Feedback on cross-server presence system in testing on BG

[Basilica]

If you have logged in to BG recently, you have probably noticed that we are testing out the new cross-server presence system. This is a feature likely to be more widely deployed in the next, 1.85, ACR release.

The cross-server presence system shows notifications when players log in or log out of other servers across ALFA, and to allow retrieving a list of online players ALFA-wide (type #users). It will also let tells be sent in real time to players on other servers, although until more servers than BG are running the presence system, that feature cannot yet be usefully used. (To send a message to a player on a different server, you'll be able to use #tp "player" message, or #t "character" message, or #re message, or #rt message. And we are working on a GUI to augment the quick chat screen for that capability.)

The tech team is looking for feedback on the presence system - for example, colors used for the notification messages and whether they should be reworded. We'll probably change the cross-server player login/logout messages to be colored the same as 'normal' login/logout messages (right now they look a little too close to the colors used in the combat log). Let us know if there are any other feedback points and we can consider them for the next release.

[Regas]

This is a neat feature, it does get a bit busy on chat log at times, could we have an option to toggle it off?

[kid]

This is a neat feature, it does get a bit busy on chat log at times, could we have an option to toggle it off?

Yes please. I'd hate DMing on MS and getting tells from BG or TSM...
This might lead me to a killing rampage that will lay waste to innocent groups.

[Brokenbone]

First impression: it was a little bit "spammy" to constantly have orange server messages which I did not care about at all. At the time, I wondered why it was happening, unless it was just a "community health" or "gee if you're lonely, try this server that people keep logging into", now I guess it's meant in part for cross-server tells.

Forums, PMs within the forums, and IRC aren't enough I guess? Tells within a server, I absolutely get, as in "hey, looking to meet up, I'll be at such-and-such town if you do", or just "hey man happy birthday" or whatever. Tells inter-server... I don't know. Think I saw a bounty hunter joke in chat which'd be bottom of the barrel metagaming (sitting in Server A, realize your target just logged into Server C, so pack your bags and the chase is on).

Anyhow, I guess I sorta wondered, "what's this for?" Emergency communication, "help person who normally DMs me but is trying to play, someone needs a tech rez or a system ate 100gp or this static is confusing?"

Again, I'm sure it's all harmless or "wow isn't it interesting we did this", especially if colors or spamminess or whatever were dialed back, just having difficulty seeing the vision, like "does this make play better somehow?"

[Basilica]

We can add an option to unsubscribe from the notifications if you don't want to see them.

The vision is that ALFA is a single, seamlessly interconnected world, instead of several isolated islands that require sometimes clunky means to cross. The presence system provides us with tools to make that vision a reality, along with other upcoming features for the next release (such as seamless server portals).

For example, it opens the door to the possibility of having servers that are adjacent in the game world and which don't require long journies to travel across. It also enables us to consider additional performance enhancements, like splitting existing servers into multiple, adjacent (no portal cooldown) servers without scattering the playerbase's ability to connect.

[Swift]

While fiefdoms will mostly remain at the administration level for servers, anything that can make our community feel more like a seamless world in game can only be a good thing in my book. I am confident the existing rules against metagaming and such will be sufficient to cover possible bad behavior.

[Basilica]

I certainly agree (which is why I worked on this feature) In the future, as ALFA develops, you may degrade your own playing experience by turning off cross-server awareness (as we work to tie ALFA closer together).

Nonetheless, in the next iteration, you will be able to turn off cross-server join/leave and server online/offline notifications by typing the following:

#notify off

Similarly, to turn notifications back on, type:

#notify on

If you have disabled notifications, you'll be reminded of this at logon time (as the setting is remembered in the database).

[Zelknolf]

Think I saw a bounty hunter joke in chat which'd be bottom of the barrel metagaming (sitting in Server A, realize your target just logged into Server C, so pack your bags and the chase is on).

As the author of this comment, I would note that the comment was in answer to Curmudgeon's jest that cross-server calls for help would be answered by the local goblins-- wherein I suggested NPC bounty hunters portalling to shank you (largely tongue-in-cheek-- probably make couriers before bounty hunters).

ALFA's rules on metagaming still apply, of course, and launching a server-wide hunt because your in-character rival logged in gets investigated the same as eyeballing the website to note which server to hunt on, and I'm sure that people using the newer server population messages unscrupulously will get similar treatment from the PA.

[Brokenbone]

Yeah, the website / forums floaty thing already tells you "who is where", I was sure the hunting stuff was a joke.

Anyhow, appreciate Basilica's explanation, sounds like a pet project for "world feel", I suppose when WHL comes on we'll have geographic continuity where an actual ROAD from BG likely touches the WHL border, so maybe that will be helpful if someone on "NE BG" wants to hook up with someone in "SW WHL" if I understand the geography right. Or that vision of splitting servers somehow without maybe making it feel like a couple of ghost town servers... I'm thinking of old NWN1 Cormyr and Arabel being separate (though I think they got merged in the twilight of the project, right?), and definitely feeling separate in their ways, to the point of one feeling like the shopping mall you'd visit to resupply for out of town business. Maybe if people could "notice" each other nearby and send tells accordingly it'd have had a much different feel.

[DMyles]

not a huge fan. doesn't seem to add a lot and it's distracting

[Ithildur]

Hopefully it'll be a refined, more subtle and yet immersive system that's implemented down the road.

[danielmn]

Cross server pming is useful for some sending spells....otherwise...yeah.

[Zelknolf]

It seems as though this is all being taken with the current organization of ALFA in mind-- we do intend to outgrow our current server organization, and this sort of communication will surely be a more-important thing when there are dungeons which are (very small) servers being loaded when you and your pals decide to go spelunking.

[Basilica]

You can always turn off the notifications if you find them distracting, as previously mentioned. (This build is now on BG.) The notifications are certainly no more of a burden than you would see on many of the more densely populated worlds available for NWN1 or NWN2, however.

I'd encourage you to not allow your perceptions of cross-server activity to be limited to the current system of only 24-hour portals, but rather to view ALFA in the light as an interconnected, common world. This is, after all, the entire reason why we share a vault between all of the servers, rather than having three completely separate game worlds.

For a more concrete, forward-looking example, should WHL go live and connect directly to BG due to geographic adjacency in-game-world, cross-server commerce may well become a much more common activity. And allowing communication and presence management between servers counteracts the tendancy of additional servers to thin the player base out.

Some of the reasons why we have not had direct (or seamless) server connections before related to technical limitations which are being systematically attacked and eliminated with this upcoming release.

A UI to augment the text mode nature of the player notifications is also under works for the future.

[Ksiel]

With the option to turn this off at times, especially if you are in an intense session, I see no issue with it.

Thanks for the hard work and the time put in to implement.