesn't greatly inhibit the RP. And also, just writing a lot doesn't mean the quality of RP is good.. Sometimes I find myself rambling in a scene but doing very little to set the scene or engage others, and I'm always trying to improve in that facet. I definitely encourage people to focus on mastering their comfort level of RP-writing and then branch out if so interested.
If it takes you longer than 5 minutes to write a pose, you're PROBABLY taking too long. My general rule for RPing is to take a couple of minutes to consider a reaction and the structure of the emote, then no more than 5 minutes to write it. At times, I've set up a stopwatch to help me with that.
This Thread wrote:2) Limiting Players to 1 Character Online
I'm
very much in favor of something like this, though I'll conceed that it might be more frustrating than beneficial to stop people from doing things like checking mail on their alts, or to be handling some minutae like crafting or pooling a skill with an alt while they RP. Perhaps consider
restricting RPXP gains on the account to the first character connected on that account or otherwise restricting emotes to only one active player on an account at a time.
There have been times that I know someone's actively RPing on an alt and giving me the most baring pass of time, short emotes infrequently, and it's the fucking worst.
This Thread wrote:3) Coded Messages about Stagnant Scenes.
I think this is, perhaps, the best way to handle the "flow" of RP, and probably wouldn't be terribly hard to do. I think most people seem to agree that 10 minutes without a pose should never be the norm. I don't think it'd be terribly difficult to add in a timer that checks each room in which RPXP is being generated, checking when the last emote was made and who it was made by, and sending a warning to those in the room that the last pose is 10 minutes cold and another pose should be made soon. I would even be 100% alright with penalizing those in the room down a stage of RPXP for taking too long to pose. The message might read something like this:
Code: Select all
> [RP Warning] It has been 10 minutes since the last pose. You have dropped a level of RPXP:
> Please be courteous to your RP partners.
This message should not be toggleable; if a player does want to gag it they can do so client-side, but it shouldn't be able to use the excuse of 'I didn't see it' if it comes up.
This Thread wrote:4) Players going Link-Dead and Not Returning.
This, FAR more than other things, is what I hear complaints about from others in my guild and some people I chat with OOCly. People vanishing mid-scene is remarkably frustrating and it's just not excuseable, in my opinion, in today's day and age. Obviously I don't mean in the singular sense: we all sometimes drop out or something happens and we have to abort a scene whether willingly or not - players shouldn't be punished (or HEAVILY punished) for one or two offenses.
But it's hard for me to find much sympathy when the same people seem to always wander off mid-RP. Sometimes they give excuses that grow hollow with their repetitiveness or simply offer no explanation. Often, it seems, people vanish because the RP doesn't seem to be going the direction their player wants, and that's a dozen times worse, whether it be their flirtations aren't returned, or the lesson is somwhat boring, or they are turned on sharply for something they might not agree with.
I suspect almost all of us have a smartphone. Download a MUD app (Blowtorch is my recommendation for Android) and log in if your internet goes out for more than 10 minutes. A quick 'Sorry my internet's out' is immensely satisfying for me so I can go on about my business and get you out of my office/house/whatever. If you involved in a conflicted scene, give the person a quick heads-up that you'll work out a result of the scene ASAP, or nudge them towards Staff to help with a resolution while you're away. If you're in a fight, be prepared to 'lose' the fight; if you're arresting someone, be prepared for them to escape.
But stop with the idling out. Stop with the watching videos and ignoring your RP partner. This is a multiplayer game: if you can't be courteous to those you RP with on an OOC level then, speaking only for myself, I'd rather you just not be around. Sorry.
This Thread wrote:5) Penalizing Players who Idle Out During RP.
I'm totally fine with this. I'd like to encourage Staff to consider allowing RP Partners the ability to control this penalty. There are times that I know my RP Partner might need to step away in the middle of RP and that's fine, espcially when it's in a private scene.
In general, though, I think the system should very much consider things like characters on the same account idling out on the same players and the frequency of people idling out mid-RP. I think it's this that frustrates most people the most, though I might be misreading what I'm told.
This Thread wrote:6) Penalizing Slower Emoters / Rewarding Well-Paced RP.
What about creating a system to encourage players to pose more quickly after another player? Rather than a message like I mention in point #2, add in the ability for the system to track the 'pace' of a player's emotes as they come after another player's, especially in scenes of 3 or fewer players (which is the
vast ajority of RP, I expect). When poses are coming with less than 5 minute gaps on average, raise the RPXP level. When they take longer than 10 minutes, lower it. I don't think that simply lowering RPXP without delivering a message will increase the pace of RP, however.
This Thread wrote:7) People Criticizing Another Player's RP Style To Them
This is inexcusable to me. Short posts are not "wrong". Long posts are not inherently "better". TLI has no structured standard and for good reason. There are also no turn orders. If another player is posing more quickly than you are able to, the TURN command already exists as a method to ask someone to slow down without being aggressive, and HELP TURN outlines when that should and should not be used. If someone is getting snippy with you about your RP style, I think you should mention it to staff so that such players can be reprimanded.