There are a lot of assumptions around certain players and in reality we don't know a whole lot about each other. I have spent hours of my life helping people oocly and icly and I never ever ask for anything back or hold expectations of that person.
I haven't involved myself with any of the Mag admin so I can't even begin to imagine how they felt about that particular episode, but players have certainly taken it upon themselves to throw all kinds of assumptions out there.
And Ellowyn it isn't up to you to do anything. If players want to leave and find their fun elsewhere with a group of friends that is up to them. Just like when a group of people leave an org. And as for people making those statements, there has to be some room for forgiveness, and a little effing compassion and some understanding of the situation. I am aware not everyone has the patience and ability to understand mental health. But for a community Thant bangs on about it all the time you sure as shit selective with who gets that special treatment.
Like I have always said. Do what makes you happy. You are paying to be here, even if it is simply with your time. Because your time is as valuable as anyone else's, including admin.
Close enough. Expect a stocking Thursday, Phoebus :P
Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
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EveriineWise Old Swordsbird / BrontaurIndianapolis, IN, USA
Everything is personal - @Everiine called me ugly, so he must be a stuck up, half-witted nerf herder. -shakefist-
(I actually just laughed at it and moved on, like everyone else should do)
You could tell I was tired . As soon as I typed it and hit enter, I went back and read it and thought... "Damn, this is the best I could come up with? Fail. I need to go to bed." It was only downhill from there. But yes, we should all laugh at things and move on. Just like how Ev despises @Eodh right now, but our short interactions on the forums have been pleasant, meaning he's probably a good guy.
Everiine is a man, and is very manly. This MAN before you is so manly you might as well just gender bend right now, cause he's the manliest man that you ever did see. His manly shape has spurned many women and girlyer men to boughs of fainting. He stands before you in a manly manerific typical man-like outfit which is covered in his manly motto: "I am a man!"
Daraius said: You gotta risk it for the biscuit.
Pony power all the way, yo. The more Brontaurs the better.
I meant that it's tricky how to deal with it in game, whether you acknowledge what they say OOC as well, or try to stay in character (to be honest, if people wanted to go play another game - it doesn't bother me in the slightest, I wasn't saying I was going to do anything about what people WANT to do, just how I respond to them). Also just stating a fact that there's almost an invisible line between IC and OOC in the game, sometimes. I didn't point fingers at anyone, or drop names. Just statements. I didn't say these people should be persecuted or punished. So just chill.
We're all human, and we all make mistakes. I just wish people wouldn't jump on each other so much!
I think this thread is a little directionless, because it's so easy to generalize and say, "oh, you shouldn't assume!" and "oh you should be compassionate!" and "oh, not everyone is like this!" and "oh, you should just take a step back!" but in truth, there are specific scenarios where this can and cannot be done. There are specific cases where specific people take actions that clearly demonstrate a lack of IC/OOC separation, and if all we're going to do in this thread is to generalize to the average player/admin and say, "but not everyone is like this", then there's really nothing to say, and no point being made.
Sure we're being "shit selective" about who to give the benefit of the doubt for mental problems or mental well-being to - and it sure as hell is biased toward how that person acts or treats people around them.
If we want to generalize, here's one I can add, "oh, most people in this game don't band together and flak down someone for no reason!" Maybe when it does happen, there's, you know, a reason for it.
I'm chilled...I don't know how you would think otherwise. I also didn't mention anyone being persecuted for it. Where did you come up with that idea?
I don't think anything about that information really needs to be acknowledged in game. It holds no sway on the story line or the interactions between players. Why that would even be something you consider is beyond me.
Players come and go all the time. If someone is discussing something oocly with you that is as far as it needs to go. But I have always shared any information oocly with the understanding that it may 1) Become public, and 2) Possibly used against me for whatever reason. Because that is how this community has worked for the 2 yrs I have been here. With that knowledge I just spout crap to certain people and watch to see how far it goes. I like social experiments like that, it gives insight to the networks within the community at large.
But back to Riluna's point. I think it would be great to have more well thought out RP that has a goal which is still flexible and open for more natural RP to develop. I don't think it has to be one or the other.
I think this thread is a little directionless, because it's so easy to generalize and say, "oh, you shouldn't assume!" and "oh you should be compassionate!" and "oh, not everyone is like this!" and "oh, you should just take a step back!" but in truth, there are specific scenarios where this can and cannot be done. There are specific cases where specific people take actions that clearly demonstrate a lack of IC/OOC separation, and if all we're going to do in this thread is to generalize to the average player/admin and say, "but not everyone is like this", then there's really nothing to say, and no point being made.
