/writeorder system for restaurants and bars

[Pettie]

Hey there, fellas! As someone who owns and has owned restaurants here on GTA:W, you WILL get alot of people one way or another into your business, ordering all kinds of stuff. This can get pretty stressy and can be quite unorganized for alot of people, including ya boi here. While alot of people have a good way of writing down orders into their head, some people simply can't do it as fluently.

 

What I'm proposing is a note-esque system where you can write down orders on a note, like you would a real restaurant or bar. This would include a order number and what the customer wants. This could make cooking/bartending WAY less chaotic in general.

 

/writeorder would write down the order while /readorder would show currently written down orders that have been requested by customers.

 

Something like this:

 

/writeorder Burger w. Fries 1

/readorder 1

*Order #1 Burger w. Fries*

 

Pretty simple stuff!

 

Do check out @Ink's suggestion down in the comments! It's way better than this version that I wrote!!!

 

Edited March 4, 2021 by Pettie

[Bagz]

Yes plz, my brain is in slug mode 24/7 so this would be helpful

[orca112]

Would be a good addition to businesses or organizing orders. Especially in a crowded business regardless of it's type, it can be hard to keep up with the chat and relay information between employees effectively.

[Chaishi]

do it

[Ink]

I really like this suggestion. I'd expand on it a little bit more (but not much)--make it so that every employee of the business can read the orders. The reason for this is because in my restaurant, we have the waiters outside interacting with the customers, and the kitchen staff on the other end of the restaurant. The kitchen staff can't actually see any of the roleplay happening with the customers. We have the waiters ICly go over and tell the kitchen staff the orders, but this requires a ton of extra awareness that shouldn't NEED to be happening. 

 

The waiter needs to be able to keep a bunch of crowded roleplay straight, to take down orders in the middle of a bunch of chat spam, then to carry those orders over to the kitchen staff, to relay them to the kitchen staff in the middle of their crowded roleplay, and then the kitchen staff needs to remember this, prepare it correctly, and then give it back to the waiting staff in like 10 minutes, where the wait staff needs to again remember exactly what the order was.

 

There is currently no in-game way to facilitate this process besides the Notes system, and that just adds a lot more buggy juggling of items (plus having a stack of unwritten notes will bug the moment you start creating singles, so you'd need to have a pile of notes laying somewhere or in your /pinv and people would need to keep juggling the items around). And technically, using Discord in any way is a violation of the MG rules.

 

In general, a business-wide notes system would be a fantastic addition for all businesses. You can use it to write down Orders, and to leave other general notes for other employees.

Edited February 27, 2021 by Ink

[Pettie]

@Ink You really explained it SUPER well! This is super helpful, man!

Edited February 28, 2021 by Pettie

[DinosKartal]

+1

[@horiaa]

8 hours ago, DinosKartal said:

+1

We really need this.

[bonk]

I've been a waiter both in real life and on text-based role play servers, I think it was way harder to keep up with orders in game over real life.

 

I am sure a lot of people could find this beneficial. Sure.

[Ink]

I want to practice what I preach here by offering an example of how this could be implemented to every business on the server, allowing restaurants and bars to use it for taking down orders when they're open, pawnshops and other businesses to have their employees log purchases and other such expenses, and so on. In real life, leaving notes is a major part of how people interact with each other, especially in the workplace where sending text messages to your co-workers might not be the usual.

 

Basic commands:

/biznote = shows biznote commands

 

/biznote list = shows all current notes in the business

Example: [ID] [Author] [Date] (EDITED by X): (first few words of Contents)

 

/biznote read [ID] = reads selected note

/biznote add [Contents] = creates a new note. This shouldn't require a Note item (as they're buggy to carry around and it would make this system require more screen-spam for the person doing it)

/biznote edit [ID] [Contents] = edits a note. Will show (edited by Author) on note.

/biznote remove [ID] = command for supervisors/up, OR original note creator. Deletes the note.

