For me, it's a 50 GP penalty that the other person can get refunded, if things between him and the other person are able to be mended, and if they're willing to work on that thread again. If it's a short absence, then usually this isn't a problem. The person take a minor hit, finishes the thread, the 50 GP penalty goes away, and they end up right where they were before. The more threads someone has left hanging, the more people they've impacted, the more they have to work through...and in the end they went up back at a benefit. Threads are finished, and hopefully plots haven't been impacted too much.
Or you take off for long enough that things have been left hanging and have damaged the other person. Maybe they've already written themselves a way around your absence and finishing the thread no longer makes sense. Maybe they just flat out don't want to for much the same reasons you wouldn't want to thread with them again. This is usually the point at which people might say that, yeah, he's earned his penalty. After all, it's exactly this eventuality which led us to giving a slap on the wrist.
But someone who honestly wants to get back into it can take the slap and keep rolling- it'll get relieved in time and they'll have the rest of that GP anyhow. If the person who went inactive doesn't even want to finish the thread in the first place, then they can eat the penalty and make it up somewhere else.
For me, I support the simple, impersonal penalty you can relieve through a bit of work.
Post by Jian Oreachi on May 19, 2016 15:44:27 GMT -5
Speaking as someone who has, with the exception of being made to wait for a partner on a tertiary character, never gone inactive I will be the first to say that I don't get what keeps people from doing it but that I have been on the receiving end of dozens of incomplete threads because of others and ultimately don't feel that in any of the cases a deterrent would have helped at all.
That said a lot of people seem to think that some kind of punishment is necessary, but I haven't seen one good answer for what that punishment should be.
The reason why the 50GP idea sucks is because then someone must then go through every thread they've done to find where to punish someone and if all that they have to do is continue working on their past threads, I mean, aren't they already compelled to? What is the point of all this busy work to waive an ultimately frivolous punishment.
What about those who return with new characters? Absolutely no penalty is applied in that case as well.
I'm left wondering who exactly the existence of a penalty serves?
Post by Kenshou Ine on May 19, 2016 17:51:57 GMT -5
The idea was to create an incentive to have people come back and finish old threads. Honestly I think it's the rested mechanic for Wow that we could change it to. Read the below.
In turn if we changed it so you can only claim gp if a thread is completed or if your thread partner goes inactive then it's no issue for the person who's around besides ya it sucks the thread is incomplete.
But for the inactive person they won't be able to claim said thread on return unless they can finish it. This way no penalty is accrued and they don't have to worry about it unless they want that sweet sweet gp.
Post by Shun Minamoto on May 19, 2016 19:06:08 GMT -5
I suppose my issue is that very thing.
I don't expect everyone to be me, but just because another player was hurt by having someone drop the ball on them doesn't really affect this situation. Is the 50 GP penalty going to do anything but make the wronged player "feel" better? Is petty internet revenge really what we want around here?
Yes, you as the player got shat on when they bailed on you. That sucks. Punishing them won't fix that, so why do it?
I'm just not going to be able to get behind penalizing people over that. It's unnecessarily alienating and I've never, ever seen someone leave a community because we didn't punish thread-droppers hard enough. I've never seen anywhere else do something like that, as a matter of fact.
Furthermore, this is actually harder on thread-droppers than the current setup. Right now, I could open a thread with Jian, post three times, and then never post again with no fear of getting a penalty as long as I keep my character active. With the proposed changes, I wouldn't be able to claim those posts where I still, currently, can.
Both approaches have their pros and cons for various people depending on their priorities and such. From the extremely big-picture perspective I usually take, I think this is best for community activity as a whole. That said, it does neglect the feelings of players who are particularly wronged when other players going suddenly inactive at the worst times. I acknowledge this deficit, even though I don't think it's enough to outweigh the big-picture benefits.
Post by Shun Minamoto on May 19, 2016 19:21:34 GMT -5
Yeah, that's kind of the deal here. We're all on different pages here. I'll try to summarize the current proposal.
There are no direct inactivity penalties. You cannot claim a thread unless it is completed. If a player goes inactive (makes you wait 14 days+) in a thread, you can claim it despite being incomplete. This does not rely on character inactivity status. If a thread goes inactive, you can finish the thread yourself with another post. If you do this, a returning inactive player faces no penalty, but cannot claim the thread at all. If a player returns and you both agree to finish the thread, they may claim once it is complete and you may claim again to get the rest of the GP you've written.
These are the major characteristics. You actually proposed number three in GChat without even realizing it was a thing already, but given that this thread whooshed by only to be reopened by Tokiyo, everyone got a bit confused about what was included.
If a player goes inactive (makes you wait 14 days+) in a thread, you can claim it despite being incomplete. This does not rely on character inactivity status. If a player returns and you both agree to finish the thread, they may claim once it is complete and you may claim again to get the rest of the GP you've written.
