First of all, i want to apologize for the (really) long post who will follow, who will be, as every long post, boring to read. I'll try to keep it as short and interesting as possible !
Before speaking about IC/OOC comment and the way to do them, i will do a quick explanation about IC/OOC.
IC stands for "In character" (in french we usually use RP, for "role play"). It is everything that concerns your toon, as a living person. When Icus says to celiakos "oren pyr Abycus", it is IC. The only IC channel on ryzom is the around channel (everything on this channel is expected to be IC, unless you explain clearly that something isn't) : precisely, the standard speak and shout (/s and /sh), the action-emote (if there is something like "Icus bows to Abycus Zekops", your toon will of course see it), and the action-speaking emote (in a similar way, if you read "Icus turns to Bardor and says : what do you think about that ?", your toon will see Icus turning to bardor and saying "what do you think about that?"). I won't speak of though-emote and related stuff, there is already a thread about it (as a player, i think they are OOC cause i don't see how toon can read mind).
On other channel, everything is expected to be OOC ; but you can use them IC if you say it clearly to people and explain why you are doing this. Some examples : you can use tell sometimes (you are whispering to someone who is near you and people around you can't hear it : you do it in a private tell. They can hear you : use /em whispers to "YourToonName" : don't you think Icus is a fat useless fyros ?), and team channel (for multi-whispering in example ; or in hunt because of the short distance of /s, people moving a lot ... sometime i use it).
On the forum, there is one IC-section, which contains the event, roleplay, bazaar & guild registry forum (and the ambassade one on aniro forum). So everything on this forum is expected to be IC, like around chat, except if it's precised it's OOC. The nation / faction are supposed to be IC too, though they are often used as OOC (as long as it's explained, no problem). The event (ooc) forum is a bit special, used only for OOC stuff, so nothing IC should be in it.
OOC stands for "Out of character" (in french we usually use HRP, for "hors role play", which could be translated in "out of roleplay"). It is everything that isn't IC, who doesn't concern your toon. A server reboot will be IC ; if you says to someone "sorry, my internet connection crashed and i had to wait for relog", it is OOC. When we are using OOC in an IC-channel, we are usually using bracket/square bracket ()/[], eventually adding a "OOC" in the beginning of the sentence to be sure everybody understand it's OOC. In the forum, more or less the same, except you will almost always find the "OOC" indication.
To resume it shortly : what is said/done IC is what your toon think/do/see ; what is said OOC is what you, as a player, think.
There is a lot of reason to have a really strict IC/OOC separation. The first is : don't believe that what my toon think is what i think. Like almost any other fantasy (video)game, ryzom IS racist. You can play different races ; and based on your race people will attack you freely (the fyros/matis or zorai/tryker war you can find in the lore, for example), slave you (hi trykers !), have prejudice on you (you're a tryker, so you're an alcoholic), or disallowing you to do things (in the Lore, a matis noble HAVE to be a matis by sap, and it's very hard to be akenak/awakened if you aren't fyros/zorai).
So you will find racist toon, nothing strange to that. (my main toon is really racist, for example). But it doesn't mean that the player playing this kind of toon are racist ; and some people do the confusion. And playing with people that you think are racist is hard to do (well, playing or speaking or staying with them), because IRL(In Real Life) the racist thing doesn't have a sense. I've take a specific example to explain it, but this apply to everything : it's not because my toon hates you that i, as a player, hates you (as a player). So we NEED a strict IC/OOC separation to avoid this kind of misunderstanding.
Another good reason is what Feylin pointed out : immersion. I will take another example : you go to theater to see "Romeo and Juliet". If in the middle of the act, Romeo says to Juliet "There is no more light, i think the lamp just blew up", you will most likely find it awkward, and says "man, i'm here to see a tragedy, not you speaking about your lunch". This is the same in ryzom : when 2 toons speaks, you don't expect it to see in the middle of the conversation an OOC intervention. This is why we need to clearly say it (if someone come and says "i'm sorry spectator, we are having some problem with the light, please don't pay attention to the technician", you will understand it and this won't be awkward).
If you don't explain that your post (or a part of it) is an OOC-one, people will get confused. "Is that OOC or IC ? does my toon have knowledge of that ?" and you will have to step out of the subject, think of it as a player (and not as toon) : the immersion will be destroyed. Another thing is that if there is too much OOC post in a IC-thread, you will wonders why is it still an IC-thread ; so Event (OOC) is perfect for long, OOC discussion who won't disturb an IC-thread. But i'm the first one doing big OOC intervention in IC-thread, so i know that is it hard to put everything in the OOC forum.
Of course, the contrary is true : if you speak about the recent storm in Florida and someone suddenly says "And, awakened fey-lin, what do you think about the termit mound solution to destroy the Kitin path ?", this will be awkward too.
