Sensitivity, emotion and the users of CotH

[Dae]

If there's one thing apparent about the CotH community, its that there's feels abound. Good feels, bad feels, frustrated feels, both IC and OoC feels... And often times, lots of feels on the internet turn into a bunch of B.A.W., drama and the likes. And CotH has its own share of drama, sure.

But over my life, watching the internet as a whole and in the cases of specific communities, there's a lot of ways a burgeoning community can go. Often times, a community has to grow to sustain itself, and with it comes a distance and impersonal nature- if you find something offensive or upsetting, its your own damn fault. I've also seen tight-knit communities simply fade away due to lack of interest or new users, a fate I find quite disheartening. A lot of fantasy-oriented online communities even break down into a circle-jerk of desperate delusion.

I've been around CotH a few years now, and I feel like I have a pretty good idea of the general way this community conducts itself. And there's a lot of posts about taking a step back to get some air, or leaving due to frustration, my own past thread included. The responses to these kinds of posts are generally quite good, as they generally feature kind sentiments and reiterating the idea that real-life wellbeing is a higher priority than recreational RPing.

It dawned on me today that, despite my feeling like a fool at times for the way I've expressed my feelings here on CotH before, this is ultimately a good thing for my development as a person. If you didn't know, I have hormone sensitivity issues that pretty much make me constantly PMSing, and despite medication that lessens my symptoms, little nothings can still get under my skin. CotH is a safe place for me and other users to show some emotion, and though it feels awkward at times, learning to communicate openly with others is important. My health stuff may not ever go away, so I know I can use all the experience I need.

With the CotH community consisting primarily of burgeoning adults putting our ideas out there for each other to interact with each other, I think we're doing more than just playing goblins and elves in a magic world, under attack by dragons. We're making headway into learning how to be together with other people in a healthy and open way. Its a bit awkward at times, yes, but everyone has an awkward phase at first with anything. Remember what it was like when you first started to Roleplay?

I have a hard time justifying activities for myself that aren't in some way enriching or productive, and I've had a hard time picking up quite what it is that makes CotH feel different. Other than making writing less of an unpleasantry in life, I think this is how this community will benefit me for the rest of my life. So, thanks.

[Grogloki]

I have recently dealt with such drama on the server.... and I must say for a 27 year old adult male.... I found it rather embarrassing that I even let the person warrant a minute of my time. It's simple. This is a video game. People come here to play this video game. Everyone has bad days and hard times. No ones special in that sense. Keep the feelings to yourself and simply enjoy the RP, if that's not possible take a break or go somewhere else. The end. ( p.s. nice post it's good to express ones self in a healthy way such as this, well done Dae. )

[Harmonic]

There are few things that really irk me these days. It happens, definitely, but two things really stand out--CoTH, and when my children are being defiant just because they are being defiant. I think since I've been on CoTH even longer than I've had kids, it's been really easy for me to rationalize issues on CoTH as being child-like behavior.

Well, speaking for myself, and from what I've seen... I don't think I'm too far off. When I joined I was 21, and like much of the community, I was a young man, trying to find my own legs in life, not just in how to deal with society or my own budding opinions. There's been so many times where I've tried to cram my feelings down this place's throat---and there's been many times where I was wrong in doing so.

I regret some stuff from when I was a GM. This is something I don't keep a secret. However, now that I'm a player, there isn't much I can do in the way of putting my opinions in the way of others, something that I think is good. Even though I'm now 26, I still can be as bull headed as when I was younger.

When the dramatic topics pop up, we all have a choice. Roll our eyes and move on, or post. I.. often post. Something about them, something about the atmosphere it creates, makes me want to pop in and give my opinion. It's like... I feel like there's a part of me to protect when it comes down to it. I've put a large part of myself in CoTH, and when people decide to talk negatively about something that affects me, or I've had a hand in, I feel I have to defend it. A -prime- example is when someone denounces the rules here on CoTH.

