Silent Heaven: Small-town Horror RPG

mietze

@Selira Perhaps I’m reading too much into my perception of your tone, but I’m just expressing my personal experience and worries, it’s not a condemnation of the game or anyone in it. I’m enjoying poking around, and have enjoyed the people who have chosen to engage when I try to. However, for me personally, if it continues to be a largely solitary thing, or if people aren’t too interested in further engagement for whatever reason, I think the appeal will wane quickly for me.

I like some mechanics stuff (for example, all the non-RP systems on Arx while not the reason for me to be there were fun to do, as long as they weren’t the only things to do). I wanted to try here because I thought it would be interesting to have a good balance (and honestly, sometimes I like an ooc and ic masquerade, esp if everyone’s on the same footing). I have hung out in public places and always seek to engage with others when I see them. I would like to encourage others who are just starting out and are dealing with an ooc learning curve/adjustment that the weekends of course are easier to come across people (this isn’t that different from other places!)

Cafe RP is awesome. I’ve had some fun meeting people there, as well as on the street, and had a pretty funny scene the other night too due to some exploration that went badly at the end. But those were short bursts after hours of searching. I guess it’s not too different from MUSHing in general, that. Except for I can’t hang out in an area that lets me listen to whispers on the wind that isn’t also somewhat dangerous to idle off in!

@Pyrephox I too made a med pc, but have had little opportunity to use it, I think maybe because people can heal up on their own too (NOT that I am advocating for that to change, because I’m not!) Unfortunately my story answers at cg also have had a huge impact on how I’m able to navigate the grid on my own, so not only do I not have valuable stuff to offer (yet, I assume that might change over time as things grow and develop!) but it’s more difficult to be able to explore on my own and i haven’t been able to connect much with others. But it hasn’t been very long! I wonder if the forensics stuff will be more useful once things gear up!

Pyrephox

@mietze My character’s more an investigatey PC than a med PC, by far. I leveled up their medicine just to not be wretched at it, but it’s not their thing.

As for activity–yeah, it can be hit or miss. I’ve had some very fun scenes, and honestly, everyone I’ve RPed with has been great, so far. But it can sometimes be difficult to figure out if someone’s looking for RP, or just wandering the grid - especially with the travel delay. Or if they’re just idling. I’ve posed at several people who were probably AFK but not set ‘pause’. Or turned out to be NPCs with limited/no interactions (which is fine, although I wish there was a flag for an NPC).

But there have been times when it’s like the grid (that I can reach - choosing ‘climb’ as my weakness was not a great idea) is empty, or the people who are there are just wandering around to explore things, not really looking for RP.

Selira

@mietze I really apologize if I came across in a negative way. I was writing distracted while moving around on mobile.

Vulgar Boy

@Pyrephox said in Silent Heaven: Small-town Horror RPG:

@mietze Haha, yeah. I made a medical examiner before doing thorough reading, thinking I could do autopsies on people who got et by monsters and the like - turns out no one stays dead, so there are no corpses to autopsy. I have a very cool forensics kit, but I’m not entirely certain what use it is - certainly, no one is clamoring for blood tests or DNA samples in the same way they’re begging for…shoes.

I answered a question without realizing that I was condemning myself to an in-game existence of typing a direction and then having time to make a cup of tea before entering the next room.

Faraday

This kind of reminds me of when I used to play on TGG. The combat system was astonishing, in a quasi-RPI sort of way, but I generally played medical characters because I didn’t like the idea of being one bad die roll from death. Even then, one time my PC got shelled to death because there was an artillery strike on the hospital and I was AFK. Not particularly fun.

Lots of other folks liked that risk, though. For me, it was a dealbreaker; for them, it was a selling point.

I think the main thing is to just be clear about expectations. Awhile ago we discussed disconnections and Jumpscare said:

@Jumpscare said in Silent Heaven: Small-town Horror RPG:

That can’t happen. I’m sorry if I misspoke and it came off that way, but your character can’t suffer any harm when disconnected.

That doesn’t seem to be the case from what’s been described here. It should be clear what you’re getting into one way or the other.

