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 Posted: Wed Aug 07, 2013 9:52 pm |  |
| Tiamat wrote: |
| It's okay to actually want the same things (resources) if your goals are different, so introducing new resource nodes in the wilderness isn't necessarily a band-aid. It only encourages the same goals if there are no other goals to strive for. |
Very true, I readily concede that point.
My only real concern there is that we shouldn't take for granted that all the Families necessarily must primarily focus on resource-gathering in order to compete for prestige/turf/dominance. Absolutely resources are scarce and needed, that's a big part of the story, but I think other potential avenues to success would give Families more opportunity to differentiate themselves from one another, to strive competitively without being in direct warlike opposition, etc...
| Tiamat wrote: |
| I think the unfortunate truth is that you might need to either rehaul the clans as they are, or let them undergo some kind of reincarnation and let them drop off, to make room for new movers and shakers. Introducing new documentation at this point in the game would probably feel awkward and even more artificial than before. |
I agree that reincarnation helps. But I'm not so sure that new documentation would be such a bad thing.
It's hard for me not to view people's protestations of "but how can I react to something that's not right in front of me?" as a lack of interest in putting in the creative effort. Viewed in that light I can't help thinking just having more raw material to work with might mean people didn't feel they had to work so hard to come up with a basis for conflict.
Yeah, it's awkward, adding new stuff we didn't know before, but most people in Rust are not history buffs, there's not a lot of written records, and most people gloss the past anyway. Personally I don't think it would necessarily have to be persistently awkward and artificial. It would just take a few PCs working the details into their character concept or worldview and a general agreement by the playerbase that these thing are valid and reasonable.
| grandpa wrote: |
| Why does this matter? Because it's how I play, and I feel it's how a lot of people play. Backgrounds and documentation are secondary to what happens IG. People are trying, and I respect both Rivean/Bartleby's points, but -until- there's something beyond backgrounds to have a sensible conflict over, it just boils down to "he upset me," which doesn't fuel any interest for me. |
Sorry, missed this earlier. (I bet you weren't sad.  )
I realize a lot of people play that way, and I don't at all object to their doing so, but I admit I don't understand how it's advantageous. Particularly for someone who wants to be living in a rich world full of intrigue and passion (which, if you don't, it's all good but most of this will be irrelevant in that case ). My experience (and we've probably had different experiences) has been that if you want to be playing a certain game, you have to bring that game with you. Best case scenario, you have a lot of material with which to connect with other passionate and intriguing PCs. Worst case scenario you serve as a stubborn, lonely beacon, attracting like-minded people, one by lonely one, from the far corners of the galaxy. Both are much more rewarding for me than wandering around a code world, letting inane tavern-chat (no offense intended to tavern-sitters, it's a laudable vocation which I have served my time in!) set the tone for my character's story.
I don't really have fun if I'm not immersed, and it's hard to get immersed if, for example, I don't have some conception (which is always being elaborated on) of my PC's likes and dislikes and the past experiences that shaped them. Codewise, cotton candy kelp and ranch kelp and liver kelp are all identical. There's no compelling reason offered by the game itself to like one more than the other, but I don't personally prefer to tell a story about a flavorless universe. And more than that, even a question as mundane as "which flavor kelp?" provides the opportunity to say some very interesting things about the world in which the PCs live. After all, what happens when flavors are completely divorced from the foods they normally accompany? Would a Ruster consider liver-flavored meat to make more sense, somehow, than cherry-flavored meat? Why or why not?
And to me, even what's been insinuated in the small amount of documentation that does exist prompts much more stimulating lines of questioning than what flavor kelp. And I've already seen characters in game who had it worked it into their backgrounds in such a way as to provide a constant potential impetus for conflict with other Families without sending them on a PK rampage. It's just that at the present moment, they're being told to sit down and shut up by their own people in order to avoid disrupting the chummy working relationship among the Families.
It's also rather difficult for people (*cough*) who might have made PCs who were intended to be out of step with the status quo, but have found that the status quo has come rushing over to their side. At that point you have a dilemma -- argue for the old status quo in an effort to maintain canonical integrity, or argue for the new status quo in an effort to maintain PC integrity?
| Moriarty wrote: |
| [As a side note, despite Bartleby's assertion to the otherwise, people that frequently cooperate to mutual gain tend to lose sight of larger struggles of class. |
I didn't... actually assert that that wasn't true. Nor did I intend to.
People directly cooperating over a long enough period of time for old scars to heal absolutely come to overlook their differences. There are lots of reasons I think that situation isn't relevant to the one Rust is in, however. In brief, people have been cooperating, in the way that they are, for less than an IG year, versus the 100 years of conflict preceding. SOME Family members cooperating on SOME projects, might reasonably be able to overcome that 100 years of conflict, to an extent, but Families as a whole should have a much longer way to go yet.
