RP Safari - Pacing Styles

[KarmaBum]

@Faraday I’d rather see it as a page on the individual game than on Ares Central. My thoughts went to a /scene-stats/ route that just populated a quick dashboard of metrics (avg scenes shared per day, avg characters per scene, avg words per scene, breakout of scene types, etc).

While I like the activity log on AresCentral, I am wary of standing up fuzzy data in what winds up looking like an official or comparative capacity. If there was just a /scene-stats/ route that could be turned on/off, that’d give game runners the chance to opt out.

$0.02

Edit to add - @Trashcan I just ran this for funsies on ODW. TY for sharing!

• Trad - 224
• Async - 399
• Distracted - 73

Currently, 5/36 scenes are tagged “Traditional” but have been ongoing for more than 1 day, so 14% are currently mis-tagged. I imagine that varies wildly, but 10-20% mis-tagged sounds fair.

[KDraygo]

There are also many scenes, at least the ones I am part of, that goes from Live to Async and maybe even back to Live. Mainly because those in the scenes no longer have 4+ hours blocks of time free to just RP. RL interrupts, we need to pause, and the scene is going great to end soon. Does this scene still qualify as Live? Is it now ASync? Does any scene that need to pause at any time lose it’s Live status?

There are too many factors involved for accurate labeling and I believe that the only way for people to tell if the overall pacing of the game is right for them is to just try it out if the theme of the game interests you. Labels can be misleading at times, just because there are more ASync scenes than normal doesn’t mean that players in the game don’t also enjoy Live scenes, it’s just how the scheduling is sometimes. Also, if a player ends up leaving the game, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the player is bad or is at fault, nor does it mean the game is bad or the staff are at fault. Sometimes things just don’t link up, somewhat like potential relationships or jobs.

[hellfrog]

@KDraygo nah, those aren’t live scenes if they are going async or continuing for days with pause. .

But honestly, I immediately take a dim view of claims that specific choices are correct and protected due to having jobs and lives. Nearly all people have jobs and lives, and they choose what to do with their free time how they want. No one’s time is more sacred than anyone else’s.

[bear_necessities]

@hellfrog said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

view of claims that specific choices are correct and protected due to having jobs and lives

No one is doing that here. I think everyone in this thread has said that any and all play style is valid.

[MisterBoring]

For me my brain sorts the metric as:

Live - 1-15 minutes between poses
Async - 16 minutes - several hours between poses
Distracted - Days between poses.

If the system had a way to track the date / time for each pose, it could feasibly keep a running tally on the average time between poses and then sort the scenes by what type they are.

[Trashcan]

@Faraday said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

Would folks like to see scene metrics in AresCentral alongside the player login metrics?

I don’t know. I do worry somewhat that if your game isn’t reaching the exact blend of async/traditional/distracted a given player is hoping for then that might be a turn-off for no good reason, especially given that these stats have a margin of error.

Metrics never tell the whole story, though, so that’s not a reason to say no flat-out. As a gamerunner, I’d be interested in seeing them in a convenient location.

[Faraday]

@MisterBoring said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

If the system had a way to track the date / time for each pose, it could feasibly keep a running tally on the average time between poses and then sort the scenes by what type they are.

Except as mentioned above, not everybody agrees with these definitions.

[Roz]

@MisterBoring said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

For me my brain sorts the metric as:

Live - 1-15 minutes between poses
Async - 16 minutes - several hours between poses
Distracted - Days between poses.

If the system had a way to track the date / time for each pose, it could feasibly keep a running tally on the average time between poses and then sort the scenes by what type they are.

i think you have async and distracted reversed. generally people are using “distracted” as “live but maybe a little longer between poses because folks are at work and might get pulled away for bits.” still often completed in one session, vs async potentially going over days.

[MisterBoring]

@Faraday said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

@MisterBoring said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

If the system had a way to track the date / time for each pose, it could feasibly keep a running tally on the average time between poses and then sort the scenes by what type they are.

Except as mentioned above, not everybody agrees with these definitions.

Yeah, I’m aware, but even having the ability to look at a list of scenes and just see flat data about the average time between poses might make it easier for people to choose scenes they want to join based on their personal preferences.

