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Event Improvement: Two-Minute-Timer
#16
@Reigen : Have you considered that it takes 30 minutes for something to happen to you because people are constantly alt-tabbing? Alt-tabbing is sort of an infection. Once one person starts doing it, everyone starts doing it. And soon enough people aren't interested in roleplaying. Also, those who alt-tab are rarely really paying attention to the event anymore. Perhaps you simply should not attend combat events if they're really that bad at holding your attention?

@Kage : Couldn't you be typing out your emote on an external program prior to your turn then? I'm sure that you can prepare in advance. I personally consider it rude to both the event-runner and your fellow players to take up an exorbitant amount of time to type out an emote of such grand prose. What do you feel about that?

I mean no offense in my words, and I mean no harm. They are but simple questions asked in neutral tone.
nowmakeacontractwithmeandbecomeamagicalgirlwithinthenexttwominutes
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Quote:[8:53AM] Cassius: Xigo is the best guy ever. he doesn't afraid of anything.
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#17
I personally can't type in an external place. To limit people's creativity defeats the purpose of this being an rp server. I've got no issue with someone writing up something long. If it takes em a bit, I'll tell em to limit it to one emote. But to put down a timer is just hurtful.
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#18
Aye, it's crossed my mind that it's a reason. It really is like a chain reaction as you said. Some person starts, takes longer to take their turn, which makes the next in line do it. So on and so forth. I don't really attend combat events anymore. I tried one some time ago and it just reaffirmed my belief that they're not the sort of events I like to attend. I have more fun moving NPCs around -for- the events. [And imagining them with silly accents]
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#19
@Kage : Doesn't the GM team limit people all the time by perusing profiles and prohibiting people from doing certain things? Does such a timer truly prohibit creativity? I personally believe it offers an encouragement to not hold up your fellows from being creative themselves.

@Reigen : Silly accents improve everything.
Quote:[8:53AM] Cassius: Xigo is the best guy ever. he doesn't afraid of anything.
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#20
@Xigo don't you think that at least the emotes should be freer to write? You take an author and tell him he has two months to write a book versus telling him to write a book and guess which book is better?
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#21
I'll elaborate a bit on why I like this idea.

For smaller events? Then I won't use it. But if I notice that people are taking too long, are alt-tabbing or AFKing... If they are holding up the event for everyone else, then I'll move on past them. I wouldn't personally say that someone automatically takes damage because they're gone or "too slow", and I probably wouldn't be so precise that I say "your time's up, I know you were typing, but you were too slow". If you post your emote within a reasonable time, then you're all okay. But if I and everyone else will have to wait for more than 2-3 minutes for an emote from one player, chances are I'll skip that person.

Putting this into perspective... If it's a combat event that features 10 people and every single person takes 2-3 minutes or longer to emote, you're looking at 30+ minutes before every single person has had a chance to emote even with that kind of low limit. One turn in a fight generally doesn't get you very far. I completely understand the want to do something else with your emotes; I do it too. But, at the same time, if you are going to do long emotes, you should know your own limitations. If you can't type it out fast enough in a big combat event where everyone will have to sit and wait on you, then it's better to cut your emotes down. Turning the argument around about a timer being rude; it's equally rude to hold the event up for everyone else. Unfortunately, the minority in these cases will have to adjust so the event flows and is as enjoyable as possible for everyone. Emote length shouldn't really factor in too much to anyone's enjoyment in my opinion, but that's a whole other discussion.

All in all... I like the suggestion of spurring people on in order to speed up events. People avoid joining into combat events because of how extremely drawn-out they tend to become. They can go on for hours and hours with nothing happening because you have to wait for people to finish their turns. ... And, if you go into an event completely ready to alt-tab, there's likely a problem there. Adding a bit of speed to the event should likely fix that and make the events more interesting for the people involved and not just for the person next in the turn order.
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#22
I can agree with smaller group events. I can agree with putting a timer on people to respond and say they're going to emote. But I can't put a limit on people writing emotes. I can't and wont support it. My opinion is that it would only limit and scare off people who are already thinking about leaving.
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#23
If you're really concerned about not being able to write long emotes, then one thing that you could do is start writing your emote before your turn is up. Some of the swiftest events I have seen have been the ones where the GM encouraged people to write up emotes before their turns. If you're afraid you won't have enough time to do it in your turn, then in the turns immediately preceding, it's not too hard to say "okay, here's how the train of events is looking, let's do this..." If you're afraid of losing your post, then write it up in a macro or put it in NotePad or something and copypasta.

/twocents

EDIT: Blah, Xigo beat me to it. That's what I get for skimming. Regardless, writing it in a macro is easy enough, and doesn't require looking in an external program.

EVEN MORE EDIT: As a GM that works in media outside of WoW (Skype, tabletop, etc), I one hundred percent support a timer of some nature. It doesn't have to be a hard limit, but it really speeds up the flow of combat when people both know what they're doing and write up their post before their turn arrives.
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#24
The away timer can be used as a timer by a DM, since you can tell the person went afk and wasn't paying attention (because their away tag is showing), and rightfully skip them if they don't respond. However, that does take around five minutes, but if a person is away for that long then they're honestly not giving the RP enough attention to be waited for. That being said, the away timer doesn't always give the DM enough information as to what's going on when a person is taking too long to type out an emote and is hindering the progress of the battle (we're assuming it's combat RP). In this case, there's always coming back to them and saying so in raid (delaying their turn). I've seen people who want to give more than enough detail when its their time to shine, and that can become problematic if there are a number of people involved taking a lot of time to type out their combat emotes. And it's not a huge problem if somebody wants to give a lot of creativity to their emotes, but if they take a long time to type it all out then the turn delay should be seen as a fair trade-off.

