We've been discussing a coding issue relating to creating an AR/VR/Trix reality level (or multiple levels): whether we can do it without a full-fledged reality level and how elaborate we want it to be. It's important that we get the playerbase's feedback on the issue because if we follow one course of action it may set our coding efforts back quite a bit.

Essentially, we need to know how you anticipate or hope to play with AR in the SR4 game. While in AR, a person can be sitting at a bar in one location, but can be accessing AR for another bar across town. This means that this person can still hear and see what's going on in the primary location while still seeing the pop-ups and AR-connected people located at the secondary location. VR works somewhat differently in that there is no awareness of physical bodies in a place unless they've tapped into a camera nearby (assuming there is a camera). And then there's the whole hidden persona issue, and how personas will display in both AR and VR...

As of now we've discussed a couple of different options to try to realize at least some of the wireless matrix scenario. One of the simplest would be to truncate our vision of AR: allow awareness of AR space only in the area the PC object is currently in. In other words, you wouldn't be able to access other locations when you're sitting in the bar. You'd only be able to see the AR representation of your current space. Is this something you guys would be comfortable with? Would you rather be able to see other places as well? Do you think it would make a difference?

Crypto may be able to answer some of your questions more clearly than I can, so I invite him to add to my description here as well as answer any questions you have. But please, post your preferences. We'd like to make our final decision on this issue in the next week.

I'm realistic.  I think that, no matter how elaborate the AR system is, most people will be more or less glued into 2008 thinking, and will want to do things in the meat.  It's just so hard to conceive of a world full of dancing icons in every corner and under every rock, that I think most people will not waste the mental energy to do it.  People will hand each other AR objects like virtual cards, they'll surf the matrix, check their email, have video chats, but will they really immerse to the extent that would be possible in 2070?  I doubt that more than a very few people will.  That group will probably overlap primarily with the small group that knows the Matrix rules...  Some things never change

Also, I don't have a lot of confidence in the attentional abilities of human beings.  Ideally, if someone is zoning out in another window on AR, you'd expect them to pose not really paying attention and such.  But in reality, if they get absorbed somewhere else, it will funk up the action in reality, and that person will become a posing black hole where nobody's quite sure how to interact with them because their response time is so slow.  But of course if they pose that they're totally paying attention, we'll be required to go along with it, even though they are seriously pissing us off by being in three places at once and not being the world's fastest typist.

And regardless, even if multiple location awareness was a coveted feature, it's not necessary.  For the Beta, we can get along without it.  We should try to open, and see if anyone gives a rat's ass about accessing real matrix rooms while hanging out in meat locations.  Stuck in 2008 as we are, I think very few people will be able to get outside themselves and see surfing the net while interacting with real people as anything but completely sad.

Well, one thing to bear in mind is that the reality level set up is a one-chance only thing. Although Crypto says we could go into beta without it and build it during beta itself, we need to have it planned ahead of time because we can't just slap it onto the side after the fact. It involves too much of the basic comformat, exits, etc. etc.

You're proposing that everyone has an ARdeck that allows them to +poof from AR room to AR room? Similiar to what the current astraldecks allow mages to do.

No, we're trying to decide whether to use a reality level for it, so we don't need a 'deck' like we had in the old game. If you are wearing a commlink ICly, you have access to AR reality.

I think you guys should strive to follow the source as much as possible; the more reality the better. Even if it only ends up making the niche matrix junkies happy, it'll still be there and done for whoever wants to take part.

While I disagree with the sentiment that it is a one-time only possibility (the restructuring can't nearly be as bad as it is made out to be - I say so based on my own experiences as a programmer), I would say that in light of such a sentiment you're better off getting it done beforehand than wish it had been done later on. I.e, better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it, as the saying goes.

Of course, I do have a bias on the subject in that I'm among the aforementioned matrix junkies. :b

Well, a reality level seems like a good idea...  People need a way to pose their virtual pets and such.  And grid locations need to have AROs flying around that can't be seen without an active link.

But I don't think connecting to mutliple locations should be handled with the same reality level mechanic.  When I walk into a bar in AR, people won't be able to see me by logging onto that bar's node.  I'm in augmented reality, I'm not projected into a computer system, I'm just receiving data from AROs is all.  The only people you're going to see on that node are people who have their matrix personas logged directly into it.  The personas will not look and act like the people do, they are seperate entities.  They can be controlled through AR, but they are not part of AR.  If I'm walking around with my AR active, I won't see personas zooming around, and they won't see me (unless they comandeer some cameras).  Personas are not AROs, and will not be picked up by passive mode commlinks.  If I log onto a node using my persona while in AR mode, it's not another layer of reality on top of my current one, it's an entirely different reality that simply displays in a window in my field of vision.

If you are not in Hidden Mode, your persona is visible to the Matrix. Your persona is your commlink and is visible to any and all nodes you interact with. This means if you can see them, then they can see you. This is why Stealth programs are useful, even to the non-hackers.

To clarify, a persona is the sum of a commlink's stats. (including Firewall, Response, Signal, System, OS, programs and hardware used) The persona Icon is the graphical representation of that commlink and represents you in augmented reality and in most forms of Matrix communication. If you see an ARO, the node that makes that ARO can see you. Nodes can be PANs (other Matrix users), devices, and networks.

