English

This said player knew from discussions in the forums http://app.ryzom.com/app_forum/index.php?page=topic/view/16556/54 #54 that I am one of the people pleading for mutual respect of players OOC while argumenting IC - and to let them answer to thought-emotes if they wanted to instead of trying to dominate them by power-emote-like actions.

So that player clearly wanted to make me - as a player - unable to react to his comment about my character by using a language that I cannot understand. The CSR ignored all that even though I tried to explain; instead he just wanted me to shut up. Again it's not the player I critizise, but the CSR.

The CSR said if I had a problem I should "tell" it to that player. The CSR already knew that this player had refused to translate his words (because s/he said so in the around-chat) and so would most likely also do the same if being addressed in a "tell". It should be clear as day that a "tell" would turn into nothing else than a heated argument then, as it had already started in the around-chat, maybe even leading to insults as this happens easierly in a private talk than in a public one. Does that CSR want us players to bicker at each other?

The CSR told me in a "tell" that if someone felt insulted than the CSRs would do something - but how should anyone know if they as a player or their characters were insulted in a foreign language they cannot understand? At the next Assembly in Pyr some German players used a bunch of German emotes like they had never done at any Assembly before.

They did so until the exact same player who had refused translation asked for a translation, then they stopped. I can only hope the question of the said player was a sign that s/he now understands how this feels like. And please mind that not even one of those emotes has included the character of the said player, unlike he did with my character.

The CSR and the attending Akenak have started the second Assembly in Pyr (with all three communities combined, a lot of non-french-speaking players present) solely talking in French. A player from the audience asked for translation. They changed to English afterwards, but did not care to translate what they had said before. Again I'm not blaming the players - but I do blame the CSR for completely ignoring the request to get a translation, not ensuring it.

In Fairhaven the CSR was the one not calling up my character even after she repeatedly put up her hand. The CSR did not react to that player's OOC-mockery (about me as a player needing glasses if I did not understand what he said about thought-emotes). Instead the CSR asked me to stop explaining unwritten roleplaying-rules. By the way the CSR said that after I had already finished my explanation and was not going to say anything more OOC anyway...

Oh, I have been talking via tells with a bunch of French players - and it was always nice, friendly talk. You might not believe it but since 2003/2004 I have been starting tells with other players of my own accord only approximately about 10 times or so in total (except for a quick returning of greetings that I had overlooked in the arond-chat at first). It does not have anything to do with language as you can see.

Disliking tells in general and especially not wanting to criticize others by using tells should not be misunderstood as a lack of respect; as I know that I have never shown any lack of respect towards players at any time at all. In fact on the contrary - I think that it shows that I actually respect people a lot by not wanting to bicker at them via tells.

Dear Feylin, if you think that making players resurrect other player's characters and especially newcomers as trying to "force" others to follow "my example" then there is something fundamentally wrong. Some players of course want to keep doing inconsiderate things and of course they also want to keep their political functions in roleplay as well. But they should not be allowed to do so for all roleplaying-logic - and also OOC-logic because we should not grief other players out of the game, as Ryzom needs each and every player to stay alive.

As I said: it would be best to just test ist.

Let the rulers of Nations and Factions demand of these characters to behave more considerately IC, let them address specific unacceptable behaviour clearly and tell everyone IC not to do that. If these characters refused to do listen to their rulers and will selfishly go on playing aggressively and just continue to do whatever they want, then this would prove that "RP" has been abused as a flimsy excuse and the players are acting like that solely because of their OOC-wishes to dominate other players. And if that happens then consequences - aka "punishment" - will be absolutely essential, even if just within roleplaying.

Long time i am out of the game but, given the important subject, i wish to express my opinion.

I think there is a big confusion about what a game gives to players and what not.

A game is made by: lore, environment, events and entities, being npc, players and game masters.

And, of course: a CoC (or TOS).

In a sandbox game, where freedom is a main part of it, it's absolutely wrong to distinguish between OOC and IC.
There is only IC. And there is only one way to play IC.

The different RP described by Tamarea, is just a false difference.

It doesn't matter if I wanna act as a real person or a fictious character, because, even if i choose to be "myself", I am in a virtual environment that has nothing to do with real life.

So, my "myself" is fictional as any other.

So, what makes the game fair and playable for everyone?

Very simple: the CoC (or ToS). That is something outside of the virtual world and compete the real life.

Because, people that leave a game cause they feel harrassed it's part of the real life and not the game.

As an example to explain better what i mean:

consider a strict "roleplayer" that, because he love a certain playstyle, continually drag aggro against other players. Is that roleplay? Is that condemnable?

The only way to decide it is to check what the ToS say. If there is a specific sentence against aggro dragging in the ToS, then the player is not "roleplaying" but harrassing. If there is nothing said in the ToS then the player is "roleplaying". Very, very, very simple.

