English

It has to be pointed out that the whole temple events took place in PvP zones. One can say, well, keep away from that then - watch the grass grow during the months everybody else takes part in it, and see your fraction loose without taking the tiny, tiny chance to change the course. But that is not even the central point in this. The behavior shown kept away the peaceful players, and it drove away the PvP willing Karavaneers who could not make a single point and became frustrated, and fundamentaly that led to an exodus of the Kamists, because they had nobody left to fight against. So that behavior was contraproductive, if not stupid. Civilisation shows not in doing and making what you can do or make, but in deciding on what you are not doing or making for the better of the whole. That's also what a multiplayer game is about, in my eyes. I always try to take that in, and as a political player I am very well aware that, in a way (and a bit like in real life), my responsibilities are greater. But probably it's just me seeing it that way. ;)

I find it amusing that you think that I have a "his lot", since I only speak for myself. I observe what I observe, however, and I can most certainly tell the difference between roleplay PvP and bullying. I don't like either of them particularly, but I *loathe* bullying.

I also find it amusing that you believe that I cannot separate RP, PvP from my IRL feelings. First, there can never be total separation because the person behind the keyboard is a single entity and unless that person has multi-personality disorder, all actions whether "IRL" or RP are stored in the same memory. Second, I don't believe you know me well enough to know whether I can separate RP and IRL. I can remember fighting in OP battles with you a few years ago and you never seemed to understand what I was saying when I was roleplaying while fighting.

Icus asked a question. It was a limited question and it was NOT, "how do you do roleplay" or "why do you do roleplay," it was "why was there the negative reaction to extremist roleplay on Aris and Leanon?" I answered that question with my observations as I interpreted them. Period.

Please be aware that this post was entirely OOC and with my IRL ~persona~. Please note that I have not said you are a bad person or anything like that. I just substantially disagree with you and I can do so without accusing you of being a "bad person."

That being said, I have experience with combat in real life Roleplaying and have found that as soon as (imagined/roleplay) "hatred" gets into the mix, the combat becomes substantially less enjoyable. I really love the combat of grouped battle, with tactics and maneuvering to gain advantage, something that the game system largely reduces to either impossibility or near triviality. Even in PvE (NPC) situations the battles here lack coherence and any form of discipline, nor is there a realistic way to disrupt formations or gain advantage by circling a foe.

In my real-life, skill-based, consensual PvP, we also raise our foes up (rez them) and do them honor at the end of the battle in song and story, and embrace them in friendship. This informs my personal *and* roleplay attitudes.

In terms of my game experience, I do not enjoy PvP because it is missing those things that make PvP fun for me. I do enjoy massive PvE (such as the Kitin Mounds event) and other such things. I do believe in sharing. I believe in helping my "foe" both as an IRL *and* an RP facet of my personality. There is nothing in the rules of RP that says I must RP opposite my true personality (and largely I do not). Atys is a rich world. There is no reason to hoard valuable mats. When RP gets in the way of allowing all folk to enjoy the riches of Atys, I object, both IC and OOC.

-- written OOC/HRP

Hehe, what would be "simple" about that? ;) But I think you DO have a point, a very important one at that: "the system is at fault". It is a fact that different people feel "grieved" (having their gaming-fun deliberately harmed/diminished by other players) or sometimes even "bullied", as Thorthehammer mentioned, by very different occurences.

And to refrain from using a lot of features of the game that you originally wanted to enjoy but now feel forced to avoid IS taking away a lot of the fun of playing the game. It might easily make you want to rather try out another game instead to maybe once again re-discover the gaming-pleasure that you felt back then when you started to play the game you now cannot really enjoy any longer. This is what happened on Leanon during the temple wars; and that's one of the main reason why so many people left.

They at first tried out the new features PvP, faction-RP, then the first OP-fights because they thought they sounded like fun. But they quickly realized that these features were not so much fun as they had thought but were rather dropping their mood and their motivation to continue playing, because other players "enjoyed" the new features (a bit too much?) as well...

As Salazar mentioned much too many players felt grieved by being "ganked" and even "hunted" all over the new PvP-zones, by being drawn into suddenly harsh conflict-RP that they were not prepared for and could not cope with, or by finding themselves on the losing side with practically no chances at all against an overwhelming count of enemies, and there were other issues too of course.

These "other" players claimed to only "enjoy" PvP and aggressive faction-RP and to "play the game as it was intended to be played" - as no official rule forbid them to gank/hunt characters in PvP-zones nor to spout "IC"-insults. Still they WERE chasing away their fellow players and did not consider their feelings...

Lots of ideas to make those players calm down a little so also the more "peaceful" players and characters would be able to enjoy the game just as well failed. Even the "Chanchey-System" was not considered a good solution by too many players who then left the game.

Oh, and please, please, please, Stitch, do not name a specific player as a "bad example". The thread might very well go downhill extemely quickly from that point on.

Even IF all Ryzom-players would play peaceful diggers, debates are prone to happen, IC as well as OOC, because characters are just like humans in that aspect that they will always have different opinions.