Now that you've laid out a neat little summary, I would push for a combination of both of these. There is no GP penalty but the returning player cannot claim GP from said thread until it is complete. This way there is still a 'soft' punishment but no GP is being taken away from either player.
Except you can already claim GP from posts without having to finish the thread? So unless that's changing (And it shouldn't) you're really not accomplishing anything different than what is in place now. Either they're not going to be penalized the gp they already claimed (making it pointless) or you have to penalize them and have them take it out of their gp total until thread is finished. The latter is...ultimately the same thing, just with the potential for stiffer penalties.
It seems more like an over-complication of what already exists. What exists just needs the social aspect kicked the fuck out of it.
The Lord of Nightmares spoke to the God of Dreams, this small child or so he seemed, and bid him the question of his sins,
I'm torn on the "no claiming until the thread is completed" bit. On one hand? That makes it a good deal easier for people like me who can get behind/fuck up their GP tracking; you can't do the thing until it's done. Sweet, nice and easy there! On the other? It leaves the possibility of you being in limbo/in need of 'a few more GP' in order to progress in another thread/make sure something happens. Tentative like of this/I'd like to see a test/trial run of it first.
If a player goes inactive (makes you wait 14 days+) in a thread, you can claim it despite being incomplete. This does not rely on character inactivity status.
If a thread goes inactive, you can finish the thread yourself with another post. If you do this, a returning inactive player faces no penalty, but cannot claim the thread at all.
If a player returns and you both agree to finish the thread, they may claim once it is complete and you may claim again to get the rest of the GP you've written.
Are we officially hitting a 14 days or more with no post = inactive status? This would be good to outline and make official if so. (And I'd assume that anything made public in the Coming/Going Forum would still offer leeway/an extension on that.)
There will be situations where that "you can finish the thread yourself with another post" will not be done easily, or honestly make sense to do without going beyond even Kubo levels of asspull. Otherwise, I approve of this.
This third thing I like very much and approve.
EDIT: Forgot to add: For the people who've had their threads ditched by their thread partner and had to exit, can we have some sort of clause that it shouldn't be held against the person who may use it in their request/was not the one who abandoned things if said thread is logged as incomplete/abandoned?
If we can get some sort of safeguard like that into place, I'll retract my hesitation mentioned at the very top and say let's go for it.
Given the rate at which some posting happens, Sekai, waiting until a thread is over to claim stands to slow down the progression of most normal players (miss god damned 4k posts) to a crawl. Particularly when it comes to longer/more important topics or god forbid, group topics.
The Lord of Nightmares spoke to the God of Dreams, this small child or so he seemed, and bid him the question of his sins,
Post by Miyuki Wakahisa on May 19, 2016 20:25:26 GMT -5
Just saying, I've already been doing the whole "Don't claim unless the thread is finished" since I made Evelynn. It hasn't hurt me at all in anyway. I think it's a wonderful idea and considering how bunked up audits can be simply because of the clusterfuck of claiming a thread multiple times, this is something I would push strongly for. Both as a staff member and a player, I think this only serves to make everything painless for those involved. Especially with a timer on the thread. Using the arbitrary number of 14, you're never waiting too long for the thread to be deemed "Inactive" and you can claim it.
There are circumstances that can take place, and communication with the thread partners should be at highest priority-- particularly if it's a thread of vital plot importance-- so that they can work something out and come to a mutual end, or can agree to just move forward with the person who posted last doing a fade to black/etc. But if people aren't communicating? You shouldn't have to keep dragging the thread out and hoping that "this week, they'll post like they said they would 2, 3, 4, etc weeks ago."
This goes for any of my own thread partners too; if you know life's biting you in the ass and it's not going to be a thread you can continue posting in? Hit me up, we'll end it in your post/my next one and go about our separate ways. I'll make my efforts to do the same with admittedly varying results; but people know how to get ahold of me nonetheless.
For some players/topics? That slow pace is fine. It's between the players themselves; this is just going to be a rule that's followed to help mitigate the worst offenders out there.
That and let's be real; word count =/= progression. There are people who post significantly less than my loquacious drivel and are still progressing quite steadily and with more solid plot/character development than I can possibly dream of. It's how often you post and how involved you're getting within the community as a whole and how reliable a poster and plot partner you are that matters. Not your bloody word count.
I say a trial system of this new idea should be implemented for no less than 4 months; we'll see just how "bad" it will be, or how successful it'll be as time goes on.
To be fair you also had retirement gp on her, so it's less likely to be a concern to you than it is to be to a brand new player/someone who hasn't retired yet.
If there is a time limit the problem as I saw it is less...severe? But it smacks of additional and unnecessary rule modifications just to justify a round about way of deterring thread abandonment.
The Lord of Nightmares spoke to the God of Dreams, this small child or so he seemed, and bid him the question of his sins,