General Plea - Be Searchable

[pidcocjn]

Maybe there needs to be incentive to be searchable... *Rubs chin*. No vitality regeneration if your searchable is off?

Really. Bad. Idea.

Just because someone has searchable off, doesn't mean they AREN'T RPing. It could mean that they're RPing something private that they don't want people snooping in on, or running into either of the two characters just by some crazy random happenstance.

There should be no incentive to be searchable. If you're looking for RP, go out and bloody look for someone to RP with.

[Standur]

Really. Bad. Idea.

Just because someone has searchable off, doesn't mean they AREN'T RPing. It could mean that they're RPing something private that they don't want people snooping in on, or running into either of the two characters just by some crazy random happenstance.

There should be no incentive to be searchable. If you're looking for RP, go out and bloody look for someone to RP with.

I like the idea. Nothing wrong with turning searchable off for good reason but it is my belief, for the sake of the server, if you are in a public area you really ought to have the search function turned on most of the time.

[Urithrand]

Really. Bad. Idea.

Just because someone has searchable off, doesn't mean they AREN'T RPing. It could mean that they're RPing something private that they don't want people snooping in on, or running into either of the two characters just by some crazy random happenstance.

There should be no incentive to be searchable. If you're looking for RP, go out and bloody look for someone to RP with.

This is (other than being somewhat over-excitable) not a reason not to impose a penalty on not being searchable. Plus it's not like no vitality regen is going to cripple anyone unless they're in the habit of dying a lot. People who allow themselves to be open for RP and enriching the server with their presence should have some small benefit over those who are either doing something private or doing something they shouldn't be.

The only time I ever have searchable toggled off is when I've run out of things to do, I can't find anyone to RP with, so I resort to going solo grinding somewhere and it would be dangerous to be seen with undead all over the place. At those times, I would have no problem with having no vitality regen, because I know I'm not doing anything that creates a better server, I'm just doing something for me.

[Satoshi]

I don't like the searchable function, and I don't want 'incentive' to use it against my will. There's locate creature spells in-game already, and non-detection to further thwart that. It's fine the way it is.

[pidcocjn]

This is (other than being somewhat over-excitable) not a reason not to impose a penalty on not being searchable. Plus it's not like no vitality regen is going to cripple anyone unless they're in the habit of dying a lot.

Right. But penalizing people so players can easily find someone to RP with is bad. It's probably not going to cripple most people, but the fact that this would impact only a small number of characters doesn't magically make it a good, or acceptable, idea.

People who allow themselves to be open for RP and enriching the server with their presence should have some small benefit over those who are either doing something private or doing something they shouldn't be.

Just because someone is or isn't searchable doesn't mean they are/are not open for RP. If I'm doing something that I only want one or two PCs to know, I'm going to toggle searchable off. Not because I don't want to RP with other people, but because I want characters to have to search hard to find my character. Characters should not be penalized for wanting to have a private conversation or any other reason the player may have for being unsearchable, even if the penalty is minor to most.

Besides, whatever happened to good old fashioned tells? If you're really looking to RP, send one out! At least then you'd have OOC consent to drop in on someone.

[Standur]

I don't like the searchable function, and I don't want 'incentive' to use it against my will. There's locate creature spells in-game already, and non-detection to further thwart that. It's fine the way it is.

This is a serious question, I am not poking you with a stick, how many classes can use the locate creature spell?

[GodBeastX]

I don't think the issue is people turn searching off, I think the problem is it never goes on again. The point of the function is what I call "Positive Metagaming". Think of it like this:

When you play Pen & Paper, you're a group, you came together through positive metagaming to tend to always be a group. It's cleverly hidden by your DM but it's the case. Now how wierd would it be for you to get with your friends and one refuses to interact their character with the rest of the group?

There's, of course, two sides to the coin. You're chilling in your thief den, you have search on, and two people are online. The other player sees "Someone is in the thief den" OOPS! That guy is a villainous thief! That was the purpose of turning it off, so you could effectively be somewhere hidden and people couldn't use it to find you, or you're a wanted criminal and people can't just look you up to find you.

Servers do get boring when you can't find people though, and that's the bottom line. As much as people want to wave their hands at charts and graphs and point out how realistic it is to be unable to be found and off by yourself, at the end of the day I only need to point out how horrid the player count was when we got rid of the camp fire in Exigo to backup anything I say on this front.

Gathering together encourages DMs, it encourages players, it encourages community, it encourages all the positive aspects of people playing NWN2 over Skyrim.

