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Infrastructure, aesthetics, benefits.
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WorkerDrone
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Duke Attitude

Post Posted: Sat Jul 13, 2013 10:10 am      Reply with quote

I guess I should break down some thoughts before labeling exactly where I'd like this topic to go, but fear not. I suppose I'll get to that in short order.

Right now, in terms of infrastructure, you have four (five, technically) points of needs requiring needing to be met (though a lack of OOC, coded repercussions for not meeting them or outright ignoring them) and four definite points of central infrastructure to meet these needs.

In the market, you have the breather systems which enable people in Rust to churn out raw materials which they can then use for, at best, high quality medieval level goods and psuedo-modern firearms (of a highly restrictive, draconian civilian pattern for balance reasons) and medicine and electronics that range from semi-modern to semi-futuristic, though none that are feasibly far off from what we could do now, except gravity generators, artificial atmosphere generators, firebreathers in the vague, rather dubious form though not strictly speaking purpose, and one or two other things that might drift into science fiction.

Then outside that you have three other points with basic infrastructure (electricity, so that implies an electrical grid, though it doesn't stretch out across the entirety of a turf and not much of the neutral area between the turf, or the completely neutral zone on Southside, along with water pumped throughout the area, though it's not definitely known how many people are being supplied with water outside families, and for all we know people have to trudge into the market once a cycle with their jugs to tend to their thirsty families.

Along with some stuff like forges, presses, and other somewhat complex machinery, though that's more industry related than infrastructure. Tangents. Anyway.

Imagining the boredom that crafting gear and hunting lizard meat and hides can bring, and the only slight break in monotony that things like robotics and electronics will bring, it's obvious from the most cursory examinations that Rust is really kind of pseudo primitive. A amalgamation of modern technology and a degree of knowledge/equal shades of ignorance nailed into a somewhat feudal society at best or a lawless one at worst--until restructuring and roleplay happens to naturally alter that over time.

So given there's been ideas to improve the ingame locales in the city somewhat, I was thinking about what kind of infrastructure you would imagine coming across, or altering, or introducing to areas, how later on down the line you could influence needs being met for people living in these areas, and overall have a greater effect on public opinion through that manner.

If you're using your own resources to make sure Joe Blow and Jane Doe have electricity, water running through their pipes, paved roads and a shelter with halfway decent insulation, consistently, it's probably in their best interests to live peaceably and usefully around those parts, rather than lawlessly and slothfully. They wouldn't wanna be kicked to the curb, would they? To Boss Niner's turf, without many of these blessings, because thug lyfe.

So you got the basis for what kind of things you could introduce--what are things families need? Lights. Shelter. Electrical grids. Piping/waterworks. Roads. You can also imagine what introducing things like this to unclaimed territory would be like. Given the lack of moderation from being near or directly on family turf? It'd decay twice as quickly, if not faster. But maybe the benefits are double, because it's mostly untapped? Might piss off Boss Niner, though! Worth it, New Guard?

Then you go further than that, and you deal with aesthetics. What does this Family want their own little slice of Rust to look like? You can clean up the streets and put up shelters and lights and run pipes but after all that, what kind of life style do you want to promote to, for all intents and purposes, those you call your own? Your dependents and your serfs and your Family body?

High class, Victorian styles for the New Guard? Paper lanterns and diversity, fairground manner filled with working girls, drugs, booze and violence on Block Nine? Austere, nationalistic and severe public works and highly monitored, camera-system'd roads on the Red Line?

Ultimately it becomes less a game of what kind of items can I make and more a game of what can I do to this room? I think I want to put a statue there.

It takes artful and aesthetically pleasing text and world building that falls in line with documentation, given the rather plain and vanilla base we've been given, admittedly with some aesthetics, but with room for growth.

Discuss.


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creepyguyinblack
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The Alpha and the Omega

Post Posted: Sat Jul 13, 2013 6:03 pm      Reply with quote

Not sure if this what you're exactly talking about, but I'd like to see some more entertainments open up. Like the Arena, which was also a steady source of a few chips a day for many. There could also be sports fields for whatever games people can come up with, gambling dens and casinos, a theatre, an illicit-drug den, plenty of crossover between some of these too. I think they'd all be helped though if there was a bit more influx of chips so more people had more chips to afford to spend, lose, gamble, put towards entertaining non-essentials like these.

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Seer
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Post Posted: Sun Jul 14, 2013 3:53 pm      Reply with quote

Feels like there is going to be a point where everyone has the full kit of gear they'd like, with some spares kicking around in family bases, and a glut of crafting supplies from the daily scavenges. With objects and the reason for crafting new objects (skill bumps, branching for crafters) piling up excess goods, having more meaningful applications of player time towards infrastructure and culture is going to be important.

