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Since this topic was brought up inadvertently in a different thread, I'd like to start a poll about it to see how many people actually feel the same way.

Do we want spoilers here in the Forum?

There are plenty pros and cons in my humble opinion:
+ Helps players easily
+ Good for players not well connected
+ All Ryzom related info available in-game

- Makes it too easy to take a peek, even if not wanted
- If discussion happens in spoiler thread, thread pops up to top of unread posts (with a red number on it), making it harder and harder to ignore
- Takes too much discipline to ignore
- Some info cannot be forgotten, if read accidentally

Possibly more arguments here...

I don't consider the occupation recipes much more of a spoiler than a for example a guide explaining the difference between source-modes or a crafting recipe.
A type of spoiler I'm against though is passing on "secret" information about the history and future of Ryzom (e.g. the Ryzom bible and the Mulligan interview).

Voted others : i don't care about gameplay spoilers, but i really don't want to see any background-lore-roleplay spoiler

Actually, I'm *very* glad I read the bible, even though it's not in use per se. And generally, any bit of the game history is interesting to me. I don't see how past history can be a spoiler ..

And I'd vote no on gameplay spoilers, it's different if someone gives you the info directly or you just pick it up from a forum.

Dear Community of Atys,

I voted on this poll for many reasons. In order to not be accused of anything, I will disclose all of them: firstly and foremost, Talkirc is one of my friends, both in game and out, and this post is a crappily veiled response to his. I am not saying that Irfidel is necessarily trying to harm Talk- in fact, I hope she is trying to gather support for him. However, this should have been done out in the open.

A second reason is I have only played the game for about a week and a half, and though I am in no danger or quitting as long as the game is up, I have seen so much negativity and bickering from the Atysian community that I am starting to get really fed up and annoyed every time I play.

The third and final reason I am posting this is because I both agree and disagree with -both- sides of this issue. To Talk's defense, I believe that information should be available to those who want it. To the defense of those opposed to this sharing of information, I enjoy the game partially because I enjoy its difficulty and it's immense, amazing complexity. However, to say that people cannot ignore a clearly labelled spoiler, or that it's impossible to not remember a string of five integers strung together for an occ. recipe, is either delusional or just a cop out.

Now, to explain my reasons for each of my clicks:

Yes)

I think that information should be shared freely.

Yes, there are players who cannot ask others)

Without naming any names, there are certain players who are just unable to ask others for help- whether it be due to psychological issues or mere pride, they just cannot do it.

Yes, some information really cannot be found elsewhere)

I want to qualify this statement: Some information cannot be found elsewhere without knowing where to look. As such, you still have to ask pointed questions, which some people just cannot do.

Yes, all Ryzom information should be available in game)

I think that all information should be available to those who desire it. It's just a basic premise of my value system.

Other)

The Ryzom community is, arguably, stagnant... If the inherent difficulty is an issue to some potential players, and they see that the Ryzom community is open and willing to help out, then they may come in anyway. I do not believe that the very existence of this poll leads one to believe that this community is open and/or willing to help out.

To explain the non-clicked areas:

No)

I do not believe that information should be hidden, and I also think that there is no reason to, honestly, make a s***-fit over sharing some harmless information.

No, I want to discover it all myself)

I do not believe this affects your ability to do so.

No, threads are hard to ignore over time)

I believe that this is purely a cop out.

No, some information cannot be forgotten once read)

Bull feces for a string of integers, and there is a spoiler warning so just don't read it!

I do not care at all)

I do care, mostly because of Talk, but also because this issue has affected me personally due to negativity about the community directed towards me personally.

Abstain)

I did not abstain because this is an important issue.

So, dearest Ryzom community, I implore you to read my points and to consider them carefully.

Thank you all,

Luciel.

I don't think that a forum is the right place for such things as spoilers.

As long as there's a discussion the thread will be ever harder to ignore over time.
But once the discussion dies down the thread will disappear so even the intention of the helpful person is not granted in the long run.

I really think that any game information should be available from in game.
(I'm not talking about RP spoilers that might be true or not depending on the choices of the company/event team)

A "help" app might be the best choice in this regard. It could have a setting "hide all spoilers"/"show spoiler warning"/"show all spoilers"
So general help would always be available (like the tutorial texts from Silan which some people "forget" to read and wonder how the things are working later on) and spoilers only if directly specified by that person.
Furthermore the normal ingame help is very outdated *coughs* and could be revamped with this.

+1

ok, then here's my counter to everything, we need a public sub-forum for spoilers, there players can choose to read or not read, a nice option (though harder to implement) would be for the user to have an option for locking or unlocking the ability to use that sub-forum, thus a player that does not want spoilers will never have to worry about a miss click and by random chance inadvertently open a spoiler thread.

i believe that this could be a way to keep everyone happy, because i'm not against everyone meeting in the middle on this issue, information is power, and with more information options, there's more ways to get that power. having all the recipes doesn't mean it's really making it all that much more easy, since you still have to do all the work to get to level 6, it just allows you to spend less time with random guessing, since the recipe will not tell you which number are right and wrong as you put it in, just what you get at the end of the current guess, so there's more then just a few options.