Vulgar Boy

If you fall asleep in real life there’s always a chance of someone harvesting your organs. I’m honestly not sure what the problem is here.

Jumpscare

Hi there! I’m really sorry that came up, and I talked to the player of the affected PC. I offered a retcon to the individual affected by this, because it really shouldn’t have happened in the first place.

For two reasons: First, if you get disconnected (and not intentionally have your character fall asleep outside of safety), you’re supposed to be safe from anything like that. Second, characters are protected from anything like that from happening in their first week, even if they do sleep out in the streets.

So it somehow bypassed two checks for safety. I’m sorry that affected you, and as soon as I get back to my computer, it’s one of the first things I’m going to fix.

Jumpscare

@Vulgar-Boy said in Silent Heaven: Small-town Horror RPG:

If you fall asleep in real life there’s always a chance of someone harvesting your organs. I’m honestly not sure what the problem is here.

The problem here was that the character got disconnected outside of a safe zone, which should have caused the protection to kick in. I don’t think it’s okay to downplay this.

Vulgar Boy

I do think that if the tools to allow PCs to prevent other PCs from doing malicious shit are not available for 7 days, then that should be an indicator to avoid the malicious shit RP, not to intentionally do malicious shit with the knowledge that no one can really stop you. One of these is learning from systems, the other is taking advantage of them.

@Jumpscare said in Silent Heaven: Small-town Horror RPG:

The problem here was that the character got disconnected outside of a safe zone, which should have caused the protection to kick in. I don’t think it’s okay to downplay this.

I was not being wholly serious. I’ve only ever had organs taken while I was asleep once, and I probably deserved it if I’m being honest.

Pyrephox

@Vulgar-Boy Look. You just gotta remember: if your one-night-stand offers to draw you a bath, it’s great if it’s hot. But if there are ice cubes in it, you should probably call it an early evening.

Pavel

@Pyrephox said in Silent Heaven: Small-town Horror RPG:

@Vulgar-Boy Look. You just gotta remember: if your one-night-stand offers to draw you a bath, it’s great if it’s hot. But if there are ice cubes in it, you should probably call it an early evening.

And if the bath is in the basement, look out for easily-accessed building supplies.

Jumpscare

After discussion in the Silent Heaven discord server, we’ve decided to restrict this mechanic to NPCs/monsters only. PCs will have the option to opt-in. By default, it’ll be blocked.

This is probably the way I should have done it originally. But I’m always open to changes, and I think this’ll be a positive one.

Faraday

@Jumpscare said in Silent Heaven: Small-town Horror RPG:

So it somehow bypassed two checks for safety. I’m sorry that affected you, and as soon as I get back to my computer, it’s one of the first things I’m going to fix.

Code goes awry sometimes. Props to you for acknowledging and remedying the issue.

DrQuinn

@Jumpscare That’s really encouraging. It was late when I signed on to find…all of that so I think I misinterpreted a few things that were said in our conversation and didn’t get that there had been things the code should have prevented and thought it was a me mistake. It was definitely overwhelming to then find out later that before I could even RP my body had been in a scene and…

It just was definitely not the greatest first impression. I’m really glad to hear that none of that was intended gameplay for a new person.

Aria

Yeah, I gotta say A+ on how all of this has been handled. It’s really reassuring.

shit-piss-love

Yeah, still not the game for me (I’m not down with any level of having things done to me while I’m offline) but the handling on what appears to specifically be a bug is very positive.

TNP

Responsive staff, willing to acknowledge mistakes, and implement changes in response to feedback/complaints?

Just… damn.

Vulgar Boy

I feel like I should admit that I’ve been following this thread for months and playing there since it opened and this is the first time I realized that it’s Silent Heaven, not Silent Haven.

Raeras

@Vulgar-Boy I also had that same thing happen. A realization when i finally joined the discord that i’d had the name wrong the whole time

Selira

Still very impressed by this game, as the horror elements are starting to kick up. @Jumpscare is a beast of a coder and a headwiz, and the playerbase is by and large great. Looking forward to seeing the next few phases of the game roll out.