A single post in a IC-thread/forum isn't enough ; the most important thing when you use forum, is to explain (shortly) where the action is taking place. To let the player see if his toon will know about what is said in the post. If it's a private discussion (like the post from Riditch), it is better to explain that is it ; for example, "Eeri and Icus, alone in the building, were speaking about ...". In this case, your toon will definitively not know what it's said (except, of course if it is Eeri or Icus).
If it's public, like an letter (consider every letter on the forum as public ; if you need to send a private letter, send a mail to events@ryzom.com), just say it "letter from XX to YY" ; if it's a public sign, says it too (and say where you can find it) : "On the wall of the fyros academy, a new sign with the following text could be found".
There is a last case, the "chronicle one" : mainly used by the event team, it's main purpose is a sort of summary of an event. The action that will take place in the text was probably public ; so everyone can know about this part. Though, if there is some though part in it (like "At this time, i was wondering why the matis were so damn silly about this"), or private action, then your toon won't know about it.
If you look carefully, you will see that (almost ? but it's all of them ithink) every IC-text posted by the event team will be introcuded in some manner. You won't find a thread just describing an event, or though, or anything else. So please, do the same, so we can know if our toon can know about it :). But if your toon don't know about what is in the text, don't react (or at least, don't do it IC !). This create odd situation where people are answering to other people thoughts ...
I will finish with a short point ; i think this is clear that for everyone of us, no toon will ever speak about Jesus and christianity, cause homin living on Atys just don't know about it. This is obvious for a lot of subject (the historic one, especially) ; and so we don't use a lot of word in IC conversation.
There is, though, a subject where it is harder to make the difference between what we know IRL and what our toon (might) know : science. If you read carefully the Lore, you will see that the homin'science isn't really advanced, mainly due to a lack of good material (as Feylin pointed out, they probably don't have any way to see thing on a cell-level for example). So using words/notion like genome is strange ; in a similar way, things like "biomass" are more likely to be unknown to homin. So excepted if it's stricly necessary, try to avoid using this sort of thing :)
Don't forget too, that some things IRL can't be applied on atys ; for example, nothing says to us that the magnetism as we know is the same as the magnetism we know on atys (they are probably two differents things ; IRL magnetism is heavily metal-related, when there is no metal on atys ...). Don't forget it is a fantasy and magical universe, so things from here can't always be the same as IRL. (though there is of course some things who will be the same as IRL)
If you read until here, congratulations and thanks !
Before speaking about IC/OOC comment and the way to do them, i will do a quick explanation about IC/OOC.
1]IC
IC stands for "In character" (in french we usually use RP, for "role play"). It is everything that concerns your toon, as a living person. When Icus says to celiakos "oren pyr Abycus", it is IC. The only IC channel on ryzom is the around channel (everything on this channel is expected to be IC, unless you explain clearly that something isn't) : precisely, the standard speak and shout (/s and /sh), the action-emote (if there is something like "Icus bows to Abycus Zekops", your toon will of course see it), and the action-speaking emote (in a similar way, if you read "Icus turns to Bardor and says : what do you think about that ?", your toon will see Icus turning to bardor and saying "what do you think about that?"). I won't speak of though-emote and related stuff, there is already a thread about it (as a player, i think they are OOC cause i don't see how toon can read mind).
On other channel, everything is expected to be OOC ; but you can use them IC if you say it clearly to people and explain why you are doing this. Some examples : you can use tell sometimes (you are whispering to someone who is near you and people around you can't hear it : you do it in a private tell. They can hear you : use /em whispers to "YourToonName" : don't you think Icus is a fat useless fyros ?), and team channel (for multi-whispering in example ; or in hunt because of the short distance of /s, people moving a lot ... sometime i use it).
On the forum, there is one IC-section, which contains the event, roleplay, bazaar & guild registry forum (and the ambassade one on aniro forum). So everything on this forum is expected to be IC, like around chat, except if it's precised it's OOC. The nation / faction are supposed to be IC too, though they are often used as OOC (as long as it's explained, no problem). The event (ooc) forum is a bit special, used only for OOC stuff, so nothing IC should be in it.
2] OOC
OOC stands for "Out of character" (in french we usually use HRP, for "hors role play", which could be translated in "out of roleplay"). It is everything that isn't IC, who doesn't concern your toon. A server reboot will be IC ; if you says to someone "sorry, my internet connection crashed and i had to wait for relog", it is OOC. When we are using OOC in an IC-channel, we are usually using bracket/square bracket ()/[], eventually adding a "OOC" in the beginning of the sentence to be sure everybody understand it's OOC. In the forum, more or less the same, except you will almost always find the "OOC" indication.
To resume it shortly : what is said/done IC is what your toon think/do/see ; what is said OOC is what you, as a player, think.
3] Why there should be a strict IC/OOC separation.
