A rant

[Psychyn]

I have admittedly only read the first post of Stormgald and skimmed to the rest, but I figured I'd share my views as I've done mainly in the other threads regarding channel policing and Guild Advertisement so far. I always got surprised as new players, how people lashed out and basically commanded towards other players like they were dogs, regarding the channels. Short conversations came to a screeching halt by people barking "BARRENS!" "GTFO OUT OF MY CHAT" and a probably long list of variants on it. True, there were exceptions to that and some people actually asked nicely or reminded others nicely of the rules, but from my point of view, three fourth wasn't even bothering to do that. They saw the channel as their personal channel, and anyone else chatting in it should get out or move it to an other channel.

I'm personally glad with the "Do not police the chat channel rules." that have been set in place, and from my perspective, the channels are a lot more relaxed and kind towards people nowadays simply because people do not go screaming to move or to basically shut up.

Regarding the guild advertisement, as I've said in the thread regarding the new rule as well, I think it's silly. We are allowed to advertise our character's need to RP in a certain place, but we aren't allowed to advertise our character's need for an fellowship or on behalf of their guild. I don't think we can compare this towards retail, as the guilds on here have an actual reason and fight for a common RP goal, but on the other hand can see people in a RP that requires full attention and only have to see their RP invaded by a Guild Advertisement. As I've said in there, I'm still in favour of the "LookingforGuild" channel, that people can join voluntarily to read and see what new guilds spring up or what events are being held by one.

Regarding:

Yet another matter that I saw was posted and now locked so I wont go into great detail about, was having more GM commands given to us in our own individual phasing areas. Wait what? First of all .addrpitem is already being abused(in a way.) .addrpitem is already a huge leap forward in our Role-Playing experience. Now, the only way I see that .addrpitem is being abused is people are beginning to look way too "1337" and a lot of our characters are beginning to look like geared PvP toons. Which again is starting to look like retail... I guess that is not a very large issue though, not at all really. Remember this is just a rant .

I admit to have my dislikes per wardrobe regarding certain races, but we can't force people to RP the way we would love to see. It's a fantasy world, and if your character has to be half-nude to be an effective fighter.. be my guest, but just expect my characters to aim for the skin revealing spots in a fight, until your character realises your better off wearing something more protective. That brings me to another question though, what would the guards think? Would the guards allow people to run around showing their tights freely in public? Rules naturally vary per city, but perhaps an basic set of rules per city would be neat to see on here, or perhaps not rules, but an logical set of reactions towards an action.

So, another matter. People changing wardrobes during RP.

.. I can't say I ever saw this from others, but admit that I tend to make minor changes in gear at times, because Outfitter isn't handling the custom RP gears well. If you carry two swords which are the same, it tends to equip one in the main-hand slot while ignoring the off-hand. I'm not sure what the built in system is called, but that refuses to permanently save my gear settings so I can't even use that. ^.^ So, yes I personally recognise this for me, but small changes to prevent the gear looking like silly aren't that bad? Not saying you should hop from a dress to full plate gear in a whim, but I don't see the harms of correcting an addon so the outfit looks what it's supposed to look like.

The DND tag. I have seen this countless times. The DND tag is not a cruise control for being able to do whatever you want OOCly in a currently populated RP area.

Naturally! I tend to have DND on whenever OOCing, and avoid populated areas. If I -must- get in there for some reason or another, I tend to apologise beforehand, go in walking to not disturb the realism, and get out as soon as I finished what I had to do. My character isn't there ICly, but this way he can be treated like some random NPC walking in and out, the DND in this case would be a sign rather asking "Please don't talk to me! Not here! ^.^"

So yeah! Just my two cents as relative new person, any thoughts and feedback is naturally appreciated.

[Wuvvums]

Mayson, while the deeper analogy may seem insulting, I think Sourpuddle was trying to say that when we discuss rping with the Scarlets and such, we shouldn't just go ahead with something that's OOCly suicidal for our characters because of the res in a week. Death can seriously change a character, but those of us who objected because of that were not doing so to "stop rp."

[Ben]

Psychyn. That was an incredible response. I'd like to commend you on that.

