Suggestion:20070817 Missing In Action

	Dupe
	This suggestion has been found to be a dupe of PR_UI:_Sub_Pages#Flag_If_Inactive. Dupes are easily found by searching for them in the main and suggestion namespaces.

20070817 Missing in Action

--Pestilent Nomad 02:27, 17 August 2007 (BST)

Suggestion type
Improvement

Suggestion scope
Zombies and Survivors

Suggestion description
There are many variations on this idea but I don't think anyone has taken this angle.

If a player in your contacts has been idle for one week they are flagged as MIA on the contact list. There is a role playing justification for this. Assuming both humans and zombies are moving throughout the city and at some level in the 23.5 hours we are not controlling them the characters are inquiring about their friends and enemies (contacts) with other players either to find or avoid them. Let's say your contact Bob leaves the safe-house or horde and does not come back because he has been idled out for a week. If you were to ask around or even search every block of the city no one would have seen him since idle players can't be seen. After enough time where no one has seen Bob in either a human or zombie form it would be logical to hope for the best but the community could form the option that something so terrible has happened to Bob that he will not be returning as a zombie or a human and label him as MIA.

If Bob logs back on after being idle for a week he would still be marked as MIA in the contacts list since the community is now under the assumption he is not returning. The only way to flip the flag back to active would be for an active player with Bob in their contact list to recognize him. When Bob is recognized the player seeing him would get a message stating “You are surprised to see Bob ”. Bob would likewise get a message stating “Player_Name was surprised to see you” At this point it would be assumed word of Bob being back would spread to the community that knows him and Bob would be no longer be flagged MIA in contacts.

The main motivation for this suggestion was to find a way for players to have better information to manage contacts while still flowing with the role playing of the game. Further I was also looking for a way not to give away too much information on individual players exact time of rejoining the game if they choose to return. After a certain amount of time not finding an MIA player it would be logical for a searcher to move on and put the missing player out of their memory / contacts. In a more logical world most communities would search longer than a week before giving up on someone but keeping the time shorter is more fun for the game play.

Not having Bob flip back to active as soon as he logs in also does not give too much information away about when he becomes active again. Even though the player is marked MIA they could actually have returned to the game and just not been recognized yet. This leaves the judgment call of weather to remove MIA friends or foes from the contact list up individual players. This also helps prevent someone with a profile querying tool from knowing exactly when or even if an inactive player has rejoined the game which could give them an unfair advantage.

Voting Section

Voting Rules

Votes must be numbered, justified, signed, and timestamped. # justification ~~~~ Votes that do not conform to the above may be struck by any user.

The only valid votes are Keep, Kill, Spam or Dupe. If you wish to abstain from voting, do not vote.

Keep Votes

1. Change - I think just a simple "MIA" or "idle" would suffice. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 02:31, 17 August 2007 (BST)
2. Keepy. I prefer MIA because we might as well protect what's left of the fourth wall, you know.--ShadowScope 02:34, 17 August 2007 (BST)
3. Keep - I like it. seems like it would be useful for managing the status of contacts, but not too intrusive. --Bobs Aturd 02:39, 17 August 2007 (BST)
4. Keep - Eh.-- dǝǝɥs oʇ ɯɐds: sʎɐʍ1ɐ! 02:44, 17 August 2007 (BST)
5. whatever - I only have people that I interact with often on my contacts. But there seems to be no problem with this. =Doc Crook 03:14, 17 August 2007 (BST)
6. Keep - Personally I don't care if it's a dupe. A good idea is a good idea. --The Hierophant 03:37, 17 August 2007 (BST)
7. Keep - I've wanted some version of this for ages Sanpedro 05:39, 17 August 2007 (BST)
8. Keep - As The Hierophant.
9. This change is long due. -- John Rubin^{T! ZG} 09:09, 17 August 2007 (BST)
10. Keep Yup.--Seventythree 18:00, 17 August 2007 (BST)
11. Keep Author. --Pestilent Nomad 19:27, 17 August 2007 (BST)
12. Okay. Kind of confusing mechanics, but the idea works out well enough. Kalir FTW! _{Z/S UD Potato Words} 21:20, 17 August 2007 (BST)
13. Keep No longer a mystery of "Are they just not here, or are they Gone?". Long overdue. But the message thing isn't totally necessary. If this suggestion gets too much flak, remove that and try it again. Otherwise, Good job! --Driaquer 04:46, 29 August 2007 (BST)

Kill Votes

1. Kill - The ones in peer reviewed are better than this. The "surprised to see Bob" bit seems a bit pointless to me The preceding signed comment was added by boxy (talk • contribs) at 16:25 17 August 2007 (BST)

Spam/Dupe Votes

1. Dupey - Don't get me wrong... it's a good idea. I just think this is close enough to all the other "show inactive in contacts" suggestions that it deserves a Duping. I usually just kind of skim over the ones that involve the contact list, so I can't be positive. Therefore, I will not include a link. This means that my vote is invalid unless someone else provides the link. --Steakfish 03:17, 17 August 2007 (BST)
2. Dupe Show Idle Characters and Mark Inactive Contacts. Also Last Seen Column kind of applies here too.--Pesatyel 06:00, 17 August 2007 (BST)

   RE The MIA suggestion offers a way to reintroduce missing players back into the game gradually and not definitely give away their current status. The other 3 suggestions don't provide this. Reasoning is on the discussion page.--Pestilent Nomad 03:41, 18 August 2007 (BST)

   What difference does "gradual" make? People have very little time to play. Who wants to have to spend that time wandering around the city hoping somebody recognizes you? See the talk page.--Pesatyel 05:14, 18 August 2007 (BST)

3. Dupe - sorry, i really liked the idea, but i guess it's been done.--'BP^Tmz 06:07, 17 August 2007 (BST)
4. Dupe - I like the idea, and it makes a lot of sense, but I've got to go with Dupe on this. As Pesatyel has shown, three similar ideas already in Peer Reviewed. -- Pavluk 09:56, 17 August 2007 (BST)
5. Dupe - Aa above :) --Marie^{The Grove on Tour} 10:18, 17 August 2007 (BST)
6. Dupe - As above. --Saluton 17:19, 17 August 2007 (BST)