Cleaning Up Instancing

[Tweek]

Gonna be lazy and just copy and past my (potentially unpopular) concept of Instancing from my Uru Concepts site:

Instancing is reduced to two forms, public and private.

The Cleft (including descent), D’ni Ae’gura (Roof tops, Baron’s office, Kadish Gallery, Watchers Sanctuary, Guild Pubs and The Great Zero) and D’ni City Proper (Ashem’en, Kirel, Neighbourhoods) locations would all be public instances.

Books found in these area’s would also be public instances. However, books that can be picked up and added to Relto would be marked with a stamp perhaps like the one found on the book below;



This stamp indicates that when the book is used it is added to Relto (or D’ni home if implemented), thus allowing for a private instance of that Age accessed via the Relto shelf.

Sharing

Books would no longer have the share book icon, as they wouldn’t be shared (being public). Sharing private instances would be done through the old mechanism of KI invites and through the Relto bookshelf.

[The stranger]

First, I have to say I never understood the yeesha-hate thing. She, and the bahros, are very interesting. I never expected a "follow-the rules" style in uru, because story-wise the game is over 100 years after the other games, things changed. Also, the game is bigger. Without some interesting characters to cause conflicts and stuff, we get just the DRC releasing ages, and everything is fine. Kinda' boring, if you ask me. However, 2 things which are needed: 1) limit yeesha and bahro link methods to linking stones, linking glyphs, linking out of thin air. Portals are too weird. 2) let us choose sides: autherized explorers with no yeesha content and journey followers with yeesha content.

Okay, back to topic. Here's my take on instancing:

I had almost the same idea as the original poster, once. Yeesha signed book- personal, DRC signed book- public.

However, I came to realize there cannot be obvious rules around. Some places should link to public, and some to personal, signature or not.

First, instancing should NOT be explained IC. Unless it's special, like the empty kadish tolesa vault, where there is story behind it.

There are the work-fine-with-public ages (when I say ages, btw, I mean also earth areas). These are places with no personal-importance puzzles. No one can ruin your progress, because there isn't much things to ruin. Most progress, if not all (for example- marker missions and nexus links gathering) are personal progress, no one can ruin it for you. Example for such places would be ae'gura lower city, eder delin and eder tsogal, phil's relto or the no-puzzle version of watcher's pub.

There are also the doesn't-work-fine-with-public ages. These are ages with personal progress, or places which are very small (like spyroom). If they were public, others could, and will ruin your progress. And without puzzles- the ages doesn't worth much (teledahn with no puzzles...?). Also, it's about "feeling". I don't know if others are wit me, but I can't feel comfortable in minkata with 50 people looking for the caves.

The WFWP ages (work fine with public), will be public. Both autherized AND urus (journey followers) will be able to go to these places. There are NO yeesha and bahro elements (bahro stones, relto pages and such thing) there (there will be exceptions, like the 'hood, which is public, and have hidden relto page and bahro stones). If ANY yeesha element should be added to these places, we will get a book/stone/glyph leading to the personal version of the age (like the stone to personal ae'gura, which, unlike public ae'gura, has relto pages, bahro stones and other small yeesha and bahro stuff. Another example- we have the public k'veer- no yeesha stuff. Personal k'veer- with myst linking book. Yes, myst linking book is sort of yeesha thing). Autherized explorers CANNOT use these stones/glyphs/books, as they always couldn't (unless these are found at personal version of a journey follower age. This uru explorer can invite the auth explorer to his version, and once there he will be able to do whatever the journey follower do- including linking through yeesha and bahro elements).

The DWFWP ages (doesn't work fine with public), will be personal. Both autherized AND urus will be able to go to these places. Autherized have NO yeesha elements in them- no relto pages, cloths, bahro stones, linking glyphs or linking out of thin air spots and such things. Urus WILL have these things (again, an uru explorer can invite an auth explorer to his version, and once there he will be able to do whatever the journey follower do- including linking through yeesha and bahro elements).

Obviously, "share book/stone" option will be available only on link-to-personal books/stones.

On link-to-personal book or stones, the "share book option" SHOULDN'T be on the book/stone it self. It is a "visable only for you" option, seen on the corner of the screen in the book/stone closeup.

That's it. Lot's of creativity is needed.