There is a lot of reason to have a really strict IC/OOC separation. The first is : don't believe that what my toon think is what i think. Like almost any other fantasy (video)game, ryzom IS racist. You can play different races ; and based on your race people will attack you freely (the fyros/matis or zorai/tryker war you can find in the lore, for example), slave you (hi trykers !), have prejudice on you (you're a tryker, so you're an alcoholic), or disallowing you to do things (in the Lore, a matis noble HAVE to be a matis by sap, and it's very hard to be akenak/awakened if you aren't fyros/zorai).
So you will find racist toon, nothing strange to that. (my main toon is really racist, for example). But it doesn't mean that the player playing this kind of toon are racist ; and some people do the confusion. And playing with people that you think are racist is hard to do (well, playing or speaking or staying with them), because IRL(In Real Life) the racist thing doesn't have a sense. I've take a specific example to explain it, but this apply to everything : it's not because my toon hates you that i, as a player, hates you (as a player). So we NEED a strict IC/OOC separation to avoid this kind of misunderstanding.
Another good reason is what Feylin pointed out : immersion. I will take another example : you go to theater to see "Romeo and Juliet". If in the middle of the act, Romeo says to Juliet "There is no more light, i think the lamp just blew up", you will most likely find it awkward, and says "man, i'm here to see a tragedy, not you speaking about your lunch". This is the same in ryzom : when 2 toons speaks, you don't expect it to see in the middle of the conversation an OOC intervention. This is why we need to clearly say it (if someone come and says "i'm sorry spectator, we are having some problem with the light, please don't pay attention to the technician", you will understand it and this won't be awkward).
If you don't explain that your post (or a part of it) is an OOC-one, people will get confused. "Is that OOC or IC ? does my toon have knowledge of that ?" and you will have to step out of the subject, think of it as a player (and not as toon) : the immersion will be destroyed. Another thing is that if there is too much OOC post in a IC-thread, you will wonders why is it still an IC-thread ; so Event (OOC) is perfect for long, OOC discussion who won't disturb an IC-thread. But i'm the first one doing big OOC intervention in IC-thread, so i know that is it hard to put everything in the OOC forum.
Of course, the contrary is true : if you speak about the recent storm in Florida and someone suddenly says "And, awakened fey-lin, what do you think about the termit mound solution to destroy the Kitin path ?", this will be awkward too.
4] How to do a good introduction to an IC post
A single post in a IC-thread/forum isn't enough ; the most important thing when you use forum, is to explain (shortly) where the action is taking place. To let the player see if his toon will know about what is said in the post. If it's a private discussion (like the post from Riditch), it is better to explain that is it ; for example, "Eeri and Icus, alone in the building, were speaking about ...". In this case, your toon will definitively not know what it's said (except, of course if it is Eeri or Icus).
If it's public, like an letter (consider every letter on the forum as public ; if you need to send a private letter, send a mail to events@ryzom.com), just say it "letter from XX to YY" ; if it's a public sign, says it too (and say where you can find it) : "On the wall of the fyros academy, a new sign with the following text could be found".
There is a last case, the "chronicle one" : mainly used by the event team, it's main purpose is a sort of summary of an event. The action that will take place in the text was probably public ; so everyone can know about this part. Though, if there is some though part in it (like "At this time, i was wondering why the matis were so damn silly about this"), or private action, then your toon won't know about it.
If you look carefully, you will see that (almost ? but it's all of them ithink) every IC-text posted by the event team will be introcuded in some manner. You won't find a thread just describing an event, or though, or anything else. So please, do the same, so we can know if our toon can know about it :). But if your toon don't know about what is in the text, don't react (or at least, don't do it IC !). This create odd situation where people are answering to other people thoughts ...
5] A little note, about IRL and IG knowledge
I will finish with a short point ; i think this is clear that for everyone of us, no toon will ever speak about Jesus and christianity, cause homin living on Atys just don't know about it. This is obvious for a lot of subject (the historic one, especially) ; and so we don't use a lot of word in IC conversation.
There is, though, a subject where it is harder to make the difference between what we know IRL and what our toon (might) know : science. If you read carefully the Lore, you will see that the homin'science isn't really advanced, mainly due to a lack of good material (as Feylin pointed out, they probably don't have any way to see thing on a cell-level for example). So using words/notion like genome is strange ; in a similar way, things like "biomass" are more likely to be unknown to homin. So excepted if it's stricly necessary, try to avoid using this sort of thing :)
Don't forget too, that some things IRL can't be applied on atys ; for example, nothing says to us that the magnetism as we know is the same as the magnetism we know on atys (they are probably two differents things ; IRL magnetism is heavily metal-related, when there is no metal on atys ...). Don't forget it is a fantasy and magical universe, so things from here can't always be the same as IRL. (though there is of course some things who will be the same as IRL)
If you read until here, congratulations and thanks !
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