On Tempus, Characters earn a reputation through their actions. Currently, only the individual player knows what reputations his or her characters have.

Do you think everyone should know what each others' reputations are, or not? Should reputations be open knowledge for all?

And if reputations were common knowledge, how would that work? How would character X learn what character Y's reputation is?

Should there be a WANTED List? Should reputation be listed on a character's desc?

Should reputation be public knowledge, and if so, how?

What are your thoughts?

I think it would be neat if any players above a certain reputation (criminals, and "near-criminals" as I'll call them–people with high reputation) are shown on who. We could call it who -felon! Hah! who zone -felon. Muhahahaha!

And then if a person was not of high reputation, you could go to a mobile in Modrian who would research a particular humanoid to determine his or her reputation.

It could be written so that the reputation of all characters, dangerous or not, is sought through the reputation mobile.

The reputation mobile could even give a history of offenses, like a rap sheet!

If other players had good reason for reputation to remain private, I would be fine with that.

Merriam

Not knowing a person's reputation can be very dangerous with the way rep bleeding works. I love Merriam's idea of a "P.I." who can look into a players history and can tell you their reps. It should be costly, but it is a way to gain information.

I speak from experience that there needs to be some way to determine reputation. I was grouped with a mortal and berserked because, hey, can't kill a mortal right who isn't listed on who kills. Well, I did, because of rep bleeding and got a shitty high rep. If I could have gone to the P.I. and looked into the character's past, I would have been able to see the information I needed to know.

Along those lines, the P.I. can list offenses such as cheating etc. I think being embarassed in such a way and letting people know a person's character may stop some from doing stupid stuff.

I like the idea of having the rep investigators. Maybe he can have different options for different prices, such as a list of who's bountiable, searches on particular characters, or searches on everyone who's currently in the realm. To counter this, however, I think it would be good to have something to counter it that the player in question can buy. Maybe for 100k a day, you can be !investigate. Or, perhaps you can buy "saves" against investigation that wear off after a while. Classes like thief and merc might get natural bonuses to this. If not making you un-investigatable, maybe you can get mudmail or some sort of message letting you know who investigated you. Just some ideas.

100k a day for !investigate, it'd have to be a lot more then that or everyone would do it.

So, yeah, reputation should be knowable. It should be a [who rep] command. It shouldnt say what your reputation is, just weather its between mostly harmless and cold, or between cold and true killer.

k bye

True…. Those that PK actively should be able to afford much more. Another thought I had was that maybe it would be possible for reputation increases to be pardoned for a price. For example, say January berserk kills her mortal friend and gets a ridiculous rep inrease. She can give the mortal 5 mil or so and ask them to go to a lawyer and forgive the kill and get the rid of the reputation increase. In that light, say January is feeling particularly angry one day and just decides to kill someone out of spite, keeping their best eq and not giving it back. There's no way the victim is going to pay to pardon that reputation increase. The price would insure that people still don't just go around killing for fun, and it might give victims leverage too. "I'll pardon your rep if you give me my axe of shadow back." It will also solve accidental killings for people like January.

On the other hand, I can definitely see the following:

Killer: "I'll give you the three items I took if you give me 5mill plus pay for my rep increase."

Victim: "But you PKd me you should get a rep increase!"

Killer: "Whatever noob, you're such an ass, so I PKd you. Now do you want your stuff or not?"

Victim: "Fine fine."

Victim is still harmed. Killer gets off free!

I say reputation happens, and the fact that it lessens overtime is the solution to rep. No more rep lawyers. Reputation is reputation. If John Gotti paid $100million, do you think he was any less notorious?

Respectfully,

Merriam

I like the idea of having the ability to research the REP of someone.

Like go to the police station - BUY INQUIRY KANO - pay a fee, based off charisma, but probably around the neighborhood of 100k (this is a large fee, think of all the citizens you'd have to go through in order to get this) Maybe you could add a parameter - and see how far back into the past this has gone, and how many days you go back determines how expensive it gets, so BUY INQUIRY KANO 200 would be more expensive than BUY INQUIRY KANO 10 (Assuming this is done in days or something)

This would yield a mail, or slip of paper of some sort that reads like: Inquiry on citizen Kano: Information Current as of 20-Jul-2005 Player has not committed any crimes in the last XXX days.