Anywayyy! To the points, we're a community, so yeah, I COMPLETELY agree that hostility to new or less informed people needs to stop. It'll drive them away. Hell it's driven me away before too. Alot.

The other point I'd like to comment on is the DND tag. Now I havent played on the new core as of yet, but when I played, I'd /DND and go where I liked. I'd be using /DND to get to RP or to get to places for gear, which the .addrpitem command now fixes I guess, but in RP if people when past with the <DND> tag up, I'd ignore them. It didn't bother me too much either, because I guessed they'd have something importat to do. Unless they were walking. Then I'd /w dude, your DND is still up ><.

[Wuvvums]

I think that happens to people a lot. For some reason I have a hard time now noticing my DND is on even after I go to rp. I think we all make that mistake, so a friendly reminder should correct it.

[Ben]

Sourpuddle. Man. I luffz you >< I'm actually working on a similar reminder post about forum stuffz.

[Mayson]

Mayson, while the deeper analogy may seem insulting, I think Sourpuddle was trying to say that when we discuss rping with the Scarlets and such, we shouldn't just go ahead with something that's OOCly suicidal for our characters because of the res in a week. Death can seriously change a character, but those of us who objected because of that were not doing so to "stop rp."

I know that and it wasn't my intention to start anything. I just wanted to give the backround of it and explain my thoughts for my answer he quoted. I just think, that you shouldn't be scared of some conflict RP to the point, where you deny it absolutely just to keep your characters 'safe', unless it will definitely end in the character death, what would be a completely other case.

Again, I just wanted to make that point of view clear.

Psychyn. That was an incredible response. I'd like to commend you on that.

Anywayyy! To the points, we're a community, so yeah, I COMPLETELY agree that hostility to new or less informed people needs to stop. It'll drive them away. Hell it's driven me away before too. Alot.

The other point I'd like to comment on is the DND tag. Now I havent played on the new core as of yet, but when I played, I'd /DND and go where I liked. I'd be using /DND to get to RP or to get to places for gear, which the .addrpitem command now fixes I guess, but in RP if people when past with the <DND> tag up, I'd ignore them. It didn't bother me too much either, because I guessed they'd have something importat to do. Unless they were walking. Then I'd /w dude, your DND is still up ><.

I admit, that it happens to me a lot, when I use the DND system. Well, a solution to have a reminder all the time is to activate the name display of your own character. It shows status effects like 'Away' and 'Busy'. The problem is, that it's actually pretty disturbing, while roleplaying.

[Sourpuddle]

I love conflict, Brutal even said I revel in it. I think we should have more real conflict, more hate, more violence, more emotion, and that we should embrace and accept our characters dying because that's an important thing. If you bring your character back to life, he might as well never die in the first place. By bringing your character back to life, you show that you're not ready to let go of him, which is exactly the reason why most people would rather socially RP then engage in conflict.

This can be further elaborated when my character Tenissa dies. Okay, get ready for this. Basically, he drugs some Paladin chick who was in crutches chilling in the Cutthroat Alley. Tenissa, my drug selling pimp, thought, hey, lets check out just how good this new drug is. He ended up shooting it in her without her consent, and she went into a drug-fitted ecstasy.

Okay, some people would probably not like that, especially her friends. So, her friends, I think they were mercenaries, one was a Night Elf and the other was a human. Pretty sure they were non-light affiliated. They had the bright idea of dressing up in some crazy rogue tier and going into the drug and crime infested cutthroat alley. How they didn't arouse suspicion from the guards, or even the guards of the local crime lords (since I'm assuming it would indicate someone IMPORTANT is going to die soon) I don't know. Then they would proceed to fight me in public (since I'm assuming the streets are probably filled with people) in this gear, as “assassins”. WAIT. WAIT. WAIT. I forget to mention, that they told me before they decided to attack me“You have succumbed to the worst sin a man could present! The punishment. . .IS DEATH!” or something like that. What would YOU think if you were in my shoes?

Anyway, so we fought, tried to run away, my character that I've worked on developing for the longest time dies to these two-bit wannabes who's reason didn't even make sense. All they saw was “I am bad guy, I did bad thing to good girl, go kill bad guy despite how it yields no intrinsic value to us”. After I died, they even said “Okay, lets just get this clear, your character is DEAD. I don't want to see him running around. We're taking screenshots.” I don't know why they told me that. Such a thing sounded absurd—But I soon understood that the community had presented to these people, or to a wide range of people, that we're not taking death seriously. Perhaps it might be said that people are too afraid to seriously let go of their characters despite the ridiculous and unfair reasoning behind it.