Sure we're being "shit selective" about who to give the benefit of the doubt for mental problems or mental well-being to - and it sure as hell is biased toward how that person acts or treats people around them.
If we want to generalize, here's one I can add, "oh, most people in this game don't band together and flak down someone for no reason!" Maybe when it does happen, there's, you know, a reason for it.
I was thinking about this the other day, actually. And while I do feel bad for people who have genuine mental health problems, I have to wonder if they thinking about the people they're being nasty to. How do you know the person you're threatening IRL doesn't have mental health issues too?
From what I can tell half the player base want to kill themselves and the other half have unresolved anger issues or home/work environments that cause them to log in stressed and not overly capable of coping with particular personality types. Okay yes this is a massive exaggeration, but you get the point.
Also you don't have to have mental health issues to be affected by the crazy that happens here. You can be a regular everyday person and still be negatively affected by someone's RP or ooc interactions.
I just think if you take into account the people who do act out in such noticeable ways, pause and wonder. Are they okay? Because yeah those words hurt and that wasn't what I wanted to see happen, but this person on the other side of the screen seems to be screaming for some help. And you might not be the one able to give it, but you can sure as hell help to guide them in the right direction or stand up for yourself and not be a dick.
I think this thread is a little directionless, because it's so easy to generalize and say, "oh, you shouldn't assume!" and "oh you should be compassionate!" and "oh, not everyone is like this!" and "oh, you should just take a step back!" but in truth, there are specific scenarios where this can and cannot be done. There are specific cases where specific people take actions that clearly demonstrate a lack of IC/OOC separation, and if all we're going to do in this thread is to generalize to the average player/admin and say, "but not everyone is like this", then there's really nothing to say, and no point being made.
Sure we're being "shit selective" about who to give the benefit of the doubt for mental problems or mental well-being to - and it sure as hell is biased toward how that person acts or treats people around them.
If we want to generalize, here's one I can add, "oh, most people in this game don't band together and flak down someone for no reason!" Maybe when it does happen, there's, you know, a reason for it.
I think it's less that this is directionless, and more that the stated problem is as wide and diverse as we are, so the direction needs to be a bit wider. Some generalization is required to isolate that, as no single one of our individual stories is completely applicable to everybody else's.
Most people don't metaphorically "gun each other down in the street," but there is virtually always somebody ranting in this community because they're feeling mistreated in some way. i.e. Why we can be barely trusted to even have a Tweets thread sometimes.
The solution is probably going to be even more elusive, because it's going to require the majority of us to do something different than what we have grown complacent doing. And not a single one of us can be forced to even care, let alone do anything about it. But does that mean we have no solution?
Mayor Steingrim, the Grand Schema says to you, "Well, as I recall you kinda leave a mark whereever you go."
It's a non sequitur, as far as I can tell. It's when someone goes "Oh, I was just playing devils advocate, I fooooollled yooooou" when they lose an argument or are shown to be defending a bad opinion/position.
If we are talking on mental health issues, I've discussed this in the past with a few other people and have never backed down from my statement despite some people thinking it harsh:
Yes, special care and attention should be given to those who require it, and it should be done gladly. However, as soon as one person who is receiving such care turns around and does the same thing they're being cared for to another, they forfeit their right to expecting the help. If you honestly believe that person can be redeemed or helped, then you are probably a saint IRL and we do not deserve to have you, but several of us have been burned in these situations and it's enough that we have to draw the line and say something on the lines of, "You can't have your cake and take away someone else's cake at the same time."
At what point does the care of that one person outweigh the care of the others? Why should they be entitled when they declaim others?
Back to the original point of this thread, it was said perfectly by someone earlier that I'm too tired and drunk to go up and quote - the best characters you create have bits of your soul inside of them, and you will grow attached to them. It's why it hurts when we have to leave Divine that we've worked with and genuinely enjoyed, it's why we feel so glad when they're noticed and praised for their hard work. We are the ones who make it possible, and yes, it does occasionally carry over into the game; that's something that we cannot avoid without isolating ourselves entirely from our characters and (in my frank opinion) not giving a shit about them. Like the plot line of at least one episode of every cartoon, there has to be moderation and a level of player responsibility. As more of a personal example, my character is truly upset with @Darvellan, but that doesn't mean every time this giant nerd shows up I'm going to go out of my way to ruin his day or call him nasty names. Sure, I'm upset he zapped me, but I'm not going to let it make me develop bad feelings toward someone who has actively run basin-wide events and favoured despite borders. But I will let a little upset at him creep in so I can remember, "Oh hey, I can't be too nice around this dingle, I have to be miffed at him on this character." And I think if you can find and ride that balance, you'll have a better time playing.