[Marten]

I can certainly live with an additional bookmark so that a player always has access to his or her personal instance of an Age. I think it is overkill (I don't feel it adds sufficient value in tradeoff for the complexity) but I can understand that some players may feel it important not to be "cut off" from areas they "possess."

While it's quick and convenient for management purposes to disband a party as soon as its creator leaves the game, I think it creates a few problems in terms of playability if the party leader crashes or needs to leave briefly for any reason. In such situations, the group is stuck, because they can no longer continue exploring the Age they were working on together until the leader returns and re-claims the leadership role in the group. For the sake of consistency and reliability in the event of an unexpected problem with the leader's connection to the game (and for the sake of simplicity so we don't have to somehow determine programatically who gets the leadership role in such situations), groups should persist until the leader either assigns someone else to be the leader manually, or until the leader disbands the group entirely. Players should be advised that a group will have access to their instances even when they're not online in some manner.

Under my original proposal, if the party leader drops offline, the group doesn't disband, and nobody is kicked out of the current Age. The group can continue exploring the Age, they aren't stuck. However, if anyone in the group links out of the Age, then that is where things get a little complicated. There are two places where this is an issue - Ahnonay/Cathedral and Eder Kemo/Eder Gira. Players must link between Ages to solve the puzzles there, so if the group leader has dropped, then that represents a problem. *shrug* We could put this detail up to a vote - whether linking into a person's Age with that person offline is inhibited, as in my original approach, or if a group can continue to link into the offline leader's Ages until the group is disbanded. Either model works, what matters most to me here is consistency; this detail is a matter of preference (privacy vs convenience).

As for group management and setup and all that, I think this is one situation where we're going to have to bite the bullet and combine D'ni tech with Yeesha Magic. The KI is already the interface used to manage buddies, photos, and text notes, the latter two of which are sorted into Age folders. There's an understanding and an expectation that the KI be used to manage all aspects of buddy interaction and Age exploration, and for the sake of gameplay, I think it's important that we not try to over-complicate the UI for the sake of clean canon mechanics (this is a game, and canon is expected to bow to the requirements of good gameplay). While it doesn't really make sense from a canon perspective, it certainly makes sense from a player's perspective to manage an exploration group through the KI (since their buddies are already in the KI in the first place) and automagically get all of the benefits of cooperative exploration that Marten lays out, even if it does require using Yeesha Magic to visually and canonically execute.

The proposal I've put forth somewhat sidesteps the issue. Groups are managed in the KI - no doubt about that, it needs to be that way. But all of the instancing details live within the bookmark, not in the KI; how the bookmark knows who you are partied with and permits the group to travel to the same instance is not explained, but all that is important here is that party information is somehow transfered from technology (the KI) to magic (the bookmark), but not in the reverse direction.

[Alahmnat]

I can certainly live with an additional bookmark so that a player always has access to his or her personal instance of an Age. I think it is overkill (I don't feel it adds sufficient value in tradeoff for the complexity) but I can understand that some players may feel it important not to be "cut off" from areas they "possess."

I agree, there's probably little value in it, but I think it would, as you stated, give players a continued sense of connection to their personal instances. It's a reassurance sort of parachute thing more than a vital inclusion for gameplay purposes.

Under my original proposal, if the party leader drops offline, the group doesn't disband, and nobody is kicked out of the current Age. The group can continue exploring the Age, they aren't stuck. However, if anyone in the group links out of the Age, then that is where things get a little complicated. There are two places where this is an issue - Ahnonay/Cathedral and Eder Kemo/Eder Gira. Players must link between Ages to solve the puzzles there, so if the group leader has dropped, then that represents a problem. *shrug* We could put this detail up to a vote - whether linking into a person's Age with that person offline is inhibited, as in my original approach, or if a group can continue to link into the offline leader's Ages until the group is disbanded. Either model works, what matters most to me here is consistency; this detail is a matter of preference (privacy vs convenience).

Consistency is indeed the most vital outcome of any instancing scheme we ultimately settle on to be sure. I think maintaining the group even if the leader drops offline is a more inherently consistent experience than either promoting a group member to leader arbitrarily or simply preventing group members from linking to other Age instances owned by the leader. The only problem is that it does create a decrease in the security of one's private Ages. Provided that players are well-informed about how this feature works, does the marginal loss of security under specific conditions outweigh the complexity of re-managing the group if the leader goes offline?