I remember on another forum, people were complaining that they didn't just want “some random person killing their character on the way to another area”, for example, if I was the Gold Road Butcher, you probably wouldn't want your character coming across mine. While it's cool to OOCly NOT want your character to come near mine, it doesn't change the fact that if he does, you'll have a high chance of dying because of dumb luck and bad timing. The problem is, if you did happen to die for such a stupid reason, you need to still accept the fact that someone had killed your character and you can never play him again.

This happens all the time—Motiveless killing, that is. It's been reduced severely because of our modern day police force, but in these times, they're pretty darn high. The thing is, while you might not want it to happen, while it might be more progressive for it not to happen, it's going to happen and you can't stop it. Because of this, we must embrace and try to solve it ICly—Once a few people go missing, I'm sure that it wont be ignored—People will start traveling in groups and others will go with their posse to find and end his mindless murders. This, in effect, will not only create bonds with characters but also help them garner experience when dealing with these situations, or rather, conflict. It really gives the situation the flexibility of casual roleplaying while simultaneously creating the dilemma an event.

If there is no death, if there is no hate, if there is no conflict, there is no roleplay, as everything is beaten down to conflict; the scourge, the hardship of living, the demons, the climate, boredom, racism, crime, sexism, homophobia, the wildlife, rudeness, openness, narrow-mindedness, religious diversity. . .These are all problems, these all cause conflict, but at the same time they make us who we are, and who our characters are. You must embrace that our characters are going to create conflict, and that we should maximize the possibility to a larger scale as long as it's appropriate. If we avoid it to keep them alive, what's the point of making sure they're living?

What I noticed regarding character outfits is that when we add really heavy gear, we look more and more like we're material. When your character has those giant shoulder pads and he has all this crazy gear that sticks out from your characters original appearance, it adds to him, makes him more than who he is in a physical sense, however less of a character. People need to buy “affordable” gear, aim for the lower pieces of junk that have little value, make them look BAD or PLAIN. By doing this, you show the reality of your character by not dazzling them with your shiny gold plate armour and shoulderpads that shoot laser beams and cinema lights. While I'm not asking to totally disregard a sense of fashion and appearance, I think that we should focus less on it so that the people we RolePlay focus less on it (because lets face it, unless they're doing some crazy tier over 9000, we don't really give a damn).

My advice for the OOC is that any short term OOC you have should be stated to those you're RolePlaying with. If you're not roleplaying with anyone, and it's still OOC, go do what you need to do and assume that you'll get back on time. If it's long term, tell the people you're roleplaying with and leave. Otherwise, be IC at all times (unless no one is around, of course). The OOC zones started this trend, and to be frank, the OOC zones created a large pool of poison. It's one of the things that made me look for new horizons because I was here when they started bring back the OOC zones. That poison is drama.

I look forward to it, Ben.

[Mayson]

Mayson, for one, I am not insulting you behind your back. I'm expressing how aversely I feel to something you said. I like you. I respect you. I am using something that is provable truth, something I'm assuming you're proud of and displaying how it relates to my dilemma because you're a part of my problem. Secondly, I am presenting the quote and how I feel about it in a public forum, and thus, not behind your back. While I certainly don't appreciate your comment, especially when I asked for things like that in a PM, I understand why you'd get mad at me, and I can respect that. To clarify I THINK WE ARE EQUAL PEOPLE. Just didn't want to send the wrong message there.

I love conflict, Brutal even said I revel in it. I think we should have more real conflict, more hate, more violence, more emotion, and that we should embrace and accept our characters dying because that's an important thing. If you bring your character back to life, he might as well never die in the first place. By bringing your character back to life, you show that you're not ready to let go of him, which is exactly the reason why most people would rather socially RP then engage in conflict.