Disclaimer: I am very tired and it's 4.50 and I want to go to bed but I can't sleep, so if you see the majority of this post deleted, that's why.
I'm going to go keep calling Morgfyre nasty names because that's what Marcella does to gods she is upset about. Do you remember that pamphlet I wrote and sent to every guild leader in the game when Darvellan came out?
And yet I still have a lot of respect for Darvellan, the player, because instead of just bringing out the admin tools we actually had some decent RP conflict with 'finding the star' and whatnot.
RE: mental health issues, @Ellowyn - that's because I don't care if anyone else has mental health issues and don't expect anyone to care about mine.
Sorry to necro a thread. Better to post on one that already exists than make a new thing about it. The whole concerns, comments and etc thread gave me a line of thought related to roleplay issues.
I've been here a long time. A loong time. I can't recall exactly how long, but long enough to remember Forren being just a little older than me IG. I've had so many characters it isn't even funny! It's possible Shaddus and I are on par with each other in numbers of alts. But I let my alts go a lot, because the RP stops being what I need it to be and I stop being able to think purely for my character (the only exception being Pectus. I don't even know with Pectus???? Obsession????)
One of the HUGE problems I've seen over the years is that people have stopped letting their characters be their characters. So many have stopped thinking of their characters as a D&Desque player sheets, and instead put their own feelings, thoughts, and emotions into the code that is the character. Where once was a rogue elf excited to beat the dragon (And hopefully not botch a roll and accidentally seduce an orc) for her own reasons, is now a plain old human-minded being angry about life and pissed off that someone is questioning them. Your character, MY characters, are not extensions of us (Which is something I am trying to fix myself as well). They aren't ourselves plopped into a fantasy setting, they are new entities with life stories, emotions, thoughts, and relationships that we happen to play god with.
I don't know if I'm making sense here or not.. I hope I am. Roleplay is a living creature, if you'll forgive the metaphor, but when you don't look at it from the side of your own character and instead only see it through your eyes, it's not very fun. Because instead of Lusternia being a stress reliever from life's crap, you're just seeing more of life's crap just in a fantasy setting. You wouldn't do that with a Choose Your Own Adventure Book :P So why do it with Lusternia.
And obviously I'm not pointing fingers at anyone. All of us do this even if we don't realize. Humans do that. We let our emotions control us, and we get angry, sad, pissy, confused, and while it's great to have your character (And once again my characters) express those, we may not always be coming from the same places. But when we come from different places and our express our emotions through our characters, RPs get changed.
Or I could just be an old player reminiscing about old stuff. But I'm still hoping to change my own RP style and try not to let my own player emotions effect my character as much.
Don't apologize, @Pectus. I personally feel like a necro is only a bad thing when it doesn't serve a purpose. If you have something constructive to add, I, at least, welcome it, whenever the thoughts may come.
All of this is welcome to me. It's helpful for me to find the balance, because after all this time I am still not used to IRE's insistence that immersion = no OOC ever. When it clearly isn't the case, as much as long-term players have OOC everywhere.
But I, personally, feel like my personal RP style (which includes (( I love it! )) (( I'm not sure I can play that way )) (( Let's continue this )) etc. etc.) is off-putting to a lot of people, disregarding any other IC/OOC issues. I am not used to not explaining myself before IC interactions. It's common in a lot of other similar environments, and I struggle here for it.
I'm pretty sure letting yourself OOC a bit in interactions with people, for the sake of understanding if nothing else, will help a lot of the unreasonable tensions that arrive in this game.
Mayor Steingrim, the Grand Schema says to you, "Well, as I recall you kinda leave a mark whereever you go."
I don't generally discuss RP with other players ahead of time, but then again I generally don't roleplay a whole lot. The other thing is that I just feel like it breaks immersion and it cramps my creativity. Sure, an outline can be good, but I've always been the type who wings things.
Aeral keeps to herself, and she's actually quite snobby and gets annoyed frequently. It is true, when I was younger I was really attached to her and there were no boundaries between who I am and who she is. Now, I have to enforce stricter boundaries in terms of her RP in order to avoid that. When I am no longer able to keep the boundaries in place, I have to leave the game for a bit. Not just for others, but for my own health.