As for group management and setup and all that, I think this is one situation where we're going to have to bite the bullet and combine D'ni tech with Yeesha Magic. The KI is already the interface used to manage buddies, photos, and text notes, the latter two of which are sorted into Age folders. There's an understanding and an expectation that the KI be used to manage all aspects of buddy interaction and Age exploration, and for the sake of gameplay, I think it's important that we not try to over-complicate the UI for the sake of clean canon mechanics (this is a game, and canon is expected to bow to the requirements of good gameplay). While it doesn't really make sense from a canon perspective, it certainly makes sense from a player's perspective to manage an exploration group through the KI (since their buddies are already in the KI in the first place) and automagically get all of the benefits of cooperative exploration that Marten lays out, even if it does require using Yeesha Magic to visually and canonically execute.

The proposal I've put forth somewhat sidesteps the issue. Groups are managed in the KI - no doubt about that, it needs to be that way. But all of the instancing details live within the bookmark, not in the KI; how the bookmark knows who you are partied with and permits the group to travel to the same instance is not explained, but all that is important here is that party information is somehow transfered from technology (the KI) to magic (the bookmark), but not in the reverse direction.

I think we could get away with just hand-waving it, to be honest. It'd essentially be just like the current configuration of MOUL, only much, much simpler (and without Nexus integration, as it wouldn't be necessary... every Book would be private- and group-enabled via the bookmarks). I think if you're going somewhere via the Nexus it should take you to a public instance by default though... for those without Relto Books, I imagine we'd have a home somewhere in D'ni that mimics Relto's behavior, right down to a bookshelf with private access to your Ages. The Nexus shouldn't be involved in the instancing magic at all, especially if we relegate it exclusively to the realms of special Yeesha bookmarks.

With the minor rejiggering of adding a group bookmark, I'd like to take a quick second look at the Relto Bookshelf behavior as well. For the sake of being consistent, should the Relto Bookshelf Books also take you to the public instance if you use the Linking Panel (making it super easy to attend a public party in Minkata, say), with Personal and Group bookmarks available, as with Books you'd find in the City?

I hate to bring them up, because this system is just so blasted tidy, but what do we do about Bahro Stones? Especially those Stones that take you to the Neighborhood? My initial thought is that Bahro Stones should private, not public (since they're already loaded with Yeesha Magic as it is), and when exploring as part of a group, you'd get a group bookmark analogue somewhere on the Stone which would take you to the group leader's instance, while the panel would still take you to yours. This way we could keep Tokotah Rooftop accessible for parties... just add someone to your group, and they can get there via the link from either Relto (in the City Links Book) or Gira. Ideally we'd have Nexus access for Tokotah Rooftop too, if possible... a Nexus Pedestal up there wouldn't go amiss, I think.

Stones that link to the Neighborhood are a little tricker, but should follow the same concept... by default they take you to your 'hood... if you're part of a group, the group link takes you to the leader's 'hood instead.

[Baron]

For the sake of being consistent, should the Relto Bookshelf Books also take you to the public instance if you use the Linking Panel (making it super easy to attend a public party in Minkata, say), with Personal and Group bookmarks available, as with Books you'd find in the City?

Sounds great to me.

My initial thought is that Bahro Stones should private, not public (since they're already loaded with Yeesha Magic as it is), and when exploring as part of a group, you'd get a group bookmark analogue somewhere on the Stone which would take you to the group leader's instance, while the panel would still take you to yours. This way we could keep Tokotah Rooftop accessible for parties... just add someone to your group, and they can get there via the link from either Relto (in the City Links Book) or Gira.

I think that works well. The in-character oddness is more than offset by the ease of use.

Ideally we'd have Nexus access for Tokotah Rooftop too, if possible... a Nexus Pedestal up there wouldn't go amiss, I think.

How did the DRC get off that rooftop after dropping off their lunches and notebooks, again?

I actually dislike the idea of adding Nexus terminals, even though I can easily accept the notion that the DRC should be able to create new linking books and add them to the Nexus by now. It weakens the "authentic, original D'ni public transit" flavor that the terminals currently have. If we end up with a system in which authorized explorers can KI-link to Nexus (as a panic link substitute), I'd rather see them get the Takotah roof in their Nexus for free than see a terminal added.

