Reset Password
Existing players used to logging in with their character name and moo password must signup for a website account.
- eggeggegg 39s
- Hippo 8m
- baewulf 1m
- AdamBlue9000 55m Rolling 526d6 damage against both of us.
- Kangarat 30s
a Glitch 20m If it's broken, good chance it was me
- Baphomei 1m
- Emily 25m I lost myself, in the dark charade.
- BubbleKangaroo 19s
- adrognik 1m
- QueenZombean 1s Singing the song that doesn't end, yes it goes...
a Mench 5m Doing a bit of everything.
And 31 more hiding and/or disguised
Connect to Sindome @ moo.sindome.org:5555 or just Play Now

Summer '22 Town Hall Topics
Submit your topics here!

OVERVIEW

It's that time again. The Summer 2022 Town Hall has been announced. This is your opportunity to give us your feedback and let us know what you'd like to discuss and hear about during the meeting. Help us, help you. Let's make this Town Hall the best one yet!

TOPIC SUGGESTIONS

You can respond to this thread with your suggestions, however, PLEASE in the interest of keeping this easy to manage, do not engage in discussion about the topics here. If you want to discuss them, create a relevant thread in the correct part of the BGBB and note that not every topic will make the cut but we'll do our best to get as much in as possible.

SCHEDULE

The town hall is THREE HOURS long.

It begins with speeches from the admin, who offer updates on their respective areas of the game (Building, Coding, Operations, etc.).

Then we move into the discussion section, where we run through an agenda of player & admin submitted topics.

We then close it out and people can leave or stick around to chat with the various admin.

WHAT TO SUGGEST

If you're stuck thinking for suggestions to give, here are some general topic categories that you can think about:

Code Improvements - What could be changed code-wise to improve the game?

In Character Topics - What can we do In Character to make Sindome a better place for all?

Out of Character Topics - How can we help you, the players feel more at home in Sindome?

If you're still stuck, then take a look at a previous topics thread.

WARNING

Please do not reveal any IC info in this thread. Again, this is just for posting ideas for topics (you can explain your topic in as much depth as you want, but don't get into it with others about the topics they post). Create a new BGBB thread to discuss something if you want.

Potentials for furthering Entertainment careers in the Mix.
Code Improvement - Unless I am radically misinformed, Space is currently useless. Due to the lag impacted by descending from Space into Earth's orbit the dynamic of space travels and the small fortune of chyen and numerous plots geared toward it are at a standstill.

Is this on the roadmap to be fixed? What should players impacted by this change do if anything?

I submit the Town Halls themselves, and ways to improve upon the format. I am not a fan of the queue system, because often times I don't initially have something to say regarding a particular topic, but I might want to be able to respond to what someone else has said. But by that point the queue's closed, so you can't. This situation hardly fosters real discussion, and you end up with processions of players often repeating most of what has already been said.

I'd like to see if people could think of solutions that won't end up turning the Town Hall into a mess of voices either.

Hey folx, soliciting additional topics! Please keep the ideas for discussion coming.
More crafting options or just things to do in general for some of the less used 'engineering' skills.

And more stuff for Forensics.

pubSIC culture

Sometimes pubSIC sounds like thinly veiled game channel where people air their OOC grievances with other players. Other times it is used in a really small-worldy manner. The quality of pubSIC varies, depending on who is currently loud on it and some players are better about it and some noticeably worse.

Anonymized (but real) examples of the things I am talking about:

"JoeBaka got fired by all four topside factions."

"JoeBaka is ancient. Die already." (OOC criticism, nonsensical IC)

"JoeBaka is just an immigrant and therefore useless."

'Sly' mentions of former characters and reminding someone to 'not fuck up like them'.

'Sly' commentary on player conduct that is thinly-veiled OOC criticism.

"JoeBaka only wakes up once a year and is still only Junior Small-Cog at his job."

"Agent/Ganger/Pilot/etc. JoeBaka is slacking off at his job." - coming from someone who has no reason to care, or even an active interest in JoeBaka slacking off.

Etc. etc. etc.

