User talk:Saburai

Big Survivors Little Survivor

Thanks dude, were tuning to 28.06. Anything you need help with? --Ross less ne s s^{Want a Location Image?} 18:36, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Its worrying, you can only get radio transmitters in malls, and i think the closest one is in south borehamwood. For now i think powering up, pd's and fire station with their in built radios is the way forward. Ive got a handheld radio tuned to 28.06 so can relay messages to those around me. Is Parkhouse Walk PD a group or just a lot of people in one building? Whats your construction staus? Weve got (I think 3 people) with construction, but we're only maintaining barricades on the hospital at the moment, as theres no zeds outside. There was a zed outside Walmsley Terrace Police Station, but more than enough people inside to deal with it. I think most zeds are heading towards the BB house, so were still relatively safe. --Ross less ne s s^{Want a Location Image?} 19:14, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Cool. Ive added a little map to your page, and will encourage survivors to barricade towards your position, giving us a large barricaded zone.

Clean cut and shaven (you wonder where he got the razor or the hot water). He is carrying a medical bag and a small, stainless steel hatchet. His eyes are very solidly brown, perhaps to an unnerving degree. Is this you? if so I'll add you to the list of friendlies, --Ross less ne s s^{Want a Location Image?} 20:07, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Just keep on keeping those friendlies active. My only advice is to say when leaving a comment. please click

to sign your posts. It saves a lot of time working out who left them. If you need any wiki help, just shout. --Ross less ne s s^{Want a Location Image?} 20:17, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Communications

Just set up on http://www.beerhah.com come say hi. --Ross less ne s s^{Want a Location Image?} 23:00, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

'Route66TexasGlenrioGasStationDayNoelKerns1-08.jpg'

Click the link below to upload it, then the same code embeds the image. You may want to shorten the Destination name. Using the existing name, File:Route66TexasGlenrioGasStationDayNoelKerns1-08.jpg. _■^■ 22:53, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

constructing a suggestion

If you are going to revise and put it back into the bear-pit that is talk:suggestions may I suggest that you delete (or archive it here?) the current discussion to avoid clogging the system? --Honestmistake 17:21, 2 April 2009 (BST)

Archived from Suggestion Discussion Page

Major Repairs Unlock Part of Building Description

Timestamp:	Saburai 02:10, 1 April 2009 (BST)
Type:	Flavor
Scope:	Survivors
Description:	Hello, all. I don't edit Wikis much, so pardon any formatting errors. Also, there's no need for hostility; if you think this is a bad idea, just say so and I'll take my medicine without regret. There's been a lot of discussion about how it's unfair that a 3 AP repair and a 40 AP repair have the same XP reward. I don't think those complaints have much merit; I've done dozens of suicide repairs, in Borehamwood no less, and I'm not complaining. But I do think it would be fun if, after completing a sufficiently mammoth repair job, you could edit part of the building description. It would work like a graffiti window. The minimum unlocking job could be, say, 50 AP (a true suicide repair), which frankly seems to represent a complete remodeling of the structure. The basic text descriptions we all know and love would remain (i.e. "You are standing outside Ruggevale Walk Police Dept, a large concrete building with arched windows") followed by "Someone has constructed... " The subsequent text could be anything from "a skylight shaped like a pentagram" to "an additional wing south of the hospital with Spanish Tile and working fountains." Make it around the same length limit as a graffiti message. Let me extend this idea to one more level of complexity: 50 AP repairs buy you the chance to add flavor text to the inside. 70 AP and higher repairs let you add a description to the inside and a different one for the outside. When the building is ruined, the new flavor text disappears forever. I think that would encourage more suicide repairs, shut up some of the whining about them, and lead to more colorful interiors and exteriors for everyone. Has this been proposed before? Is there a reason it will never work? I considered the possibility of spammers typing in things like "Someone has constructed a giant statue of your mom" or "Someone has constructed ____/\____\o/___" and other silliness. Yes, that will happen, but this isn't a 1 AP spray-can action. Given how rarely a player will have the opportunity to do this, and how much it will cost (often it will be the last thing they do before getting killed), I think most players will put some effort into their descriptions. To be clear, this change would have no effect on game mechanics whatsoever. It's just an opportunity to let user-generated content add flavor through a realistic application of the current game model. Cheers.