And as it is also "only human" that discussions will rather easily escalate (as you can see happening between Icus, Rollocks, Gunbra, Salazar and Zhoi right now), even if just because of misunderstandings. So the same thing will always happen between characters as they are being played by humans. Even in Hello Kitty Online players as well as characters cannot prevent fighting verbally once in a while, and some might even have to get banned for going too far even from games like that. The "system" is not almighty.

Your most brilliant argument is also the trickiest one: balance.

Yes! That's what a lot of "real" roleplayers strive to find. Even though everyone thinks differently and some may be over-sensitive while others might be extremely, maybe even overly tolerant. Roleplayers, even if they play extremists (like religious fanatics) or bad-guys (like Marausders) or totally crazy characters (like Sari) still want and even need to interact with other players IC to enjoy the full fun of roleplaying. Usually experienced roleplayers have learned to be considerate towards other players.

You can see how many roleplayers have suggested in this very thread to open "tells" while roleplaying just to ensure their conversational partners that "this is just IC/RP, I as a player do not want to grief you as a fellow player" parallel to roleplaying in the around-chat. The same thing has happened during our forum-"fight" between Icus, Gunbra, Salazar and Zhoi - please note the little OOC-comments that we applied here and there just to tell each other in a friendly tone how much we appreciate this IC-conflict :)

But there are also always RP-beginners, occasional roleplayers, a few ruthless roleplayers who might not mind driving certain other players out of the game, and also "OOClers" (as we use to call them in German). And there has always been this troublesome issue of said OOClers claiming to "play roleplay" (about which in reality they don't even know the most basic "rules") as nothing more than an excuse when trying to achieve ingame-advantages, sometimes in an unfair way.

Like ganking away silently and calling this "roleplay" when being asked or telling others off in the Universe-chat (or spouting mocking comments after killing peaceful diggers) and afterwards claiming that this was "just roleplay" and not grieving, but in reality they do not even know how to speak one IC-sentence.

How can you distinguish "real" roleplayers from "OOClers who don't even ever want to do real roleplay but will still use claim to do RP as a whitewash" so you as their fellow player and conversation partner can act/speak accordingly? Hm. I wonder.

Perhaps only by talking to these players for a long time thoroughly. Which unfortunately you might not want to do if you just felt "grieved", instead you might rather feel like running away from them. Or maybe by getting to know more about them ingame and via forum over some months. However you can see at one glance that all of these "solutions" are not helpful at all with raising your mood again after these people have dropped it...

Having said that: it might be a good idea to put up an official "how to roleplay"-thread in every forum that should explain all the unwritten rules and include all kinds of tips about how to show consideration and how to make sure that your fellow players will know that you are really "just doing roleplay" ;)

Wow - a lot has been written in short time - just wanted to say that at one point on Aris we had about 27 active players, and I reckon Aniro has had the most active server - and I love their RP, Rollocks, of course, has settled very nicely in to being a Matis hating Homin, but I can remember homins on Aris who really disliked himfor his ... rough and ready ways.
I think, to keep game alive, we need a little tension and, when all said and done, Matis are pasty faced snobs! (Except for Naema and Karael of course - they are lovely pasty faced homins)

Hope the RP is good and strong!

And real sorry about picture below

I have to add (for all who didn't play on Leanon) that my guild acted strictly in RP during that time. We did ingame political actions against the conflict and even contradicted Elias, who encouraged the homins to help finishing both temples.
So I have to add (since I'm accused again and again to act contra RP) that "The Free Soul" IS a roleplaying guild with a strict tolerant and pacifistic background. So protests against Kami-Karavan-conflict or conflicts between nations *do not* come from an ooc point of view! I only can emphasise again that I think that the conflicts between factions and nations are very important for the game (if conflicts stay on the RP level and do not affect RL relationships). The pieceful and unifying background of my guild is a product of RP-philosophy, guild history and personal roleplay believes of its members.

I find it amusing that you don't:


Yeah, you're just speaking for yourself.

.

I only played for a month or so after the merge (I'm in a line of work now that keeps me away from stable internet for long periods of time), but I did play on Arispotle for some years before the merge. 

I can't speak for Leanon, but that's pretty much it for Arispotle. Extrtemist/Confrontational RP didn't exist in Arispotle and was often frowned upon because most folks in Arispotle did not understand the difference between IC and OOC, between the character being roleplayed and the real person behind the keyboard. 

Most people on Aris seemed to refer to "RP" or to be "roleplaying" their character, but in fact the toons were  just the extensions of the player's feelings, thoughts, personality, etc. So everything you said IC was taken personally, RP was used as an excuse for factions or guilds to take over all resources and so on. 

Even the event team on Aris was criticized a lot and attacked by players, because the whole concept of RP and dynamic player driven events was not fully understood. I know some good RPers who just gave up on it after a while. 

So in the end this whole thing of kamis and karas cooperating and coexisting in peace created a pretty good and friendly atmosphere to play in, I won't deny that, but it caused genuine confrontational RP to be frowned upon and misunderstood. 