Also, I didn't mean to suggest that all of the regions of conflict I mentioned were constantly at war, or that everyone living there wanted to be, any more than I think should be true of Rust.
| Moriarty wrote: |
| What my character believes, how my character views himself, views you, views the world at large, views his place in it, are all the very BEST sources of conflict. |
Completely agree.
| Moriarty wrote: |
And certainly, small numbers of people have managed to leave a significant impression on the IG fabric of SoI before, as I've personally experienced. It can be done. Cultures can be changed.
But 'has happened before' and 'likely to happen again' are two different things as well, and these events/times I refer to are black swans - inspiring for their success, but also somewhat misleading because they are infinitely more visible than all the many other attempts that failed, despite equally talented players investing equal amounts of time and energy. |
They didn't just happen by magic. They happened because people decided to make them happen. They're the result of people getting together and building a collaborative pocket of the universe in which certain things are true.
And yes, obviously, not all attempts are successful. But just as obviously, not trying fails every time. Plus I think patience has a lot to do with it. You can't get mad and take your toys home when things don't materialize right away. Sometimes you have to keep chopping and chopping and chopping away at it until everything fits into place around you. And some of those pieces, in my experience, come from seemingly unlikely sources. I've had extraordinarily good luck picking up new players and getting them involved in complex and nuanced stories.
Some people have just never experienced what the game Could be, and so don't know to be striving for it, or to expect it. That was me once, too. But I encountered some compelling, immersive, deeply-drawn PCs who showed me what you could do on a game like this, and I try to bring that with me when I play. That, and the insight that very often boring characters are just bored players, and they may very well get with the program and have fun doing it, if you deign to show them the way.
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| I would prefer not to. | |
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grandpa
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Entrenched Oldbie
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Posted: Wed Aug 07, 2013 10:16 pm | |
I think the two of you need to take a step back and realize that(even though, again, I'm argument ad populumumuming) you aren't most players. Most players aren't operating on that level. You aren't offering solutions any more, just big giant walls of text that aren't getting anywhere. I dare say, though I respect the both of you, your tendency to do that has choked the life out of this thread while diverting it onto a serious detour.
Trim it down some. Get your point out more plainly and simply. You're missing the point of what I'm saying entirely(except for Moriarty, who's getting it half the time and isn't the other half), which is that documentation and backgrounds aren't the primary driving force of play. Playing is the primary driving force of play, and the gameworld needs to be focused around that.
...not that that was even the point of this thread in the first place, either.
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Posted: Wed Aug 07, 2013 11:29 pm | |
Re: possible solutions
Scav stuff getting rarer is fine and all. And it makes total, perfect sense for the closer scav spots to be scavved dry first.
However, if you want conflict over scav, the valuable scav requiring several hour runs is pretty frustrating, especially when half the trip is getting to/from the place. Scavving is a chore.
I feel like scav should be addressed somehow where there's maybe a capture the flag type thing, where certain plots can be controlled by families, who can take an automatic scav cut?
Like how families used to control breathers. Maybe it can be over the breather? Instead of Bjork getting the cut (which I believe is what happens to it?) the families can do something to stake their claim somehow?
Automated conflict is maybe better than nothing. Though there's nothing to stop the families just cutting a deal to cycle through whatever they need, I guess. Which. I guess is actually pretty likely in this atmosphere.
I personally do feel the Reds have a defined goal, and it's stated a few times in the lore and also IC-- idealistically taking care of their dependents, improving life overall for themselves, with an emphasis on military culture. But, there's not a lot representing the work they're doing. The history states their goals for territory expansion, but what exactly is territory expansion? It's definitely something more than just painting a family symbol on the wall, right?
Maybe some more flexibility with the build system would help. Some ability to change roomdescs ourselves, like a dmote except for rooms? Requiring 'ownership' of the room? Though that seems like it'd take a huge overhaul, too.
As for NG, I don't see them with the focus on business that they're stated to have. There's some market drama to be had over the prices of things... but sadly, a lot of the marketable things are also scav based, I guess. Business-wise, there's no real way to compete for NPC chips or barter, which I think is potentially also a point of conflict.
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grandpa
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Entrenched Oldbie
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Posted: Thu Aug 08, 2013 1:51 am | |
| imany wrote: |
Maybe some more flexibility with the build system would help. Some ability to change roomdescs ourselves, like a dmote except for rooms? Requiring 'ownership' of the room? Though that seems like it'd take a huge overhaul, too.
