English

So i created this thread after i read this :(taken from here

Let's clear this. What in "Geyos thinks that" don't you understand ? Is it Geyos, think or that ? Let me clear this : nobody (on atys) can read another toon thought. Even if this nobody is called Zhoi, Jena, Ma-Duk or anyone else. You just CAN'T. when there is an emote "XX thinks that", he think it. And he is the only one who knows what he thinks. End of discussion. Your toon didn't heard about it. Your toon clearly can't put that as an argument in RP discussion. It is just a way to share something (a joke, a fact about someone ...) on an OOC-point of view. Because you CAN'T use that in an IC conversation.

"sharükos, the matis are planning to invade the Desert. We should burn Yrkanis now to stop them."
"How do you know that ?"
"I read people thought, you know."
"Oh, if you read it in their thought, then it is true. I will send a special squad tomorrow in the morning to do this. Thank you for the report !"

If you prefer, i can come to the next Zoraï assembly and say Zhoi is actually a pervert killer who killed hundreds of Zorai after torturing them for hours and doing things i can't say here because of the chart with "I read it in her thought" as a proof.

Actually, I remember, sadly I didn't chatlog this evening, that you Geyos, "answered" Zhoi's thougths with your own thougths too.

So there is no difference between sharing thoughts and discussing them by thougths in game, and using them in the forum. I agree with the lesson, but you should apply the rule to yourself too.

Generaly speaking, about toon knowledge, I would like to say to everyone :
there are often tales shared in the roleplay forum, which are tales written for players to enjoy reading them, and not informations transmitted from characters to characters in any way, unless specified. Please be careful about those differences. It is most time not a matter, but sometimes players telling in forum would like to be the one making an announcement IC during roleplay.

There is some fun sometimes to play a character ignorant of something and making a mistake because of it, when actually the player is fully aware.

My point is : thought are more or less OOC. As long as ou use them OOC, i don't see any problem to this. Actually, people often do this, and sometimes there is an OOC-parallel discussion using thought, and i find it pretty funny actually. But you don't use it in a IC-way ...
I answered zhoi because it was pretty clear
I don't have problem with people answering my thought by thought. Cause i do it too. For me, it's more or less OOC, so ... But i have a problem with people reading my thought and using it IC.

My problem is that certain players are obviously abusing emote techniques for mobbing, insulting, and harassing other players. There are hardly other explanations for utterings hostile to another character either intentionally done in a language probably not understandable by that player (yet containing her name), or uttering hostile "thoughts" shielding against contradiction by the excuse that others cannot read thoughts.

In fact, everybody is able to read "thoughts" uttered by emote. Personally, I use to explain that phenomenon by something called in german "laut denken" (thinking loudly) meaning that someone unconciously, half-conciously, or even on purpose, murmurs what she is actually thinking. In any other way "thoughts" in emotes would not make any sense at all.

Using such techniques (be it the invective in an other language or the "thinking") is at least somewhat dishonest, and, under my impression, in violation of the rules explicitly prohibiting aggressive behaviour under the cover of roleplay.

Adverse and offensive behaviour as part of roleplay may be and should be part of vivid and plausible roleplay. Acting it out appropriately is one of the most difficult and challenging tasks in roleplay, no less than playing the role of the villain in any kind of performing arts, be it theatre, movie, or just RP. To my impression the techniques mentioned fall short of any kind of adequacy.

I agree that nobody can read thoughs, apart from taking hints from face expressions (which is why some players use the description of their facial expressions as a way of commenting), so I'm not at par with Zhoi on this. But the thoughts as such I don't see OOC at all, as long as they refer in an IC way to surrounding events. In fact, they don't make the slightest bit of sense if presented in an IC way, but supposed to be OOC. If things like this would be seen as common, we can already expect in the near future ongoing "IC OOC thought fights", which are of pretty limited fun if taking over the proceedings, and they may very easily take the shape of harassment of sorts, nothing less.