That way, a person who isn't blessed with fast typing skills doesn't have to feel pressured by the time restraint and the DM can organize the turns so that things don't drag on for too long.

On another note, there are some situations in which the ready check is a handy tool that shouldn't be forgotten about, especially if something is about to happen and the DM can't tell if everyone is present and not alt-tabbing or afk.
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#25
One important thing to remember here is that no one's saying this should be implemented server-wide. This will be entirely up to the DMs of each event how they're going to run it, so nothing will actually have changed. This suggestion is ultimately just planting the idea in DMs' heads that there -is- a way to speed their events along!

So, this definitely won't risk scaring people away from the server. You can emote to your heart's desire everywhere, but when it comes to large combat events... If everyone were allowed to emote as long as they wanted on their turn, then we get the combat events that go on for 4-5 hours. Not everyone has time for that kind of event. Besides, it's better to limit the length of your emotes than have the DMs turn to rolls-only. That's also happened in plenty of events; DMs stop paying attention to the emotes themselves and move turns along based on the rolls that people make. That just means your emotes become meaningless, even if you have the opportunity to type them out. ... Because your attacks will have had just the same effect as if you'd just typed "/me stabs him.".
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#26
I've sorta changed my standpoint, as someone that takes a long time to clearly write something. Two minute timers might be something that inhibits people a little much, rather than helping. Also, it comes off as impatient and even a little unwelcoming overall.

Now, if someone goes afk during an event... well, that's an issue. Two minutes however? Sometimes I've had to tell people on TS to let the event leader know I'm typing up something. Believe it or not, inspiration or creativity sometimes can take a moment to think about, rather than brain-pooping it out with a time limit.

And Xigo---I'm not gonna lie. Sometimes you really get a little too aggressive with your own personal flavor of RP, such as accents and "realism". It's fine if you want to play that stuff your own way, but it gets old to constantly hear you knocking others who don't always follow the same style as you.
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#27
Generally, if there are enough people that a two-minute emote makes a roleplay session too slow, it's too crowded for me. Really, most of the time my emotes are at least a paragraph, and often more - two minutes is absurdly fast for any RP with description beyond the barest minimum.

"So and so attacks the wolf with a sweep of his sword" might help move the combat along faster, but if you need to impose a time limit to keep people interested in a certain part of the RP why even bother with it in the first place? Trim it out, and move on to something that keeps your players entertained - and if that goal is impossible, try it with fewer players or players with interests more in line with the event.

Watching a dozen people post bland variations of "I attack" makes a combat scene about as exciting as a spreadsheet, to put it with my characteristic tactlessness.

Edit: With that said, I often start writing a post before my turn 'pops,' in order to minimize the wait. I'm still a notoriously slow poster, however, particularly with characters I haven't yet acclimated to. Nevertheless, this is mostly academic, as I tend to avoid events in favor of smaller, more focused storylines.
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#28
@Rens- @Harmonic , I'm curious as to where I was being aggressive or telling people to roleplay this way in this thread. If you have feedback for me, I encourage you to post it in my feedback thread. I ask that you not take my words here personally, as I'm trying not to make any personal attacks while still posting my opinion. Please stay on topic in the future.

Anywho. I do agree that the two-minute 'heads up' is a good idea if you're the sort to take longer than two-minutes. I simply was searching for a way to 'speed up' events so to speak, as I know I personally get bored when I'm waiting there for 5 minutes for someone to finally sit down in the AFK position. This is largely meant for those large events with 10+ people, like ye olde Bloodsworn-sized events.
Quote:[8:53AM] Cassius: Xigo is the best guy ever. he doesn't afraid of anything.
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#29
(09-22-2013, 12:13 PM)Xigo Wrote: @Rens- @Harmonic , I'm curious as to where I was being aggressive or telling people to roleplay this way in this thread. If you have feedback for me, I encourage you to post it in my feedback thread. I ask that you not take my words here personally, as I'm trying not to make any personal attacks while still posting my opinion. Please stay on topic in the future.

Anywho. I do agree that the two-minute 'heads up' is a good idea if you're the sort to take longer than two-minutes. I simply was searching for a way to 'speed up' events so to speak, as I know I personally get bored when I'm waiting there for 5 minutes for someone to finally sit down in the AFK position. This is largely meant for those large events with 10+ people, like ye olde Bloodsworn-sized events.

Wasn't saying you were doing personal attacks, just that sometimes you tend to pick at that stuff when it comes up, the accent thing did come in this thread. It's not enough to really make a feedback post about, just merely me pointing out sometimes you get a little picky with those things.

However, I agree---people need to pay attention, and at least not let themselves go afk. The larger events are hard to do when people are constantly allowing themselves to go away for a long time, but a two minute timer is a bit limiting, only because sometimes it can take longer to think up an appropriate reaction.

Baaassically, no hard feelings and I somewhat agree with minor tweeking. Or minor twerking.
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#30
(09-22-2013, 12:20 PM)Harmonic Wrote: twerking.

no >:C
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