Recall - Controversial Idea!

[Virisin]

I know I've written an idea like this somewhere before, must have been on the old forum. But I can't remember the answer I got to it, and I think I've improved on the idea again.

This might be kinda confusing to follow, because it's a kinda strange idea, but bear (bear or bare?) with me.

I want to remove the whole recall area from the mud setting itself. I want player characters to ALWAYS be either in one of the dimensions, in their house set in one of the dimensions, or in their clans set in one of the dimensions.

I know recall is the sweetest socialising point, so here's the compromise:

If you type 'recall', you leave your body where it is, and become a spirit or something in the recall area, so you can sit at recall if you want, or you can look at all the important information around recall.. But your body is still out in the game, so you'd want to leave it in a !peaceful room if you were a PKer. I think it'd make the game more IC sort of, and it'd work well for when clans are set into the game. And it'd encourage less sitting at recall. People could go out, explore, then just 'recall' to take a break for a bit, before typing something like, 'return' and taking over their body again.

I also think, seeing as this would make it harder to move from dimension to dimension, it'd be awesome to add in more unique time traps. Every crash/reboot/copyover a hundred or so time traps are randomly generated and scattered around the mud, with exits to other dimensions.

I'm going to keep editting this as I think more about the idea, but give me your thoughts on it as well. I really think the idea could give the game a lot more atmosphere.

[Natalya B.]

I didnt read past this point, cause I havent slept, Ive had too much coffee, and Im doing 50 things at once.

But.. virisin.. for the first time ever.. i love you.

"I want to remove the whole recall area from the mud setting itself. I want player characters to ALWAYS be either in one of the dimensions, in their house set in one of the dimensions, or in their clans set in one of the dimensions.".


AGREED, GOD DAMNIT.

I've been quietly saying that for a year or two now.


*cheers this idea on*

Sadly though, Im not sure if itd work too well. We dont have a big playerbase.

Id still dearly love to see this happen. God how I'd love to see it happen. So much more realistic...



[EDIT] *quickly scans over the rest*.. not so hot on the spirit idea. I'd rather people find their own new socializing spots in dimensions. Sit under trees and chat, or find cool caves to sit in. On dragonrealms, the massive mud I USED to play, I used to go off and find secret little spots that I'd sit in that were so cool. I've -always- wanted that in 4d.

Liking the timetraps idea, but I'd like some more "permanent" known ways to get through dimensions too. If not some kind of device, spell, parchment, i dont know, something, or at least set teleporting gates in each dimension...

[Virisin]

Well, recall as a meeting point has it's benefits because of all the rooms attached. We can't exactly remove all the info on builders/clans/everything.. And yeah, we don't have a massive playerbase so expecting everyone to chill under the oak tree in Yorke is a bit too much.

I think the idea of removing recall and all the surrounding rooms completely is a big no-no for most players, and even I'd hate to see the Hall of Fame and stuff removed.. So I came up with the compromise. Now, I'm not sure about the 'spirit' idea either, I just wanted people to have a chance to go chill at recall if they wanted, but still have their bodies out in the open. Call it what you want..

Also yeah, we'd want a lot more permanent time traps. Builders/zones these days seem to always forget to add in timetraps to random other places in time. 4d is afterall, set after a nuclear war.. I'd like at least 100 more permanent time traps added so people COULD move between dimensions without much difficulty, because I dislike the idea of being set to a dimension, but it'd also be cool if random time traps would load at completely random spots with completely random destinations every crash/reboot/copyover just to keep things interesting.

It'd also make recall items to zones more beneficial, these days most zones just come with a quest for a recall item, and it's kinda unneccessary for a lot of them. Because it's just as easy to set an alias to go to recall and speedwalk to the zone.

[Kvetch]

I was trying to figure out how to word this before I wrote it down.  My thoughts are: I agree with you on this.  Anyone who's heard me lately has heard me complain about recall squatting (even in the RP event I did it through characters - gotta love me).  The recall area is very useful for new players.  It gives them a lot of information, but after you've seen the "information rooms" millions of times, it's not needed.  What is *needed* is the recall board (and the token machine/quest machine) which it seems those could be set somewhere in each dimension.  For example, in Yorke, the recall board could be in the library, the quest machine in the Jailor's office, the token machine in the bank.. etc.  I'm sure other zones could be built like this as well.  This is provided that the boards can be loaded so that if it's written on one recall board it shows up on the others.  I think this mud hardcodes the boards - the one I used to play on ages ago, you could basically load your own boards in your IMM room so you never had to roam away - so I'm not sure how easy it would be to do.

Another suggestion would be to change recall from peaceful...

Still another would be to make it an arena type area so all players can be attacked (yeah, I don't like that at all, though I'm sure others would love it there are too many problems with it, just wanted it mentioned).

[Virisin]

We talked for quite a while about this on gossip, I'm still all for it, but I think everyone just seems to think it's not worth the hassle..

[Estidn]

I disagree, what about those people who actually enjoy sitting and socializing with people. Some people grow tired of the questing/leveling/exploring aspect. Do we really want our oldies to leave?
Just my 2 cents

[Virisin]

You didn't read the idea. It involves keeping recall so people can socialise.

[Grish]

To me it doesnt matter since I never sit there.

One thing though that might be hard with your timewarp ideas if they are randomly thrown around the mud, isnt the potential for them to end up in horrible spots which can make zones impossible to navigate?
For example, lets say a time trap ended up on north trade road, that would pretty cripple the entire northern region. A poor example, but an easy one.

It could be fun if lets say each crash 100 timetraps are randomly spread throughout the game, but these traps could be unique and when you hit them they vanish and a new one randomly spawns somewhere in the world.

Im sure either way in the end it just will add another thing on my list of things to complain about 

[Virisin]

Ah, I didn't specify properly in my earlier post.

We would have to add more normal time traps, but for the randomly loading time traps, they'd be more like time rifts so they'd open as portals you could enter if you wanted.

[Kvetch]

Im sure either way in the end it just will add another thing on my list of things to complain about 

Love the way you think ahead there, Grish. 

Kvetchy

[Molly]

I'm not comfortable with changing Recall, since we've tried that before and it always raised an outcry, because everyone likes Recall in spite of the complaints.

As an easy example, people could hang out at Bart's instead. His room was intended for that, it isn't called the 4D Chat Room And Bar for nothing. But everyone prefers Recall, since they don't want to miss any action.

As for opening more Time traps, I'm fine with that, and I think the idea of making them as portals, which you could choose enter or not, is a good one. They could have a desc saying something like 'A Rift in Time suddenly opens up. Enter it at your own risk'.
Seems to involve a lot of Building work as usual, however, like most of your ideas. .

Perhaps Fizban could think of a script, or code that would randomly scatter them and randomly change the location you get to?