Regarding the situation as it happened: You didn't make a funny OOC side comment - in fact, they weren't funny at all, nor did they give the impression to be intended as funny - but commented quite precisely on the scene and the participating character/mentioned characters. On the worth of a discussion, some "thought comments" tend to be polemic and often used to weaken IC arguments in a way to make sure that there's very limited chance for a sensible response to undo the intended effect, and to be honest: the way you used them (not just one, but at least three in a row) were nothing else but just that.

I see that I put too much thought in my writings, especially in another language. Daomei was faster than me. Bah, Trykers ...

Then it does not belong into the around chat in my opinion.
For me it's simple: Everything that I say or describe in the around channel during an RP scene can be heard or seen by other characters. So all others can read my mind? No. Reason? No one can read mind, so my thoughts do not belong into public (= around channel!). Either I speak it out or I keep it to myself like real thoughts.

Thinking emotes seem to be unfair to me.
Derryn thinks Salazar's feet are very smelly today.
Derryn thinks Daomei could shave her legs.
Derryn thinks Geyos should remove that ugly bogey hanging out of his nose.
And you can't defend because: You can't read my mind. This is no direction I want to see in RP.

I also think it is very important to separate between ooc and ic. Ooc during RP scenes is clearly annotated with ( ). And it's good that way because it's a clean and simple method.
And for conflict free communication without misunderstanding, this separation is very important. I think misunderstandings and difficult situations are programmed if descriptive emotes are used for ooc purposes.

For the sake of easy communication:
Ooc and ic must be clearly distinguishable.
The around channel reflects all that could be heard and seen by a good observer.

Not having been present at the case in question, I have no opinion there. I generally agree with what Derryn said, but would point out that the use of /em can do things like show body language, and that the "outside voice" sitiuation noted by Daomei can be clearly communicated, too.

e.g.:
Bitttymacod yawns ostentatiously. << Calling blatant attention to the fact that I am bored.
Bitttymacod stifles a yawn. << Signaling that I am bored, but willing to listen
Bitttymacod grimaces. << signaling irritation.
Bitttymacod stirs impatiently.
Bitttymacod murmers to Daomei "More of the same old thing." << Best used if I am seated next to her.


etc.

All of these can "say" something to a gathering, but it is much harder to intimidate, bully or force interaction with them. For everything else there is /tell /invite xxx followed by Team chat, etc.

I don't fully understand some of these arguments. I mean, if you're participating in RP and you're utilizing an active RP channel, then really it should be expected that anything you portray in that channel is meant to elicit an RP response.

Yeah, your toon might be "thinking" something, but if you openly display that in the RP channel (around) then your toon is doing *something* that tips their intention to the crowd, or portions of it. If the statement was not meant to do that, then, as said by others, it does not belong in the RP channel. Otherwise, you're simply just trying to break RP.

Expressing information that is "suggested" but necessary to make a point and/or move along an RP path is important to good RP. Particularly when you're in an unfamiliar group. But trying to take advantage of the situation and then railing against the reactions is just detrimental.

And besides, when it comes down to it, are you really so sure those big blue Zorai *really* can't read minds? Sometimes I wonder...

"Patriot Geyos' feindselige Gedanken zum Thema waren deutlich an seinem Gesicht abzulesen:"
translates as: "Patriot Geyos' hostile thoughts on the subject could clearly be read from his face"

Google-translator would have helped - at least a little :) http://translate.google.de/

Yes, the whole dialogue with Geyos sadly really turned into an OOC-thought-emote-fight. I wish it didn't! But what else can I do when my character is being criticised by thought-emotes over and over again by a certain group of homins ganging up on Zhoi? I have already asked the Event-Team to help preventing this by speaking clear words OOC months ago. But sadly the exact opposite happened:

