JEDI Comport

Baelin Raddyx wrote:What would be neat is if you could do this, and had it synced up with the upgraded phpbb v3 forums. There's already talk of syncing rpmod passwords, Perhaps messages sent to inboxes can be labeled (IC) and they will show up in server as well, without attachments.

If there is a picture or something, it can say :;see attachment::

If it was possible to do this, and ONLY with IC messages, I would be a little more supportive of this idea. However, I still have concerns about it being used too heavily, with a lot of people standing around with chat bubbles up. I hate things to distract from the real-time RP.

I dunno, when it comes to suggestions I tend to look at it from an "Effort : Reward" ratio.

With the amount of work that would go into making this, I can't see it being used for anything more than an initial novelty.

Don't get me wrong, it's a neat suggestion like I said! I just think we could make do without.

As already said by several people, the forum PM's can and are already used for this same purpose. Making messages server-side isn't really necessary. Also it would more than likely end up like Force Bonds and simply become a glorified private-chat somewhere down the line so i'm afraid i will have to say 'no' to this. As Amone suggested, too much effort for far too little a reward.

/support Nicholae's idea. Such awesomeness would be great !

Forum PM. Can be used both for OOC and IC. Thing is. The forum inbox on your account holds only so many messages. Maybe you delete messages after you read them. I don't. They might be of use some time later.

In Game PM. Can and will be used for IC. (Allowance only to Initiates+) So if you are an initiate I doubt you'd go for ooc messages using the in game pm, as its been said before, if you are initiated it would mean you have some maturity.

That'd be my first point. Second.

If the message is a really long one. For example a report from a mission, or a homework for a class. Then go for a forum PM.

If its a short message (and usually not that much important), go for the in game PM.

Why? As I said before, Inbox on the forum, does not have unlimited space. For me it doesnt, if it has for you, then feel free to use only the forum messages.

Just my two cents.

P.S. And I doubt the inbox in game would 'record' the messages for a really long period of time. Perhaps it can record them the time you are on the server. (On that particular time) When you disconnect and reconnect they would not be saved.

And now, If both the messages on the Forum and Server would be saved. It would be truly absurd, and I would agree with the others against the idea. But if the messages are only saved for a definite amount of time. Then go for it.

Cheers.
-E

I totally agree that this suggestion is minorly redundant, and I hesitated to post it at first precisely for that concern. After thinking about it for a while, however, I decided to post it because I believe that it would stimulate another aspect of our roleplay. As it's been said already, there are several of us who have used the forum PMing system to relay IC messages to each other - myself included. However, not everyone does this, and that's unfortunate because taking the IC interaction aspect outside of face-to-face interaction is a fun aspect of the roleplay. So, I decided to suggest it in order to provide digital encouragement in the form of another way to interact with each other. Is there something wrong with redundancy at times? No, I don't think so.

Azrael wrote:Also it would more than likely end up like Force Bonds and simply become a glorified private-chat somewhere down the line so i'm afraid i will have to say 'no' to this.

A valid point, but I'll point out that like any other aspect of the game, it relies on player responsibility. Just because something could theoretically be abused doesn't mean that we should set aside its usefulness.

Nastajja wrote:However, I still have concerns about it being used too heavily, with a lot of people standing around with chat bubbles up.

How long does it take you to leave a message for someone? Not long. Aside from that, I don't really see that as something actually happening in reality. If anything, players already "sit down at a console" to log onto the HoloNet to send someone a message, and the argument could be made that leaving an IC message through an rpmod command would be faster, and therefore lead to a decrease in chat-bubble-to-roleplay ratio.

Of course that argument I made is a little silly...but only in response to something that 1) Doesn't seem very likely, and 2) We have no way of predicting its outcome.

Plus it'd also be a good way to separate IC and OOC messages. Say Azra'el decides to leave me a message about something going on in the Archives - he could PM me on the forum, but I don't always check the forum before I play, and it's an IC issue, so it deserves an IC response. Do it on a forum and I'm using an OOC mechanism to deal with an IC matter.

Whereas, frankly, if we did it on the server, it'd start out IC, continue IC and finish off that way. Also, DO remember that RPMod's not just for us: as far as I recall, eventually it'll be released, once it's finished. Not every group that uses it will have a forum with messaging capability, and they might find this particular level of functionality to be dead useful.