Discussion (Major Repairs Unlock Part of Building Description)

Interesting idea, I think its temporary nature makes it a really possible plan. It would really add to Ruin Repair bragging rights. D^ANCED^ANCER^EVOLUTION (TALK | CONTRIBS) 02:42, 1 April 2009 (BST)

Thanks for bringing up the ruin repair bragging rights. I didn't mention this in the write up, but that's a major part of it for me (except more on the zed side). Other than Borehamwood, I generally play brain-rotted zeds, and nothing pleases me more than trashing a perfectly decorated, powered, awesome building. I can imagine groups of survivors getting very attached to their buildings' flavor additions, and zeds taking obscene pleasure in destroying them. Thus, it encourages both sides. If I submit this formally, I'll have to play the bragging rights up.--Saburai 06:37, 1 April 2009 (BST)

Certainly an interesting idea, but i think it would make suburbs that periodically have every building past the 50ap point looking really trashy. And as the only way to remove someones description that may be a false PK report or a link to goatse or whatever is to reruin the building, we'd end up with a whole suburb with poor taste graffiti that no one can remove. I think people should suicide repair because they enjoy it or for the overarching benefits, not so they can post novelty supergraffiti. Props on thinking outside the square though.--x o x o 04:31, 1 April 2009 (BST)

I dunno, the fact that it needs to be >50 to be useable implies that the suburb is an unused and undisputed suburb. I think it would add to the bragging rights outside of the metagame scene. D^ANCED^ANCER^EVOLUTION (TALK | CONTRIBS) 04:47, 1 April 2009 (BST)

I obviously agree with DDR. Any suburb with several 50AP repair buildings is going to be mostly ruined, which means NO flavor descriptions (they'd all be destroyed). The only buildings that would be "stuck" looking "trashy" would be the ones in very well-maintained neighborhoods where no zeds come through to "clean up the decorations". And in a neighborhood like that, it wouldn't be too hard for the local survivors group to arrange to have a friendly zed ruin the building to clear the objectionable material. This idea is very hard to do (wait for a building to get totally ruined >50AP, taking several weeks, then spend 50+AP repairing it), but very easy to undo (one zed, 5AP to ransack and ruin in five minutes). That also makes it a high value target for pride players like me (survivor and zed).--Saburai 06:37, 1 April 2009 (BST)

I think that I would like it more if hyperlinks were filtered out, the description wasn't permanent (time limit of 3 months or next suicide repair), and the level of decay was higher (75+ ap). Either those 3 or give the repairer a drop down menu of a bunch of options for what to install. Really cool sounding idea and very far outside of the box! --Johnny Bass 06:02, 1 April 2009 (BST)

If blocking hyperlinks is easy to do, that seems like a good idea. I'm not coding it, after all. The flavor text WOULD be filtered out by the next suicide repair. As I said, and this may bear repeating, the descriptions are cleared when the building is ruined. By the time you go to repair it, it must have been cleared by the zed who left the building in need of repairs. In most cases, this would be much less than 3 months. It's very, very easy to undo. That's part of the charm; it adds to the challenge. You arrive in a 80AP-repair schoolhouse. Obviously, you're in a dangerous neighborhood, otherwise why did the building remain vacant so long? You want to rebuild it to look like YOUR high school, with an red-and-white brick Edwardian facade and an oak grove yard. But if you do the repair and a zed finds you, he'll kill you and ruin the building, deleting your work. What do you do? How do you protect it? If you succeed, you now have a building that's uniquely yours. Would that change your play style? Would you stick around defending it? Would zeds try harder to break in? That's what I want to find out. I don't like the idea of a drop down menu because standard, repetitive descriptions are exactly what I'm trying to change! I want to make Malton look like something. I want an outlet for my creativity. I want to surprise and entertain players, not give them another rote text block to ignore.--Saburai 06:37, 1 April 2009 (BST)

Having a player interface that allows limited customization of buildings would be a really good idea but I think you might be underestimating some peoples willingness to abuse it for the sake of annoying folk. Sure it is pretty easy to undo but I think it is a valid concern and I am not sure Kevan would be happy reverting the inevitable obscenities on demand. Perhaps limiting the ability to donation accounts would make it feasible for the server to keep track of who is doing the redesigns and thus ban anyone abusing them? --Honestmistake 09:06, 1 April 2009 (BST)

That's a valid point, but wouldn't that argument also apply against graffiti? People DO use graffiti for annoying other players and for griefing, sometimes. They also use it for serious things, and for fun things. Graffiti is very easy to do (around 5-10 AP to find a spray can, 1 AP to write with it), and about as easy to undo (ditto). My proposition is VERY hard to do (wait 20 days for building to fall into sufficient ruin, with no one repairing it, 50 or more AP to do repair), and fairly easy to undo (once a zed gets inside, 6 AP). Whatever work Kevan has to do reverting constructed obscenities would pale in comparison to his daily graffiti duty (the cans currently block profanity, right?). Actually, I wasn't aware he took any such action; I see cleverly obscene graffiti all the time.

