New Guidelines & Changes: Discussion Area!

[PuNk! ™]

In relevance to the thread: IO is Dead, Let's Move on

So I've decided - if the community is willing, to try and make a mends and give this place one last push and I've outlined a few things we could change in the thread above to make this place more enjoyable and less stressful; which I feel probably contributed to some people disappearing as time went on, like myself.

Proposed changes:
- No more moderation posts, unless absolutely necessary.
By this, I mean, a staff member will only need to contribute a moderation post if a conflicting of interest occurs. For example, a battle thread between two parties, where something occurs (such as someone being injured without due consideration between both parties) and requires staff intervention to resolve the issue. But on the whole, members will be allowed to "battle" on their own terms for the time-being. We're all mature here, right?

- No more shop.
The shop was a prominent feature on this forum. I feel for the time being, it may be wise to eradicate it and perhaps reconsider this feature later... As it may cause more work than joy at this moment in time.

So with that being said. Members can outfit their characters with whatever equipment they deem necessary (within the terms of not being over-the-top) and likewise with manpower; giving freedom to engage in large battles and so-forth. But again be reminded that the battle scheme is solely considered by all parties now and everyone will have to be mature about it. No character deaths or close NPC comrades with story-archs to the character/s can be killed without permission by the characters themselves.


With all that said, that's just a small token of what we could change in order to bring Issuing Orders back to life. By all means, open to suggestions as this is a discussion topic. But what does everyone think and feel?

[♔ Liam J. Brentwood]

Captain Brentwood slowly walked into the room, the sheen from his freshly pressed khaki trousers catching the dim light breaking through the half-drawn shades from the window on the far side of the room. His demeanor always portrayed a seriousness about him, even when he pulled out a chair to sit down, the stiffness about his posture proposed a man on edge; an anger that was always boiling beneath the surface of his rugged tanned skin from his time in Africa with the Desert Rats.

Sitting, the chair squeaked awkwardly in the silent room. His eyes drifting slowly as they looked around himself, contemplating his surroundings silently. Perhaps he was noting the nearest exits if a "shit-storm" was to hit the fan or perhaps he was just genuinely trying to get comfortable with his surroundings.

After a moment of silence, he leaned against the table before himself and pointed at PuNk. "I'm here, so where's everyone else then fella?" but PuNk didn't seem to respond to the question, as he observantly looked to the clock on the wall.

Breaking open the cellophane on a new packet of cigarettes, Liam shimmied one out from the tight packaging and plucked it between his lips. Extending his arm out to PuNk he offered him one, which was duly met as PuNk reached over and slid one out of the packaging a lot easier than Liam. His nimble fingers twirling the cigarette for a moment as he waited for Liam to light his cigarette and pass it on over to light his own.

"Well this is a first huh?" Liam muttered behind the smoke veil of his cigarette, watching as PuNk simply nodded with a somewhat wry grin to himself. "Desperate times call for desperate measures" he simply replied, taking a drag on his cigarette as he stared at Liam - both of them, waiting.

[Liesl Von Stauffenberg]

I agree with equipping your characters with materials that are necessary to them.

[PuNk! ™]

Yep.
I was going to strip the forum clean of all that coding jargon; no more shop, no more silly skill sets and other things like staff being labored with hassle of having to moderate every battle post; members are mature enough to play things how they like and staff intervention should be limited, unless a staff member would like to host a "D&D" type of battle where a Dungeon Master is needed to moderate everyone's moves. But that's up to the individual themselves.

I want this place to thrive on good old role play and community engagement. Way it should've always been!

EDIT:
I've seen the shop is still working fairly well, but perhaps we could make it open/accessible to everyone who wishes to outfit their characters. Within reason. Obviously can't have every item in your inventory, but I don't see the harm in getting rid of the CP system and just letting people use what they want, how they want.

[Raylan Givens]

Personally I think we should leave the shop for special battles, like D&A, D&D type battles, like you mentioned in the Cbox.

[PuNk! ™]

Jul 5, 2015 23:40:20 GMT Raylan Givens said:

Personally I think we should leave the shop for special battles, like D&A, D&D type battles, like you mentioned in the Cbox.

I'm loving the Justified name - Mac.
Yeah the shop will be remaining, but do we keep or scrap the currency system? Make the shop a "free area" but with item limitations per character? So... Four items a character. One main, one side-arm and two optional pieces of equipment. That kinda thing?

[Friedrich Falkenbëck]

I like the idea of the shop system being more of a "free area" as you call it, so one can start out playing what they want... But maybe leave some great stuff as a sort of reward for people who stay and play for awhile so everybody don't just make snipers and tiger tank commanders.. If that makes sense.. And as to the moderating I guess it would be better if the staff could choose whether they want to mod or not in the battle threads but I think it would be nice with a level of freedom for players so as you suggested just contact staff if there's a split in interest or inaccuracies or such

[PuNk! ™]

Duly noted Falk' and some great input and ideas. I like the idea of making some equipment exclusive to those who've been around for a while; as you say, to avoid an influx of members making over-powered characters.

And yeah, the moderating system needs to change.
I feel the staff who're willing to moderate battles themselves is fine and staff intervention in member-made battles to help solve any issues is also fine. I just don't want the whole moderating scheme to be a necessary evil anymore; it should be an optional thing, thus giving everyone here more freedom during their role plays and for staff to feel more relaxed and not burdened with the work of excessive moderating.