Stones that link to the Neighborhood are a little tricker, but should follow the same concept... by default they take you to your 'hood... if you're part of a group, the group link takes you to the leader's 'hood instead.

Since there's no "one true hood" that would be the equivalent of the public hood, this makes sense.

Provided that players are well-informed about how this feature works, does the marginal loss of security under specific conditions outweigh the complexity of re-managing the group if the leader goes offline?

The leader was already trusting the visitors before s/he dropped offline, so I think this is an acceptable outcome. It definitely beats being the second person to join the group, and suddenly finding that your Ages are now accessible without your consent when the leader crashes.

[realXCV]

There are the work-fine-with-public ages (when I say ages, btw, I mean also earth areas). These are places with no personal-importance puzzles. No one can ruin your progress, because there isn't much things to ruin. Most progress, if not all (for example- marker missions and nexus links gathering) are personal progress, no one can ruin it for you. Example for such places would be ae'gura lower city, eder delin and eder tsogal, phil's relto or the no-puzzle version of watcher's pub.

There are also the doesn't-work-fine-with-public ages. These are ages with personal progress, or places which are very small (like spyroom). If they were public, others could, and will ruin your progress. And without puzzles- the ages doesn't worth much (teledahn with no puzzles...?). Also, it's about "feeling". I don't know if others are wit me, but I can't feel comfortable in minkata with 50 people looking for the caves.

I completely agree with that.

Ages that have puzzles which can affect the state of the age (including the opening of new areas) should be private only.

[Marten]

Consistency is indeed the most vital outcome of any instancing scheme we ultimately settle on to be sure. I think maintaining the group even if the leader drops offline is a more inherently consistent experience than either promoting a group member to leader arbitrarily or simply preventing group members from linking to other Age instances owned by the leader. The only problem is that it does create a decrease in the security of one's private Ages. Provided that players are well-informed about how this feature works, does the marginal loss of security under specific conditions outweigh the complexity of re-managing the group if the leader goes offline?

The leader was already trusting the visitors before s/he dropped offline, so I think this is an acceptable outcome. It definitely beats being the second person to join the group, and suddenly finding that your Ages are now accessible without your consent when the leader crashes.

That is a really good point! Ok, you've convinced me.

With the minor rejiggering of adding a group bookmark, I'd like to take a quick second look at the Relto Bookshelf behavior as well. For the sake of being consistent, should the Relto Bookshelf Books also take you to the public instance if you use the Linking Panel (making it super easy to attend a public party in Minkata, say), with Personal and Group bookmarks available, as with Books you'd find in the City?

Absolutely. When I said 'all books', I was including the books in Relto in my thoughts.

I hate to bring them up, because this system is just so blasted tidy, but what do we do about Bahro Stones? Especially those Stones that take you to the Neighborhood? My initial thought is that Bahro Stones should private, not public (since they're already loaded with Yeesha Magic as it is), and when exploring as part of a group, you'd get a group bookmark analogue somewhere on the Stone which would take you to the group leader's instance, while the panel would still take you to yours. This way we could keep Tokotah Rooftop accessible for parties... just add someone to your group, and they can get there via the link from either Relto (in the City Links Book) or Gira. Ideally we'd have Nexus access for Tokotah Rooftop too, if possible... a Nexus Pedestal up there wouldn't go amiss, I think.

That's a workable solution, I suppose. However, for consistency I prefer that all linking panels are always public, and then group and private linking would be handled by Yeesha's bookmarks. While causing the Bahro stones to always force an instance link of some sort may be nice for some purposes, it does make my "tidy" approach somewhat less so.

Stones that link to the Neighborhood are a little tricker, but should follow the same concept... by default they take you to your 'hood... if you're part of a group, the group link takes you to the leader's 'hood instead.

Or, provide no bookmarking on a 'hood stone, just as I suggested there be no bookmarks on a 'hood book. Neighborhood links would always take you to your own 'hood, unless you're using the Nexus system to link to a different 'hood. My reason for thinking this way is that I don't want to see people using a "back door" into a private neighborhood by proxy of one of that neighborhood's members. If Joe invites Susan to his Gahreesen, Susan should not have an implicit invite to Joe's neighborhood; Joe's fellow neighbors may not appreciate that. Let's try to keep neighborhood access management in the Nexus. (Managing neighborhood memberships is a good issue to add to Nexus 2.0.)