2013/04/15 23:16:33 * Icus se dit que les officiels ont finalement comppris qu'ignorer Zhoi est un bon point pour les assemblée, c'est bien
2013/04/15 23:16:49 * Du sagst: (?)
2013/04/15 23:17:40 * Krill sagt: (ironical comment of Icus regarding the fact that Zhoi's hand has not been taken into account yet)
2013/04/15 23:20:06 * Du sagst: (please not that in RP thought-emotes are seen as unfair and it usually is allowed to answer to them as if they could have been guessed or heard)
2013/04/15 23:20:16 * Du sagst: (not = note)
2013/04/15 23:20:52 * Du sagst: (which is impossible if you tell them in a language the other party cannot understand, this is not RP anymore)
2013/04/15 23:20:52 * Icus sagt: (if you can read in thought, then answer it)
2013/04/15 23:21:12 * Icus sagt: (if you can't, ignore it)
2013/04/15 23:21:16 * Du sagst: (I can consider it as if you had murmured it and not just thought)
2013/04/15 23:21:36 * Icus sagt: (i didn't said murmured but though, do you need some glasses ? ^^")
2013/04/15 23:22:14 * Du sagst: (this is what is seen as unfair just as any power-emote; saying something insulting or degrading without giving the oterh PLAYER a chance to defend)
2013/04/15 23:23:08 * Du sagst: (do not behave like a griefer, and do not mock other players OOC)
2013/04/15 23:23:43 * Denen Toen sagt: (If you have a problem with a way an emote is done, please discuss it with the player first, assemblies are not done for that)
2013/04/15 23:25:22 * Du sagst: (dear event-team-member: do you really think it is okay to insult other people's characters with thought-emotes in a language that their players cannot understand? I need this to be cleared up)
2013/04/15 23:28:05 * Denen Toen sagt Dir: (no I don't think that insult should be tolerated, however, to me, it seems more like a very bad joke because of the interpretation of the language)
2013/04/15 23:28:22 * Denen Toen sagt Dir: THat's why I said to tell the player directly.
2013/04/15 23:28:46 * Du tellst Denen Toen: (well, but this means that Icus should tell it to me directly first, right?)
2013/04/15 23:29:37 * Denen Toen sagt Dir: es, but i think Icus thought it was a funny joke. Again I may be wrong but the best is to ask him directly.
2013/04/15 23:30:05 * Du tellst Denen Toen: so I can in the future also make jokes like that in German? Thank you very much for clearing this up
2013/04/15 23:30:55 * Denen Toen sagt Dir: As long as they are jokes who do not insult, yes
2013/04/15 23:31:13 * Denen Toen sagt Dir: If at any mooment a player feels insulted, then no
2013/04/15 23:31:17 * Du tellst Denen Toen: and even though others cannot understand...
2013/04/15 23:32:10 * Du tellst Denen Toen: even if this is your opinion, I won't stoop so low. Icus could have said it in English too, and what he did was tricking me as a player OOC, not RP :(
2013/04/15 23:32:47 * Denen Toen sagt Dir: We will not discuss how to make fun jokes here. If you think there is a problem with what has been said, please tell the player, that's the best way to solve things.

As a result Icus is doing the same thing whenever he feels like it. Because he knows very well that this will annoy me as a human player this tactic has nothing to do with "RP" any longer in my opinion. Happened again on July 11th after the Assembly of Zora by the way. I suppose it won't be the last time; and after all our discussions it should be clear now why Daomei believes that doing this is in reality a method of harassment...

Back to the thought-emotes: at another occasion in Pyr "murmuring"-emotes (which would allow other players to comment to them and have always been used by me instead of thoughts before that day) were "forbidden" IC by an Event-Team-member, which is forcing players to use thought-emotes instead if they want to comment in the future...