Face it, friends: we're Beta testers. Gotta also consider if it'll work for everyone else that eventually gets to use RPMod. To my mind, it's good for us and it'll be good for RPMod as a whole. To that end, I support the suggestion.

Aslyn wrote:Not every group that uses it will have a forum with messaging capability

I SERIOUSLY doubt that!

In the end, these are recorded messages we are talking about here though.
Something that is not exchanged in real-time. It can hardly be said as contributing to server RP if it's all behind-the-curtain note passing.

If somebody is live on the server at the same time, no messages would be left as they are likely to interact live via Comm-links and create Role Play.

Aslyn wrote: Do it on a forum and I'm using an OOC mechanism to deal with an IC matter.

But we still use the forums for IC purposes, like Journals and News articles.

Illrian also made a fine point. People are more likely to check Forums for a minute or two than log onto the server because it's quicker and easier. (I have access to the forums at work for example.)
Sometimes I don't make it onto the server for 2-3 days but I can still check the forums. If somebody sent me a Server-message during that time, my character would theoretically have received it instantly (or quickly, AKA forums). Instead the message would sit dormant and I would need to make up some sort of IC reason as to why I'm ignoring messages for days.

I just think that given the choice of Forums or Server messages, i'd still use the forums because of their accessibility both at home and away.

But that's just me of course!

As always, Soh's input here would be great to perhaps shine some light on the possibilities and/or difficulties of the suggestion.

Why is it that in almost every single suggestion to add stuff to RPmod, and I'm talking about great things that would greatly improve the role play in the server, all I can see is ABUSE? Yeah, some of you did have some good points about why it shouldn't be added but in the end there it was. "Yeah but it could be abused!" Have some faith in the members of this clan, they weren't initiated because they were bad role players and if something like this would be implemented to RPmod I doubt they'd abuse the mail system (Ever heard of something called /pm?)

Have to agree with Garik.

I'd say that most of RP'ers are quite reasonable people, who are looking for good roleplaying opportunities, not how to find loopholes and how to abuse something. That's at least how I see it.

So, I believe this would actually add to some immersion. While it's not something essential needed for it, having such ic 'messages' when you log in could make for some interesting roleplaying opportunities as well. When something screams at me 'more roleplaying opportunities' my automacit response would be 'hell yes'

However, an IC bulletin board or an in game, updating class calender in say the student dorms would be cool.

The bulletin brush (stuff that makes walls in maps) can be coded to scroll through information streamed from a database and could contain stuff like Enclave news, relevant galactic news, Class information (assignment reminders), simulation announcements etc.

Sure You can rp nothing and read it on the forum and say "Well lol my char leik lookt at the terminal" but in my personal opinion it'd be cooler to see it in game as well as be like "Hey... look, Baelin crashed a landspeeder into the med center again."

And oh sure, the information is available on the forum, but at least this gives a cool way to make in sensible to RP. Instead of you going to sit two feet away from a computer with your hands at your sides and somehow attaining this information.

I play in windowed mode so ... forums or in-game doesn't really matter to me. Honestly, I find playing in windowed mode a lot easier since I don't treat JKA as much of a 'game' anymore and like to have various things going on while I get immersed. Locking myself down to JKA while I am on it makes me feel like I am playing it on a console or something.

JKA doesn't need to contain all of the facets of our roleplay. I'm not suggesting you roleplay on the side on MSN or something - but I have and plan to have word or firefox open while I am on the server doing things suggesting that my character is researching/on his datapad/etc.

And plus, I have to manually pilot my playlist so that I can avoid the daily dose of lightexplore7 or class or whatever we're playing in-temple.

Like it or not, the medium we rp is through JKA. That's the nitty gritty truth, and if it weren't we wouldn't have a Mod centered around it, we'd have a Mod linking several applications together for rp.

I agree with Oberon's suggestion, very good one at that.

Just a technical note: such messages would likely be stored in the RPMod database, therefore they could also be made available outside the game in a Web interface, optionally with email notifications if so you like.

Giving in-game notifications about "unread messages" when logging in could be part of a more general notification system described in this suggestion.

All of this is technically possible, but the debate about functional specifications is all yours, so feel free to continue discussing the pros and cons.