This can be further elaborated when my character Tenissa dies. Okay, get ready for this. Basically, he drugs some Paladin chick who was in crutches chilling in the Cutthroat Alley. Tenissa, my drug selling pimp, thought, hey, lets check out just how good this new drug is. He ended up shooting it in her without her consent, and she went into a drug-fitted ecstasy.

Okay, some people would probably not like that, especially her friends. So, her friends, I think they were mercenaries, one was a Night Elf and the other was a human. Pretty sure they were non-light affiliated. They had the bright idea of dressing up in some crazy rogue tier and going into the drug and crime infested cutthroat alley. How they didn't arouse suspicion from the guards, or even the guards of the local crime lords (since I'm assuming it would indicate someone IMPORTANT is going to die soon) I don't know. Then they would proceed to fight me in public (since I'm assuming the streets are probably filled with people) in this gear, as “assassins”. WAIT. WAIT. WAIT. I forget to mention, that they told me before they decided to attack me“You have succumbed to the worst sin a man could present! The punishment. . .IS DEATH!” or something like that. What would YOU think if you were in my shoes?

Anyway, so we fought, tried to run away, my character that I've worked on developing for the longest time dies to these two-bit wannabes who's reason didn't even make sense. All they saw was “I am bad guy, I did bad thing to good girl, go kill bad guy despite how it yields no intrinsic value to us”. After I died, they even said “Okay, lets just get this clear, your character is DEAD. I don't want to see him running around. We're taking screenshots.” I don't know why they told me that. Such a thing sounded absurd—But I soon understood that the community had presented to these people, or to a wide range of people, that we're not taking death seriously. Perhaps it might be said that people are too afraid to seriously let go of their characters despite the ridiculous and unfair reasoning behind it.

I remember on another forum, people were complaining that they didn't just want “some random person killing their character on the way to another area”, for example, if I was the Gold Road Butcher, you probably wouldn't want your character coming across mine. While it's cool to OOCly NOT want your character to come near mine, it doesn't change the fact that if he does, you'll have a high chance of dying because of dumb luck and bad timing. The problem is, if you did happen to die for such a stupid reason, you need to still accept the fact that someone had killed your character and you can never play him again.

This happens all the time—Motiveless killing, that is. It's been reduced severely because of our modern day police force, but in these times, they're pretty darn high. The thing is, while you might not want it to happen, while it might be more progressive for it not to happen, it's going to happen and you can't stop it. Because of this, we must embrace and try to solve it ICly—Once a few people go missing, I'm sure that it wont be ignored—People will start traveling in groups and others will go with their posse to find and end his mindless murders. This, in effect, will not only create bonds with characters but also help them garner experience when dealing with these situations, or rather, conflict. It really gives the situation the flexibility of casual roleplaying while simultaneously creating the dilemma an event.

If there is no death, if there is no hate, if there is no conflict, there is no roleplay, as everything is beaten down to conflict; the scourge, the hardship of living, the demons, the climate, boredom, racism, crime, sexism, homophobia, the wildlife, rudeness, openness, narrow-mindedness, religious diversity. . .These are all problems, these all cause conflict, but at the same time they make us who we are, and who our characters are. You must embrace that our characters are going to create conflict, and that we should maximize the possibility to a larger scale as long as it's appropriate. If we avoid it to keep them alive, what's the point of making sure they're living?

What I noticed regarding character outfits is that when we add really heavy gear, we look more and more like we're material. When your character has those giant shoulder pads and he has all this crazy gear that sticks out from your characters original appearance, it adds to him, makes him more than who he is in a physical sense, however less of a character. People need to buy “affordable” gear, aim for the lower pieces of junk that have little value, make them look BAD or PLAIN. By doing this, you show the reality of your character by not dazzling them with your shiny gold plate armour and shoulderpads that shoot laser beams and cinema lights. While I'm not asking to totally disregard a sense of fashion and appearance, I think that we should focus less on it so that the people we RolePlay focus less on it (because lets face it, unless they're doing some crazy tier over 9000, we don't really give a damn).

My advice for the OOC is that any short term OOC you have should be stated to those you're RolePlaying with. If you're not roleplaying with anyone, and it's still OOC, go do what you need to do and assume that you'll get back on time. If it's long term, tell the people you're roleplaying with and leave. Otherwise, be IC at all times (unless no one is around, of course). The OOC zones started this trend, and to be frank, the OOC zones created a large pool of poison. It's one of the things that made me look for new horizons because I was here when they started bring back the OOC zones. That poison is drama.

