Rigley Rambles: On .addrp and Profiles

[Piroska]

If we did that for profiles, eventually we'd have Thrall Proudmore Junior running around.

Blessed by Elune under the full moon, too! I'd know, because he's me.

I think that I joined after this system was removed, but I remember scouring the site (both forums and wiki) for information regarding this topic. It seems much more overwhelming to a newer user, I think, because instead of getting approval from the staff you need to get that same approval from the community.

I'm also on the "players may not vouch with the same level of consistency" boat. I have a sneaky suspicion that a lot of the approval would be based on the player and not the character, and it would most likely be friends who came along and vouched for a character, allowing them to inadvertently overlook some lore or policy fallacies.

[Cressy]

Yeah. I remember the first time around, getting suite a few vouches, but after the restart took me about three months because I wasn't very popular or super chummy with the grunts. ( Mostly because they were tools like Rensin and Vrahn.)

[Harmonic]

Yeah. I remember the first time around, getting suite a few vouches, but after the restart took me about three months because I wasn't very popular or super chummy with the grunts. ( Mostly because they were tools like Rensin and Vrahn.)

I was gone around that time with personal issues.

But yes, it was terrible getting vouches, for all above reasons. Not to mention, some characters would be approved on the spot, others would take months.

[Cressy]

and then Kretol wouldn't look at the second page of grunt applications, so you'd be skipped a few months in a row.

[Harmonic]

and then Kretol wouldn't look at the second page of grunt applications, so you'd be skipped a few months in a row.

Wait, what are we talking about now?

[Cressy]

Me being bitter, of course!

[Vrahn]

Cressy! I remember your colour bar graph illustrating the decline in quality for vouches. :3

I wonder if something akin to the LoL 'Tribunal' or how Blizzard forums have posts which accumulate up and down votes and if you end up too far in the negative your post gets hidden. Some sort of managed community system could be quite effective if it was properly implemented for profiles in some degree.

But anyway, this thread is so crazy off topic. :P

[raerae]

I don't like that idea very much. I came here to roleplay, not join a reddit-tier circlejerk on who's characters are good or bad.. And 'karma' or upvote/downvote systems always lead to stuff like that. nop

[Harmonic]

Couldn't there be a better way to say that?

[Zhaei]

Personally I'm all for IC work, not OOC work. We should have progression with gear, but honestly I can't see a way where it would be possible without hiring 20 extra GMs, which is silly.

One thought I'm having is that we supposedly trust the player base to come up with believable characters. Anyone that makes a character that is clearly OP gets told. Why not start the vibe of doing this with gear? Try and use (for lack of a better phrase) positive peer pressure. Probably won't work but it's an idea.

[Adam255]

(( Incoming opinion that might have been said more than once in this thread. Too much to read, and too early in the day for me. ))

Below are my opinions on the matter that are sourced from my experiences. This doesn't, by any stretch of the imagination, apply to all of us.

IC Currency:
It's a nice system, yeah. Too bad it was never used. To be quite honest, I never saw the whole .addrpitem command intruding that system in any way. Instead, I saw it fall because people honestly couldn't be bothered, for the most part. Any person I RPed with, where there was an exchange of currency, I posed the question "Want to do it with IC gold, or...?", and as you can imagine, most chose the "Or..." Option.

People just like the idea of invis-o-gold. Yes, it may make people run around, throwing gold everywhere without a care, but it's convenient. People want to enjoy their RP experience. Sure, I am a realism freak (mostly), and I would support the use of the IC gold system, but I don't think people would want to have their RP damaged, or even stopped in extreme cases because they forgot to do the weekly quest for the currency, or they never bothered to take the five gold quest.

To sum it up, I approve of the system, but I don't see it coming to play properly. However, money-management isn't all too fun, at least to me, and I don't want it while i'm trying to have fun. I know some will agree, and some won't.

Profiles:
I'm SURE this came up before.
People (mostly) write profiles to advance their character. Yes, I've seen people do it for the reward from dinging to 80, but it's mostly for character progression, background, and in a sense, it shows that you want to invest in said character.

I see it as a three-step system.
Step 1: Create character with rough idea, or no idea at all.
Step 2: THE BRONZE TOKEN! Ding to 50, showing you're willing to invest a bit more in the character, having thought more of the history and personality of the character.
Step 3: THE PROFILE! This is the end stage for a clear reason. At this point, you sit down to write a profile, smoothing out any rough edges of the character's history, adding more, special features, talents, etc.

As stated above, some do it for the money. This usually means they're going to transfer the money over/use it to buy gear. As someone who's PvE'd on CoTH more than too much, I know that it's rarely the case for me. I see it as a sort of bonus, if anything.

To sum this up, the profiles should be left as they are. Hell, throw away the rewards, for all I care. Have it solely for character development. (Again, my opinion.)

.addrpitem:
Glorious, glorious command.
I see where Rigley is going with it, however, and I understand it fully. His idea, while also great, can be slightly flawed.
Say, someone wants a... Shoulderpiece from a certain dungeon, right? Right. Professions can't make said item. What does he do? Go do a dungeon to get it, which follows in endless grinding (Dragging along usually four more people) until the item drops, which causes those five or less people to lose RP time, and hurt their own RP-life more than they would by just '.addrpitem cool shoulderpads'. This can be debated, yes. "Oh, those shoulders are epic items, and shouldn't be given to a PC." What if the player wants them for looks? (The #1 reason for using epic-level items since the feature was introduced, I guess.) Nothing stops a blacksmith from following a design ICly to make a less powerful replica of the shoulders.

What i'm trying to say is... .addrpitem is a great system, even if it may harm the IC currency system. It gives people freedom, and the ability to avoid horrible dungeon grinding for certain items that professions can't create.


To sum it all up: I agree, but disagree at once. Take in mind, these are -opinions-. (I'm stressing this so much because I've had terrible experiences when people take my opinions and say I posed them as facts.)

[Piroska]

Try and use (for lack of a better phrase) positive peer pressure.

I'd generally prefer to avoid having the community enforce rules of any sort. This has caused issues in the past and is why, for example, players are not allowed to enforce people to use the chat channels properly. There's a heavy subjective factor that ends up being applied, which results in inconsistency in enforcement.

I mean, just look at lore. We have so many varied opinions on what is allowed and not allowed. Numerous threads on the forums, endless discussions in-game in different channels and in out-of-character zones -- it would just be a mess.

I'd rather not have players duking it out and telling others what gear is and isn't appropriate.