I treat my character now like I do characters in books I've written. Yes, she has a few pieces of me in her, and that's okay. Everyone has their own similarities. On the other hand, she is a totally different person than me. When the entire event about the new Gods came about, Aeral hated Aelish. To her, Aelish was a false god. Terentia is the only true one. But to me, I truly craved being involved in events again. There had to be a balance between what made RP sense and how I personally felt about things. In the end, I'm surprised Aeral didn't get maggoted by Aelish.
On a side note, @Marcella dealt with some shit from me that was completely me raging OOCly and I'm so thankful that she just let it roll off her. I have an incredible amount of respect for you now.
Since this thread got necro'd, I will say that I've never cared for pre-planned roleplay. It feels forced and non-organic. Spontaneous RP is generally best, in my opinion, because you don't have an idea of where it could go. I think it allows for situations for your character to be taken off guard, presented with situations they don't have answers for, etc. Part of the problem that I've seen in some games is that players are terrified of letting their characters fail. When Nienla came back a long time ago and broke the contract she had with Nocht, there was a public execution of sorts where Nocht made Nienla pay for it with her life as per the terms of their original deal. However, while I had no problem with Nienla having a stigma or failure associated with her, it was impossible for me to join Shikari's Order and Viravain's Order and I was rejected by both because of that public execution. "Someone powerful", who I'm sure was Nocht, sent me an OOC message stating that it wasn't their intent to essentially get my character "blacklisted", but rather to just create a pleasant and fun RP experience. While I went on a very large tangent, failure isn't a bad thing for a character but it can be circumvented because people don't want their characters to be compromised.
If I had to trace why that is, I think it's because players invest too much of themselves into their characters. I don't fault people for this because it is something you created, but people definitely need to distinguish themselves from their character. I obviously don't run around a supermarket shooting people with thorns and splinters while running away from security trying to capture me. Don't be afraid to let your character fail and be spontaneous with your roleplay. It's the most fun and allows you a means to develop your character for both good or bad.
The other reason people have this issue is because I think we're too vested these days into OOC clans and we know each other as players. This can make it awkward when roleplaying because we constantly want to make little comments while we do it or we don't want to potentially offend our friends by our character's actions. Rather than roleplay, some people just say things OOCly and they just end up being done ICly. Anyway, my two cents.
Since this thread got necro'd, I will say that I've never cared for pre-planned roleplay. It feels forced and non-organic. Spontaneous RP is generally best, in my opinion, because you don't have an idea of where it could go. I think it allows for situations for your character to be taken off guard, presented with situations they don't have answers for, etc. Part of the problem that I've seen in some games is that players are terrified of letting their characters fail. When Nienla came back a long time ago and broke the contract she had with Nocht, there was a public execution of sorts where Nocht made Nienla pay for it with her life as per the terms of their original deal. However, while I had no problem with Nienla having a stigma or failure associated with her, it was impossible for me to join Shikari's Order and Viravain's Order and I was rejected by both because of that public execution. "Someone powerful", who I'm sure was Nocht, sent me an OOC message stating that it wasn't their intent to essentially get my character "blacklisted", but rather to just create a pleasant and fun RP experience. While I went on a very large tangent, failure isn't a bad thing for a character but it can be circumvented because people don't want their characters to be compromised.
If I had to trace why that is, I think it's because players invest too much of themselves into their characters. I don't fault people for this because it is something you created, but people definitely need to distinguish themselves from their character. I obviously don't run around a supermarket shooting people with thorns and splinters while running away from security trying to capture me. Don't be afraid to let your character fail and be spontaneous with your roleplay. It's the most fun and allows you a means to develop your character for both good or bad.
The other reason people have this issue is because I think we're too vested these days into OOC clans and we know each other as players. This can make it awkward when roleplaying because we constantly want to make little comments while we do it or we don't want to potentially offend our friends by our character's actions. Rather than roleplay, some people just say things OOCly and they just end up being done ICly. Anyway, my two cents.
I think we basically just said the same thing and I love you for it.
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Ixion tells you, "// I don't think anyone else had a clue, amazing form."
If I had to trace why that is, I think it's because players invest too much of themselves into their characters. I don't fault people for this because it is something you created, but people definitely need to distinguish themselves from their character. I obviously don't run around a supermarket shooting people with thorns and splinters while running away from security trying to capture me. Don't be afraid to let your character fail and be spontaneous with your roleplay. It's the most fun and allows you a means to develop your character for both good or bad.
The other reason people have this issue is because I think we're too vested these days into OOC clans and we know each other as players. This can make it awkward when roleplaying because we constantly want to make little comments while we do it or we don't want to potentially offend our friends by our character's actions. Rather than roleplay, some people just say things OOCly and they just end up being done ICly. Anyway, my two cents.