who the bloody hell thought this was a good idea

[Thraxas]

<rant>

died today ... lost a lot of xp ... xp gained through hours of play ... it happens ... its tough ... we live with it and move on

Galling thing is that fargate was on ... lots of raisers on and not busy ... if only I had some way of asking for their help .... cant gossip, cant send tells ... hmm perhaps raise is only intended for use in groups where death is easily identifiable? ... nah imms might want to encourage grouping but surely wouldn't discriminate unfairly against those who prefer to solo

Hmm ... thinking on it there is a solution join a channel .... if you die drop channel ... others in channel see report and send you a tell to check you're ok ... a bit laboured but works ... no hold on a minute the channel drop report has been removed if the dropper is dead ... WHO THE BLOODY HELL THOUGHT THAT WAS A GOOD IDEA? ... must be a bug!

Hmmm ... imms must have removed it and replaced with corpus severance ... it informs the necro with it raised of someone dying ... such a low % success rate that its not the effective replacement it must have been intended to be ... must be a bug!

Hmmm ... thinking some more theres a better solution ... we all set up icq accounts and then we can talk even when dead and ask for help ... ok some of us might not want to have icq as well as mud running but it would work ... hold on a minute what would be the difference then between being able to talk in channel if you were dead ... erm nothing at all.

Perhaps just for the sake of arguement we could assume that we've all got icq running and can talk to each other whether dead or not ... this would mean that letting us talk in channels when dead does not disrupt or change the balance of the mud at all ... it would just make life so much easier for us all.

</rant>

[quote:2zb2i1in]
The name "Sloth" was chosen to embody the original philosophy of the mud, which was to make everybody's lives as easy as possible.
[/quote:2zb2i1in]

[jezer]

I agree. When instant chat programs, phone numbers, mobile phones, SMS/Texting, Email and even the crier its self can work to communicate someones death outside of the game... whats the point in trying to restrict it in game?

All you old farts need to switch your ICQ to Skype as well btw... Nothing says old computer user who doesn't keep up like a person who uses ICQ.

If modern day people can sense spirits... imagine how much better the power of sensing the departed might be in a fantasty magic game... I don't know why you bother restricting it.

[Thraxas]

As an alternative to icq perhaps we should all log into an alternate mud as well as sloth ... and use that purely for channel talking .... if we chose a mud with very few players (bottom of the TMC list thing) then conversation would be unlikely to disturb their players ... then comms could be within a separate window in the same client ... hmmm gives me another idea ... lets have a sloth outing to another mud holiday style ... actually that could even be a quest idea that requires little work from imms ... pick a mud at random, all log on, the player who can find the most coins and pass to an imm at the end of an hour gets a reward in sloth.


[quote:1thnqntb]
The name "Sloth" was chosen to embody the original philosophy of the mud, which was to make everybody's lives as easy as possible.
[/quote:1thnqntb]

[Rynquald]

Back in the day there used to be plenty of people using ICQ while playing Sloth, but that does seem to have gone out of fashion in the last year or two.

Personally, I used to think that making it harder to tell someone has died via ingame means mostly just makes it harder for newer players who haven't collected a network of friends and acquaintances to call for help, while having little affect overall. But I suppose now that relatively few (I think) people are communicating outside of Sloth while playing, it's more likely to affect everyone. Of course it could just precipitate a resurgence of ICQ or such.

Also, I realise not everyone uses Wintin or ZMud, but they both have a built-in chat functionality which can be set up to basically work like a channel. It even works between the clients.

[*juggleblood*]

My suggestion is to give certain pets the ability to gossip that you're dead. Perhaps the brownie. This would come at the expense of using a better supp, but would be worth it when you're doing dangerous solo work.

it wasn't my idea to fix the channel bump glitch btw...but it was a glitch...it's hard to get that indignant about it.

[Thraxas]

Yes a brownie or other pet would work, nice idea btw.

I guess the way I'd repond to it though is to ask have you typed channel list recently?

In the old days there used to be 1-3 active channels at most times and almost everyone joined a channel. People joined for safety in case of death (channel dropping), but the benefit they gained was getting mixed into conversations and meeting people, the sort of social exchange that is the key difference between a local text adventure game and a mud. Yes groups are where that can happen, as are clans, and gossip, but in group mostly chat is kept to a minimum, clans are sign up membership and gossip well its nice to be able to leave a conversation or filter it out while leaving gossip open at all times.