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SoI had this. They just gave it to clanleads, and it worked p. well.
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| It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools. | |
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Posted: Thu Aug 08, 2013 4:20 am | |
What are resources?
Plot points, secrets. Lore and history. In-group culture and traditions. Prestige, responsibilities, and titles. The power to influence the gameworld, the power to influence [v]NPC opinion, to dispense resources and favors to other PCs. Reputation. Chances to take the lead, show off, or otherwise make a name for oneself. Access to physical spaces, whether by knowledge of their existence & location, possession of the coded prowess necessary to reach them, or permissions, authorizations, and keys. Access to other influential or entertaining characters and their time & attention. Skills, crafts, items, chips.
How can we use these things to generate competition, conflict, and entertainment for ourselves?
Scarcity has a role to play, but it has its limitations. If there's ONE key plot point in play (for the overarching, admin-led story, in particular), I'm going to feel an obligation to share it more widely than might necessarily be most ICly sensible. If there's ONE group with the IC and OOC skill to make the trip to explore a new and intriguing area, I'm going to feel an obligation to invite more people along, again, even if I have to bend IC considerations to do so. Tangible, stuff-type resources might be tricky to distribute without unbalancing the game, but snippets and glimpses of plot and lore could work very well.
What's to stop them from being easily and frictionlessly shared? Who knows? Maybe what you did to get them reflects poorly on you. Maybe what you learned from them reflects poorly on your Family, or maybe it's so centered on your Family's history/founders/etc. that it just doesn't make sense to announce to the world, even if there's nothing especially objectionable in it. Maybe it reveals something unflattering about the history of another Family, and you don't want them to know that you know it. Maybe you have reason to think they'll give you a future advantage over the other Families. Maybe they give you a small but immediate economic benefit, like a unique recipe.
Hal's point about cultural differences is a good one too, I think. Could more be done in the way of in-game indoctrination and initiation of recruits to build PCs' connections with Family culture/history/loyalties? Even if we had extensive documentation and backgrounds for everyone and everything, many PCs are still new to their chosen Families, aren't they?
The room description option probably has quite a bit of potential in this setting as well, since it would both make turf more meaningful on an RP level and encourage the further development and display of Family-specific culture.
The planned changes to encourage smaller groups may have similar effects, in terms of giving people more opportunities to build Family culture, to develop their PCs through gameplay, and generally acquire more background that they can draw upon for inspiration when a large-group event or RPT does arise.
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Posted: Thu Aug 08, 2013 5:42 am | |
Double-post to avoid mucking up the first one with tangentially relevant stuff.
Setting, controversy, infrastructure:
Parallel, insofar as I understand, has, by design, a very small, very player-centric world. There are plenty of good things to be said for this. It may, however, not be quite as intuitive for would-be character-builders, pre- or post-commencement, as a more traditional, heavily virtual world.
In Atonement, I could ask myself how my character felt about Tram, or Reims, or New Phoenix. In SoI, I could ask how she felt about the Earmhyde, the Fellowships, the nobility. I could ask how she felt about almost anything in the vastness of Tolkien's secondary world. Minas Ithil, Sindarin, hobbits, the Valar. Many of these topics were inherently controversial; many of them were already tied into larger, pre-existing tensions, conflicts, and mysteries.
Can similar questions be asked in Rust? I'm sure many can, but it doesn't seem quite as easy. Perhaps this might be worthwhile theme for a thread in the player documentation forum? "Questions to ask yourself when developing a ParallelRPI character." Perhaps the scarcity of education in Rust might be one such point of potential controversy, or the proper relationship between Family members and the denizens of their turf, the power of the Market Watch? The previously discussed question of funeral customs? Sexuality? Prostitution? Economic disparities? What are the "money, politics, and religion" topics of impassioned debate (or, you know, the Rust-equivalent thereof) in this world?
Speaking of politics, I wonder if more couldn't be done with the infrastructure of Rust itself: power, water, sewage, gravity. Who supplies the labor and resources to these things running? Who controls them? If there's a shortage, who decides which part of the city loses out? How much code would it take to make it meaningful to players?
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wirsindallein
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(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧
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Posted: Thu Aug 08, 2013 1:11 pm | |
I think it would be a good idea if the discussion regarding IC conflict move to a separate thread so that people can get back to discussing OPs topic.
I still think smaller groups are the way to go as far as getting people to remain involved and active. Of course, I haven't really been able to play much at all for the past few weeks so for all I know that's already the case.
