Keeping it IC
I'm not gonna call names and point fingers, but there's been a serious case of OOC in strictly IC places the last couple days. I know there are a lot of people not used to IRE's type of environments, and some maybe not even used to an RP environment, but here is a good rule of thumb...if you are posting, creating helps, talking, anything in a place that is accessible to general public (be that the entire game, or people from your organization) don't be OOC. This is a big deal even though to some it may not seem that way, the general player base of IRE's MUDs maintain an RP enforced environment, so let's all try to keep it that way please. So a few examples of where to NOT talk about OOC things: News board, faction helps, says when you are in a public place, etc.
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While I am not really used to IRE Muds, I have played a few for like a month and understand it and have grown to like RP and staying IC. So if ever anyone sees me going OOC, please mention it to me so I can better myself. I have no qualms with someone calling out my insanity.
However, I am hoping that as time moves forward that this becomes less of an issue. Even now it seems to have dissipated since day 1 of the launch and I hope it continues on the decline till it's removed all together.
I think as long as everyone works together and points it out to those going OOC that it will help a lot. I will try to do my part, as I hope others can do theirs by pointing out to myself and others that starts talking OOC. I am Hurbacious IG in case anyone was curious.
(Scatterhome): You say, "Which by my calculations, it's your turn to pay."
(Scatterhome): Brantar says, "That's what my calculations have come to."
(Scatterhome): Paavo says, "My math adds up to that, yeah."
(Scatterhome): Cal says, "Bastards."
(Scatterhome): You say, "Which by my calculations, it's your turn to pay."
(Scatterhome): Brantar says, "That's what my calculations have come to."
(Scatterhome): Paavo says, "My math adds up to that, yeah."
(Scatterhome): Cal says, "Bastards."
After I switched to Celestine a week later I've been trying to reel it all the way in. Not sure how Scatterhome has been since but Celestine was way more tame right away.
You are someone who I literally only see posting things like this.
You see content you disapprove of and complain about it both ICly and OOCly.
I have not seen you either RP, or even communicate much at all outside of these complaints on FT. In fact the sum total of your attempts to RP, have been to call a group together last night, to say fuck Song. You may RP plenty in private, however, I have not seen you voice an opinion in-character, about anything other than a complaint about others IC behavior. Whether that be poems. Which are IC. Political News Posts, which are IC. You even asked if it was okay to kill people within the game for posts you didn't approve of on news boards. Or now this complaint about the first insane post on faction news in about 6 days.
Scatterhome FT has been weird, we have been attempting to reign it in slowly over time, cutting out the most insane people, so that the sane may stay. Staying in character outside of certain places, in my opinion is great. But there is a need for OOC expression and such. I have problems with this and I admit it. I like to chatterbox as I play. It's who I am. In that regard, early on in the game, when it was going insane every 5 minutes(I contributed not gonna lie, I have a tendency to follow crowds and do what's 'funny'.) To that end we made a discord. This discord had a news post, at the time this worked very well. We got about 40 people in 5 hours of opening it. I don't have many problems with FT anymore, as it is most of the time talking IG politics or drama, or policy.
However I do personally have massive problems with the amount of discussion of mechanics pseudo-ICly that goes on in FT. As seeing people asking questions about weapon power, or how exactly abilities function from a mechanical standpoint, or how level influences monsters, from a mechanical standpoint irks me. These kinds of questions irk me. But rather than complaining and making it a personal problem.
I try and change the dialogue active. And if that fails, I try and direct the conversations elsewhere.
As an example of that; Today I made a deliberate OOC post in an attempt to quell that. As there had been a two hour long discussion of mechanics in FT. I asked in the mod chat of our discord, to a more experienced player, if I should post the discord address on faction news.
They said yes, so I did make that post about an hour later. I made sure to indicate that it was a very clear OOC post, I made sure to instruct people not to discuss it on IC channels. I made sure to explain the reasoning that I posted it. Not a minute or two later I got a tell from you. I thanked you for the info, and said something akin to that if you wanted to maintain IC/OOC disparity, you should try out the discord that was in the post. Moments after that, I got told on discord that the news post was the wrong thing to do, and then a faction help was made for it by the person who did that.
Upon the deletion of the news post by Tecton, the FHELP was also deleted by someone else. On the grounds of Slippery slope and insanity. I can understand this, and empathize with it. However, I find that. A tell sent from a random stranger is personal.
Imagine you are sitting around doing what is fun, and you are gossiping on FT about characters and making frequent reference to the players previous characters. You've been doing this for the past hour, and suddenly you get a tell.
"//FT is IC, see help 91.6 1 , please go elsewhere with this kind of talk, here's a discord link tuned for it."
Respectful, short and to the point.
Problem is, I've tried that with people in past games. And gotten, "//Ya well we've been talking in FT for the past hour about this stuff so go away."
Because the moment it's a tell, it's private, and it's personal. And that person has no context on if I've also told their other friends. It's just, "Who's this bitch, and why're they policing my speech."