I think the channel drop 'glitch' may well have been a glitch or a bug and from a purest point of view should have been fixed / removed, but its had the unforseen consequence of killing a large part of the sloth social society.

[b:3e0hux0q]I previously raised the arguement that you should let us talk in channel when dead because we can anyway if only we all joined the same chat window / icq, but we play sloth for a reason, we like things simple. Why not add an extra feature to the game, set up a website channel, link to a chat window on the website so we can talk in game whether dead or not, and even join in the channel from the website when not even in the game (logged in to the website of course). [/b:3e0hux0q]

Encourage us all to work ad socialise together by building communication tools into the game rather than this silly situation that (even though not the intention) stops us working together, leads to frustration and bad feeling and silly sods like me posting inflammatory and emotive messages on the forum that while in hindsight were probably not the best approach are a true refelction of how I felt at the time.

T

[Jag]

Excellent idea Thraxis

[Toxis]

Thraxas has a great point. People joined channels for chat/safety. Chat promoted friendship and unity and instead of people dropping link to tell people they die, just let it be said in channels from now on. I think it would promote more people to join together, to talk, to interract. Why should we be forced to use programs like ICQ and other programs? I think we need to keep it more "in-house" and not rely on other programs (like the phone, the webpage, and other programs).

Good point, Thraxas,
Brad

[Vixn]

I personally enjoyed the previous issue when you had to suffer all these Russian transliterations in exchange for small chance to get raised. Well now it's gone and frankly speaking I'm almost sure it was a racist anti-Russian decision.

Hope with new Obama all those stereotypes from the Cold War will disappear and we'll get it fixed!!


p.s. Is there some sort of 'monotype' opposite to 'stereotypes'?

p.p.s. To those who never get it right: I'm NEVER serious! (well at least not on this site).

p.p.p.s. Nice ideas Thraxas & Juggleblood.



Kida

[Ezekiel]

I agree with Thraxas' second post, and Brad's follow up as well. There is no point in not allowing us to speak to each other on channels when dead. We, of course, can communicate through some other fashion like ICQ, but from how I see it, having more people on channels more often leads to communication about more than just death...which is why the channels were integrated in the first place.

[jezer]

I agree with...

* post #4, paragraph 2, words 2-5
* post #2
* post #2, except paragraph 2, word 4
* post #9, except the pps

[*juggleblood*]

[quote="Vixn":1ustw47q]I personally enjoyed the previous issue when you had to suffer all these Russian transliterations in exchange for small chance to get raised. Well now it's gone and frankly speaking I'm almost sure it was a racist anti-Russian decision.

Kida[/quote:1ustw47q]

lol, you caught us!

Seriously though, best I can do is forward this suggestion to admin list and say I'm in favor. This is 'sloth' after all. Running around looking for mobs was too much work, so they implemented hunt. Allowing players to ctalk while dead would be equally slothy imho.

Just keep in mind that there are those in high places who are always concerned that we're not challenging the players enough. There's a good chance that opinion will carry the day, nothing will change, and we drop the issue and move on and get ICQ accounts.

I'll keep you posted.

[Thraxas]

[quote="jezer":26w4xjte]I agree with...[/quote:26w4xjte]
I worry when jezer agrees with anything I write

Given that there seems to be a groundswell of support among the players and some imms for us to be able to communicate deaths in channels in game I'd welcome a comment / thoughts from one of the decision makers about whether this can happen.

T

[*Splork*]

We are listening to the suggestions, however I do not anticipate us having channels open to dead people, I'm sorry.

Frankly, this idea to me and several other Admins is that its not only too easy but just silly from a gaming perspective...

ct -- Im dead at the spectral guardian
splork -- where is that?
ct -- run is 12wsd4e;open portculis;3edwesn12w;enter mist;en

We are considering several options atm but this one is not going to happen.

Splork

[*Splork*]

Corpus Severance will be level 13 necro and 38 cleric on reboot, same as S3, also the percentages of it working have been increased.


Enjoy,
Splork