Word Count Update: Discussion

Just to make it very clear then, so I understand this correctly.



Say in post #1 you type, I dunno. 549 words, and in post #3, you've somehow already wrapped it up; I know, that would never happen, but this is an example and it saves me from having to make up examples for the word count in other posts. Regardless, in post #3, you wrote 451 words.

My question is, then, would you tally posts separately and earn 19 GP (500/50 + 450/50 = 19), or would you add the word counts of those posts together and tally the GP up that way?

Because if so, about time. It's never made sense to me for it to be like we've had it before, to not have any words in between the multiple of 50 not count for GP purposes.

I don't know, it feels like this punishes players whose partners leave threads or never complete them.




Wait, no I can't read.

I'm going to just keep doing what i do with Word count. Its easier for me to keep a running tab on it that to try and calculate it at the end and probably get it wrong.

You would add the word counts.

Example:
Post #1 440
Post #2 219
Post #3 449

By our new rules, this is a total of 1108 Words and is therefore 22 GP

This only applies to threads started TODAY, or this day forward.

So we finally don't have to keep allotting up GP per post and now just the end of the thread? I like this.

Ahhh i've been ninjaed

Correct, yes.

Although any thread that has a start day from before today, you'll have to wrap up under the old rules.

...I must admit as to being curious about the rationale behind that decision. I don't know, it just..doesn't make a lot of sense to force us to stick to the old system if GP has yet to be claimed in the threads.

It's a logistic and bookkeeping nightmare, plain and simple. It's just far, far too much work to let people have the option of backtracking and recounting everything, and then verifying it, and auditing people, and on and on.

The cleanest rip for implementing this is to simply draw a line, arbitrary as it may seem, and switch the rules there.

I still feel like this new rule about inactive threads is a far bigger punishment and deterrent than the old rule.

Before you lose a tiny bit of GP, it's marked by some staff member, it's all impersonal and not really a big deal at all. If we need a punishment, that's not something that makes people emotional.

Now... now what? You come back, your thread partner might have/probably left the thread, so even if you do want to continue it you can't, and you're unable to use any of that thread. Because you were gone for two weeks, or with an away thread, four weeks? That just... Seems like it's incentive to not come back, to me. It's a really arbitrary punishment, and I don't feel like it encourages anything good except slapping people on the wrists and somehow that's supposed to encourage a better dynamic? 

To reiterate my earlier post in the thread talking about this in particular, that just seems the opposite of what we're going for. It's not making BG any more welcoming, it's... just adding another layer to the discomfort of inactivity without any obvious reason. I get that you need to do something for people who drop stuff all the time, but if that something makes it harder for them to fix the fact that they drop stuff a lot... I don't see how that's good. 

I just want to be clear, that in order for you to get no GP at all, that requires that the other party not only wait a month, but decide to write you out and end the thread on their own.  The goal is no longer to punish someone for leaving, but to encourage them to stay in touch with a thread partner, or be open and honest about their intentions.

I know many of us, for a thread we planned on doing and want to write, have no troubling waiting for partners.  Writing someone out really only happens in event of things where like...you have a request that NEEDS this thread to happen and the other person's absence is literally preventing your Second Power or Prestige request.  It is historically a very rare thing.

If you continue to work on the thread and make a good faith effort to finish it, you will get your GP.

If it turns out that people are dropping write-out posts on literally day 29 every time?  We'll address that.

If it turns out people are dropping threads and claiming the GP on literally day 15 and refusing to return to them?  We'll address that.

To me, this seems like a situation where no one needs to actually change any behavior in order to comply, other than to be more open when they expect to go slowly on a thread.

Will we be penalized for doing GP calc per post even in new threads?

IE:
post 1 WC-250 GP-5
post 2 WC-300 GP-6(11)
etc

Only aks because thats whats comfy for me and I may forget and keep doing it for a bit...

Interesting rule change, but I do find it very much agreeable for word-count. It gives players a chance to get those "remainder words" that get rounded out back into their overall GP gain.
Thank you for the kind adjustment, most appreciated!

I'll try not to be rude, but I just want to slap people by now.*

You're making things far more complicated for inactive and active players alike.

Instead of being able to close a topic on your own if the other party gets too busy, you'll have to either do it and feel like shit about it or perhaps wait 3 more months where otherwise there would have been no problem at all after two sentences of explanation that you really need the topic to end.

While the ocassions^ might be rare, it doesn't justify implenting a completely unnecessary rule like that. I don't see why we don't get a choice to claim whenever/ however fits the player. **

An example I've used before > newer players would want to get GP quicker because they want to grow (motivation and opportunities for topics?). This could turn into hostility towards one another longterm - like Paks has mentioned before?

I could type a lot about this, because it annoys the hell out of me how we went from "let's make it good for everyone" to "let's affect everyone because #nologic".