Faction Density / Player Population Distribution :

This has come up a few times already in the ~4 years that I have been playing here. I am hoping that staff can provide some insights into their ideal active player population for any given faction.

Background :

This is just some napkin math on my part. I considered the following factors.

Average Active Player Count : ~60

Number of Sectors : 2 (Topside and Mix)

Number of Factions per Sector : ~5

Roughly speaking, if every player was a part of a faction, that works out to about 6 active players in any faction at any given time.

The reality is that most factions do not have near that many players.

ICly that translates into predictable conflicts where the same one or two players end up representing their "entire faction" in so far as conflict is concerned.

Without going into IC specifics, I'm pretty sure that anyone who reads this can easily name the active member(s) of Gang A and easily name their counterparts in Gang B.

The same holds true for most other factions, whether they are topside or in the Mix.

Discussion :

For staff. Do you think that factions are adequately populated to generate the kind of conflict and RP opportunities that keep the game healthy?

For faction players. Do you feel like there is enough variety in your faction RP? Or is it almost like the old Looney Toons where the fox and the rooster clock in at the beginning of the shift and go through the same routine?

For the rest of the players. What do you think?

In Red sector, you can be employed by some organizations but still have an opportunity to lease businesses scattered around. Which helps increase activities in those areas and encourages players to have a reason to direct traffic towards those areas.

I'd like to see us potentially talk about opening up topside entertainment areas for lease and by topside players who are currently employed. I don't think this should mean those players have a second job in running those places, but they are the ones who lease them and then can put service class characters into those positions.

It's consistently hard to get topside people to visit social areas/events, I think if you had a PC backing the funding/'ownership' of an entertain spot it'd encourage that player to create more events, host more events, put in the effort to bring traffic to those social spots.

So I'd like us to have a talk around whether staff sees that as feasible or helpful for topside social interactions as well as what the playerbase thinks.

Okay Butako has corrected me on the first part of my post re: some opportunities for red sector faction employees to do this, so that's on my and my assumption/ignorance.

But I'd still like us to talk about the topic as a whole if possible and how to generate/create opportunities for people to have a vested interest in topside social areas to then host and bring about more social activities in social places.

Wanted to echo Kalii's suggestion of more craftable items and general use out of certain skills that tend to get neglected, either because they don't have a lot of practical applications or are perceived as such.

Second, more reasons/opportunities for live capture and methods to facilitate it. I know there's been some great discussion and additions to the game for this over the last year, but it still feels pretty limited in terms of disabling and transporting targets in particular.

Lastly, and at the risk of inciting a collective groan from the community, making some QOL changes to bio-modifications: namely offering similar levels of VISUAL customization(colour) as chrome, and alternatives for the tech that is only required for two specific kinds of modifications if not outright removal of that necessity. This is maybe not main topic material but a short discussion on it would be nice.

This is kind of loosely interpreting the prompts, but in terms of out of character things to do to improve the player experience, I have a bit of an out-there idea.

Fundraise from the community to commission official art of certain commonplace and uniform items: vehicles, weapons, armor, common products like certain drinks and smokes, maybe even some cybernetics. This would help people more easily visualize the scenes they come across, and help clarify what some things actually look like (looking at you, vehicle descriptions).

If some of the art ends up getting crossposted elsewhere, it could also help grow the community!

The use of SIC and spamming WHODATA.DB to smallworld is something that's always really bothered me in Sindome.

In the past few years, there's been some additions to the game to help cut down on people smallworlding public SIC, and I would like to ask if we can perhaps bump up or expand on some of those existing efforts.

I can envision changes as something along these lines:

Adding about 1-2 dozen randomly generated keys and interspersing fake chatter on those keys in an effort to mask the use of certain tactics with SIC keys. Have the keys cycle in and out, some of them lasting a few weeks or months, some maybe only a single week.