So, what really matter in a game, in any game, as in real life, are the basic rules. These rules must not be the same as the real life rules, of course, but they must protect the players in all the "real life" aspects.

And the harrassment aspect should be a long and complete chapter of any CoC.

So, even if the roleplay aspect give the players the freedom to react in accordance to their will to any action taken by other players, is the full responsibility of the CSR team, the Event team and, in general, the game owner, to preserve the community as an entire entity.

Of course, this means that CSRs and Event team should never be inactive in any difficult situaltions, expecially during events. But we know it's not easy and they already made a lot of mistakes in the past (pre merge).

The word "respect" has been used a lot in this topic, but "respect" what means?

Any time you define the word, you fall, inevitably, to OOC.

In a virtual world, if i am roleplaying a bastard, why should have respect for anyone else, playing different characters?

So, you must be careful at how to use the term "respect", if you just consider the game.

You must give a "container" with set rules, and then you can speak of "respect". These rules can be only in the ToS.

Every different agreement in the game (IC), is just part of the game and cannot be enforced in any way.

Peace and long life to homins.

PS: To avoid any misconception on how was acting my character in Atys, i was, and i will always be a "hominist".

Some comments: I disagree that the problems can be settled by the CSR, though I think that close attention and observation by the CSR is crucial. Surely they cannot lean back and let the players act. While I disagree to Zhoi that the players in question have employed intentional griefing, I can confirm that they have acted in a highly insensitive an egotist way, not aware that and how often they were transgressing the red line, hurting the player, not the character (and yes, I know they contempt those complaining about their rudeness as "bisounours"). Apart from that, the roleplay connected with the Zhoi mobbing fun was despicably bad, with the Awakened Feylin sitting peacefully among Thesos sessions where her fellow representative of Zorai Circles (of Hoi Cho) was slandered, not saying any word of critique. The actions in the international sphere were in no way better.

Matter of fact is that roleplay is falling apart at the moment, with considerable parts of the smaller RP communities feeling crushed and pushed aside by a numerically larger group still mourning old times, and employing much parallel foreign policy in their language sessions. Assembly participation has dropped dramatically, and granted, I am also bit tired about dishonorable spectacles with manipulated speakers' lists like in Pyr lately.

This thread also has developped alarmingly. I want to remind that the original post of Laofa was an appeal to her own community to reconsider their attitudes, and translating that by the CSR team was an attempt to start a dialogue. Yet obviously nothing of that kind is about to begin.

A comment to what Tamarea wrote: I feel a bit alienated by interpretations that my roleplay is not "proper" roleplay which is implied a bit by the movie example. Me, Daomei, and Diwu alike, neither play an RL character, nor do we ever act OOC except when discussing technical questions or mission details on uni chat. Different even from many of the french roleplayers, we do not regard tell, channels, PvP tag, or protective zones around vortices and tp as "OOC", rather as part of the world of Atys, as effects caused by the higher powers. That way, we have more often "the camera running" than those who do not. Likewise, our fight against the NPC bosses is not "OOC" but part of our fight for the free peoples of Atys, and I know that many of the participants of these fights regard it that way as well. And I well wrote the dirty slander against us e.g. by Liverion and Yricl in the french forums. That, too, is not proper roleplay in my eyes.

During the last weeks we had to recognize worrisome tendencies towards nationalist seclusion. There are some rather hopeful fields, anyway, especially the Ranger events. Yet the development of international RP at the moment is nothing less than encourageing.

Just like Daomei I love to look at the world Atys through the eyes of my character. That's the main reason why I do not use "tells" by my own if I can avoid it. I am hardly ever OOC; only when feeling forced to fall out of character. Which has hardly ever happend on Leanon. I am not sad about the server-merge; instead I am really glad that there are so many more roleplayers now to play together with! It offers so many great opportunities, and I want to know so much more about other people's characters, talk to them IC ingame.

How can anyone be a Bisounour (= Care Bear; Glücksbärchi) who enjoys verbal RP-fights (like I do)? What about the seasonal endowment of Jen-Lai for refugees? Is this a Bisounour-action too? ;) Or is it just a word to show contempt towards non-French-players in general? :(

Isn't it just logical that my character has learned from history and personal experience that Homins all over Atys should work together to ensure the safety of our Nations and to enable them to prosper? Especially when playing a diplomat who thinks about the people of her country, not wanting to put them into danger?

I also have to stress that there are many players from the French community who I personally think are great people! I am very grateful to those kind players who take it on them to translate from French to English, which is definitely hard to do; and as long as I know I never failed to thank them afterwards in the around-chat :)

I am still impressed by rather many French-speaking (also English-speaking) players and their interesting characters. And also my character Zhoi still wants to get to know them better :) I was happy to hear some of them speaking their IC-mind more than before at the last Assembly in Zora for example, or even to learn more about very interesting characters and their history by "tells" during the Assembly of Avalae. I totally love roleplaying together with them, even if we disagree (which is just natural for different personalities) or have rather heated arguments :)

If only it were not for these few griefers affecting or drowning out too many others ... and yes, I insist on calling them griefers who want to dominate others; more OOC than IC.