Can always make the text dark so a player accidentally doesn't see a spoiler but actively have to mark up the text to invert it, like this:



This way anyone can look into a thread with spoilers and see any discussion around it etc.

Edit: added some spoiler tags to mark start and end of text to mark location

i'll poke talk to make the text dark in a bit :P

The issue isn't "accidental reading". It's not about stupid people. It's about presenting the info right in front of players when they only use core services of ryzom.

Spoilers belong on fansites. That's where they are best accessible and at the same time don't make every activity in the game kind of a ridiculously simple grind (like occs when u got receipes). I don't know a single game where solutions of riddle-type aspects of the game would be accepted on an official forum.

i'll also talk to firstdo about hosting it on ryzom.info how's that?

Thanks to all for your comments and opinions! I'd like to respond to some:

Most importantly: Luciel, (and TalkIrc), I am not trying to veil anything, nor do I try to campaign against any player. The reason to start a second thread, simply is because a thread should be on one - and only one - topic, and I do not want to derail Talkirc's thread any more than it already has been. Maybe I should have linked to his thread in my opening statement. I did not want to, because several players already have done hreads about hints in the game in the past:
Just recently there's a how to sneak, there's a bit about crafting, and while we did not have a thread yet with the exact 100% recipes, we already had lots of threads on how to do the occupations, and how to be more effective on them. We also have threads where e.g. in the discussion of PvP vs PvE people enumerate how one could gain more rewards in one play style versus the other. Since this poll & thread shall be a general discussion on spoilers, I do not want to emphasize the 100% recipe thread, or neglect to mention the others. Maybe I should have left out the reference to "the other thread" completely.

So there's a problem in defining when some information is considered helpful and when it is considered being a spoiler. Personal tolerance levels vary, and this is honestly the reason why I opened this poll and why I intentionally left out more of my thoughts. I only tried to provide a few items to start the discussion off.

Please do not misinterpret personal accusations, or campaigning into this. Also I don't think this to be bickering. I know there's some bickering in the game - there always is when humans are involved. Because there's expectations and often those are not fulfilled, and then people get disappointed and have to vent their emotions. But after we're done with that we should be allowed to have a constructive discussion. I hope (and do think) that Talkirc knows from my previous posts, that I sometimes agree with him, sometimes I disagree, and of course, there's more text written by me when I disagree - this is not at all personal. And I'd dig nodes with him anytime ;) Btw, both my char and I are a "he". (but no offence taken, the name's not obvious, and I often have trouble remembering the gender of other characters, too)

It seems all responses so far were very factual, and this is actually the discussion I wanted to start. So thanks to all of you!


Re Casy:
Since I don't really play that much other games, and no other MMOG (role play nor non-roleplay), I find Casy's observation interesting, that no other game he knows of would allow these kind of spoilers on the forum. Maybe some others could comment on this?


Re Katla:
I very much like that proposal! It does take some discipline by the writer of some text to remember to colorize the actual sensitive information, but it nicely works around the problem of accidentally reading a spoiler when a thread is busy with discussions.
Maybe, since the forum is scripted, we could have an enhancement request to the CSRs here? The idea would be to "provide a button to automatically 'encrypt' the selected text by colorizing it dark grey on black, so that readers have to select the text to read it with inverted colors. We should have white pipe '|' or similar delimiters at the start and end of such a text to make such text easily visible and selectable."


Re RP-spoiler:
I'd like to get a clarification on what this actually is? I can understand if players don't want spoilers about future developments, leaked by CSRs or members of the Eventteam. I feel the same way. However, do you consider historical writeups to be spoilers as well? From the discussion until now this is unclear to me, and I think Jarnys asks this as well.

Dear Irfidel,

I would like to thank you for explaining your reasoning, as well as apologize for assuming this thread was being veiled as something else. I understand now what you were (and are) doing. As to the helpful vs. spoiler continuum, I do admit that that is a problem with varying personal tolerances. But there has to be a way to provide help to those unable to ask for it, for whatever reason. Finally, I understand now that this wasn't and isn't personal, and thank you for being willing to dig with Talkirc whenever. If you ever need/want another team member, feel free to call on me as well.

Sincerely,

Luciel.

Dear Katla and all interested parties,

I am still testing this out and all the edits will be to find the correct color code.  

In order to hide text, click on reply, click on the Toggle WYSIWYG button, and write your post. Click and select your text to hide, then click on the blue A in the bar, and then type in the Color field "#202020" (no quotation marks). Here's an example of what you'll find:

Text to Hide:

Hidden Texts!!! 

Text not to Hide:

Rest of my post.

Sincerely,

Luciel.