Anyway, if, at enormous AP expense, someone puts up an irritating construction, 1) that's at least something interesting to go do in Urban Dead, and no one HAS to read the flavor text; 2) it will motivate other players to undo it, probably just by having a zed ruin the building. Remember, that offending building won't even be eligible for a new facade for several weeks.

Weigh that occasional inconvenience against the additional interest of having customized headquarters for various factions, AND a reason for zeds NOT to ruin temples crafted by death cultists in red/gray zones. All in-game; no metagaming required. If anything, I think the flaw in my proposal is that it's TOO easy to undo the construction. Only a handful of buildings would fall into sufficient ruin for remodeling and simultaneously remain safe from ransacking zeds for any length of time. That's why they would be prized, and a tremendous incentive not to waste the remodel. Let me ask you this: Are the kinds of people who like to spraypaint "...a picture of your sister naked" the same kind of people who like to do suicide repairs? In my experience, those are two diametrically opposed personalities. --Saburai 09:32, 1 April 2009 (BST)

I am not even considering stuff like "your sister naked" as that's harmless... I was thinking more like people posting real or wiki user names and abuse or even phone numbers. People would be willing to make throwaway zergs to post stuff like that and while it wouldn't be too hard to remove if you had the will it should be avoided in the first place if at all possible. --Honestmistake 10:20, 1 April 2009 (BST)

A "throwaway zerg" with construction, a toolbox, 50 AP, and a totally ruined building in safe neighborhood or working with a team to immediately barricade-in (to avoid immediate re-ruin and deletion of the construction project)? Again, I think you're arguing against graffiti, not my proposal.

It is indeed very easy to create a zerg, find a spray can, spray something obnoxious like my name and social security number, abandon the character and disappear. If you spray it up in Ridleybank, it WILL stay on the wall until Kevan deletes it. My proposal would require such a troublemaker to have almost a perverse dedication; it would take days of playing the zerg finding the necessary equipment, skills, and location, preparing for the "prank". How often could that possibly happen? And if Kevan can keep the world from ending with graffiti going up every minute, surely he can spot the 1-5 abusive suicide repairs a year. I'm just not seeing the danger here. Can you be a bit more specific on what such an evil player could do to game this system, that he COULDN'T do much more easily with a spraycan? Or, alternatively, can you suggest some ways such abuse could be prevented? --Saburai 15:00, 1 April 2009 (BST)

I think it's brilliant. I'm not so much worried about the occasional obscenity or listing of phone numbers, but some asshole(s) could ruin this for everybody, right? Create groups of both zeds and survivors. The zeds squat in a building (or several) until it requires a 50AP repair. Survivors roll in (while zeds move on to a different building), do the repair, then squat to protect their very own personalized building. I want the idea to work, but isn't it a zerg's wet dream? --Paddy Dignam^{IS DEAD} 18:25, 1 April 2009 (BST)

I don't see how it's a "zerg's wet dream", any more than any other mass behavior could be. Remember, newly spawned zeds can't ransack (and so can't ruin a building to prep it for your hypothetical strike team), and newly spawned survivors can't barricade or repair (and so can't remodel a building or hold it against zeds). Even if the zerg team was high-level, the survivors you hypothesize can only protect one building at a time, unless you're imagining some ne'er-do-well spawning infinitely many zergs to stake out a huge chunk of Malton. If someone wanted to do that, why haven't they done it already? How is this idea more prone to zerg abuse than heavily barricading entry points, dropping zeds in dark buildings to block repair, or any number of other existing mechanics that haven't broken Urban Dead?

Nevertheless, I respect your concerns. I've been thinking a lot about how the dynamics of this would play out. What it comes down to is this: holding onto a flavor building would be very hard. Once the zeds found out about it and decided to destroy it, there would be almost no way to stop them, even if it was deep in green territory. Unlike other kinds of sieges, where humans can sidestep a zombie attack by hiding next door while the zeds exhaust themselves on barricades, in the case of protecting a flavor building, there's no way to escape. Once the zeds break in, the addition gets trashed, quickly, and there's no easy way to rebuild it, except by leaving the building in ruin and somehow keeping survivors from repairing it prematurely. Similarly, zeds could not hold onto an "evil cathedral" (for example), because an uncooperative zed could waltz in and ruin it. In every case, high visibility remodeled buildings would become targets and would not last for long. Which is fine: I think the transient nature of the improvement is part of the charm and prestige of accomplishing it. Holding onto a flavor building would have intrinsic merit, not for zergers, but for any group that likes their customized headquarters.

