MMORPG Parental Care

[aliptah]

Here it is the idea:
http://idiki.dyne.org/wiki/MMORPG_Parental_Care

^_^

[Father Sengus]

Well, I think your idea is great and can guarantee you that it will be implemented in PS very soon It will be in the form of an individual organisation though, so nothing \"official\".

[Draklar]

Hmm... Many problems there, really.

1) One could take several new players under his guidance, then do nothing and wait for them to level to give him experience points.
2) \"Distribution\" of players would be really messy. Problems would arise, such as differences in time zones.
3) No general level based advancement in Planeshift. So what should it be replaced with?
4) Chance that a good quality new player would fall into hands of not so high quality experienced one.

[Father Sengus]

Well, out of the four problems you brought up, there is only one that can be seen as even a slight problem in The Shelter, the organisation I referred to in my previous post.

1) One could take several new players under his guidance, then do nothing and wait for them to level to give him experience points.

New players are handed to teacher\'s by a person whose role is to supervise the students\' education, so there is no way for teachers to get \"greedy\".
More importantly, there is no reward for teachers who decide to help, other than knowing that they have done a good deed and contributed to the roleplaying in PS.

2) \"Distribution\" of players would be really messy. Problems would arise, such as differences in time zones.

This is the point I meant could be a slight problem, though I don\'t think it is anything we can\'t handle. We have teachers from different timezones that are all dedicated to the game and can find the time to be with their student-s.

3) No general level based advancement in Planeshift. So what should it be replaced with?

Even if there was a level based advancement system in PS, we wouldn\'t make use of it to decide whether a student is ready or not. The teaching is not about leveling (though students will get some RP:ed training in the skills of their choice).
Graduation will be reached when students show that they have aquired knowledge about the PS world, built up a character, and know how to behave OOC as well as IC. Roleplaying is the essence of the Shelter...

4) Chance that a good quality new player would fall into hands of not so high quality experienced one.

I wouldn\'t worry about that one.

Thanx for getting me thinking a little more about the time zones problem...

[Draklar]

Originally posted by Father Sengus
New players are handed to teacher\'s by a person whose role is to supervise the students\' education, so there is no way for teachers to get \"greedy\".
More importantly, there is no reward for teachers who decide to help, other than knowing that they have done a good deed and contributed to the roleplaying in PS. :)

That doesn\'t sound quite possible. How would you get trusted people that would take care of distribution for all the characters? We have almost 170000 accounts in Planeshift so far. To that we have to add many accounts hold multiple characters. Each new player would have to be introduced to the teacher and in the end that would take an insane ammount of time. Because of that all other problems stand up as well.

And the reward I mentioned is specifically mentioned in that link...

[Father Sengus]

Well, no.
We never said we would take care of every newbie out there. That would really be too big a project, and far too optimistic.
We\'ve even decided that, to begin with, each teacher (5 total) will only be allowed to have 2 students at a time, just to make sure that things work out ok.
Anybody who believes he can handle all newbies at once is doomed to fail.

How would you get trusted people that would take care of distribution for all the characters?

I had some trouble finding 5, so I know what you mean...

And the reward I mentioned is specifically mentioned in that link...

Yeah, I know

[Draklar]

Well I\'m still commenting the general idea, not individual ambitions ;)
For the latter it\'s okay, but if you want to make it global, the best idea would be to allow it for all the players... And that would be a problem.

[aliptah]

It should be made automatic.
When a new player has to determine his character\'s parentage, he can  
choose his parents from a list. In the list there are all the players which
are willing to be parents.
A parent can have maximum 5 children?
It isn\'t necessary to have exactly two parents, the player can choose between one or ?four? parents.
The list of  parents should take in cosideration the time zones.

With the MMORPG Parental Care a player can also write his \"real\" character\'s childhood experiences.

It isn\'t easy to do implement it, by it is possible, it needs just a bit of code

Note that we can expand and improve the original idea.

PS: Planeshift is just great, I hope to jump in asap, but in these days I can\'t ;/

[zanzibar]

Originally posted by aliptah
Here it is the idea:
http://idiki.dyne.org/wiki/MMORPG_Parental_Care

^_^

I read the first few sentences.  I don\'t like it.

I think that if people are going to help eachother, they should do so willingly.  Do it for RP reasons, do it because you\'re a nice person, or do it becuase you have the capacity to do it.  If people are forced to do it, or if they use it as a way to powerlevel, bad things will happen.

[Izzy*dot]

Hmmh...I read all of it, and I must say I don\'t really like the idea myself too...

Well it\'s not my call on this one, Sengus sounds pretty determined But...Aliptah, I hear you saying something about: it should be made automatic...

I sure do hope you don\'t mean that new people should not be given the CHOICE for parents, because then you\'ll get me on my horse, aye?  )

If they don\'t want to, they don\'t.

[aliptah]

Yes, It should be automatic, but I forgot to say that you end up in the list of parents only if you accept to do it.
We need an option that can be activated or not.

From this discussion on the other in Planeshift the idea has been updated, take a look at it:
http://idiki.dyne.org/wiki/MMORPG_Parental_Care

For example:
The newbie could rate their childhood experience, determining the proportion of shared XP. The sum of all ratings multiplied by the XP of each parented player yields a rating for the experienced player\'s quality as a parent.

[zanzibar]

Originally posted by aliptah
Yes, It should be automatic, but I forgot to say that you end up in the list of parents only if you accept to do it.
We need an option that can be activated or not.

That kind of interferes with RP.... it removes the chance for areas of grey, for spontaneous changes and decisions, for the character of someone to be a mystery and something to be discovered.

It seems like its essentially labelling someone as either A or B in a way which is disempowering and removes colour from the game.

[aliptah]

Well, in the real world you activate your \"parent option\" when you make love without protections. In this sense you are marked A=\"potential parent\".

The children can also decide to run away from home, even if then they have a small chance of survival.

In the end you have just one more option to play.


PS: the idea in idiki is constantly updated from these discussions, so we don\'t lose the track:
http://idiki.dyne.org/wiki/MMORPG_Parental_Care

[Izzy*dot]

Yeah, but I meant, the NEWBIE himself should have the choice too wether he wants parents or not.
Not only the parents should have the choice of being one, the new person him/herself should have a choice too. You can\'t make a person do such a thing if they don\'t want to.

[Karyuu]

Newbie doesn\'t immediately mean child, in-game. I hope I\'m just misreading.. :) Otherwise I\'m getting that every new player would immediately be stuck into a certain age, not of their choosing.