Adding random miscomms/mischans to NPC PUBSIC chatter

Adding corporate key chatter for the mega-corps, and perhaps for some of the established mix institutions as well, so it's not easy to identify 'activity' happening on them. This system already exists for select organizations, an expansion of it would be wonderful to see. NPC Corpsec could report in on patrol activity, NPC cube farm workers could complain about messes in their working area. This would also be a prime opportunity to add in a dash of the chatter system, too.

Dynamically filling and removing NPC aliases from/to the WHODATA.db list so there's a predetermined amount of aliases on the network, regardless of current player pop. Say, 75 or 100 'users.' It's much easier to make a mistake with smallworlding when the game is off-peak hours and there might only be 15-20 total results on the WHO list. Some of these aliases should cycle somewhat often to give people the benefit of the doubt when actually alias hopping.

Understandably, this would likely entail some clever writing and I'm not sure to what extent there is available bandwidth on the scheduler as-is. And staff already does a great job populating lulls in SIC activity with luls of their own (couldn't resist the pun.)

Looking at the decker archetype in a bit more depth. I feel like it is a bit of a dead zone in the game, where it could be utilised in some amazing ways for conflict. The argument that it is not developed enough or there is not enough to do I think is a little old now and I have personally observed this being addressed and thought about many times during my time here.

One thing I have not seen come up though or discussed all that much is the distribution of power and control of the GRID. I am not talking on a macro full world theme scale, but a more practical mechanic's level. Please remove if this is to much detail, but to my knowledge there is maybe one PC Decker or possibly two that are as good as you can really get in the skill. While I do not have a full grasp of the mechanics, it gives the impression to me that it is a raw opposed skill check one vs one.

That is all awesome, but right now there appears to be next to no utilisation of the GRID in conflict, I think because of the power it holds to identify a user after failing that opposed check, a check that unless a character spends years of investment or goes through NPC channels is seemingly going to fail. The whole NPC side of things feels weird too given it feels unlikely for decker NPC's to invest in new low skill decker's.

To pre-load a question on this, or perhaps have this post pushed to 'Ideas' is their stomach for having decker teams, networked machines meaning a large group of lower level or mid-level decker's could secure, aid or otherwise contest against the embedded and established decker players. It might allow for decking and the grid to have more scope for conflict. Additional could allow for more collaboration between deckers and encourage newer deckers to try things together.

A few things I'd like to second.

1. Potentials for furthering entertainment careers in the mix.

2. Discussion on Town Hall format. I've experienced Sulfurado's frustration many times myself. Just never thought to bring it up as a topic. :p

3. TalonCzar's WhoData Metrics. This 100. Hello again, friend of a friend. I knew you well. (Get it?)

4. Fopsy Grid Wars. Having no experience decking at all, this sounds fantastic to discuss.

Is it too late to suggest topics? I think we need to discuss how to promote kidnapping/severing/other scenes where the victim gets out alive with a story to tell, instead of just vatting people without any RP.

I remember there was a brief conversation on the xguided channel once about this and I think it could use some more Dome-wide discussion.

If it is not too late, I hope there can be a discussion or feedback on Mix vs Corp health. If it is in a good spot for everyone if is there balance enough to encourage this conflict or is it weighed so heavily to one side that it has de-incentivised people from trying anything? With how many PC corp supporting combatants chomping at the bit for action my personal observations seem that anyone trying anything gets dogpiled on, is that the case?

I know it is themely for topside to always win, but I feel there needs to be enough of an illusion that you can partially succeed to make it worthwhile trying, what do others think?

In line with that, thoughts on shroud NPC pop on gold and green to prevent small worlding of 'Look a shroud on gold or green, that is a PC who wants to hide something'.

Hi, I'm still very new, but I looked around for anything on this and I cant really seem to find anything, So if this has been answered before or for some reason Im mistaken, I apologize.

Is there a specific reason that certain cyberware is permanent? I wont say any specific forms of chrome, but it's always come off as a little unthemely to me that once you put on a certain piece of chrome, you cant potentially remove that chrome to either pay a bunch of money to biomod it back to normal, or potentially buy another -customised- version of the same cyberware. Cyberware is a strong part of fashion in a lot of cyberpunk circles and I'm kind of surprised that certain pieces cant be replaced with other models once installed, or potentially even worked on while still attached.

