RPXP and "the first player on/ alone"

dergon darkhelm · Post by **dergon darkhelm** » Wed May 21, 2008 1:55 pm

So for just about the first time since live I am currently logged on to TSM alone.
For those of you who knew my behavior in NWN1 I was one a few people who tended to log on before everyone else (along with iorbil and a few others) and just kind of hang around until the server picked up.

I would walk from place to place, pseudoafk, window shop, afk while I perused the forums, walk about some more and generally kill time ingame until the server picked up.

I always assumed the "someone has to be the first" mentality.

In NWN1 ALFA this was no big deal since there was no PC beneift to just logging in.

Now with the RPXP scripts firing away I begin to wonder if there is an accepted protocol here? Is it bad form?

What do you all think?

SwordSaintMusashi · Post by **SwordSaintMusashi** » Wed May 21, 2008 1:59 pm

I don't see it as an issue. Someone has to be on for others to get on, after all. And the script kicks off after a certain amount of inactivity anyway. So long as someone isn't logging on consistantly and spamming random emotes to trigger the rp script and hog up the exp, I don't see how this would be a problem.

Brokenbone · Post by **Brokenbone** » Wed May 21, 2008 2:28 pm

If you feel something is too good to be true, i.e., a funky side effect of your play patterns makes you feel guilty about something, communicate with your DMs. Threads like this help, PMs though are perfectly good too.

Maybe you and they will agree something is off and do adjustments of some sort (change a throttle somewhere on an individual? consider in future DM XP awards?). Maybe it'll be looked at as peanuts, but "thanks for letting us know" kind of thing. Also means it can be communicated within a team, such that they all end up supporting the same view (as opposed to five DMs being cool with it, and one freaked out at your TERRIFYING EXPLOITS THAT YOU NEVER DISCLOSED!!!).

Honesty and good open communications are known DM bait, by the way

fluffmonster · Post by **fluffmonster** » Wed May 21, 2008 2:54 pm

I thought that this was exactly why rpxp award is as low as it is...so it would never be an abuse concern and nobody had to sweat it.

psycho_leo · Post by **psycho_leo** » Wed May 21, 2008 2:59 pm

fluffmonster wrote:I thought that this was exactly why rpxp award is as low as it is...so it would never be an abuse concern and nobody had to sweat it.

That was my thought as well, but not long ago there were folks freaking out about "ZOMG they're exploting XP scripts".

Mord · Post by **Mord** » Wed May 21, 2008 4:04 pm

Someone's already being accused of farming the XP scripts, mind you.

Mikayla · Post by **Mikayla** » Wed May 21, 2008 4:48 pm

fluff:

I thought that this was exactly why rpxp award is as low as it is...so it would never be an abuse concern and nobody had to sweat it.

+1000.

That was the whole point of the low rate right? It was so low that it could not be abused, so no one ever had to worry about it.

JaydeMoon · Post by **JaydeMoon** » Wed May 21, 2008 4:55 pm

In ALFA? NEVER!!!

MorbidKate · Post by **MorbidKate** » Wed May 21, 2008 5:17 pm

psycho_leo wrote:
fluffmonster wrote:I thought that this was exactly why rpxp award is as low as it is...so it would never be an abuse concern and nobody had to sweat it.
That was my thought as well, but not long ago there were folks freaking out about "ZOMG they're exploting XP scripts".

If a player is interacting, actually moving about, checking shops, emoting with NPCs while they wait for other players to come on I see no problem with it whatsoever. IF a player is intentionally AFK bumping their character solely to keep the RP timer running while they are out of the game doing other things when that's exploiting the script. I see no comparison because the intent is clear.

Kate

Rick7475 · Post by **Rick7475** » Wed May 21, 2008 5:22 pm

Over the years in ALFA I have come to learn that know matter what exp you get through statics, what exp you get from a DM, or what exp you earn by RP'ing, you will always be accused of getting too much.

MorbidKate · Post by **MorbidKate** » Wed May 21, 2008 5:29 pm

Rick7475 wrote:Over the years in ALFA I have come to learn that know matter what exp you get through statics, what exp you get from a DM, or what exp you earn by RP'ing, you will always be accused of getting too much.

Hmm,

Difference there of course is that the player was at least in game and actually doing stuff

Kate

AcadiusLost · Post by **AcadiusLost** » Wed May 21, 2008 5:39 pm

I'd certainly contend that the gain rate makes it pretty much a non-issue. Of course, I'd also say it's in quite poor taste to check the clock and fire off a *yawns* emote every 6.5 minutes to make sure the RP ticks accumulate. If you're AFK, hit the AFK flag and leave the keyboard alone. If you're ingame doing stuff, that's earning your RPXP trickle.

I'd actually be in favor of removing the "Increment" messages now that we've got the bugs out of the system, they were always intended to be a debugging tool, and I think they do apply a subtle psychological pressure to make sure you minimize the dreaded "no increment: inactive".

JaydeMoon · Post by **JaydeMoon** » Wed May 21, 2008 5:40 pm

Rick, during all that time you spent DMing on DF, you got too much XP!

DD, sounds like you're fine. I'd query your DM team directly, though.

psycho_leo · Post by **psycho_leo** » Wed May 21, 2008 5:51 pm

MorbidKate wrote:
Rick7475 wrote:Over the years in ALFA I have come to learn that know matter what exp you get through statics, what exp you get from a DM, or what exp you earn by RP'ing, you will always be accused of getting too much.
Hmm,

Difference there of course is that the player was at least in game and actually doing stuff

Kate

You misunderstand me here. By all means if someone is really logging in and doing nothing, but emoting some idiotic sh*t every 5 minutes to get some XP, by all means punish. But the whole point of the low gain rate was that we wouldn't have to worry about policing, as the gain would be neglegible (especially as players lvl up). But one month after live we have a thread with people freaking out and claiming the scripts might be pulled over this.

MorbidKate · Post by **MorbidKate** » Wed May 21, 2008 7:03 pm

psycho_leo wrote:You misunderstand me here. By all means if someone is really logging in and doing nothing, but emoting some idiotic sh*t every 5 minutes to get some XP, by all means punish. But the whole point of the low gain rate was that we wouldn't have to worry about policing, as the gain would be neglegible (especially as players lvl up). But one month after live we have a thread with people freaking out and claiming the scripts might be pulled over this.

Gotcha.

I think AFK bumping is the only situation where I could see a problem with RP XP and that's easily resolved by taking action against the few that might attempt to exploit the server. The concern that something might happen to the script is a valid one however as in the past we've seen action taken that negatively affected everyone when attempting to deal with the few. ALs response here should calm any of those concerns.

So long as a player is truly in-game and interacting, even alone there should be no issues over RP XP whatsoever. Heck, that's one of it's main benefits... keeping players on the server until others log in.

Kate