Well. I read it as they knew it was a big change, so they offered the counters to the proposal first, then the counter counters, and then explained the proposal. I think it’s all there, except we just aren’t familiar with the type of gaming they’re suggesting. Hence why it’s so baffling - I imagine were it something we commonly played, we’d have had no problem.
I suspect the issue is something revealed by google: I searched for ‘play by chat’ - and all the sites were Italian/in Italian. It’s either something mainly restricted to there, or possibly has a different name we’d recognise.
[li]Wikipedia says:
[li][quote=]
[li]Play-by-chat[edit][li]Online Chat Rooms may be used in a similar fashion as forums for role-playing purposes. Unlike forums, posts are displayed to the screen in real-time and thus may increase the pace at which responses are written. Play-by chat games require users to be present for the duration of a scene which may last several hours. The game may be supplemented by external character profiles or may rely on users to provide information about their character upon request or upon entering a room.
[li]Real-time interaction between characters in chat rooms are similar to those encountered in MUDs but lack automated features of MUDs such as combat resolution and item descriptions. Players in chat rooms are required to describe objects and events through manually written text.[/quote]
[li]Sounds like a chat-based way of playing an IF-type game. Beats me how this is relevant to the actual Fallen London game though, I must say! OP clearly has a vision, even if it’s a bit unclear what that vision is :D
Xaphedo, you evidently put time and thought into this, and I wouldn’t want to leave you puzzled by the levity of our responses, or for you to think them mean-spirited. So here is a serious explanation of why this doesn’t strike me as a good idea.
[ol][li]Fallen London has an established player base in the low five figures, built up over a number of years. These people are presumably interested in a relaxed, slow-paced game which can be spread out over a number of short sessions. There’s no particular reason to expect them to be interested in a play-by-chat mechanic, which is relatively demanding and only suited to relatively long play sessions. Moreover, Fallen London is a text game, and many of us play it on the strength of its setting and prose. This passage is for Fallen London quite ordinary:[quote]You jog round the park, the ruffians wheezing and groaning in your wake. Fat, dejected waterfowl watch you pass. A sorrow-spider squats in a clump of rushes. Evil laughter rings out from a pallid fungal thicket. The ruffians are left behind, but your mood is quite spoilt. And you have a snail in your shoe.[/quote]Not many people can produce prose that evocative in the moments IRC allows them. Still fewer can maintain a comic rhythm. So this probably won’t appeal to the game’s literary constituency, either.[/li]
[li]FBG have very limited resources, and the vast majority of their user base would prefer that these be devoted to a) adding more content to Fallen London, b) delivering Sunless Sea in a polished state and more or less on time, and even c) adding new Storynexus functionality and improving its performance.[/li]
[li]There are already a number of options for people interested in engaging more creatively with the setting: role-playing threads on the forum, the LiveJournal community, and social actions. Many players are happy to receive in character messages; some will reciprocate, or even like them enough to want to share them here or on IRC.[/li][/ol]
[color=#009900]Xaphedo: folks reacted in a baffled and slightly grumpy way, but please don’t be incivil. If this thread stays prickly, I’ll lock it.[/color][li]
Good lord, man! If my first google didn’t produce instantaneous results, I wasn’t going to exert myself further. I know that Google does a filter bubble based on our previous stuff, but nevertheless most of the info was things like this:
"Vorrei sapere in modo dettagliato come funziona perchè io non ci ho capito niente. Premetto che ho giocato poche volte a D&D in real però qualcosina la so. Mi basta anche solo un sito dove danno delle spiegazioni. Per capirci meglio…sono registrato ad un gdr online play by chat…sono entrato in una taverna…CHE DEVO FARE??? COSA DEVO SCRIVERE??? AIUTO!!!"
And due to my ignorance, I couldn’t tell more than ‘Italian’.