As for vitality, I just crapped that idea out in 2 seconds of consideration, but the point is still the same. I want people to turn on the function when they can. Even conflicts encourage RP.

And locate creature bugs me because it doesn't work like it should to be taken IC for me. I never liked it's implementation, and it's as annoying as sending to me, although sending for different reasons. Sending is like IC telepathy to me without limitations and gives no opportunity for people to interact.

For example, I've ran events where I setup a choice for players to go through character growth through real challenges, and they opt to cast sending and get other players to instantly arrive and alleviate any idea of challenge.

I completely sympathize with both people though, don't get me wrong. I've come from servers with the search where it was abused for things like trolling, retarded activities to ruin special moments, and such. I'd like to strike some sort of balance between both people. Maybe some "public" or "High traffic" areas you're always findable?

[Dragor]

Going so far as to start penalizing people is a bit drastic in my book, especially with something as completely irrelevant as being searchable. The only time anyone has ever searched me out with it was when I was already in an area partied up or soloing, so they could join in or interfere. I have never had someone use it to find me for RP sake alone.

If you want to make it unavoidable that people should run into each other get rid of world map transitions, dont punish people who would rather sit around by themselves not doing anything.

[GodBeastX]

Going so far as to start penalizing people is a bit drastic in my book, especially with something as completely irrelevant as being searchable. The only time anyone has ever searched me out with it was when I was already in an area partied up or soloing, so they could join in or interfere. I have never had someone use it to find me for RP sake alone.

If you want to make it unavoidable that people should run into each other get rid of world map transitions, dont punish people who would rather sit around by themselves not doing anything.

That's a bit one-sided on the view. You don't know people are looking for you. They may not even know they're looking for you. They see "A group is at xyz" and show up, probably not even aware who the group is. If someone is looking for you specifically to rain on your parade, that's probably a small amount of people if any at all.

[Dragor]

That's a bit one-sided on the view. You don't know people are looking for you. They may not even know they're looking for you. They see "A group is at xyz" and show up, probably not even aware who the group is. If someone is looking for you specifically to rain on your parade, that's probably a small amount of people if any at all.

Weather they were looking for me or a group for nefarious purposes or not I don't know as you say, but the scenario I laid out is what happens when I have searchable on.

I chose poor wording for my arguement by the way I used the word me, and I apologize.

[GodBeastX]

Just report idiots, it's a lot less hassle for developers to just smack someone in the face than to code tons of systems to account for them.

Trolls can go back under their bridges.

[Tamha]

Xal and I use the search function to find people to RP with all the time. We rarely turn off our own searchables, and since we usually RP together, we always show as a few people, so it's usually easy to tell where we are (or if we're afk posting on the boards or wiki or tending the baby because we aren't in the world at large).

Heck, we frequently don't even think to turn it off when we do go into faction areas because most of the time we'd rather have the conflict RP than have none. We've even gone into faction areas knowing that there was someone patrolling there, and most of the time those scenes were way to cool to have missed out on.

Granted, sometimes when I'm tired I wish I'd have thought to turn searchable off, but it probably wouldn't have helped as those PC's do the rounds whether someone is searchable there or not.

[Snowmane]

I like the searchable system as currently implemented and, if we are voting, I say leave it as is.

[Satoshi]

This is a serious question, I am not poking you with a stick, how many classes can use the locate creature spell?

Wizards, bards, and sorcerers without UMD and anyone with a high-ish UMD (lower level rogue or warlock, high level invested UMDer). However, any item can be made accessible to any class with a quick additions of [Usable By:]. There are scrolls of Barkskin that can be used by almost anyone on the server without UMD currently, for example. You could also do like my favorite drow rogue of all time ever (Vichtor) did back in the day: send a tell to people that you are tracking people, set them hostile, and use the track function across areas. It's not as effective as Locate, but it works if you have good tracking skills (Survival) and it's a lot more IC than the magical search function.

[GodBeastX]

The more I think about it the more I like the idea of searching for players being limited to public areas like camp fires or quest hubs (Like right before sharahan hills) and not be toggled. Finding people in places meant to find other people I can't see a problem with.

However, I can't really see a positive reason for knowing somebody is in another area unless you want to be courteous and not run a dungeon someone else is running.

Public areas that come to mind:

Second Wind
Crossroads
Gate of Sunderer
Sundren City districts (Not inside places)
Other Taverns?

Thoughts? Then the idea is, if you don't want to be found, don't be anywhere with high traffic/public.