I helped create that. So to me, it sucks when everyone assumes this is a shady place where people disappear.

To this day I still cringe when I hear "Distopian" or "Orwellian" when people talk about CoTH. That's not how the place is, nor how it's meant to be. Let's keep having fun guys, we all have a common goal.

[Ural]

Remember what it was like when you first started to Roleplay?

I was shy, nervous and timid. Though my experiences amid this community I have learned how to simply be myself. No one really faults you on that. And that sort of acceptance is an exhilarating feeling. I think about everyone I now know around the world, our crazy timezone clashes, their unique backgrounds.. we're all different. And it's all beautiful.

[Kull]

I was playing for a month, and have been a part of the community for two (can't play Cata atm, will be soon). I have had a couple very negative experiences with people who blur the line between IC/OOC and are overly sensitive, emotional/unstable. But all the rest have been positive to very positive. This community is really good on the whole. I've been a part of another RP community and the similarities/differences are becoming clear. Far less drama, more openness in decision-making, RP focused, quality activity, etc... CotH definitely wins out.

[Noble]

Is it odd, that I generally felt the gist of (or at least to my own perception) of how CoTH, it's players, it's GMs and perhaps the administrators themselves conducted within the first week or so? I'll admit to something, and that's that I used to be extremely active and learned a lot of my roleplay on Garry's Mod, something not always positively referenced (even among myself) here on CoTH? I spent around 2-3 years, often becoming administrator or something of equal importance on Roleplay servers that had mostly started up within only a week, CoTH is really the only "big" community or gathering of sorts that I've really stayed at any of those, really massive, highly active servers with a range of administration team and people, the way they conducted themselves was, at best not even slightly as open-minded as the GM team or players here. At worst they acted like the people you know from the other private server known as Paragon, for example among Paragon and GMod RP things like these were allowed or mostly not enforced against: blatantly using homophobic, racial, anti-ethnic terms was allowed or not enforced despite rules, swearing was considered okay even if at admins, flaming others publicly resulted in little to no repercussions lest it was an admin, overly unnecessarily public ERP , and trolls of all colors roamed the general populace and were punished only according to their tactics.

And when I first joined CoTH, I noticed all of these were actively disallowed, the first time I read the rules I thought to myself, 'I get some of this, but my God the way they worded it I'm afraid of getting banned in the first week.' But that never happened, as a peon I made a few mistakes, (I said a few, don't look at me funny) and had slip-ups of words and things that offended people that . . . otherwise wouldn't offend people from the sort of cliques that I was used to - I learned from these of course, and in the end I think I matured from my experiences here, to ultimately be a slightly more sensitive person, yet laidback.

inb4ShaddapNoble
/endrant

---

When the dramatic topics pop up, we all have a choice. Roll our eyes and move on, or post. I.. often post. Something about them, something about the atmosphere it creates, makes me want to pop in and give my opinion. It's like... I feel like there's a part of me to protect when it comes down to it. I've put a large part of myself in CoTH, and when people decide to talk negatively about something that affects me, or I've had a hand in, I feel I have to defend it. A -prime- example is when someone denounces the rules here on CoTH.

Alright, I'm not shutting up just yet. Rensin, the times I post in the more 'dramatic' topics, I feel I have a similar motive or rationalization behind it. I've seen tons of irrational, stupid and downright idiotic decisions and rule-makings rendered both by the leaders of Roleplay Communities, and sometimes the people themselves. When I look at the decisions that Grakor, Kretol, and the GMs have made, and then I look at the massive condemnation (for example denunciation of the rules, as you used) I have my face slam into my desk and I heave a loud sigh. None of them were thinking about themselves when they made their choices on the server, if anyone chooses to think otherwise then I would direct them to spend a week on a heavily populated Garry's Mod RP server, or maybe even Paragon -- Actually no, spend a few days, an hour for some. People here should learn to enjoy what they have, and some do, those that don't really don't know how good they have it.