In fact, I think we're already at a place were 'ex-convict space gangs on the moon fight each other for resources and turf' has turned into 'ex-convict space gangs on the moon have a lot of stuff, want more, and help each other to do so'. Which is fine, it's a default of peace with the occasional outliers who break into gunfights, momentarily making things a little more complicated.

How is this modified by staff, typically? Often we see resources become even more scarce, which seems like an easy mechanical fix. Surely people will want to do that scav thing if stuff is harder to get, maybe they'll even have some conflict to secure resources. Another solution is having items degrade faster to ensure players have to keep up with maintenance crafts.

What's most interesting to have as a player is more things to do besides object-oriented acquisitions and tensions. This winds back to why I think Workerdrone's post is important to keep in mind in going forward. Meaningful infrastructure: the ability to actually change the vision of a turf aesthetically and develop Rust culturally - that's interesting, and far more so than object acquisition or the ultimately finite quest to get you and yours geared.


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starsignal
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just a page in someone's book

Post Posted: Sun Jul 14, 2013 4:01 pm      Reply with quote

Seer wrote:
What's most interesting to have as a player is more things to do besides object-oriented acquisitions and tensions. This winds back to why I think Workerdrone's post is important to keep in mind in going forward. Meaningful infrastructure: the ability to actually change the vision of a turf aesthetically and develop Rust culturally - that's interesting, and far more so than object acquisition or the ultimately finite quest to get you and yours geared.


I just wanted to show support for this idea, and for the OP. As a noncom with a character who would ostensibly be very interested in contributing to infrastructure, I sometimes find myself frustrated with (what seems to be) the general preoccupation with getting/killing stuff.


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Bartleby
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Post Posted: Sun Jul 14, 2013 4:38 pm      Reply with quote

starsignal wrote:
I just wanted to show support for this idea, and for the OP. As a noncom with a character who would ostensibly be very interested in contributing to infrastructure, I sometimes find myself frustrated with (what seems to be) the general preoccupation with getting/killing stuff.


I feel very much the same way, and I was interested in the OP's ideas, although to be honest I'm not entirely sure what was being proposed.

Some things (like macro-infrastructure) can only really effectively be orchestrated by clan leads because ultimately they're the ones who have a say over what is and isn't acceptable for the character of their turf. Since the vast majority of us aren't clan leads, though, we can only participate in those things if our clan lead decides to undertake them. A lot of the infrastructure things mentioned apply to neutral turf, too, (like the market) which even the clan leads don't have much control over. I didn't reply to those things because I felt like they could really only be viewed as an appeal to the staff.

However, my personal strategy, because of the limitations of playing one character who isn't a clan lead, and because of my personal style and interests, has tended to be taking a much, much more intimate, nose-to-the-ground view of things.

A lot of people, both career scavvers and people frustrated with the emphasis placed on scavenging, have expressed a desire to have "other things to do" and to see other things "rewarded". My personal feeling is that the only thing that's stopping you from doing other things is your sense that there isn't anything else to do, or your ideas about what constitutes a "reward".

For me, I find it very rewarding to spend time in PC-to-PC interaction (which sometimes means conflict), creating a collaborative sense of what the culture is like in Rust, what life is like for the average slummer, what being in a Family means and has meant historically, what the relationships of the three Families are to one another, etc, etc. I've spent a lot of time doing this and feel I'm just getting started.

I've encountered a lot of resistance from some people who are pretty convinced this is "a waste of time" and that it doesn't make any sort of "contribution" but... as far as I'm concerned, it's the most worthwhile thing to be doing, given the fact that even if we never scav again, none of us is going to starve (thank you roast rat-carcass!).

I would like to see clan leads mod their turf, and if the admins ever get a spare moment from answering the ten million demands/freak outs/accusations/wheedlings/bugs/balance issues they get in a day, I'd be very pleased to see the neutral areas get tricked out some as well. But I don't remotely feel like that's the only way, or that there's nothing for us plebs to do in the meantime.

ETA: It does, however, require a willingness to blow off people who sometimes pop up to tell you you're Doing It Wrong. Regarding that, I sympathize. But keep the faith. If you RP it, they will come. Eventually... which is why you kind of have to be doing it because you enjoy it, not because you're expecting an extrinsic reward.

Tell a story that interests you -- really interests you -- and for all the things that haven't been covered in the documentation or in the room descriptions or via the objects in the room, make something up, as best you can, extrapolating from what's available.

Do this with other people, collaboratively, so that you're not just piling private notion upon private notion that no one else knows about or agrees to.

Listen -- really listen -- to what they give you back and incorporate it.