** I did notice that staff find it annoying to do the claims from unfinished topics, so here is what I say: from the end of June I wouldn't mind doing the GP claims, only the claims. Then, you (staff) won't need to worry about math and people can go back to making use of their GP whenever they need it for a rank up or anything (without having to procrastinate a fight for a seat/ that scuffle with the new Hollow/ being afraid to hurt someone else's progress).



Edit: I didn't mind the first idea > no penalties at all, no complicated nonsense.

The reason this is being put into place is because of instances of people falling off the face of the planet, promising to post in 1-5 days... and then not posting. Or, in other cases? Posting for literally everyone but the person who really needs that thread to be completed and suffering no consequences for it. It happens, and I've been guilty of being that bad roleplayer too and suffering a GP penalty-- or literally no penalty at all, as was some of the cases in my example. It's preventative measures for people to not get fucked over by a flaky RP partner.

It's avoidable/timelines extended if you have good, open communication with your partner/they're responding to you, or, in some cases, if they pop up a thing in the Coming/Going forum with an announcement of, "Shit got real RL, I'm going to be heavily delayed for x time, thank you for being patient." In which case it buys you about a month of time to get things settled down before your thread is inactive and thus your fellow buddy can decide to wait further or move on without you/close the thread. If all's good? You're able to move forward with the thread together, finish it up, and BAM! Everyone walks away fairly happy, if one partner ends up a bit wary because "That takes longer than I thought."

Will it suck to lose work as someone who put time into a thread? Absolutely; but it puts more responsibility on the roleplayers as a whole to make sure they're keeping on top of their threads and actively communicating with their fellow buddies rather than making empty promises and flitting off into the distance because "lol I do what I want no consequences :^)" Now the person being screwed over has a bit of power/control over what to do.

Will people abuse that? Unlikely, one thing this forum has going for it is that people are usually pretty understanding of when life/finals/etc get in the way and are completely willing to let that time extend/slide without mentioning it. Mostly because 3/4 of us are working adults/in college/school of some sort and know shit gets crazy/course loads get ridiculous.

On a personal note? I'm good with taking a penalty if I'm not being a good roleplaying buddy and making my RP partners suffer because I've got my head up my ass/have poor time management skills-- and that's in addition to being popped with the social stigma of, "This person cannot be relied upon to write with, it sucks, but it's true." I'm 500% okay with my partners telling me, "You suck, post or this thread goes inactive." if I've failed at communicating.

--

As for the GP portion of it? I had my own feelings about it, as I'd mentioned. I see the pros and cons of it, and I think that portion (claim when the thread is over vs claim whenever) should be a trial basis still. Just to see how it works out in the long run.

That said, I love the fact that I can just go by total word count rather than having to add GP per post now. That's an idea I know was shot down/kicked down in the past for reasons I'm not entirely sure of. (I think it had something to do with everyone using different word counters/document programs.)

EDIT: There's also the simple fact that this is not set in perma-stone. Like other rules and things that have come up in discussion, this does not mean it's permanent. Only that it's a trial by fire basis and it's worth seeing if it works better or worse than what we had before.

The fined GP thing, yeah, I liked-- but it also does prevent people from wanting to come back. Imagine being a new player who doesn't have the potential safety net to deal with that 250+ GP fine if they were in a bunch of threads and they went inactive. It screws them over and makes them not want to play-- especially if their thread partners already claimed the thread and have moved on/written them out. They're screwed twice in that regard.

So, to clarify just a bit:

Say you were in a thread that was determined inactive:

Can you:

(a) Exit that thread on your own after the other person did, and still claim? Because now you finished it on your own?
(b) Use that claim in milestones/masteries/whatever?

If the punishment is more about you flaking, and if you fix the flake-for the most part, then it becomes something like standards that we all know about and that aren't punitive so much as they require you to come back and think about what happened and do something to make it better. And you're still in trouble because people know you flake, but not in so much trouble as to lose RP work entirely.

That's mainly my worry... If you flake, which we all tend to do from time to time, it's disincentivising to have lost any work you did before. I know why this is seen as a good reminder, but... From the player perspective, if you can't use that thread for anything, it really really sucks. In a way that often demotivates you. 

We're trying to get people to come back and stay, not to force them to work uphill when they're already feeling behind. 

There is nothing stopping you from using any threads, finished or unfinished, as part of a request. We do not need to do anything "extra" in that regard. The 'punishment' here is that you lose space to do what you want and say what you want - essentially you leave things unwritten. We only grade what we are able to see, so as long as it happened, we grade can grade it.

The change to Activity/Inactivity has no effect on Masteries, Milestones, or Advancement.

for threads that were done before the 20th, yet remain unclaimed, do we use the old gp calculation, or do you want us to add the word total for the thread and submit that?

You use the old rules.  Per word, per post.