On a related note, with the removal of "hood-instanced" areas, the 'hood books should be removed from Eder Delin and Tsogal and replaced with Nexus. From the player's perspective, the different 'hoods shouldn't be instances of a single Bevin. Thus, it won't make sense to keep a 'hood book in a place where the book would behave differently for different players (the behavior of the "public" link should always link everyone to the same place).

[Owehn]

Thanks for the answers, Marten, and I like the latest revisions. I also put in my vote for the idea of having every linking book UI be identical, as I think it unifies the gameplay experience and makes any system easier to learn. In particular, I'm imagining the following user interface or an equivalent one, with the facing page of each linking panel having three states: a plain book with a DRC stamp linking to a public instance; a journey bookmark rolled down from the top of the page which shifts the link to your private instance (and covering the DRC stamp); and a KI/Nexus bookmark unrolled from the bottom or side of the page, shifting the link to the party instance. (The two bookmarks cannot both be unrolled at the same time.)

I would like to point out that the default settings for books don't have to be the same everywhere: The books in Relto may normally have the "private instance" bookmark in place by default, while becoming a leader of a group automatically activates every "party instance" bookmark in each of the books in the leader's private instances.

Also, there should be a way for a book not to have one or more of the public, party, and private options. (For example, private and party instances of the Nexus don't make functional sense, and a public Relto doesn't either.) This could be accomplished either by eliminating the bookmark entirely, which wouldn't work if it's the public instance to be removed, or blanking out the linking panel with a swirly black haze (the one you see in your Relto book in the Bahro cave and on your bookshelf if you get links out of order).

There may be a chance to add some more functionality to the bookmark idea. Specifically, a "private link" bookmark in Relto could double as the journey bookmark sending you to the location of the last journey cloth you touched. Also, while I agree that using the KI to set up and manage parties must be possible, I don't think it has to be the only way: on some books outside the Relto bookshelf, the single-hand "journey" symbol could be replaced by the double-hand "share" symbol, and accepting the shared link could constitute joining a new group led by the one sharing the link (which is how I imagine sharing a link should always have worked).

Oh, and one more thing: I'd appreciate the ability of the group leader to use discretion in allowing group members to visit the leader's Relto through a party bookmark in their own Relto books. From the KI, this could be accomplished by ticking a box (or something equivalent), and if sharing a book can start a group as I suggested above, it seems appropriate that sharing your Relto book with a member would engage all the members' (or maybe just that member's) party bookmarks in their Relto books, while sharing a different book would not.

[Marten]

There may be a chance to add some more functionality to the bookmark idea. Specifically, a "private link" bookmark in Relto could double as the journey bookmark sending you to the location of the last journey cloth you touched.

Possibly. "Overloading" behavior is something that must be done with care. The person may want to return to their private instance but not link to the last cloth touched... and since the private link bookmark will appear in other books not in the player's Relto, it might be confusing if it behaves differently in two places (players can only link to the main link-in spot when using a book outside of Relto).

Also, while I agree that using the KI to set up and manage parties must be possible, I don't think it has to be the only way: on some books outside the Relto bookshelf, the single-hand "journey" symbol could be replaced by the double-hand "share" symbol, and accepting the shared link could constitute joining a new group led by the one sharing the link (which is how I imagine sharing a link should always have worked).

I think it's really best if there be a single method to set up a party, and not have two different systems; I'd rather see the lock tabs go away entirely.

Oh, and one more thing: I'd appreciate the ability of the group leader to use discretion in allowing group members to visit the leader's Relto through a party bookmark in their own Relto books. From the KI, this could be accomplished by ticking a box (or something equivalent), and if sharing a book can start a group as I suggested above, it seems appropriate that sharing your Relto book with a member would engage all the members' (or maybe just that member's) party bookmarks in their Relto books, while sharing a different book would not.

Rather than a box in the KI, this could be some sort of modifyable attribute of the bookmark in the group leader's Relto book; that would, again, prevent the technology<-->magic issue from reasserting its ugly head. (At some point I'll trample over canon I'm sure, but while I can, I'll try to keep things real.)

[Grogyan]

For the sake of being consistent, should the Relto Bookshelf Books also take you to the public instance if you use the Linking Panel (making it super easy to attend a public party in Minkata, say), with Personal and Group bookmarks available, as with Books you'd find in the City?