This means if you access AR, your persona is visible on the Matrix. Wherever you go, there you are. This is why commlinks can be a huge liability on a run. If you are looking at AROs for a location, then you are connecting to the node that runs that ARO. All other personas looking at that ARO are also connected to that node.

Hidden Mode only allows those Nodes you access/authenticate to access your PAN. This means you can see your friends and they can see you, but you can't see anything else unless you actively look for it. Passive and Active Mode lets you see and be seen by anything looking.

And lets not forget that even in Hidden Mode, you aren't totally hidden. Re-read the informative 'The Wireless World' section of SR4. It pretty much re-writes all our assumptions on how the Matrix works.

-Hades

Hi everyone

Ok to clarify this a bit.
What we want to know is, do You, the playerbase think we need the ability to be in one place with your meatbody and at the same time in another with your ARself. The difference is significant to the normal VR/Astral system as such that, when you're fully Astral or fuly VR with your Persona you are NOT at different places at once. Even though you leave your meatbody behind, you do and can not interact with anyone at the location of your meatbody, so Mushwise you're NOT in two places at once.
The reason we even ask this is twofold, first. With the way our Grid is setup there is few "useless" space like roadintersections and similar stuff, and the question here is about MushRooms. In the PrP rooms where a lot of action might happen this is also a useless ability, because even though a PrP room might span a continent it is only one Room mushwise and you're always in the same location like your Meatbody and just pose being at two different areas.
Second, yes it is possible to add it later. It's also possible to build a car as a SUV then take it apart and build a sportscar out of some of the parts. Though you don't do it. The ability to be at two places at once, not only involves the way a room is seen, the way a player is seen the way an exit is seen, but also the way you speak, emit, pose and roll. All of these abilitys need take into account the ability to be used in two places, at once or in one place but NOT the other. So if this ability is direly needed i need to plan ahead now, not after all the systems i need to recode are coded once and work, only to be coded again.

Hope that made it clear.

Crypto

No!  If you walk around in Passive mode, you see the AROs, but your persona is not visible.  Your commlink is visible, as another node in the area.  But simply receiving incoming AROs does not stick your persona out there for people to ogle.  Persona =! node.  Persona is the personification of you that, when you directly log onto another node, appears on that node.  When you just walk around in AR, not logged onto any node, Stealth does nothing at all.  Even when you put your commlink in Hidden mode, the Stealth program is simply not a factor.  Stealth works only when you have your Persona logged onto a particular node.

You can't forget that commlinks are nodes as well as personas.  If people walking around in AR appear as personas, how can you tell the difference between them and their link?  You can't log onto a persona, you can only log onto a link.  It would get awfully confusing if those were represented by the same icon at all times.  A person's Persona is represented by a different icon than their link, just like it is with another node.  The Ares gateway is not represented by an icon of Damien Knight, it's like a big castle or something.  And my link doesn't look like me, it looks like whatever icon I've chosen to represent my commlink.

Commlink = persona. Icon = graphical representation of your persona.

So, yes, in Passive mode your Icon (whatever it looks like) is visible. Read the Book. Pages 206 to 240. Specifically PAN Modes and PERSONA on page 211, MATRIX PERCEPTION on page 217, and everything before, between and after those pages. The discussion on how the Matrix works ICly is over. No more commenting on it. We're getting way off topic.

So now back to the original discussion:

Do you want it to be coded or not?

We've got your answer Tear. Thanks.

-Hades

Here's the thing.  In astral space you could be in one place physically and another astrally.  In my experience only one MUX I played on had that, and the only time someone ACTUALLY did it was to eavesdrop on some people doing TSing.  In all reality in the game, if you really wanted to pose you were one place and RPing, but wanted (for some game reason) to be eavesdropping on others, you could quite easily do that in the background.  A useful tool for said eavesdropping has been staff interaction with the player.  As a staffer for many different games I would usually build a bot that could be setup to forward all interaction in a room to myself and another person.  I did it with me there so that no one could eavesdrop on private things and to make sure the player went through all the rolls to be eavesdropping.

So, in short.  No, don't code it.  Yes, have AR information in any one area, have an AR information on the character themself, but there is no need to have something hard coded.  Hardcoding has always made things more convenient because it does not require staffer (or other) interaction, HOWEVER, player only adjudication is rarely fair, or useful.  Sometimes people just like to swarm around until they find something juicy to look at.  I think it is more complicated to code this entire layering system than it would be to get the game completed and out there to play.  Second big point, if you really want to be in two places at once, you can still do it, it just takes actual judging or cooperation with the other players involved.  Both of which are better options to me than self-regulated interaction with potentially bugged coding.

I still recall the time I tried moving from a normal cafe to some pizzeria's public grid on the Matrix long ago and it told me I critically failed and I was automatically put in a room to wait for staffers for 2 days before they came and said that I was free to go.  Whee, yay automation!

Being in two places at one time doesn't actually require judging. We're not talking about things that require staff interference, nothing that requires rolls, etc. It's just stuff that's in the book that we -could- put into the game, but if nobody thinks we'll need it we don't have to have it. So far that's two against and 1 for. Any other perspectives?

Please code it, it would provide flavor and allow some manipulation of SR4's new-fangled Matrix. 

  If it takes time away from opening Beta Dying .. I' mean testing, then no.