@Roz said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

@MisterBoring said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

For me my brain sorts the metric as:

Live - 1-15 minutes between poses
Async - 16 minutes - several hours between poses
Distracted - Days between poses.

If the system had a way to track the date / time for each pose, it could feasibly keep a running tally on the average time between poses and then sort the scenes by what type they are.

i think you have async and distracted reversed. generally people are using “distracted” as “live but maybe a little longer between poses because folks are at work and might get pulled away for bits.” still often completed in one session, vs async potentially going over days.

I can concede that.

[Third Eye]

@MisterBoring said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

Yeah, I’m aware, but even having the ability to look at a list of scenes and just see flat data about the average time between poses might make it easier for people to choose scenes they want to join based on their personal preferences.

A lot of Ares games have these posted but they differ from game to game and, shock of shock, sometimes players don’t read things.

[Pavel]

@Third-Eye said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

sometimes players don’t read things.

[MisterBoring]

@Third-Eye

[Prototart]

I’ve never been able to get into Async because I’m super flighty and unreliable. A friend of mine who lives in Australia absolutely loves it tho, it lets her do stuff with the 90% of people who aren’t in the Pacific Theater

[Faraday]

I think folks are dramatically underestimating just how much mathematical averages can be skewed by outliers when there are sample sizes as small as most MU scenes have.

This really doesn’t have to be this hard. We’ve been having scenes with different pacing since I started playing in 19-fricking-95. All Ares does is provide more tools so that adults can communicate and collaborate with each other in the hopes of finding people who like to play in the same way. And it even includes a handy guide to explain said tools:

MUSHes have traditionally been focused around live, synchronous RP, with players all being online together. With the web portal, Ares supports more varied playstyles. You can specify a Pacing for your scene to let other players know what to expect before they join.

• Traditional: Live, synchronous RP with poses coming minutes apart. (Default Setting)
• Distracted: RP that is still synchronous, but with longer time between poses due to work or other distractions.
• Asynchronous: RP with poses coming in at various times, possibly in different timezones or schedules, or even over multiple days.

If you wish to add extra detail about your scene’s pacing, use the scene notes field.

If you can’t find people willing to RP in a way compatible with you, that’s not a tools problem, that’s a people - I hate to call it problem, because it’s not really a problem, it’s just you being at the wrong party.

[Prototart]

@Faraday

I got it and I’m not even that smart.

Traditional: Normal MU shit, you and your friend or whatever just posing back and forth.

Distracted: You and your friend fucking around bc you’re both kind of busy but want to do something so you swap a pose an hour or whenever you see the activity light and have a couple of minutes to write something.

Asynch: It’s like you and a friend swapping poses over @mail because their dick game is completely and totally insane there’s a very important scene that has to happen but timelines just can’t link up right.

(you can quote this in material it’s super helpful)

[MisterBoring]

@Faraday said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

I think folks are dramatically underestimating just how much mathematical averages can be skewed by outliers when there are sample sizes as small as most MU scenes have.

This really doesn’t have to be this hard. We’ve been having scenes with different pacing since I started playing in 19-fricking-95. All Ares does is provide more tools so that adults can communicate and collaborate with each other in the hopes of finding people who like to play in the same way. And it even includes a handy guide to explain said tools:

While I do think that having pacing information might be helpful to some people in finding RP, after thinking about it more, my interest in tracking it is purely curiosity. I just want to see the data.

[Pavel]

@Prototart said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

I got it and I’m not even that smart.

[somasatori]

@Faraday said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

This really doesn’t have to be this hard.

As MUSHers, it is our job to make everything as difficult as possible, Faraday

[howyadoin]

@Prototart said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

Asynch: It’s like you and a friend swapping poses over @mail because their dick game is completely and totally insane

No one - and I mean no one’s - dick game is good enough to suffer through async.

[Wuff]

@howyadoin said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

@Prototart said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

Asynch: It’s like you and a friend swapping poses over @mail because their dick game is completely and totally insane

No one - and I mean no one’s - dick game is good enough to suffer through async.

Async is better than no sync sometimes. Some people are worth the effort and the patience.