Best Of

ElrynGreythane said:

Enya said:

Is the idea to actually have players engage with the game for longer and get immersed, or is it  to push bodies to be logged in so that mudconnector stats for active players go up?

I don't think currency reward systems like this can or should be linked to immersion.

I'm fairly sure we agree on this. I mostly used "immersion" to follow up on what @Coraline posted when what I really was talking about is engagement with the game.

It doesn't make sense to, when designing participation rewards like this, tie your own hands with a limited idea of what would be "immersive" in the sense of "consistent with the game lore to your character". It's a player-facing mechanic, not a character-facing one. However, it's generally ideal to not disrupt immersion and I'm pretty certain one of the goals of pushing people to be logged on longer is that they'll engage with the game and continue playing into the future.

It would be absurd if this system is calibrated so that a whale who’s pumped untold time and energy and money into the game must take two hours to earn 20cr. Heck, let the ticks accrue for various activities as they stand now, let the most experienced and kitted out players finish their activities in 40 minutes, and then award the 20 credits after two hours of time logged in outside a manse if that time goal is so important.

I feel like it would be a better idea for dailycredits to reward immersion in the game - interacting with other players, helping newbies, exploring areas/doing new quests, than have the goal be for players to spend a minimum time logged in doing things that can (sometimes) feel like a chore.

A couple random thoughts:

I really think there should be a daily credit tick rewarded for submitting a design or a book or similar, though it should be limited to once a day, so the person would still have to do lots of other things if they wanted to hit their cap.

I also think Divines/ephs/other administrative people should have the ability to give out a daily credit tick for meaningful roleplay that they're part of or observe. I know that this wouldn't really be a reliable or consistent way for people to earn them, but I really can't think of a better way to reward roleplay.

I'm not sure it's good for someone to do the same set of quests every day for their credits, especially when with some quests that can lock people out from having the chance to do them. Maybe have quests give reduced rewards if they're in the last x number of quests you've completed, or if you've done it in the last x number of days.

I also agree with Xenthos that it's not really the best idea to balance everything around outlier players, because the resulting system could be very harsh on people with fewer artifacts, scripts, and experience. 

I don't know that I'm a fan of punishing people for being good at what they do. If Xenthos can get his 2 hour allotment of credits in 40 minutes, so be it. He's gonna be logged in for those two hours anyway.

I have to wonder why so many orgcredit level things don't give dailycredits as well. What's the reasoning there? If I spend an hour backstage performing a play, shouldn't that be 10crs right there, for playing the game? If I submit a book, shouldn't I get dailycredits because I would have to have spent time writing it ( and 2 hours is nothing on writing a story)? Psychodrama seems largely ignored until Roarkian, where its a mad scramble of throwing games to get the top 3 spots. Why not make non-tournament play (or all forms of play!) give a daily credit per game, even if it's capped? Why say "you have to play this game for 2 hours!" but then only reward certain avenues of playing, which makes it harder to do the other ones because omg I don't have time to write cool stories today because I have to run around collecting cows for 2 hours?

Kyalrhin looks like she could destroy me with a look. I love their poses and attitudes.

Yeah when I login with the intention of getting daily credits, I don't just get them and log off immediately. The grindier the daily ones are, the more frustrating it is for me when I want to also spend time in game doing things like designing, talking to other people etc. Just because I take less than 2 hours (sometimes) for dailies doesn't mean I don't spend 2 hours in game. In my case, if I have to put up defences to do things (like daily credits tend to do) I tend to stay online longer.

I'm with @Xenthos; add more activities that don't make it quite so much a grind and as others have indicated, add things that support playing the game a bit more broadly and build the community of the game, rather than heads down and often siloed activities. 

My only point with the 2 hour suggestion is that if that is and has to be a primary objective, then just make it explicit in the mechanics, which it is not right now.