Doze Mode
Making 'dozing' more official

What Grey is suggesting addresses the common point that is brought up (computing issues, etc) while eliminating the data sponging aspect.

Add

Enter the first step in the sequence exactly as you would type it [or type '.' to complete the sequence]

'look me'

Enter the next step in the sequence exactly as you would type it [or type '.' to complete the sequence]

'.'

Is this supposed to be an automatic macro?

'yes'

Enter the 'trigger' string that this macro should respond to:

WARNING: It is VERY EASY to setup ENDLESS automatic macro loops!

Any automatic macro called more than 100 times will be automatically disabled.

'the TV you see'

what key should this macro be tied to? This is how you run the macro.

EXAMPLE: If you set the key to 'home', you would type '~home' to run it.

'DozeAvoid'

By typing '~DozeAvoid'

or in when you see 'the TV you see'

You will do the following sequence:

look me

Do you wish to save this macro?

[Enter `yes' or `no']

'yes'

Still, my take on each…

Well, I'm distrustful of people, and I have a belief that a higher majority of people would take advantage of things whenever they could, plus how would they be reported if they're going to be living alone to themselves?

Maybe the wouldn't be. Maybe some players circumvent this and get a way from it for a while. However, in my experience, staff tends to notice it if a character is at the PRI factory using macros to stay active. Maybe not immediately and every time but m

How would they know if they're simply being ignored on SIC?

I assume you mean ho would my character know if your character was ignoring mine or on a macro? I wouldn't. But if it seemed odd or out of place or a trend, I might note it in case and let staff look into it. I never report things to staff because I know I'm right. I can't know. I report them because it could be an issue and then I let staff handle it however.

Plus if people assume that you're ignoring them, the result is usually not pretty, what if an employer decided to reach out to talk to you and you wound up ignoring them from being idle?

GMs can already see if a PC is idle and check on it before doing puppets most times. Rarely will staff make an NPC angry at a PC for being idle and not answering a SIC. I am not saying it can't happen but not unless it's a pattern or there's more to it than just missing a couple SICs while idle.

Or maybe an employer is screaming for helping over SIC that they're being attacked, and whoop.. they died without your character even lifting a finger, high chances that they would get fired for being lazy fucks.

Again, I've not seen this being a issue. It could be if enough other factors come into play but one time missing a call for help on SIC doesn't tend to make a faction hate you.

The consequence is already there, people do get punished ICly for going idle and ignoring others' SIC.

I've never seen this happen unless it's a long term pattern and even then there's usually a bit more to the story than you were idle so the IC world will make you pay. I'm not sure why you think this but it's not been my experience.

And even if they hopped on another alias to be idle without being SIC'd, guess what happens?

Thaaaat's right, other people would check, then hop onto their alias to pose as them and sponge up paydatas.

This is a risk of repercussions coming from other PCs an, yes, those are, in my mind, the real danger or risk. And I'm not sure this hop on any unused alias to sponge data tactic is used frequently or enough to suggest that a doze mode might not be helpful.

I'd much sooner just see characters require sleep or face stacking stat debuffs.

Even more, I think it would be so nice if we could have an option for the game to disconnect us after whatever amount of time in doze mode. It's so annoying thinking you logged out and then you return to realize your characters just been drooling there for 9 hours overnight. Opt in.

When a person fails to adequately rest in the real world they suffer from a number of symptoms that probably don't need to be listed. I am also not suggesting they be applied. What I think everyone can agree on is when you don't rest your body and your brain, fatigue can and will hit you like a speeding Holden.

What I would think would be appropriate is a fatigue hit to those who elect to stay connected to data-stream. I also know in some cases it is easier for people to stay logged on and not disconnect. I find myself idle all the time in this manner but typically remember to come back and disconnect. With a major to mild fatigue hit you present the person staying logged in with a "consequence" that is easily treated and makes sense to the realism junkies. You also in turn create a greater demand for the relevant narcotics associated with fatigue.

I feel like it's strange to promote "garbled language", which essentially results in wasted time for the person you described. As an aside, I feel like you are correct, it is not Sindome's job to force healthy habits upon people, but maybe it would serve the community if it gave an option that was healthier, whatever that may be?

In another thread it was discussed how problematic connection interruptions become to playing Sindome and my strong, strong suspicion is that an offline comms memory for every character would eliminate anyone staying logged in for kicks essentially overnight while making the game enormously less FOMO in the same stroke.

This definitely feels like a case to me where spending dev time to enable better functionality for all players solves far more than spending dev time curtailing them.

It's actually more complicated then just not sending public SIC messages.

- Does the alias still show on network via who?

- Can you private SIC them, even if they aren't on who?

- Do you show them the private SIC?

- What about encrypted SIC?

And then additional considerations that I expect people would bring up:

- Do we apply this to phones?

- What about people talking in rooms?

- What about nearby shouts?

- Gunshots? Car alarms?

- Quick term notifications?

If we were going to implement the SIC portion, I don't see why we wouldn't implement the rest of these to go the full distance.

In the end though, I'm not sure if it's worth the effort. And I don't know if it would help, hinder, or be a net neutral impact on RP when you take all things into consideration.