The following is the Team Lead report with Feedback from Mythic. (Feedback shown with *** around it.)
Overview
The roleplay community is filled with great ideas and enthusiasm, yet it is struggling to survive. The frustration of roleplayers watching their servers slip away from expectations and a sense of helplessness can be felt everywhere. The community may be down, but it is not out. There has been renewed, yet cautious, optimism expressed since the announcement of a Roleplay Team Lead. There is hope for open communication and enforcement of the ToS specific to the roleplay servers, as well as the development of new ideas and inspirations.
Concerns
* Current enforcement of the ToS specific to the roleplay server. The efforts made by Mythic can not be seen by the average player, leaving roleplayers feeling unsupported. Players are hesitant to ask others to respect the ToS for fear of attack, insult or reprisal. Current policy states that players MUST contact a person and ask them to refrain from OOC in public channels before appealing them. This hesitation and intimidation of contacting other players and telling them what they can and cannot do has lead to an almost surrendering attitude of the servers.
***Due in large part to community and TL feedback, this policy is being rewritten for clarity and effectiveness. 2-4 week time frame for completion.***
* Name Policy: A lack of consistency on the naming policy has lead to a lot of heated debate. I hope to look into sollutions further in my next report, here is what I have now:
- A clarification of existing name policy, possibly including "Compound names that Mythic deems inappropriate will be changed.” and “A descriptive name can be used as long as it does not break the roleplay immersion”.
- If a name is inappropriate, its requested that the player be informed of this at a reasonable time (i.a. before the character reaches 50).
- In the current system, a name that is clearly bad will be changed relatively early in the character's history, while names that are borderline are the most likely to go a long time before being changed.
Suggestions: An automatic name approval at 5 days /played. This report could be reviewed by the CSR team responsible for name approval. This could help resolve the effects a name change can have on someone who has built up a long reputation only to have their identity changed.
***There can never be a name policy that will please everyone. We're working on a better method to check names after they are created to ensure that they are approved/disapproved at an earlier time. However, naming will always be a judgement call and people will always second guess who ever makes that call. So to some extent we have to tell people to deal with the naming policy best they can.***
* /level command in Hibernia Percival. The recent addition of /level 30 in Hibernia, Percival, has lead to a significant increase in players ignorant, or unwilling to follow the roleplay ToS. Restriction of /level 30 command on roleplay servers to those with a 50 already existing on another roleplay server may help to relieve this issue.
***We have no plans to change this at this time.***
* The environment is not conducive to roleplay due to real time battles etc.
Solution: Introduction of macro's that will allow for communication without breaking the emersion of the server. It is recommended that this should be a player-specific filter.
/inc yells incoming out loud to whichever chat tab you are on.
/oop announces “My power is drained” to whichever chat tab you are on.
/ooe announces “I grow tired”
/lop announces “My power is fading”
/loe “My strength is fading”
/point announces the direction in which you are pointing
Alternatively, allow the user to create a filter list for common phrases. Similar to the profanity filter, this will change certain words or phrases to those the user would prefer to hear (on their client). For example, one could type /filter OOP=”I am out of power” and whenever somebody says OOP, on your client you’d see whatever you filtered it to. Another example: /filter “pwned”=”I am mighty!” *grins*
***We're working on an rp filter that will allow players to customize which words are filtered as to their tastes. This is a tool to help people maintain their desired level of immersion in the game, and not designed as a way for Mythic to avoid enforcing roleplaying violations. More details on this will follow when/if this makes it into the game along with the roleplaying policy review. ****
Immersion Issues, things that conflict with the roleplay atmosphere.
* Static Environment: Merchants stand in the street, never moving. Perhaps a small wandering area to make the town seem less.. zombied? An increase in wandering characters such as: a rogue cursing and mumbling, Merchants yelling out their wares on occasion, Guards emoting <adjusts his helm> etc.
***Noted for the world/quest teams.***
* Position of Wedding Assistant in Camelot: He is currently right behind the alter, which makes the area difficult to use for roleplay events. Moving him to the side would solve this issue. Maybe a script that has him walk to the alter when activated? If not, to the side with the old goat.
***As above.***
* Limited variation in character appearance: No thin, fat, old or young variations.
***Noted for world team.***
* “Idle” animations. Somebody who is standing without moving for an extended length of time should fidget, scratch, shift their weight to the other foot, adjust their armor or clothing, etc.
***As above.***
* More Emotes! /sit /lay /drink /swoon /respect (for a sign of respect in battle) /stagger /strut /shiver /vomit (Hey it goes with drink doesn’t it??)
***We like this idea in principle. Please give us a list of the top 30 emotes you and the community would like to see added to the game. Prioritize them in order of importantance. No promises, but I'll do our best to see what, if anything, can be added.***
* Make macros more costomizable: (e.g. "/bow /em bends over to check the steaming teapot" would display "/em Laurindorel bends over to check the steaming teapot" while the character performed the /bow animation.
***Not sure on this. Will take some research. Doubt we'll see much movement in this area. (of course, after lunch a programmer might say "oh I was able to change one line of code and fix that steaming teapot issue!" So we'll see.***
Wish List
- Increase buildings in the towns of Hibernia: currently many towns consist of mushrooms and small lean-tos. The lack of Inns, taverns, or even homes limits the town atmosphere and roleplay interaction.
***Noted for world team.***
-Mythic Run Events and interactive quests and naps. This is the #1 requested item from the roleplay community. Even occasional NAP characters run by GM's of Volunteers would help the community greatly. An old woman who tells fortunes, a historian who researches myths, a barkeep that tells tales and hosts events. The community is hungry for this form of support, it would encourage roleplay more immensely.
***This is not something you'll likely see anytime soon. We'd rather the community continue to do these things on its own.***
-Quests that result in the giving of titles specific to each realm, such as lord, lady, sir, Father (priest), Sister (nun)
***Noted for the quest team. I'll look into the techinical feasability.***
-Race (not class) specific emotes and abilities: Lorikeets sit cross legged, trolls kneel, fibrils crouch, Saracen /pray and automatically face east and assume the "pray to Mecca" stance.
***Noted for world team.***
- Profile shown in small test box when a fellow character is right clicked. This would allow players to write and edit a small description of themselves for others to read.
***This will not happen. Anytime we allow players to enter in text of their own it becomes another area where we have to police and enforce violations. Imagine what some of the more colorful DAOC players might do with such a feature.***
-Roleplay specific newspaper (website): Reports on various quests from all realms, blurbs on player run roleplay events and storylines.
***Work with Julie on this idea.***
- Ability to extend the amount an emote is held. For example, the /point macro has a very short animation. It would be useful to be able to say /3point (or /point3) which would mean “hold the point animation for 3 seconds”. Enforce a maximum limit to the amount of time an emote could be persisted (5 seconds seems sufficient for most uses).
***Not a bad idea, but not easy to put in, since it's all tied to the animation timing. Can look into it but I'd say it's unlikely to change.***
- Is it technically possible to have a /hood command? With the rains in DaoC, many people have expressed a desire to be able to toggle a hooded cloak’s hood up or down position rather than carry two different cloaks.
***Everyone at Mythic agrees at well. We're working on adding this as some point.***
Bugs
-%t works only in macros. Great command! Would love to see it in regular chat form.
Bug /appeal this to make sure it's in our bug tracking database.
***The RP report is different then a class TL report. But I'd like to make use of the item section at the bottom of the report template. For the Roleplaying report, please list up to 10 "fluff" type items that you and the community would like to see added to the game. Please list these in order of priority. Thinks like ale mugs, holdable banners, etc.***
24/06/2003, 20h39
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