Location Descriptions

[Wolfsong]

Short but sweet: I'm loving character descriptions, but I'd kill for location descriptions. The safest way I can think of doing it would require some moderate to considerable oversight staff-side, which I will present below, and following that I'll describe the cheapest and dirtiest ways I can think of. First:

Safe:

In the location tab, the first thing you typically see is: Happy Town: DESCRIPTION, and a list of resources following. What if between that "Happy Town: Description" and "x out of y resource slots are used" there was an actual description, followed by a small link that said something similar to "update/change current description." This would take you to an editor where you could add in a new town description. This description would then be logged and require approval from a member of staff, afterwhich it would be automatically added to that location. Such as:

Happy Town: DESCRIPTION

This small town sits on the coast, and is surrounded on all sides by vast, rolling plains of saw grass and marsh. Wild barley grows in the salt swamps to the northeast outside of town, while a large stone quarry has been set up on the southern outskirts of the town itself, which is a single main street from which several smaller alleys branch, surrounded by a variety of buildings. The largest building, which sits at the end of the main street, is a large stone manor. A smaller building sits near it, the guard office, and is old and battered and made from stout timber. Behind the stone manor lies a small graveyard. Currently, many of the buildings are neglected and falling into a state of disrepair.

1 of 5 resource slots are used.

The "cheap and dirty" method would function similar to the above, with one change - instead of requiring staff approval, anyone could edit the description. Each updated description would be logged, however, and players abusing this right could face penalties, or lose the ability to set descriptions.

Anyway - I'd kill for this because it would encourage people to RP a town as something more than a dot with buildings and resources that magically pop out of the ground or the air.

[Doug R.]

I really like this in concept, the problem lies in the practice. I agree that descriptions will need staff approval, but I also think that it should be the residents that have the say in the description. I don't want a system where any griefing newspawn can come and change it.

Perhaps the best way would be for players to get together OOC and discuss it, and then come to an agreement, which is then submitted and approved by staff. The description would then be semi-permanent. Perhaps there could be a button to initiate a change, but said change would need to be approved through the same process as the original (with minor changes being streamlined). A new section on the forum could be set up just for this, and perhaps programming could include a way to message all characters in a certain town to notify them of the pending change discussion.

On major problem will be continuity of the ecosystem. If two adjacent towns have a major difference of opinion in what their world looks like, there could be problems. It would be staff's responsibility to monitor that.

[Wolfsong]

I really like this in concept, the problem lies in the practice. I agree that descriptions will need staff approval, but I also think that it should be the residents that have the say in the description. I don't want a system where any griefing newspawn can come and change it.

Ideally, requiring staff approval would negate "griefing newspawn" from being able to change descriptions willy nilly - it'd essentially include old description side-by-side with the proposed new description, and if they radically differ (evidencing trolling or griefing) then staff could simply not approve it, but reject it.

Perhaps the best way would be for players to get together OOC and discuss it, and then come to an agreement, which is then submitted and approved by staff. The description would then be semi-permanent. Perhaps there could be a button to initiate a change, but said change would need to be approved through the same process as the original (with minor changes being streamlined).

Yup, pretty much.

A new section on the forum could be set up just for this, and perhaps programming could include a way to message all characters in a certain town to notify them of the pending change discussion.

I'm leery about bringing forum use into this - mostly because a lot of people (myself sometimes included) don't use the forums, and it would require heaps of moderation and shatter a lot of the IC/OOC divide. It should be possible to implement this change without setting up new forums. As for messaging all characters in a certain town - see NEW IDEA, below.

On major problem will be continuity of the ecosystem. If two adjacent towns have a major difference of opinion in what their world looks like, there could be problems. It would be staff's responsibility to monitor that.

Correct, it'd be staff's responsibility to monitor wonky descriptions - or, if not staff, then a select group of people hired on to sift through proposed description changes, alterations and edits.

NEW IDEA

Not really a new idea - but a variation of the "requires staff approval" - essentially, in lieu of requiring staff approval, or in addition to, create an automated process that allows people currently in a town to "vote" on new descriptions, aka, when a description is changed, send an OOC message to the accounts of people within the region that has had the description altered. It'd function a lot like staff messages do currently, showing up above the character list, and could be removed. It'd look something like:

The location description of the area your character, Tony Tinkertoes, is currently in has changed. (2011-02-26)

Then give people the ability to thumbs up or thumbs down the changed description. If there is a clear majority against the new description, it will be rejected.

Of course, this assumes that all people within that town will be responsible and unbiased, which is sort of laughable. I still prefer the staff approval method myself, but I'm not sure how robust current staff are, or how heavily tasked they may be already, so that may not work so well either.

[Doug R.]

I thought about an in-game voting system, but it has two crippling flaws:

1) Not everyone in the town lives there, and as such should have less or no say in the matter.
2) Not everyone that lives in the town is there at any given time, and these people should have a say in the matter.

That's why I suggested using the forum. Moderating these threads would be a trivial matter - I live on this forum and read every English language post.

[Wolfsong]

How would the forum solution work, exactly? Would there be a single forum, and would people post there in separate topics requesting updated descriptions, would they PM moderators with those descriptions, etc.?

[Doug R.]

I envision it as follows:

An automated location description request comes in. A mod then makes a thread in the forum dedicated to this purpose. Players can discuss it there and come to a consensus. Staff would then upload the description into the game (they can edit the original request before submission).

[Piscator]

Couldn't we have a kind of OOC "bulletin board" in every town, where anyone can post a description and vote for other peoples descriptions? The most popular description would be shown as the default description (the other descriptions would be visible through the voting interface). Descriptions with negative votes could be automatically deleted after a while.

[Doug R.]

But again, that doesn't address the two problems I cited, nor does it lend any permanence to the description. If the place is surrounded by maples, it shouldn't be changed to oaks once all the original residents die off.

[Piscator]

Well, I would see a location description more as an aid to your imagination. The physical properties of a place are already pretty well defined, so a location description would basically sum up all these facts and put it in a nicely readable form. We wouldn't have to take the content as absolute truth, but rather as an interpretation. This sounds admittedly a bit wishy washy though.