Respond.

Enjoy.


ETAA(gain [sorry! Embarassed ]):

I have reflected some on this. Since the beginning of PRPI (and back on ARPI, really), I have been aware of something that seemed counter-intuitive.

For anyone who played SOI (Arm might be like this, too, I'm not sure, but I don't think so, at least not to the same extent), you may recall that there was very little, actually, to do. You had no real need for stuff, and if you lived long enough and said the right things to the right people, stuff was incredibly easy to acquire anyway. You may recall that there was a general feeling that SOI had no PC economy, and that this was a Problem. I felt that way, too, at the time.

But I've now realized that there is a certain value to the game providing very little to do -- a value which PRPI doesn't have the opportunity to take advantage of because there is so delightfully much to Do.

And that is this: we had to entertain ourselves, and we had to do it with RP. We had to tell ourselves, and each other, stories. We had to make up wild goose chases to send each other on, and manufacture cultural details that Tolkien hadn't remotely included. We had plenty of time to do this because no one was going to starve, gear was relatively easy to acquire, and skills weren't that useful, since there was nothing necessary to do with them.

I'm not saying PRPI should stop having so much to do. I love the barter economy. What I am saying is that it's really easy to forget how to entertain yourself, and each other, with stories. But ultimately isn't that what separates an RPI from any other kind of MUD? Isn't that what we're doing here? Don't wait for the other guy to make the first move. Don't wait for your boss to tell you to do it. Just... do it. See what happens.


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I would prefer not to.
starsignal
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just a page in someone's book

Post Posted: Sun Jul 14, 2013 5:03 pm      Reply with quote

Bartleby wrote:
I've encountered a lot of resistance from some people who are pretty convinced this is "a waste of time" and that it doesn't make any sort of "contribution" but... as far as I'm concerned, it's the most worthwhile thing to be doing, given the fact that even if we never scav again, none of us is going to starve (thank you roast rat-carcass!).

ETA: It does, however, require a willingness to blow off people who sometimes pop up to tell you you're Doing It Wrong. Regarding that, I sympathize. But keep the faith. If you RP it, they will come. Eventually... which is why you kind of have to be doing it because you enjoy it, not because you're expecting an extrinsic reward.


That's an interesting view of things -- I assume that it's being touted by people who are most interested in the actual code benefits of the game. There will always be people who gravitate more toward that side of things, but I'm sure there's a subset of roleplayers who would be very interested in making a contribution to lore/culture/infrastructure/etc.

The point you made about some of it needing to come from clanleads is part of the reason I personally feel uncertain of what to do. The other part is that the game is new (it probably doesn't help that I'm new to this community myself), and what little lore we have is so bare. On one hand, that's exciting because it gives us a lot of room to create something colorful, but it's also kind of overwhelming and probably lends confusion to the process because nobody is sure where the responsibility lies and how much flexibility they have to create.

I think it's difficult to create lore retroactively, with the exception of the things people are doing with their backgrounds. While it sometimes seems weird to be playing in a world without a lot of lore, I think this is something that will come to the game eventually.

In terms of more infrastructure, I agree that a lot of it is going to have to come from the players themselves. Maybe those of us with interests in this area just need to feel comfortable taking more responsibility onto our own shoulders and making strides to find others with similar interests?

That said, it's always nice to have a prod from the higher-ups. I know both admin and clanleads are extremely busy with all their responsibilities, but maybe it wouldn't take much -- a post to locals here or there about some need a certain community has that needs filling, just a nudge in the right direction? It could get some things rolling and help people spark ideas.


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grandpa
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Entrenched Oldbie

Post Posted: Sun Jul 14, 2013 5:21 pm      Reply with quote

RE: Bartleby/Starsignal and seeing action/modifying turf/changing lives/etc. IG...this is happening! You can see it and find it and help with it, even if you feel you can't lead it. And you can lead it even if your clanlead isn't. He just might disagree, but that's conflict and conflict is a-ok.

RE: Bartleby/having a lack of things to do creating roleplay...I honestly think we've hit that point in PRPI. We don't need scavs so much anymore, so people coming up with random PRPTs for social events is just the one thing we need to fill in the gap.


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Bartleby
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Post Posted: Sun Jul 14, 2013 8:04 pm      Reply with quote

grandpa wrote:
RE: Bartleby/Starsignal and seeing action/modifying turf/changing lives/etc. IG...this is happening! You can see it and find it and help with it, even if you feel you can't lead it. And you can lead it even if your clanlead isn't. He just might disagree, but that's conflict and conflict is a-ok.