Just to sum up, everything about this plan seems to lean toward making it rare and difficult to do, even rarer and more difficult to make stick, and very easy (and desirable!) to undo by zeds, who naturally love to destroy survivors' most prized possessions. I don't know how it could become a regular suburb-wide phenomena; the dynamics just don't favor it. But it will create the possibility for interesting new play mechanics and plot lines, in game. It will do so without unbalancing ANYTHING, although the new behaviors, if they catch on, could reveal or highlight existing imbalances in the current rules.--Saburai 19:18, 1 April 2009 (BST)

I like this. But. Make it an option from a drag down list. 10 or 11 different options to choose from, removes the spamness of the ability. --Ross less ne s s^{Want a Location Image?} 19:25, 1 April 2009 (BST)

Hey, Rosslessness. I respect your opinion, and I suppose a drop down list is better than nothing, but another level of predictable text is not what I'm trying to achieve. I don't think that 10 or 11 text options will lead to the sense of attachment that will encourage people to act on this feature. It might still marginally increase the prestige of a suicide repair, but it really misses the creative outlet I'm going for. Also, wouldn't you need 10 different options for each building type? The options for a school house would be very different from those for a factory. That would make the implementation MUCH more time consuming (hey, unless Kevan is looking for work to do...).

As I've said above, game dynamics would make these flavor buildings rare and short lived. Do you think having a police station briefly described with "Someone constructed an attached covered patio/Someone constructed a bell tower/Someone constructed a horse stable [CHOOSE ONE]" would really make the game any more interesting? I can't imagine any 10 flavor text bits that would be interesting enough to take the time to read, but generic enough to go on any building in any situation. That's what the buildings have now, after all. The only way to make this a worthwhile addition is to open it up to user content, with the unpredictability and messiness that entails. If it's unworkable, it's unworkable, but I'd rather have it be unworkable than be predictable. --Saburai 19:54, 1 April 2009 (BST)

I always get confused by people who read feedback and respond in a reasonable manner. Yep. I did mean 10 for each building type. Hmm. In fairness I guess people doing suicide repairs aren't all that trenchy, and may add reasonable things. --Ross less ne s s^{Want a Location Image?} 20:25, 1 April 2009 (BST)

Since this is just the discussion section, let me brainstorm for a moment. I'm wondering whether there's a simple, user-driven mechanism for quality/spam control that allows complete creativity and rewards good work. I'm not changing my proposal, just speculating. Hear me out. Let's talk about interiors, for example. What if a 50+AP repair gave you a window like this: "You totally renovate the ruined building. In addition to the original interior structure, you add [text entry panel, 100 characters]." When a player does this, the description of the building interior changes to "<normal description>. Portions of the interior are covered by tarps, indicating heavy construction." Ok, now the magic happens when the building is re-ruined and repaired (at ANY AP value). The person who does the next repair gets this message: "You repair the building damage. Under the tarps, you find [suicide repair person's name] has constructed [previous repair work description]. Do you wish to remove the tarp (0 AP), or dismantle [player name's] work (5 AP + 1 XP)?" If they remove the tarp, the change becomes a part of the building description until the building is ruined (at which time it is lost; no second tarp). If they destroy it, the building becomes a regular repaired building. If someone attempts to remove his/her OWN tarp, he gets a message saying "You repair the building damage, but decide your renovations need more work before revealing them." That way, two players have to concur that the remodeled building adds something. That would make it much harder for spammers to use this improvement. I think this system is a little too complicated for my taste, but it resolves the spam worry. What do you think about that, Rosslessness? --Saburai 21:17, 1 April 2009 (BST)

It might be simpler to include a mechanism for survivors to ruin/repair the improvement almost as if it were a generator. Perhaps require a toolbox and 10 actions to demolish and show the names of anyone vandalizing the feature. --Honestmistake 11:18, 2 April 2009 (BST)

That's an interesting compromise. There's obviously a few ways this could work.--Saburai 17:13, 2 April 2009 (BST)

OK, thanks for the feedback everyone. I'm going to mull it over and submit it back to this queue in a few days in some modified, hopefully improved form. After that: Peer Review! The general sense I get here is that people think this would be fun, but want a mechanism to control abuse, which is perfectly reasonable. I think we can find a way to make this practical. --Saburai 17:13, 2 April 2009 (BST)