[Aadora]

I didn't know swearing was actively disallowed. I thought it was just going overboard with it... sitting around GM Island people will use up to F%$& and anything less offensive than that. I haven't had... too many negative experiences here. There is a person or two that I 100% ignore the existence of when I see their characters due to past experiences, but just a person or two. Of course there is the deal with people thinking I'm my brother, but I have simply learned to ignore that and not care what other people think. I guess it's that sort of "The only person that it should matter to is me" kind of deal.

There have been a few issues here and there but nothing to make me leave so far. The only reason I left a few months ago was because everything was done for me here. My character's relationships had ended due to people either leaving the server or deleting their characters, and for the time I was out of ideas for what to do next. Most of what made my characters playable was the relationships they had/were in. Once those were gone I didn't have it in me to recreate them.

Anywho beyond my reasoning for leaving (Since that's not what this thread is about) for the most part I have had a good experience with the server. There's nowhere else I can stand around and have as much fun just talking as I have had recently on GM Island. As for Noble's thinking everyone here is more open minded than other places. I'm not sure what he means exactly by that, as sometimes the idea of 'fantasy' slips from people's minds here. Not to mention you can play as all sorts of NPC races from Scourge to Centaur over there. This can be a good thing though, as I don't think any of us want this to turn into retail where half the characters you see are dragons or timelords. I have however had one issue with the lore here, where sometimes it seems as if people make it up to match their own liking. Not too many things, but I have seen a few cases where lore supported something, or it didn't disprove that something could happen and they would just say "I don't care I don't like it" or something.

Every community, especially over the internet has its flaws. Of all the other places I have seen that call themselves a 'community'... CotH is well above average and has far fewer flaws than everywhere else. Most communities aren't a community... they are a bunch of people who just so happen to be doing the same thing in the same place.

[Noble]

Well - that's what I mean, in a lot of my posts I have to reword 25% of what I initially type because it contains myself going a little too rough with my points. I meant people here are more open minded as in over more OOC matters like, on Paragon and GMod saying your non-heterosexual would probably root a troll make mention of a few words I cannot repeat here on CoTH, towards you, and have no consequences for it. Though to speak of the NPC races openness, that isn't really them being 'open-minded' in the traditional sense as much as them going, 'Lets let people do as they please.'

[Aadora]

I know, like I said it's good to have limits because they divide us from retail. I come here for good RP that doesn't involve everyone fighting to be the most powerful or simply... not doing anything. CotH has a good mix of combat RP and social RP among other things. Though, perhaps we could use a bit less elves... their long ears are a real pain to make hats for.

[Clovis]

I'm getting a strange sense of deja vu here.


That being said, perhaps we're getting off-topic here, folks?

[Harmonic]

I'm... I don't even know what people are trying to say anymore. I think something is offensive here?

[Aadora]

I'm not seeing where the confusion is. Me and Noble in particular are talking about our experiences with the server, specifically the things that have affected us emotionally. I was saying how I have had a few issues with people but nothing yet to make me leave, and that overall I have had a good experience here. I was under the impression the main point of this thread was talking about the growth of the server, and how there can be drama that should be learned from rather than turning it into a fight or anything. In light of this I was telling my experiences and a few issues I have, perhaps I didn't elaborate that I meant that while I have my issues with the community, nothing has made me leave and I believe it is simply part of growing. It's all part of getting used to the community and the standards they have. So, no I don't think that's getting off topic unless I misunderstood the point of the thread entirely.

[Harmonic]

My confusion is at the part where uh, Kretol is called Kim-Jung Kretol and... CoTH is compared to North Korea?




I mean. That's. Kinda hand in hand to what I was talking about.

[Aadora]

I believe he was saying that he has to go back and edit what he said in posts a lot of the time because sometimes he takes it too far.

[Harmonic]

I can uh, see that.