I look forward to it, Ben.

I actually already edited my first comment and answered your PM. :< I'm not mad, really. And with your example now, I see what you mean. But you have to admit, that it was actually quite a not nice way to treat your character from this elf and her companion, who killed you. Sure, character deaths are part of the World of Warcraft, but it should be well placed, make sense and the other player should be okay with it.

Reanimating without an end is kinda avoiding consequences, that's for sure. However, you don't have to take every character death you can get, since it can lead to a new character creation once every two weeks. And not every player can bear that.

It's a controversial topic and we could debate for hours on that matter. Anyway, I accept your concept of character deaths after all and I'm partially agreeing with you. Without conflict, the roleplay would be very one-dimensional.
Also, fixed this answer. Too many grammar mistakes.

[Xigo]

There is a level of respect demanded when one roleplays with another. Respect for the character. Respect for the player. Respect, last I checked, is possibly this server's most important rule. Now tell me. Is it respectful to randomly assault someone's character without provocation and kill them? I'm not talking about this from an IC point of view. I'm talking about it from an OOC point of view.

You could tell them 'Hey, my character is a highway man and I want him/her to attempt to kill you. Are you okay with this?' or something like that. And depending on their response, the situation changes. You might just let them go on their way. You might let them run. Or hey, if they're okay with it, you might get to kill them. However. We must always warn someone OOCly prior to attempting to bring their character into a situation where you intend to kill them upon victory. Otherwise, you essentially cheated them out of their character's life.

When you play as a character who forces harm upon others, you need to understand that hey, by doing such there's a high probability you will fail. People do not -like- others randomly coming up to them and going 'Oh hey, you know that drink I just gave you? It's poison'. People do not -like- people going 'Oh hey, because you're on this road, I get to attack and kill you'.

Sourpuddle has stated. 'Once a few people go missing, I'm sure that it wont be ignored—People will start traveling in groups and others will go with their posse to find and end his mindless murders'. Yes, people will. But what of those first characters? Are we so disrespectful to their players that we will randomly kill their characters, and say 'Oh, well you wouldn't have known anyway. You're only the first person we're going to kill. Tough. The next people will know though!' We separate OOC and IC! Tell people OOCly before you try to kill them! No matter how spontaneous it might be, you must -always- give people a chance to walk away before any conflict happens!

People enjoy having their characters alive. Why? So they get to roleplay them. When you randomly kill a character, you rob the player of their opportunity to roleplay with that character. This is not some DND system where you can just reroll a character and everything would be dandy. We lose a character. Something that some of us really try to make these characters believable. And while I understand that in reality, we cannot receive a big warning sign saying 'IF YOU GO HERE, YOU WILL DIE'. But this isn't reality. This is a game. And we care about the characters we play.

Yes, conflict is important. This is the World of Warcraft after all. War is in the title. But tell me, when you have your character kill someone without motivation, do you do it for the sake of roleplaying such a character, or do you do it for the sake of killing? Because doing it for the sake of roleplaying means warning the player prior to their character entering such a dangerous situation.

So before you kill someone, let them turn back. Give them the opportunity to walk away. Warn the player. Because you're about to rob someone of their character. And that is -never- a joyful experience.

[Miah]

Here's a New idea. IC character warnings. Now im not literally saying jump in there, and say "Can I kill your character, but a literal warning that if they continue, they are in danger. For example, with that highwayman

Julie Head's out of town

Highwayman's emote : A sense of foreboding fill's the air. As Julie passes down the path, she would feel an odd sense of danger, as if eyes were upon her, as if something in her base instincts were telling her, that it was not safe to travel alone.

This could be followed up with a quick OOC character warning, but feels more IC. IF julie was the risktaking type of character, she could continue along her path, maybe be killed, maybe she could kill the highwayman. But she would not be thrown into a situation where character death was impossible, she could turn back, get someone to travel with her, or otherwise. This way, only fools and brave warriors must risk their lives, while those who don't wish to risk their character's lives, can turn back unharmed.