Or Inquiry on citizen Kano: Information Current as of 20-Jul-2005 List of crimes committed in last XXX days. Armed robbery: Suspect wanted for theft of 6 items from citizen Narcissus on 18-Jun-2005. Assault and battery: Suspect accused of murder in the first degree of citizen Narcissus on 18-Jun-2005. Assault and battery: Suspect accused of attempted murder against citizen Samus on 12-Jun-2005.

So above, narc got stunned and stolen from, then offed at some point in time, and a few days earlier, samus was probably stunned and recalled before anything could be done against her.

While it may not list the exact reputation of someone - you can probably guess based off the quantity of things done, and dates, about how bad of a person they are.

Basically, have it summarize the number of items looted, and if the player killed, etc… but put the price on creating the report high enough so that you wouldnt want to do this all the time for every player - but maybe that one person that keeps showing up in zones you're in too often to be coincidence.

Cool concept maybe.

In reply to Merriam, there aren't really 3 pieces of eq that would go for 5m now days. Maybe it could be 10m, the imms can work that out. To avoid situations like this, a 3rd party could be involved, like the auction system. The victim can pardon the killer, and this will open up an option for the killer to pay the fee for his pardoning. I don't really see the above situation happening…. I myself don't have much eq that I would pay that much money for. As it is, someone can offer to sell back a tarrasquapusian carapace back for 5m, but it doesn't mean that the victim's gotta pay for it. After all, what are they going to do if the victim doesn't pay? Spam kill him?

All you need is basic common knowledge. I know this is weird hearing it from me but just bear with me. All mortals are innocent okay cept for the people who have done some pkilling or has a lot of genned up chars. they will all create at mostly harmless. Since all mortals are pretty much !pkill just look to see who all is projecting. Everyone gets a rep increase once they hit gen 1. If you have analyze just analyze them and see if they have a secondary class. Now if they can pkilled someone. Thier name will show up on the list and you can see thier reps.

its really easy to determine someones rep. I dont think there really is needs for something else being put in just to see if someones rep. Hell if ya wanna see if someone has a rep flood/sleeper/stun em. if it works hey they got a rep! If you are unsure just say something like are you innocent? I like to run around berserk crack happy on my barb and if someone walks in or wants to group first thing I ask is if they are innocent so I can run around and berserk. Other wise I just ask if they set thier wimpy high just incase I typo berserk to remove it. But hey if something like what merriam and the others said were implemented it would be easier. But I wouldnt pay for something easily I cant find out myself. But thats just me. :D

But it sounds fun the other way. Private investigator! Crime report on Kano? So cool.

who -kill? not nearly as cool. My two cents.

To whoever commented about equipment value, it was a scenario. You wouldn't understand, but back in the day everything wasn't 100-200k apiece. A tarrasquian carapace was 5mill, neurals were 25-50+, anything worth wearing was 500k-1mill, hazards were 5mill standard, good weapons were a few mill, recall devices were 1mill, containers were 500k, and so on. But that was then, and now is different.

Merriam

I know that Merriam, and thats why i was saying: The tempus economy needs fixing. So if we sac everyones corpses, demand goes way up, supply goes way down, therefor, prices go up :)

Yeah, I remember those days too. The thing that fed the economy, though, was PKing. Back when PKing and looting were widespread, people would lose sets of eq fast and thus, have to buy new eq. Those who sold eq got money just in case they were killed. Now, hardly anyone gets killed, and when they do, they keep their eq for the most part. The economy isn't going to get much better as long as the PK policy remains like this, so it seems the other policies should adapt as such.

Great comments so far. Specifically about Reputation being knowable to all.. what other ways could it be done? What would be simplist, what would be coolest? what would be best for newbies? Can reputation be defined as common-knowledge, and how/who should know?

• wish *

Newbies shouldn't really care about reputation. It's a world they aren't involved with. That's like saying, "How can we make the project channel easiest for newbies?" or "How should we explain the process of obtaining a 40+ qp oedit to newbies so they can get the best value?" They just shouldn't be involved yet. It could be one of those things that is mentioned slightly, but a newbie already has so much to absorb.

It could be that reputation knowledge be released only if you are on when the act occurs. For example, "Word spreads that Chaos has committed a heinous crime! His reputation has increased to dangerously dangerous!"

Let me ask you this:

If you have a reputation that no one knows about, how is it a reputation?