Eh, it's complicated. Yes, absolutely, there is quite a lot of construction going on, and there will only be more as people look for more uses for the resources that are available now. On the other hand, not everyone is playing a character who would necessarily get involved in what other people are taking the lead on, nor is everyone playing a character who would necessarily take the lead on something of this sort. It depends very much on who you're playing and where they're situated.

Clan leads, on the other hand, are sort of by default (at least ideally) designed to be leaders-of-things, and to have a certain vision that they aspire to realize for the city as a whole, or at least for their turf, etc. That's not necessarily true of other characters, though. Some people are just living day to day, and their motivations don't necessarily include changing the world, and if they do, the changes they want to see don't necessarily include a lot of the things mentioned by the OP.

It's not just about the OOC power that clan leads have, nor is it just about the IC ability they have to order people and martial resources. It's much more about who they are and why they're leading something. There will always be lots of characters aspiring to leadership and wanting to remake the world in their own image. But there are lots of characters who don't, or aren't, or have a very different way of going about it.

grandpa wrote:
RE: Bartleby/having a lack of things to do creating roleplay...I honestly think we've hit that point in PRPI. We don't need scavs so much anymore, so people coming up with random PRPTs for social events is just the one thing we need to fill in the gap.


I think, yes and no. Yes, you're absolutely right, we have (in some clans more than others heh) hit the point where we can focus on other things. That doesn't really solve the problem of frustrated players not knowing what else to do (I'm not talking about myself, I'm responding to various cries for help that I've seen here on the forums), though, and neither, imo does PRPTs.

Personally, I'm not that into grand PRPTs. I've been the guy organizing them and found them to be largely an unrewarding headache (40 people RSVP, 20 people show, they trickle in at different times, a quarter of them are idle or linkdead, and nothing goes according to plan), and as an attendee, I find it also pretty unrewarding to try to RP in a room occupied by 25 other people. I could play (and have played) a witty quipster who entertains the crowd with a series of ribald turnarounds and bold innuendo, it just doesn't interest me at the present moment.

If you think about it, scav runs nowadays are more or less regularly scheduled PRPTs, especially the whole waiting-around-before-they-start part. The only thing missing is a pre-scripted Event like a wine tasting or boxing match, which is sort of just more spam, in a way. I'm not saying they can't be interesting, or useful, or that I don't support people trying to pull them off... I just don't think they're the answer to this particular problem.

Big events for people to come and socialize at don't, in my experience, really have much lasting effect on how people play the game.

From what I've seen, both IG and on the forums, not actually needing the Stuff hasn't really clicked for a lot of players, who are still running really fast trying to get more Stuff and wondering why nobody is cheering them on anymore.

And there is still lots of luxury Stuff to get, and lots of skills to gain and lots of crafts to branch, which I think really contributes to a lot of players having the sense that that's the point of the game. I'm not saying those things are important, actually I'm saying for me they aren't.

But when RP is obviously the only thing to do, people, in my experience, have less trouble knowing what to do with themselves without defaulting to Stuff and Skills. It's a hurdle we're going to have to get over as a community, imo, that there will always be more Stuff and more Skills to gain, none of it necessary at all, and until we have made a lot more headway in doing, as a community, more that doesn't involve Stuff and Skills, there will always be a lot of people who think that's mainly what the game is about and can't understand why they don't get more out of focusing on it.

I get the feeling that you're saying, basically, "solve these things IG," which is also what I'm saying. But I also think that not addressing the OOC culture issue, and what factors might be influencing the way things have worked and are working in that regard, just means that solving things ICly is a much slower and more difficult process than it necessarily needs to be.

Solving things IG without talking about the OOCly also has the added problem of not getting everybody on board (or at least, everybody that would like to be) and pulling in the same direction. If you're in the loop you're in it, if you're out of the loop you're out of it. And I don't personally think that's the most constructive way to go about anything.

I don't really see any reason not to analyze what's happening and why that might be, and how we might prefer for things to happen.

ETA (sorry, realized I didn't address this):
starsignal wrote:
I think it's difficult to create lore retroactively, with the exception of the things people are doing with their backgrounds. While it sometimes seems weird to be playing in a world without a lot of lore, I think this is something that will come to the game eventually.


I found this extremely frustrating and overwhelming at first. In the end, it was mainly lack of confidence, and lack of familiarity with what other people were doing. I have found that spending one-on-one time learning about the backgrounds and views of other PCs has helped me feel a lot more comfortable developing my own.

And keep in mind, backgrounds aren't just what you typed in during chargen. What did your PC have for lunch three years ago last Tuesday? You didn't put that in your history, but it happened. Make it up now! Cool


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I would prefer not to.
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Featured artwork used on Parallel RPI given permission for use by original artists macrebisz and merl1ncz.