/biznote name [ID] [Name] = Allows a supervisor/up OR original note creator to give the note a name. This would display instead of the first few words of contents in the list. This is useful for notes which are more permanent, such as if the owner of a business wanted to leave a note detailing a list of contacts for certain business functions. 

 

It's not entirely necessary to show the author and date by the script as this could just as easily be stuff people ICly add to their notes, however I think this is more of a measure to raise accountability for notes without involving admins wasting their time investigating trollish or ridiculous notes. Realistically, unless someone goes through extreme attempts to conceal it, it's not difficult to tell whose handwriting is on a note unless you have a massive staff. I can usually tell, in my workplaces IRL, who left a note just by seeing them, especially if we frequently communicate with notes.

 

 

Extra commands:

/biznote addinfo [ID] [Content] -- similar to the "edit" command but this is specifically for adding IC info to a note which isn't what is visible. What is this note written on? How is it written? Where is it placed? Is there anything attached to it? Etc. This is optional because some notes really don't need it--if a waiter, for instance, writes up a note and RPs handing it to a cook, addinfo isn't really necessary and might just waste valuable time. But if someone leaves a note while no one's around, having extra information about how to RP it is really handy.

 

/biznote checkinfo -- a command which allows people to view information about the note. This is separated into another command to reduce obligate spam when checking notes. If someone wrote a full text box for the note's contents, and a full textbox for the info, suddenly that note can take up half the chat when loaded. This cuts back on that spam.

 

(biznotes with info added have a colorful (*) or some similar indicator added to the author line.)

 

 

Level of OOC or IC of these notes:

The only question that remains is whether this system must remain 100% purely IC (the only notes allowed to be created are physical notes written ICly by characters) or whether to allow it some level of abstraction. This system would allow businesses to communicate IC information with all employees in a way that's relatively non-intrusive. For example, I could write a note "all the chips in the snack bowl on the counter have been replaced with chocolate bars" (obviously in this case I could just make that an IC note, "hey everyone I've replaced all the chips in the snack bowl with chocolate bars" but people would also be able to ICly see that). This is one way business staff can interact with each other and update each other with pertinent setting information without A) everyone needing to have contact with each other over forums/Discord (which is technically metagaming and against server rules), or B) using a /cim for things which are minor or would only be seen by employees.

 

I'm personally on the fence with this. I can see it going either way. On one hand I imagine good roleplayers can take advantage of "OOC" notes which are full of pertinent IC details about the business. I can also see it being handy for alerting your business of OOC absences. However I can also see it gumming up the note system and being used for silly stuff like memes and joking around. I think the admins/management on GTA:W really frown on any sort of extra venues of OOC communication, but I also feel like there is a sort of "OOC-IC" I'm going for here. Here's what I mean:

• Fully IC - All notes created with the note system must be actual notes of some kind, and must be ICly made and ICly placed in the business.
• Abstracted IC - All notes must be in-character, but they do not necessarily have to be literal notes. They can descriptions of changes to the business and other text written, almost like a business-wide /do.
• Some OOC allowed - Notes may be used to communicate some limited OOC information pertinent to the business. Informing players about upcoming absences would probably be the biggest use, or coordinating availability for openings.

 

Personally I think "abstracted IC" is the level to go with. I can see the some OOC allowed being useful but I can also see it being misused more often than being used properly, while I think "abstracted IC" will be used properly more often than it is misused.

 

Super optional command:

/biznote OOC [ID] -- allows you to mark a note as OOC. If this wording is controversial, we can have another name for the tag (like "emote" instead of OOC) which would tag a note as an emote, for instance, instead. For the "abstracted IC" level mentioned above, this would mean that the note is not a physical note but contains IC information business employees would be able to find out. 

 

 

Obviously, misuse of this system can be punishable. If people make unrealistic notes "you'd find evidence that Tony Spaghettio was inside and killed me during my shift" "need to buy a new gun lol my last one got taken hit me up" or whatever else, that can always be handled. I have confidence most RPers on this server would use this appropriately.

 

Edited March 3, 2021 by Ink