I really like the idea of a rep investigation, and I really really like the idea of it showing if people have cheated in the past. It could give a list of past offenses and maybe the punishment. Like has been found guilty of abusing a bug and was sentenced to be set back to gen 0. Maybe if this is public knowledge to everyone, that will help deter some cheating and give some embarassment to the cheaters.

Also, if a player is found cheating, maybe one of the punishments could be the setting of a higher reputation, resulting in rep hunters, etc.

i think that the whole rep ivestigator is cool….but would be pointless to put in…if you have general knowledge on ppls mutli's then you should know that if they have killed anyone in the past that all of their multis have reps….basically what dyne said….i dont pk alot but if i wanna test out to see if someone has a rep i run in with my little thief and try to stun them….yea they get pissed but in the long run you know that when you start to see them projecting they can be killed….and to comment on merriams comment about making project easier for newbies….they dont see it and they are not suppost to see it….there is no making it easier….when they remort they figure out how to use it….its not that hard to use…who kills works just fine to see who the pk'ers are…..oh i also dont think that knowing who has cheated is a good idea….the imms know who they are, and most of the players find out sooner or later anyway so why put something in where there is a list of it…

My comment about project was an analogy to I believe Wish's comment asking how to make reputation easy to understand for newbies. My logic was that reputation does not concern newbies any more than project concerns newbies because they shouldn't be using it or caring about it.

I say P.I. is a cool idea that adds to the roleplaying and fun. Go for it! :)

Merriam

Great comments so far.

Putting the Gumshoe idea to the side for a moment, what would you think about reputation showing up when you look at someone, and as a who option, such as who-r, if that one isn't already taken?

• wish *

well you see the reputation of killers when you type who kills….i dont think that ppl without any pkills under their belt should have thier reputations exposed for others to see….if they want everyone to know they can go out and pkill someone but other then that i dont think it should be shown

But it's a reputation. It's called reputation! Look up the definition. It should be known, fo' sho.

Merr

I like the idea of having some indication about someone's reputation when you look at them. I also like the idea of the PI or whatever, where you can research a player. I would propose that it be limited to those players with a need to know said information such as clan leaders who might need to know a players multis and anything they might have done in the past. This information could prove useful to them in deciding the character of an applicant to their clan. I personally fail to see how if Merriam broke some rule and was punished by the admin staff, how that is any business of Rahvin's for example. (Assuming Rahvin is not a clan leader). Also, I would remind people that people really are capable of changing their ways, myself included, so remember that when pulling a rap sheet and they did some horrible thinigs 2 years ago and nothing since. -DS HIPAA forever! lmao

PI & rep spreading across all chars -

"I say P.I. is a cool idea that adds to the roleplaying and fun. Go for it! :)"

—-……—-

so if i'm playing a char that wouldn't hurt a fly, listens to smooth jazz, likes to take bubble baths while burning scented candles and singing songs about beautiful cute butterflies- you really need to believe it's really the same character that talks jive and crude + doesn't take smack from ppl - all the while with a bad temper, ?

hmm

"But it's a reputation. It's called reputation! Look up the definition. It should be known, fo' sho." {www.wordreference.com defines reputation as, the general estimation that the public has for a person}

"if you have general knowledge on ppls mutli's then you should know that if they have killed anyone in the past that all of their multis have reps" - - –..

Shouldn't the actions of the character stand independly for the general estimation, as they have nothing to do with each other?, "accounts are just for admin and quest purposes" - so what would cause the publics general estimation that my character that wouldn't hurt a fly, to be skewed to being bad-ass dangerous – Do city guards really need to accost an emo monk, cause some psychopathic ranger killed his own clanies?

shrugs

How far do ya dig - i mean, what do you do while the woods burning..? It just doesn't make sense to me.

I don't know what you were saying in response to my comment that it adds to the roleplaying aspect of it. Perhaps you could clarify?

Merriam

I believe that what he's saying really all boils down to this:

Just because one of his multies is a badass motha doesn't mean that his other characters are. He doesn't want someone being able to tag all of his multies with the P.I. just because one of his characters has a killer rep.

I agree; PI should not reveal multis or reputations of multis. However, reputation should bleed across characters simply as a safeguard to creating a "throwaway" character with a Cold rep.

Merriam

reputation does bleed across multis

Clarification: I'm saying, "Reputation should (continue to) bleed across multis."