Your updated post is far clearer. I can see how it would appeal to some. I know for me, much of the appeal of FL is that it can be nibbled in miniscule chunks of time - while waiting for a large document to open on a slow computer, while fetching water from the fridge. Anything that required continuous attendance for more than ten minutes would certainly be difficult for sippers of game play like me - but perhaps not all.
You might have IP issues. Not just FB protecting copyright, but FB would need to show that it wasn’t an offshoot of their work in case it wasn’t the same standard, or in case there were quarrels in game, and it risked reflecting back badly on them. edited by babelfishwars on 12/17/2013
[quote=Xaphedo] Sara Hysaro: I’m not distracted by the fact that my neighbors meet in the person while I only send letters in order to communicate. Same thing. If you don’t use the service, you can just forget about it the second you know it exists. It’s not like it’s going to be forcefully implemented or advertised in the main game.[/quote]
You’d be distracted if they were meeting in your living room! Which is basically what I was imagining. :P If it’s just an offsite thing like the current RP community then it’s not a problem.
I dare to say I’m very fairly certain that if any people express a desire to freeform RP, they are most capable of finding a variety of places where they could do so, on their own, and that no special service needs to be made in order to accommodate them. Perhaps I’m wrong, perhaps not.
Well, I would argue that if you wanted FBG to act as moderators to this - you do realize they’re a team of about four people, right? They really don’t have resources to spare anywhere, much less to serve as GMs 24-7.
I still think we have ample opportunities to roleplay on the forums here; there’s no need to make it an in-game feature. It would be a cool thing, certainly, but the way things stand, I don’t think it’s feasible.
No, I don’t see why FBG should waste time on moderating this. It’s a jading and ungrateful work, trust me, and makes little to no sense to give them this burden. That’s not a problem though, since "rooms" have to be set up beforehand, and you would have to contact the players involved manually and actually invite them over.
Feasible? What real difficulties do you see there, exactly? I can do it no problem, given enough time and reason. Nobody else needs to be involved, if they don’t want to. It is feasible, if they allow it and a few players show some sort interest for it.[li] edited by Xaphedo on 12/17/2013
PS: Let’s be real: your opinion, the players’, is actually more important than their permission. I’m not spending a minute on this project until I know whether or not it can be done and will be used, of course.
[/li][li] edited by Xaphedo on 12/17/2013
[quote=Xaphedo]No, I don’t see why FBG should waste time on moderating this. It’s a jading and ungrateful work, trust me, and makes little to no sense to give them this burden. That’s not a problem though, since "rooms" have to be set up beforehand, and you would have to contact the players involved manually and actually invite them over.
Feasible? What real difficulties do you see there, exactly? I can do it no problem, given enough time and reason. Nobody else needs to be involved, if they don’t want to. It is feasible, if they allow it and a few players show some sort interest for it. [li] edited by Xaphedo on 12/17/2013[/quote]
I see. I confess, your emphasis on ‘this is a big and scary change’ implies that you fundamentally wanted to change Fallen London or the way it runs, because your OP isn’t terribly clear on what you want, even now.[/li] Even if you want FBG to get designated GMs, that causes problems. Where do these people fit on FBG’s ‘staff’? They’re doing work for them, and because it’s on the site, it’s… quasi-official, at least? It sounds like a full-time thing you’d need, even as a volunteer. And simply by having the option exist in-game, it becomes something that FBG themselves need to moderate - policing for players being uncivil and aggressive, making sure their GMs are acting in line, et cetera. It’s much simpler to just have roleplays be a separate thing that they don’t need to stick their fingers into.
[li]
Yes, building it in-game would be a mistake: I didn’t ever intended this to be the case. It’s what “unofficial” stays for. Every communication could be done via PMs in the forums, in-game, or other means who do not rely on the service itself. You will not need to moderate anything, it’s like having a local game of Minecraft with your friends.
It is plain simpler to stick with what we have. That harsher part, though, isn’t what you think it is. It’s just that I’ve got to write the code to make this real, no difficulties on anybody else’s part.