2013/04/19 21:42:38 * Dios Apotheps sagt: The Empire has nothing to hide and so we welcome guests at our meetings.
2013/04/19 21:43:33 * Dios Apotheps sagt: But if the only contribution of these guests consist of mockery and disturbing murmurs, then I have to ask you to leave the meeting.
2013/04/19 21:44:30 * Dios Apotheps sagt: It is a sign of disrespect and as a guest in the palace it is obligatory to respect the hosts.
2013/04/19 21:44:32 * Dios Apotheps sagt: Thank you.
2013/04/19 21:45:19 * Zhoi denkt sich, wenn Murmeln nicht erlaubt ist, aber Denken schon, dann wird sie sich gern alles mögliche Liebenswürdige über die anwesenden Senatoren und Akenak denken
(Zhoi thinks; if murmuring is not allowed but thinking is, then she is gladly going to think all kinds of pleasant things about the Senators and Akenak present)

The Event-Team member playing Dios Apotheps can speak German btw. Well, noone of the Event-Team ever replied to that, also not to my thread about thought-emotes in the German forum; neither OOC nor IC. So if this is what the Event-Team definitely wants, what else can you do but to comply? :(

And so this how the dialogue with Geyos went. I'm not proud of my reaction, but please understand how it must make one feel when being picked on again and again at nearly every national Assembly:

2013/06/04 22:26:25 * Geyos wonders why zhoi's friend from dyron never speaks in public
2013/06/04 22:26:50 * Geyos think that maybe zhoi are dreaming them and is a lonesome zoraï
2013/06/04 22:27:09 * Geyos not even able to do her nation rite
2013/06/04 22:28:08 * Salazar smiles slightly, hoping for the cleaning-up of the Akenak stables.
2013/06/04 22:28:23 * Zhoi can read Geyos' thoughts and thinks that he is very uncivilized by ignoring the RL of Malin and that the other two were only elected a short while ago
2013/06/04 22:33:02 * Geyos doesn't know what RL is, maybe a strange region from the jungle ?
As if....

Zhoi --

It seems to me that what the Event Team member you talked to *doesn't* want is to be a hall-monitor or censor.

If the other player is clearly insulting you and calling you bad names, the CSRs (not the Event Team) will step in. They have done so in the past and I presume they will again in the future. Merely irritating you (or anyone else) is not a violation of the Terms. Behaving contrary to the way *you* (or anyone else) prefers to do roleplay is not a violation of the Terms. I tend to write role-play in first-person. Many people do it in third-person.

I agree that Icus is probably taunting you and irritating you on purpose, but that cannot be proven until or unless he says that he is doing so deliberately or he violates the Terms of Agreement by calling you a ^&&^&^ b*****, or something like that. Even if he does, it is the CSRs, not the event team who will take care of it.

In my not so humble opinion the way to deal with this is the way to deal with any such irritating/teasing behavior. Take the high ground and ignore it.

-- B

(P.S. I think that both you and Daomei are aware of most of this. I'm pointing it out to the rest of the viewers of this thread.)

COURTESY POLICY OF RYZOM
INGAME COURTESY POLICY OF RYZOM

You may not harass other players in any form.
You may not disrupt the MMORPG game experience of another player.
You may not abuse other players or Customer Service Representatives.
You may not operate or be part of a guild or group of players that violates this Courtesy Policy.
You may not take cover under the guise of 'role-playing' to violate any part of the Courtesy Policy.
You may not violate the Code of Conduct.

That "guise" part was a new addition when the rules were modified recently (pretty sure, i have copies of old rules) so it is not surprising that this sort of thing is going on (hence the need for a public addition of new rule)

However my understanding is that CSR sanctions do happen although they can't be discussed with us and notes are placed in offending accounts... we will have to simply report when we are troubled and trust in the system (as seems to have been done here)

though some things cannot be proven without admission they can be inferred and it would be judged by some to be a violation, what has been expressed here. i would assume repeat offenses and reports would factor in to the response

so note it report it express it but then.... ignore it and have fun =) highly serious RP is hard enough for me as it is without covert insults (or overt ones) and blurred lines between ooc and ic. i can see why many players would avoid attending such a meeting a second time, and this is bad for the RP culture that could be so much richer

Well, I can't call this "real" harassment. It's annoying, that much is true - but I won't write tickets to CSRs about that. Because as Bittty said: it's not like I as a player had been called names or been told to go die or leave the game or something; even if I have been mocked OOC, as the chatlog above confirms (the part about needing glasses).