Merriam

rep bleed - (names have been changed to protect the innocent)

MerriamX tells you, 'how did you get that rep? You believe in violence! i PI'd you and you have rep, you're really a bastard! - not some peace loving beet-nick'

Emo monk tells MerriamX, 'Violence is not the answer : ) puts a flower in the barrel of your gun'

MerriamX tells you, 'right whatever - you're probably really a guy too, knock off that pretending to be a girl stuff, you're a freak, you just want to loot me, and then try and get me to have mud sex with you to get my eq back'

Emo monk tells MerriamX, 'I wouldn't hurt anyone :(' Emo monk tells MerriamX, 'make love not war.. :D'

MerriamX tells you, 'Nice try you freak show, i'm not grouping with you, you're just gonna jack me, that PI guy told me you were trouble, quit BS'ing - who's multi are you?!'

KakaoratX tells you, 'Dude, who are you? why are you tryin to jack MerriamX? you're not a peace lover, otherwise you wouldn't have that rep, i'm gonna pk you cause you're after MerriamX!'

A city guard says to you, 'You're one of those criminals!' smacks back of head, hauls to jail Emo monk frowns. Emo monk takes a burning hot poker and slides it in through his own eye socket to end the misery. Roleplaying is dead! R.I.P.

yeah me too.

What? It does not tell multis!

Merriam

woo for mud sex…….and what are you talkin about merriam

The rep bleed needs to be removed, for the same reason that the idea of psi's "alter ego" trigger showing a person's multis will never be implemented thank god

I'll ago ahead and put here now, I know why rep bleed is in there, yes there is a real concern about people making rediculous throw away characters. - However - Taking care of these things is and should be the job of the administration, that is why they are there. No autonomous system is going to handle real people as effectively as real people handling real people is. If there is a problem with abuse, it can very easily be handled by them. It's that simple.

The reason this should be removed, is that just like that psi trigger idea, is it conglomerates a persons account into one entity, instead of a convenient gathering of several entities (read: characters) into one system for the purposes of organization, or whatever quest and administration reasons the imms would obviously have, etc. etc.

Instead of multiple characters with potentially multiple personalities, attitudes, or whatever else you or I might choose, you now just have one face with a bunch of different names. They're all forced to carry the same personality, the same stigma. I often like to go get gold, and just be left alone, from killers, and from people I would otherwise normally help, as they ask for help alot. Sometimes I like to hide from everybody and just help out some newbies, when doing this I don't care to be distracted. And sometimes, I like to go out and pk someone, which like it or not, is part of Tempus, and has been since the beginning. As it is right now, I can't effectively choose to do these things seperately, I show up on the same slot of the who list unless I log out for crying out loud.

In real life, yes I am just one guy behind a bunch of different names, but on Tempus, this should not be the case to anybody that isn't higher in the immortal rankings. Unless I choose otherwise. some of the appeal of these games is the ability to get away from yourself and be whomever you want to be. Right now there are just too many things that are tearing that bit down, and thus denying is that aspect of the enjoyment of Tempus.

So your saying, if I pkill you with Rahvin, you wont hunt my multi's?

I gather you'd like for each character to have their own quest points and bank account, too, Narc?

You can't get someone's rep on the who list until they've killed someone. This was specifically so that you can have peaceful multis that aren't involved in pk (unless you've killed a LOT of people). That was the compromise made, and I still think it's a workable one.

That said, the order on the who list should change. The same slot thing stinks.

@ Rahvin.

If I don't know who your multis are, I'm not going to hunt them thinking they're you am I? That's the whole point, you can be left alone to help a newbie or get gold. So that being said, Yes I'll hunt your multis that I know of, just like anybody else. It would be nice to have an "escape the drama" character or two to play when you want, don't you think?

@ Azimuth

We both know that bank accounts and questpoints have nothing to do with character interaction among eachother. Combining these peripherial aspects of the game into one I have no problem with, I think the account idea is a good one. I just say it's been taken too far so as not to allow players enstrange their multi's from their other multis as far as other not-immortals are concerned, if the players so choose to do so.

@ Narcissus

That will never happen.

Good posts. Any other thoughts as to whether reputation should be knowable to all? and if so, how?

• wish *

Reputation, is, by definition, known to the majority. If nobody knows of or has heard of you, you're not really a candidate for a reputation.

So yes, it should be known by others, the who kills method of finding out seems pretty adequate to me.