Sounds great to me.

That starts to break away from the Yeesha story, and should remain as is, a book takes you to a private instance, or hood instance by default, as for example having 2000+ explorers jumping from Age to city and creating horrendous LAG, when doing the CGZM game, GZ game or multiple Age marker games

My initial thought is that Bahro Stones should private, not public (since they're already loaded with Yeesha Magic as it is), and when exploring as part of a group, you'd get a group bookmark analogue somewhere on the Stone which would take you to the group leader's instance, while the panel would still take you to yours. This way we could keep Tokotah Rooftop accessible for parties... just add someone to your group, and they can get there via the link from either Relto (in the City Links Book) or Gira.

I think that works well. The in-character oddness is more than offset by the ease of use.
[/quote]
I never read that Bahro stones are imbued with Yeesha's ability, but rather imbued with the Bahro's ability, meaning IC we can say that they want us to go to a public instance, and through Yeesha have a tab that you click that will trigger the game to take you to a private instance.

Ideally we'd have Nexus access for Tokotah Rooftop too, if possible... a Nexus Pedestal up there wouldn't go amiss, I think.

How did the DRC get off that rooftop after dropping off their lunches and notebooks, again?


I actually dislike the idea of adding Nexus terminals, even though I can easily accept the notion that the DRC should be able to create new linking books and add them to the Nexus by now. It weakens the "authentic, original D'ni public transit" flavor that the terminals currently have. If we end up with a system in which authorized explorers can KI-link to Nexus (as a panic link substitute), I'd rather see them get the Takotah roof in their Nexus for free than see a terminal added.
[/quote]

This I like, there should be more Nexus stations around, I mean thats what the Nexus is for, getting around with breaking your neck. IC theehre would have been D'ni that would have had special access to certain areas which are not authorized by regular citizens, so its wholly IC to have more Nexus stations, register your KI with it, and hope that you are authorized to come back there.

Stones that link to the Neighborhood are a little tricker, but should follow the same concept... by default they take you to your 'hood... if you're part of a group, the group link takes you to the leader's 'hood instead.

Since there's no "one true hood" that would be the equivalent of the public hood, this makes sense.
[/quote]

I disagree, they should always take you to a public instance, unless however you are part of a party, then you can click on the share tab of the stone to take you to a hood instance or party instance if you are part of one, it should never be difficult for new or old players to understand the share system, cause I can tell you when I was learning it back in prologue, I frequently lost contact with people, because of order of who clicks the share first then on the person.
By clicking on the share tab you have allow yourself to be part of the instance that you are already sharing, or if multiple Ages are selected for you to join with, then clicking on the share tab means the same thing, you've told the game that you want to go to a private instance

Provided that players are well-informed about how this feature works, does the marginal loss of security under specific conditions outweigh the complexity of re-managing the group if the leader goes offline?

The leader was already trusting the visitors before s/he dropped offline, so I think this is an acceptable outcome. It definitely beats being the second person to join the group, and suddenly finding that your Ages are now accessible without your consent when the leader crashes.[/quote]
[/quote]

This is virtually a non issue now, with the party system we are wanting to implement into the KI, so even if the leader crashes, everyone can still carry on and link to and from ages that they wish to still be banded with through the share tab of books and stones.

Thats my whole hearted opinion, and thoughts on it, having experienced the problems with the current system first hand too many times

Owehn wrote:There may be a chance to add some more functionality to the bookmark idea. Specifically, a "private link" bookmark in Relto could double as the journey bookmark sending you to the location of the last journey cloth you touched.


Possibly. "Overloading" behavior is something that must be done with care. The person may want to return to their private instance but not link to the last cloth touched... and since the private link bookmark will appear in other books not in the player's Relto, it might be confusing if it behaves differently in two places (players can only link to the main link-in spot when using a book outside of Relto).

Sorry this is one thing I completely over looked when my original proposal, which i've iterated my reasons above, returning to a private instance via cloth after a party venture
Like to know what your thoughts on this one guys?

The big issue is IC Nexus, ie, how can many people have a private instance of a supposedly public Age, my feelings on this is that we should stop there, and just say that the DRC and Yeesha in the past have come to an agreement about the Nexus system