There will be those I bet, who want to play heroic warriors, but don't want the risk of character death. Im afraid to them I would have to say tough D: You should not play a character with no fear, who miraculously can't get into life threatening situations. Be wise, and your hero will live and prosper, Be foolish and reckless, and you will end up fodder for the wiser highwayman.

My two cents

[Xigo]

Ah. Allow me to add some things on to this.

Personally, I am fine with someone pursuing OOC entertainment. But it must always be pursued with respect in mind. Otherwise you are like the man who trips some person, laughs at them, and runs away. Sure, you enjoyed yourself. But that person you tripped? They most certainly didn't. So give them enough respect to ask 'Do you mind if my character attempts to kill you?'. Because if you just say 'My character will kill you if you're in his/her sight', well, that's like threatening them. Prohibiting their RP to certain areas, because you wish to kill their character.

There is a significant difference between character death and having your character robbed. A death of a character should result in the player knowingly sending their character into a situation where he/she can die, and them dieing. Having your character robbed is when the player is just out of the blue killed. No polite question of 'Do you mind if I kill your character'. Just a 'I might kill you if I see you'. That doesn't give anyone knowledge of 'Well, if I tell this person that 'yes, it is okay to try to kill me' then they might kill me'. It's more 'Well, my character might be killed by this person, or they might not be. But in either situation, they fully intend on killing my character and that zone is now off limits for me'.

Highwayman's emote : A sense of foreboding fill's the air. As Julie passes down the path, she would feel an odd sense of danger, as if eyes were upon her, as if something in her base instincts were telling her, that it was not safe to travel alone.

Miah, that is excellent. What you said is an example of a situation where I would go 'yes, this is a fair character death'. But I still feel as though the OOC communication should be there. I dunno. I guess that's just me.

I don't cling to the lives of my character. Or at least, I try not to. It's just I don't want them robbed from me.

Ultimately, things come down to 'what the players can agree on', and then it becomes reality. Roleplay is an agreement between players. That they will forge a story together. But to simply say 'yes, my character will kill your character if they see him/her' is like two authors working on a colaborative book, and one telling the other 'this character here is going to kill this character' and the other having no say in it.

[Miah]

Thanks Xigo, of course ,that could always be followed up with a quick (Warning, character death danger lies ahead, be your prepared?)

[Sourpuddle]

Xigo, you have committed a fallacy, and therefore your argument is invalid. It's called a “Straw Man”.

http://www.onegoodmove.org/fallacy/straw.htm

By posting in this forum, debating against my word, you are showing disrespect towards me, especially after I sent you PM's myself. I am disappointed in you for your lack of understanding and ignorance, not just to my argument but also to me as a person. I cannot say how appalled I am at your behavior, but then again, your behavior is a great example of what I'm trying to explain is a problem in our community.

I will not tolerate you refuting my arguments and holding it up to the community like rubbish, while simultaneously betraying the rules of logical debate and higher thinking.

Anytime we don't feel comfortable, we can forget that our characters are responsible for their actions, put our hand up in ignorance and choose to squelch the idea of negative aspects effecting our character.

If you want my advice, and it's clear that you don't, try a little responsibility. If you were a vulnerable and generally dependant person, I scarcely doubt you should be traveling alone. If you take that risk, you should be aware of the consequences, not disregard them because OOCly you can avoid it. If you do happen to die because of it, try your best to avoid it (if your character would), and if you can't, learn from your mistakes.

If you want to argue this, PM me or read my first rant—Something, clearly, a certain someone has not done. I will not argue in this topic, as I know that people like you will blow it out of proportion and destroy it's sanctity. I appreciate your understanding for a non-hostile and civil environment, but I refuse to let others cast away from that road. For clarification, I want to avoid posts like this.

[ChampionMouse]

It was requested that this thread be kept civil. I am rather disappointed that it was unable to stay such. Calling people names, and calling them ignorant just does not fly in our public forums.

If you post something publicly to be discussed, people should be allowed to respond publicly. Just because someone does not share your views, and expresses a different opinion does not make them disrespectful.

I am locking this thread because this has gone too far, and it is making people uncomfortable with the personal attacks.

You are entitled to your opinions, but when they start to hurt others.... things have gone too far.