Reset Red Apartments to 'Shitty'
Stop that gentrification creep...

Given the number of apartments, the tenancy for some apartments to be more desirable and how long the game has been running, many mix apartments have had at least one wealthy mixer with means living in it. This well off mixer sometimes invests in the apartment and makes it as nice as one can in the mix. Staff often allows it because that character has the means, pays the price or does the RP.

But now that is the new description for the apartment and lives on until someone redecorates and few will in any way that makes it worse.So over time, and the game has been around a LONG time, a lot of the apartments players get in the mix end up being pretty damn nice.

My proposed solution? When an apartment resets, set the room descriptions to some 'defaults' that are not riding the upper end of what the mix allows. And remove all player installed furniture. Just a reset back to what one would expect to find in that mix apartment.

I know that this would remove a lot of player contributed room descriptions but I personally think that the emphasis on theme is more valuable here than the need to preserve these descriptions. Further, this player contributed work can be replaced already with a new redecoration by another player.

Also, if there is no 'default room description' for the complex or if one prefers a bit more flavor, crowd source it. If a pad doesn't have an approved default description, give players a way to submit one. Then staff can review it like a normal redecoration request and, if approved, save it as that apartment room's default. Now when an apartment is reset, the rooms revert to these crowdsourced default descriptions.

Though my main concern here are mix apartments, one could clearly do the same to all apartments. I personally just see less need for it on topside apartments.

I also wholly disagree with erasing player contributions to the game. Whether you think it's to your theme of the mix or not, you can still have a nice place in a slum. Just because I live in Red does not mean I need to decorate my walls with my own feces and add light through the walls with bullet holes. I've lived in some bad places, and made the best of it. If we were encroaching Green level decor, the redec would not have been approved. There are checks and balances.

I don't think this is worth the code bloat just to satisfy your specific vision for how other people should play. I know you would prefer to automate the total trashing of rooms to some stock, repeated copy paste of every other room, but did you stop to think that these rooms were redecorated and approved by builders to add some differing flair to the game? I again think this is a terrible idea to go and do this. It's no little effort for builders, there's almost a hundred rooms they'd have to overhaul with several variations for the only reason of you like it more, when you aren't even going to be seeing 90% of these rooms anyway.

If I had to play and every single room was a stock stamped out copy of the last, I feel like something special this game has compared to others would just die.

If you want a shitty place to live with a default description and no personalization, there's always the cube hotels.

Also, I am not saying that we instantly wipe all the current room descriptions. I further suggested that a system be put in place to allow players to contribute in the creation these default room descriptions which, in theory, would last a lot longer than the room descriptions we have now which can be changed pretty easily by anyone who rents the a place. I can say that if I were to try and submit new default room descriptions, I would base them heavily on what is already there. Just shittier.

As far as 'code bloat' goes, what I suggest really isn't a ton of code. Mostly it's probably the addition of few one liners added to existing reset code code and some refactoring of the redecoration code to serve two purposes. I bet someone more experienced with moo coding than me could get the core of this done with twenty or less added lines of code. Of course, staff would know better than I me on this matter.

I am not saying that this is something staff would want to do. it's just an idea that they might or might not like. Either way is fine with me. I personally like the idea and feel it would help with the theme of the mix bit I fully admit it's not going to be a huge deal if things keep on as is.

This is largely an idea that came to me as I read over numerous comments on other threads and on other channels regarding the mix not feeling poor enough. What is, in my mind, a possible way to address that to some degree in a way that is as low impact on staff as I could personally come up with.

I do, however like the really shitty places. [Good ol' Westinghouse] I think they can add a lot to a character's story and journey living in a place thats just a mattress on the floor, bullet hole riddled walls, and old graffiti, and then move away from there or improve the space themselves by cleaning it up and turning into something, if that is the characters journey to be or live as something more.

I do think, however after time, abandoned or unowned spaces should deprecate. Squatters moving in and trashing the place or taggers painting up the walls.

Sadly I don't think there is a way you could automate that kind of depreciation and still respect what was there without overtaxing volunteer work of builders who would probably want to focus on other things.

Just my 2 cents though.

I am suggesting that apartments fall back to a default room description. It could be for the complex or for the room itself. I never said they needed to be something like, 'You see a bed here. It is bad looking." I even suggested a mechanism to crowd source this out so players can contribute the kind of great room descriptions we have now, just more fitting to a room in the mix.

I apologize if my posts have been as unclear as they seem to have been. I hope this helps clarifies things.

We should not automate the systematic destruction of 20 years of player contributions for the enjoyment of one person who thinks the mix is too fun, also being the same person who prefers corporate play to mix play. This doesn't clarify anything. Why do we have to crowdsource curated room desks for hundreds of rooms when that already happened over the past two decades? Again, you have provided no real gameplay positive reason for this at all. Just that it would make you happier to see Red sector lose out on something special.

The limitation on this process has always been there isn't a lot of builders, but I've stripped back a few locations with unusual or excessive customizations and unless they were designated special locations whose descriptions are being preserved for some reason, they've always gone through eventually.

I feel like this problem is something that can be fixed without needing to paint broad strokes. Maybe there can be some encouragement for players who think that their apartment description is unthemely to submit a service request so it can be reviewed by staff and either altered to look more themely or reset to default if it's not worth keeping.

I also understand the cyberpunk theme is dark and gritty, but the future doesn't mean you have to play into the box of a person who's forgotten how to take out your trash, make your bed, obtain furniture, do your dishes, and so on.

Not to mention, junkyards DO exist. Don't forget that you can get more than what you just find 'codedly available' in places. There's probably tons of broken shitty stuff lying around, shattered progia (the rare ones that actually break), broken teevees, old mattresses, abandoned clothing and scraps, stolen shopping carts, old, worn down, or broken pallets, old toys, decrepit furniture with a funky smell, bodypillows of Judges, busted toasters, microwaves, ovens. Tires that are so smooth they're useless for cars but can be made into neat little chairs, tables with a wonky leg that'll work just fine if you put a brick under one side. The passenger seat out of 2086 Pontiac Bugleberry you've converted into your Decking chair. Be creative, not restrictive. Let people tell a story with their rooms and when those rooms are moved on, let them alter them to make their own little story too.

Having stumbled into a few of such apartments myself over the years, it's FUN to read and envision something other than the base mass-produced descriptions big complexes share, and get a glimpse at what the previous occupant may have been like or ask a chum and get a story about so and so who lived there. It's immersive.