Provided there isn't any specific reason it -hasnt- been made this way all this time, this could potentially give ripperdocs more oppurtunities to use their skills.

Last call for topics. Get them in by end of day today!
Wish I could go into more details here without revealing IC information, but I'll give it a stab.

It's been a few years since the firearms policy rework and it seems things have more or less stabilized into a new 'routine' in-game. In red sector, certain levels of firearm ownership have fallen into an 'acceptable' level since ICly trying to police firearms proliferation of every weight class of firearms would be futile. In my estimation, it would seem as if guns in the mix are in a good place, overall.

Guns topside however, are not in a good place, in my estimation. Not only is topside the one place where firearms ownership will be routinely tested for legality, but firearms seem arbitrarily restricted behind certain jobs, certain titles within those careers, and even then, excessively restrictive. The ownership restrictions, even for upper level roles seem a bit.. low.

To summarize, if you use melee weapons, you can casually stroll around with best in class weapons, or second-tier weapons as a fresh hire or longer-term mid to low rank employee and nobody will bat an eye. If you're a character that's specialized in firearms, it's possible you won't even be able to use your primary weapon skill due to the current licensing system.

Admittedly, there are exceptions to every rule, and there's wiggle room for player agency, but I'm not of the mindset that playing bureaucrat with paperwork and forms is the kind of RP we'd want to be pushing, which is why I'm addressing this as a broader-scale policy issue.

I'd like to just ask that we keep some level of parity between armament in the mix and armament topside. That's all. Thank you.

I'd like to second the alternate forms of persuasion/coercion topid posted by Svetlana. I think death by rp-less murder happens often enough to almost be considered a no-sell issue imo. Take this with a grain of salt, because confirmation bias maybe, but beyond gang rp, this seems to be the default.
I'd like to discuss revitalizing high level organized crime in the game.
I'd like to review the Who Watches the Watchmen document visible at the link below and confirmation that said rules still apply.

https://www.sindome.org/bgbb/open-discussion/anything-really/restrictions-on-gms-admin-826/

Submissions are closed. The agenda will be posted shortly. Thank you all!
Following up on topics that are not included in the agenda:

1. More crafting options or just things to do in general for some of the less used 'engineering' skills. And more stuff for Forensics.

I'm not including this at this time, because we are limited in terms of our coding resources and this is not currently a priority. If you have suggestions for how we can improve this in the future, or ideas you don't want to forget/lose, please create an Ideas topic (or find an existing one) and add suggestions there.

2. QOL changes to bio-modifications

We've talked a lot about this over the years. There are some proposed changes in the pipeline, awaiting Johnny's review. I'm going to hold off on including this as a topic for now, and wait until the next town hall, if it's still an issue, as gathering further feedback on a system that may soon change (at least in some ways) won't be valuable at this time.

3. Fundraise from the community to commission official art of certain commonplace and uniform items: vehicles, weapons, armor, common products like certain drinks and smokes, maybe even some cybernetics. This would help people more easily visualize the scenes they come across, and help clarify what some things actually look like (looking at you, vehicle descriptions).

This is a great idea, but I don't know that we need to talk about it in the Town Hall. It needs two things to move forward: 1. A BGBB post to gather thoughts and 2. Someone to own it.

4. Decker Archetype discussions.

I'm not including this because at this point we don't have coder resources available to support any efforts to further improve on this at this time. We've got plenty of ideas, but we lack time/capacity. Good topic for the future when we have further resources.

5. Why some cyberware can't be uninstalled

I'll just address this here and if you need more information, create a game problems & feedback post to get more info. Some cyberware is meant to be a decision that can't be undone. Or the cyberware is integrating at such a deep level that removing it would kill you. You're supposed to have to make tough decisions about some of these thigns. You're making yourself less human by installing these things in general, and some of it can't be undone.

6. Who Watches the Watchmen

The document linked here is still very much our policy, all new admin are required to read it and adhere to it and if they don't they are removed from the staff. We take this very seriously.