I applaud the french players from Aniro for their extremist/confrontational RP, because conflict is what drives RP and good stories, what makes playing a role that much more interesting. Not just the cliche of fyros and matis insulting each other, but real political intrigue between the governments, sanctions, diplomatic tension, etc.

From my short time playing on Arispotle, I found that the majority of players were people who took pride in their toon's achievements rather that hoarding things for themselves, people were more than happy to help others. I will give two scenarios, both of which actually happened to me.

Soon after the reset I was running through the Void when suddenly a wild Dai-Den approached and struck me dead. Now I could see two people within a 50 meter radius and I had just managed to see their names before I was killed. I asked for a rez and got a reply that felt like a slap in the face, 'Sorry, you're Karavan.' and that was it.

After last night' reset, I was struggling to get through the Prime Roots and so I asked for some help. Now in a Karavan members, I was instantly offered support from a Kami. On noticing that my team was all Karavan however, he continued to help me over to where my team was already digging, then teleported away, no nasty killing sprees to stop us getting mats, he simply helped then left.

I hope I have highlighted the differences between Aniro and Arispotle gameplay.

Thank you, Rikutatis, your view of things on Arispotle is very enlightening. Others have hinted at the same problems. And also we "Leanoner" have experienced similar occurences happening on our server as well.

As for Psykro's story I do not really understand: was this player of a Kami-disciple from former Aniro, Arispotle or Leanon? Well, it is true that we did not have many players on Leanon right before the server-merge who would not resurrect someone just because of factions. On the other hand I have sometimes also experienced players from Aniro who did not mind faction nor race :)

As we are discussing the topic "IC-OOC-mixing" and directed at Icus again who has started this thread:

Since the server-merge I have more than once experienced that some players can not easily cope with the fact that other players had (and still have) different roleplay-speaking-customs, and that some players do not really want to take into consideration that events developed differently on the former three servers/shards.

Yes, some consider "extremist"-talk as irritating and will avoid extremistic homins. Even if they are from the same race and faction. But please understand that this is completey logical in roleplay seen from the viewpoint of these characters and their players.

Is it really so strange not wanting to spend time with or even confront irritating people, but to rather chose to avoid them - so not having to experiencing fruitless conflicts these irritating ones might start - or even getting pulled into their problems and having to fight? It can seem very unlogical to shower each other with insults and afterwards just part ways or even fight alongside as if nothing has ever happened. Especially when considering the personal storylines and IC-ingame-experiences of most characters...

I understand that extremists-players want to be accepted by other players. But they themselves will also have to accept the logical IC-reactions of the characters of those players in roleplaying.

If the extremist's characters feel outcast because too many other characters avoid or criizise them, then they might have to learn from that and change their attitude a little so they will seem more "acceptable". If characters rather chose to push away too many other characters they might find themselves being ignored as this is still one of the possible logical results of how characters can react towards them.

As players you can still be well liked OOC by the other players of these characters though :)

On another note, all of us have been told (as players) by our Event-Team:
We on Leanon were also told during an ingame-talk with our Event-Team by Limai (translated):You, Icus, might remember, that your character explained at the Assembly in Pyr IC that the Matis had started a war and that an outpost in the Witherings had been held by the Circles of the Zorai government. You explained via an OOC-comment that the war between the Empire of the Fyros and the Kingdom of the Matis has happened on Arispotle and Aniro. So you as a player might have thought "2 outnumber 1, so Leanoners should accept this". But this is not thought-out well enough!

All kinds of things happened before the war-event that roleplayers could bring forth as IC-arguments to underline different IC-opinions and defend their Nations - IF they even knew about those details that had happend. Which we do not. It might as well be possible that on Arispotle the Empire started the war, who knows? I do not know anything; so I cannot discuss those things IC at all. And so players from Leanon do feel like being outcast of roleplay when such a war is discussed that has never happened on Leanon...

I thought it was not really fair OOC to impose your own (Aniro-)"truth" on everyone present while knowing (or because of knowing?) that our characters would not be able to oppose this "truth" because we as players do not have the insider-knowledge about Aniro-events to be able to talk about this topic. So much for the problems with distinguishing IC from OOC...

P.S.: I just found Icus' own note again:

Only one thing, i think it will be good not to make any generality about the behavior of people in function of their server's origin. After, well.. we are in a game. I see some people saying : yeah, be friend, share all !

Well, so i will be curious to see what u will think if in your favorite sport the players do the same thing. Oh, i have marked one touchdown, at your turn my adversary ;)

In all this thing, you forget one thing very important in a game : challenging !

Roleplay is not a bubble disconnected from the gameplay.

I have broken my will to stop to write on this kind of polemic. It's not interesting, especially when we write in another tongue than our native one. And more the debate will last, more some sad things will be written.

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Hey, Luth, you should consider Ultimate Frisbee as a sport. Teams battle each other competitively in championship games for 90 minutes and then party together ;-) And there is not even a referee.
</off topic>