There have been more occasions of similar mockery since then - but most IC- and OOC-(verbal)attacks happened in front of the Event-Team or in the public forum, and none of the "officials" ever reacted to that in any way. So even if that kind of treatment surely shows grave disrespect from player towards player it seemingly is still considered somehow "acceptable" officially... So no use to bother CSRs with tickets about this.

I wouldn't call political RP in Ryzom "highly serious" ;) Most roleplayers in Ryzom are tolerant of "light RP" and will be really forgiving about "mistakes", just like the Event-Team is as well. So please don't worry! Lately mistakes happen more often than in the past; as for many players English is not our native language and keeping up with fast RP-chats is quite hard to manage without using work-arounds of all kinds.

Just like Derryn said in a posting above: thought-emotes could be viewed as "power-emotes" in general; and in some roleplaying-games and/or RP-groups they are actually banned. So you have to be really careful to not use anything like that in "serious" roleplaying-environments; and there would be a lot more RP-rules to be obeyed too; like to never describe anything other characters cannot perceive or to never break your character even in the slightest way.

However in Ryzom thought-emotes are officially accepted and you won't have to worry about making small mistakes, like using a little bit of OOC at times, or player-knowledge, or abbreviations, or power-emotes once in a while - or even chat-language :) The Event-Team of Ryzom has clearly confirmed that thought-emotes are definitely allowed in Ryzom; even in any language that players wish to use - as long as these thought-emotes do not insult other players.

However there is a small gap in what the (French) Event-Team-member who played Denen Toen said: "If at any moment a player feels insulted ...". And I might easily FEEL insulted by any emote in a language that I cannot understand for instance. Especially if the context makes it seem highly possible that an insult must have been spouted. But Geyos did not use such unfair means :)

I believe that the chatlog clearly shows that Geyos did not want his thought-emotes to be understood OOC; since he reacted to my own OOC-thought-emote about the busy RL of Akenak Malin by using an IC-thought-emote himself, commenting that Geyos doesn't know what "RL" is. I dislike using OOC-thought-emotes, but in this case I did not want him to "insult" the player of Akenak Malin as being "non-existent", just because s/he hadn't participated in national Fyros-Assemblies until June 13th 2013.

We've been talking about the topic of thought-emotes via forum before http://app.ryzom.com/app_forum/index.php?page=topic/view/16556/29 #29 and as you can read in the chatlog about Denen Toen I have also claimed that thought-emotes usually can be treated as being heard or guessed during roleplay in front of an Event-Team-member.

The Event-Team/CSRs never stated that reacting to thought-emotes IC as if your character/ toon has heard/guessed them would be wrong. Au contraire: in the past a German Event-Team-Senior has told me that replying to thought-emotes IC is absolutely alright. And so, as Geyos clearly wanted his thoughts to be understood IC, I felt free to comment to it IC afterwards within my "report" that Geyos has quoted. :)

I think it is very rich of Geyos to react indignated about others crying out in pain after HE has stepped on their feet - especially as he has been doing this on purpose, with the intend to hurt and completely unprovoked by my character to top it off. Zhoi has never attacked Geyos verbally, has never harbored hostile thoughts against him, did never make use of offending gestures or so - and there has even never been an IC-argument between Zhoi and Geyos! All my character ever did was defend herself in a reserved way whenever she had been molested.

So as a conclusion to all of this: Zhoi will go on defending herself against thought-emotes in this way, by replying to them as if she had heard/guessed them; and I as a player will not listen to anyone's demands to just take the beating silently like a good doggie, neither IC nor OOC.