There are two sides to reputation however. Maybe it's not feasable to implement, but I would gather that people like… The pope(s), Mother Teresa and the like, have as much reputation as Al Capone, but it's reputation in the other spectrum. These people have a "reputation" of being good, selfless, charitable people. (In-game-read: Maybe a standardized system of compensation can be put in place for those "do-gooders" - newbie-helpers, zone-testers, etc. Thats comperable in benifit, to the negatives of being a criminal, rather than the case by case "would someone care to help this newbie?" "Thanks here's a quad")

What we have on Tempus although is reputation, it's more accurately known as infamacy.

If we really want to tie the mud together, give it a feel of your character's actions actually mean something. Why is allignment not tied into one's reputation? If Charles Manson or (instert your favorite serial-killer here) were a player on Tempus, obviously they would have a noteworthy reputation. Would it make any sense for them to be a Good aligned knight? Or good aligned anything for that matter, I'll press on to say that even neutral is pushing it isn't it? Now we don't have to go nuts with this, but I don't think it would be so bad to have an alignment maximum of -600 to 600 for those characters who have no reputation as either evil, or good people. (I know already people are gonna whine about that idea, because frankly we're all lazy, myself not excluded, but I leave my response to them for when it actually, inevitably, happens)

Why -600 to 600 ??(or something short of the maximums) Well because I'm not saying you can't be evil without a rep, and I'm not saying you can't be good without a rep. But I will say you can't be as evil as they come without the deeds (-1000) And hand-in-hand, you can't be as good as they come without the deeds (1000).

On the flip-side, because you always gotta have both sides of the story, just because you have a reputation as one thing, doesn't mean you're actually that sort of individual. Frank Sinatra is an excellent example of this, many people still think he was a good stand-up guy, when in fact he was a mobster, and stood elbow to elbow with murderurs.

On another note, in a different post so not to dillute the previous one too much, the reputation system needs some going over. It has plenty of potential, but simply not enough time was put into it. If a high-gen character is assaulted by a low-gen character with deadly force, and retaliates with deadly force, he racks up a large amount of reputation. There's no reason the assaulted shouldn't be able to defend themselves against deadly force guilt-free. Even the screwed-up Fairfax County court system where I live would agree with that. And that says alot.

I'm not talking about revenge, or coming after your attacker 30 minutes after the fact. I'm talking about right there-on the spot taking care of buisness. Within 2 minutes if not less, which is plenty, because tempus pk is simply now or never, it happens fast or not at all as everybody recalls and hides in their holes.

The setup as it stands now, is just a free ticket for abuse to make a low gen character simply to threaten someone bigger, get yourself killed by them, and get them a rep so you can bounty hunt them.

Narcissus, there is now first-hit-tracking. Which means, if someone hits you first, and you kill them, you dont get a rep. Is that what you were talking about? pwned.

Theres first hit tracking for that combat, what he means is that should be extended to ~2 minutes after combat, so that if the defender decides to strike back they dont get a rep increase.

Heh, first hit tracking as I understand it, only works for the duration of that combat. If I hit you, and leave the room, you chase me into the room I left into, and hit me, first hit tracking does nothing to prevent you from getting rep.

Sure I could be wrong, if so, someone who knows these sort of details please fill me in.

I don't think the attacker should just be able to leave the room, or end the combat, to deferr the effects of first hit tracking.

Perhaps an argument could be made for it not to wear off untill the attacker leaves the zone, but I don't know if that's even possible. A timer seems to me to be more realistic.

Also, in my earlier post, I said "Not enough time was put into it". Re-reading this I realize it reads not like I intended it to.

I am by no means implying that it wasn't properly thought out before inception.

My meaning is, naturally with a new system there is only so much you can portent. Now that it is in place, is testable and experiencable, I think that this problem is something that perhaps wasn't forseen. There are probably several things. What I mean to say is now that it has been in for a little while, some more time should be invested into it, to give it a tweak here and there in places experience has shown us could use a little tweaking.

In my experience, if someone leaves your room, they are as good as gone.
If you hit someone, and they start trying to kill you, would you stick around? I sure wouldn't, i'd step right through my blood-splattered robes.

Mute point Rahvin. If you decide you want to run away, that's on you. Your experience should tell you that running is not what everybody's initial response is to being attacked by another player, even if you don't always survive long enough to flee and be pursued. If somebody's low gen thief misses a stun on me, gets their ass handed to them in a quick round or two, and flees out of the room. Should I decide to take that step into the next room and splatter them everywhere with a pris spray, there's no reason I should get the rep for that.