[Christopher J. D'Dario]

I still think the shop should be a thing if only to keep track of unit and item costs, if there's nothing at all regulating the battles then each skirmish is going to wind up like the invasion of Berlin. I think before a battle starts there should be a points cap where each combatant can bring in whatever they want provided they don't exceed the agreed upon points.
I agree that moderators should only have to come in to settle disputes between combatants as this can let members hammer out a fight and maintain its momentum rather than waiting for a moderator.
We'd have to bring in a few self management rules to prevent soldiers from becoming Übermensch.
Plus, while I also agree that troops and such should be free, having a limit based on that characters rank would help prevent corporals from commanding hundreds of men.
These are my initial thoughts.

[Liesl Von Stauffenberg]

Yeah I agree as well with the idea of having the mods step in only when issues are brought up. And then having the members themselves run the battles. u w u

[Laya Eteric]

Possible idea to prevent new characters from becoming overpowered with their equipment: make it so the more well written character histories can get the better and/or more equipment right when they want, and the less well written ones having to wait a bit longer (weeks, maaaaybe months, but not the potentially years-long wait the old CP system had, probably depending on the rp's?). After all, we don't want someone taking the "One main, one side-arm and two optional pieces of equipment" idea and taking, say a Tiger II or two for the optional stuff; really it would only apply to the really high ranking stuff.

[PuNk! ™]

Right okay, thanks for all the feedback so far guys, this really means a lot and the forum is going to be changing around your views and opinions.

Proposed Shop Changes:
So from what I've read, everyone still wants some sort of "limitation" or "experience structure" to the shop and it's items - correct?

From what I can gather, you guys would like a "Loyalty" system, where the more experienced members of the site have access to the more dangerous and complex weaponry (negate the talk of units at the moment, because this is a different matter) or a possible sign-up bonus, where a new application is so well written, they deserve access to the equipment required perhaps from the start. Correct?

So, overall the proposed changes would be:
- We compile a list of the more higher-tier weaponry currently in the shop that will only be accessible by longer standing and more experienced members. If these weapons are requested, a staff member will have to issue them.
- All other lesser tier weaponry is accessible anytime (within reason).
- We create a structured inventory for characters; by this I mean, you can only carry one primary weapon, one side-arm and three or four pieces of equipment on your character at any time.

How does that sound?
In regards to the higher-tier weaponry only being accessible to more experienced members, what weaponry should that be?

Moderation Post Proposed Changes:
- Members are allowed to battle without the constant presence of a moderator. A mutual agreement between parties in the battle allows them to decide the outcome of actions made; unless a stalemate occurs or conflicting interest, where a staff member will need to intervene.
- Staff members CAN host their own original moderator battles if they so wish, but that is up to the staff member and shouldn't be requested by members on the forum to host. By this, I mean it shouldn't be expected by members on the forum that the staff must moderate their battle threads.

CP Proposed Changes:
- The use of across the board currency will be scrapped, nobody will earn CP anymore, as the shop will be functioning on a loyalty and experience base system, with inventory limitations to characters.

Proposed Unit Changes:
- The use of units in battle will be negotiated by all parties prior to a battle thread. The use of a "CP System" proposed by Seejay could be used to measure how members use the manpower dictating to a certain strength by the CP limit OR members can simply negotiate without the CP measures and come to a mutual understanding on what they would like to use prior to the battle.

- Staff hosted battles can work off the same rules aforementioned with CP limitations to dictate the strength of each force OR outline the units each person gets within the battle.


The only problem I see with the CP limitations, is the fact that most unit based items in the shop have since been lost during the update, so it will be hard to determine the cost and strength of units via the use of CP. I propose, if units aren't going to be reintroduced to the shop, that we work again off a loyalty system and rank system when it comes to manpower and motorized vehicles.

By this, I propose members can use manpower dictating to what their rank can command at any time, but when it comes to motorized vehicles or armoured vehicles it would have to be added to a higher-tier list that needs passing through a staff member first.

So lower tier motorized vehicles and lower tier armoured vehicles are accessible anytime, but the more mean higher stuff like Tiger Tanks - as cautiously mentioned by Laya, will only be accessible by the more loyal and experienced members.

How is all that sounding so far?

[Laya Eteric]

Seems good so far! How are vehicles going to be in the tech tree? Will we add new folders for them, or use the google spreadsheet Heiko started earlier?

[PuNk! ™]

I'm not entirely sure what Heiko was planning - I'm hoping to hear from him soon before any of these changes are set in stone, these are just proposals at the moment.

In regards to the vehicle/armour side of things, when you say tech-tree, what do you mean?

[Heiko Alkema]

I had, at one point, planned to create a kind of system in which players could specify exactly which model of a vehicle they owned. It was a bit over complicated.

Anyway,

- I agree that all players, old and new, should be able to outfit themselves however they see fit. We could even provide little templates for certain roles; eg Rifleman: M1 Garand, 1 Grenade, spade, etcetc; Support: BAR, etcetc.

- I agree that moderation has to be change massively. I'd be willing to try unmodded battles. I would also like to propose (re-propose actually) a kind of community moderation as well. I think would should let anyone who wants to mod a battle, do so. Naturally, the opposing players would have to consent to said random community member modding their battle. This brings everybody in and takes a lot of weight off of staff.

- I agree with scrapping the current CP system. It's always been a bit... awkward and unwieldy.

- I like the point-cap kind of idea for decided what gets brought into battles. I've got another idea brewing at the moment that i'll write up and present a little later.