That's why I prefer a public news post, or FHELP, that I can point too. And say publicly, HEY here's where you can all go go for that kinda talk.
Hell as an example, I felt a bit personally attacked when you sent your message to me. I responded as respectfully as I could, but it was like, "We did this before, I asked for permission from more knowledgeable players. Why am I getting shit on for it?"
Finally, finally, finally,
Regarding your not naming names. You invalidate doing so when you mention specific events that involve that person.
My question for you is this, do you have a problem with me personally? Because you have expressed irritation at my every public act, both IC and OOC, and I would ask, how it would be possible to resolve this situation so that it doesn't spill over like this again?
Thank you for understanding.
IRE has had a long history of needing OOC-oriented org help files.
Literally how we managed to get people PK and anti-theft prepped in a lot of cases (because we needed some way to break down mechanics in an OOC place that wasn't as jarring).
We should have that here. Relegating all potentially OOC information to clans creates an inherent wall of useful information between established and new players and is bullshit.
Second, we are still in beta, we have a LOT of non-IRE/new-to-MUDs people. Be generous, be calm, it will settle.
- Your Friendly Neighborhood Text Wench (who prefers to keep her immersion unbroken but realizes humans are behind characters and sometimes grace is required)
Tells are far less jarring.
And if people asking questions about a new game and getting answered is what bugs you? You REALLY need to reconsider your entire outlook.
Which was literally to state in case you don't want to read a bunch of feefees, and what you would probably call, "idiocy", the game is new, people are new. OOC is to be expected. Your constant bitching will only scare them away. And that I am trying to direct them to places where they can express these questions without disturbing most others.
Also, I never said you were ooc,
I said you complained, IC and OOC, and that that was about all I had seen you do, I heard about one instance of you trying to RP when I brought it up on a discord after this thread came out, but before I posted. But barring that... I have heard nothing of you RPing, beyond a couple news posts, complaining about IC poetry. Which you also did OOCly.
Now please, again, address my actual points rather than attempting to inflame tensions. Because if all you have are complaints,
ekary said:
Thank you for understanding.
@TextWench I totally see your point as well, and for that kind of stuff, we need to be lax there as well. I'm not sure how all factions in all the other IRE games did it, but in my last faction we just had a clan that all noobs were required to join where we had CLHELPs to explain all of that and stuff like anti-theft we directed them to speak with knowledgeable people that could put them in a party and explain the technical stuff. I know not EVERYONE cares that much, hell, even I don't. There are some people though that would feel their experience lessened by seeing OOC content in a guild help or city help.
That being said, I agree that we don't have those luxuries in SM yet, so we definitely need to be more accepting of mechanical questions on FT and the like. Making posts directing people to a discord channel....no.
W/regard to clans:
Newbie/lowbie information should not be behind a clan. I know that this is common practice. It shouldn't be. As someone who alts a lot, frequently at off-peak hours, the functional result is that new players go without vital information because it bothers someone to 'see too many help files'.
I'm always anti-anything that reduces or restricts info for new players. We want new blood to have easy, straightforward access to information and community so they stick around. Most of us have been kicking around IRE for a long time. New blood = new ideas.
W/regard to FHELP links:
I am the sort of MUD player that enjoys RPIs. Starmourn is RP-encouraged. So let's do a quick cost/benefit.
Cost:
- Link in HELP damages immersion, possibly. (Bearing in mind we -already have help files with links and email addresses in them). Non-point, really.
- Potential abuse w/blurring IC/OOC lines. (Bearing in mind this will always happen to some degree regardless and with less transparency) Non-point, ultimately.
- Potential explosion of drama. ...but have you seen FT lately?
Benefit:
- An easier delivery system for the distribution of essential and complex mechanical information, like the econ system.
- A way to ask and receive answers to mechanics questions without breaking immersion or having to awkwardly sort of 'IC-esque' ways to ask these things.
- Access to the broader faction community for questions even if they aren't currently logged on their characters, super useful for players who have weird hours when there are less knowledgeable bodies necessary logged in at the time. Because they can ask and have an answer available eventually.
- Potential -reduction- of drama (double-edged, this one), because it allows the faction to get to see one another as humans. Sometimes, this can help alleviate some of the bitterness of characters being characters when the players behind them can see the wall separating character and player.
Ultimately, this is a game and we should collectively want it to be accessible and fun to play. Discord happens to be a useful tool for organized groups within games (almost like they built it that way
tl;dr
Clan-walls for info for newb is stupid and we should not, screw precedence.
Useful links in FHELP is good and Discord can be a useful tool for ooc elements of factions.
EDIT: That said, I don't mind ooc references in help files to a certain extent. There are always ways to word things so that it doesn't break immersion particularly considering computers and code are a thing here.
@RheaGhek You need to cool your plasmajets and consider accepting that people don't want to see OOC posts, period. Even ones that are trying to stop OOC.
Happens just as much with ooc clans as with other types of ooc communication.
"Sorry I'm late, my soul was busy."
"Sorry for being late." Is enough. You don't need the rest of the borderline-OOC comment. Please stop.