Another suggestion is to forego scav runs now and then. Yes, I know you NEED stuff to compete, but maybe if you organized something smaller every week or two people wouldnt find the trips to be as humdrum? Basically change things up- im sure you can think of something to do in Rust. As an added bonus maybe it could help develop clan culture, something which, apparently (though I don't really feel that way), people feel doesn't have a very strong presence.
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Posted: Thu Aug 08, 2013 10:06 pm | |
First and foremost I would like to say thank you to the leaders of the large group scavs. While I agree that they can be spammy, difficult to rp during, and tedious, that only makes me appreciate what you are doing all the more. I go on those big runs because I have confidence in the leaders, who have consistently provided a safe and professional experience.
I realize that death by misadventure is an inevitable consequence of playing a combat-oriented PC, and I include that awareness when I play. That said, I’d vastly prefer that when my character dies it isn’t as ignominious collateral damage. Sorry Throttle, but it IS dangerous out there, and I tend to suspect that the size of the groups is not so much a result of people feeling that they need 20 people to go out, as it is that 20 (plus) people trust certain group leaders to take them out, and come when they call. Or maybe that’s just me.
I don’t always scav, but when I do, I prefer to come back alive.
So, one more time *thank you*.
Now, as for the issue of people tagging along mutely, contributing little more than hit lizard, guard direction, forage... guilty as charged. It isn’t my ideal of participation either, so I appreciate someone opening a dialogue to try and improve the experience. Yes, the scav overhaul will probably fix a lot of this, but waiting for the situation to change is probably part of why I haven’t personally been trying very hard to evaluate and improve the present experience. What this thread has brought to my attention is that change incoming or no, that evaluation is worth doing, because some of the problems are specific to the mechanics of large groups, combat, and the scavenging system, and some are much more about how to play with other people, generally.
Now, much has been said about conflict, and I have a lot to say on that topic in and of itself, but I agree that is probably something best saved for another thread. I’ll start one when I’m done with this, if no one else gets to it first.
There are two points regarding conflict which pertain directly to the original post however, so I will address them here.
First is a recognition of the generosity of those leaders in their willingness to take non-clan members along with them. As someone who covets and seizes upon every scrap of conflict I come upon I am deeply aware of the complexity of the situation. What began as an essentially meta-concern regarding my conflicting IC/OOC impulses toward certain scav-leaders developed, for me, into one of the more potentially interesting situations in-game. At this point, large runs are about the -only- time I run into certain characters, thus all potential interaction, conflict oriented or no, occur in the periphery of these runs. The tension between the need to work together cooperatively in order to survive outside, and the mistrust and hard feelings retained from experiences inside strikes me as having the potential of being Very Interesting.
Except that I haven’t been very interesting. Oops. Now part of that is related to the second point that I had mentioned earlier regarding conflict: that conflict is only one potential expression of the thing that I feel goes unexpressed on these runs, which is, generally, relationships.
Yes, I get flustered when there are 20 people in the room. Yes, when there are that many people potentially talking it’s hard to track a conversation, and yes those conversations can be distracting. However, in my experience good RP comes of having strong feelings about other characters, for better or for worse, and those feelings and relationships can, presumably, be fairly minimalistically expressed.
The question then is can they be forged and developed in the context of large runs? Much of the boredom, and frustration I suspect, comes from a sense that “nothing happens.” Banter and small talk cuts through the tedium, but doesn’t particularly further character development, or give material for further interaction.
Now, there are some technical roadblocks that are troublesome for me in trying to interact with people. For example: if thirty people are marching through the wastes did I hear that snippet of conversation, or catch that look? I find knowing what is appropriate to respond to a major challenge, so often, I don’t. What -is- expected behavior on a run anyway? Both in the IC sense of appropriate conduct (whether you choose to be appropriate or not) but also in the OOC sense of when one should dawdle about being interesting and when it’s best to shut up and hustle along because these things take forever even when no one is RPing. Again, I tend to err on the side of caution, and do nothing.
I -want- to be interesting. I would love for scav runs to be an opportunity to RP, but I’m somewhat stymied as to how.
I realize this isn’t an answer, but rather a question back to the OP. What are -you- hoping for when you lead a run? Perhaps with a better understanding of your desires and intentions it would be easier to work collaboratively to create the experience you have in mind. For me at least, for what that's worth
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irkallia
Guide
f--- you that's my fish and i'm having sex with it
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Posted: Fri Aug 09, 2013 7:29 am | |
So, uh... Throttle... you were saying how safe the Metro is?
(NB: Not actually snarking. Poking some gentle fun? Certainly.)
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Posted: Sun Aug 11, 2013 4:47 pm | |
I kinda gotta say..
I'm pretty sure 'you need 10+ to go to the metro' is sort of the opposite of what some of us were saying here in this thread. :/
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