[quote=Xaphedo]No profit involved, no blood shed. Easy.
PS: Let’s be real: your opinion, the players’, is actually more important than their permission. I’m not spending a minute on this project until I know whether or not it can be done and will be used, of course.
edited by Xaphedo on 12/17/2013[/quote]
I would say the creators’ opinion is extremely important, as it is their game and setting. I think more important would be understanding what you are talking about.
You made this sound like a really big, crazy sweeping dramatic thing, but then you say it’s not that and it doesn’t officially involve the game at all and… I’m afraid I don’t understand what on earth you’re saying still.
People RP in various places all the time, it’s no big deal. I’m doing it right now, even. There’s a chatroom and a Tumblr thing and the forums and a Livejournal community. I don’t understand why you have a lengthy, complicated, dramatic proposal for what seems to be just that? I mean, I surely must be missing something, and there must be more to it considering how much… much you have written on it.
I know it’s not exactly what you want, but I’m going to say one more time that right now the right way to go about this is to just start doing it, which probably means recruiting people in the forums.
Even if this is a long way from your ultimate goal, it’s probably going to be a lot easier to get Alexis and FBG on board if you can show you have an interested audience and a service run by them that isn’t costing FBG money or manpower. It’s a lot easier to say “Hey, Alexis, we’ve got this great community of play-by-chat players and we were wondering if the official site could link to us so more people can find it!” than it is to pitch this idea out of the blue.
If you’re just looking for interested players, I’d start with the existing Fallen London RP communities. Obviously they’re all play-by-post rather than play-by-chat, but you’re more likely to get interest from people already predisposed to roleplaying than the playerbase in general. There’s the Mr Pages’ Fabularities forum here, and some blog-centered ones on Tumblr and Livejournal.
You might also take a look at the IRC channel some folks have already set up. It may be possible to just set up a new channel on the same network to both have the infrastructure work done for you and use something that some people would already be familiar with.
(If I were doing this, the way I’d start the conversation would be “Hey, here’s this thing I want to do; who’d be interested?” You don’t need the approval of the playerbase, and assuming this falls under the fan project policy you don’t need any additional approval from Failbetter either.)
I was not looking for approval, but opinion and advice. And you gave me plenty! Really, delicious eggs - I mean - friends, thank you :)
One last thing, MidnightVoyager: being able to interact via randomized ability checks using your own items in a way which is integrated in the mechanics of the roleplay themselves feels incredibly lively and it’s no comparison to plain interpretation. Only once you try you’ll understand how different it is, whether you’ll like the difference or not.
Btw, I can’t make a play-by-chat without the Masters’ permission. I would need access to players’ stats, which I believe are locked away. So yep, I could convince people it’s a good idea, but I can’t start until I can start. edited by Xaphedo on 12/17/2013
[quote=Xaphedo]I was not looking for approval, but opinion and advice. And you gave me plenty! Really, delicious eggs - I mean - friends, thank you :)
One last thing, MidnightVoyager: being able to interact via randomized ability checks using your own items in a way which is integrated in the mechanics of the roleplay themselves feels incredibly lively and it’s no comparison to plain interpretation. Only once you try you’ll understand how different it is, whether you’ll like the difference or not.
edited by Xaphedo on 12/17/2013[/quote]
Oh. Well, I think I understand now, and I’m afraid I’m not interested, sorry. I play a character who is fairly inept in society/social situations, yet her stats are maxed in Persuasive. I play the game quite differently from how I’d play a character.
Now that I think about it, that would potentially require a lot of awkward-to-get-permission-for hooking in to the game. You would DEFINITELY need permission for something like that. Their rules don’t even allow for scripts that let you have an outfit-change shortcut. edited by MidnightVoyager on 12/17/2013
If it’s a matter of accessing somebody’s stats couldn’t you just have a place where people can record and update them? I’d like to think that people interested in this would be honest about their stats and qualities.