That's the whole point: as long as it is really roleplaying what we're doing then I'm fine and it's all fun.

So to answer to Gilgameesh's very interesting point of view: it surely breaches the Code of Conduct (CoC) to call other players "bastards". But if it happens during an IC-argument I would never hold this against others, since it's only our characters who are fighting, and I as a player do not feel insulted at all. I am also not one to suspect others baselessly or just because of prejudice, I rather try to give leap of faith whenever possible and I try to just overlook "mistakes" - as long as I can still believe that these are just mistakes.

The big problem is that some - not many! - players are breaking character to dominate others.
So I will not believe those lies spouted: "it's just RP" any longer.
They have been made aware of it by other players, but these few people keep on doing so.
How can this still be "not intentional"?

They say they "feel" that peaceful roleplaying is not really good roleplay (it is not OOC though!).
They say they "feel" that their way of playing their characters is not well-received (it was never condemned though by other players!)
But how does that give some of these players any right or justification to force other players to play in a different style that the other players find un-fun and such will rather leave roleplaying or even the game itself?

I think the CSRs must not longer look away silently.
They have promised us:
http://app.ryzom.com/app_forum/index.php?page=post/view/96079

What I am most afraid right now is that also the officials and rulers of the Nations on Atys are going to break character more and more - by staying passive, by repeatedly disregarding the principles of their own race/Nation (like truth, discipline and justice), and by letting themselves and their Nations be dominated/ruled over by only a few imperious "subordinates". Things like that kill all the roleplaying-fun more than anything else ever could. But that's exactly where things are heading right now :(

Short comment on the term bisounours or carebear in gaming environments: I denotes a player who overly cares about taking damage, and is used as a derogatory term with the meaning of whiner, weakling, or coward.

Ryzom - Power to Players. Not Power to event team.

Power to a few griefers who want to dominate the much larger crowd of other players or to drive them out of the game? It's the CSR's job to prevent exactly that.

And it's not the "job" of the Event-Team to break their characters and act against the Lore to support griefers.

Power to the players, yes, but power to the players doesn't mean passive NPCs.

The players may decide what's happening, but whoever presides over the assembly should take steps to make things right if the players don't -and also have a word with the assistance for their lack of reactivity when witnessing an assembly of their nation being defiled by somebody.

My opinion on the solution hasn't changed. The CSRs can't do much regarding this. Besides, I've seen a player thrown out of events repeatedly for his bad behavior and the result wasn't all that glorious. Unless you ban people or suspend their account -and even then-, the attitude doesn't change. You just see a bit more trolling in Universe for a while.

I had a realization a little while ago about the "founding concepts" of the different nations:
Fyros: Truth, Honor, Discipline, Justice
Tryker: Freedom, Equality, Sharing
Matis: Loyalty , Aesthetics, Structure
Zorai: Sprituality, Harmony, Meditation, Respect for Nature.

((Adapted from the recently re-introduced Lore Pages.))

Note that there is not just one concept for a people; there are at least three.  A table with three or four legs is stable, but it is only *useful* if it is level, i.e. if the legs are of equal length.  Just so is a nation only stable if its people hold to *all* of their virtues.

I think that if those engaging in political roleplay would remember that, and *act* on it, that there could still be conflict, but that it would be based on philosophy and actions, not on simple personal disagreements.  Event Team NPC animators could keep all the pillars of each nation in mind and gently remind participants of them when needed.

Well, I can dream, anyway.

--- Bittty

P.S. Clearly this has nothing to do with accusations/actuality of bullying behavior.
P.P.S. Thank you Daomei for the translation of the connotations of "care bear" in FR and DE, since they are significantly different from the connotations in American English.

I consider respect of other homins to be central to my own philosophy. I started out as neutral, only taking up with the Matis/Karavan after much consideration - as anyone who has read my Biography will know.

I have said elsewhere that I will res any player if I can, whatever the circumstances. I must add an exception; OP Battles.

To most players who are not full time PvPers, OP battles seem to be either a) madness or b) an opportunity to try PvP under relatively controlled conditions. I thoroughly enjoy them and attend as often as I can. During these battles I respect and honour my opponents as warriors and have no problem fighting against players I consider friends (Hi Virg, Hi Amiko). The next day after the last Battle I attended I joined a team lead by players I had been fighting against the night before.

As far as behaviour in assemblies is concerned, I would think it is obvious that in all politics, respect of your opponent is pretty far down the list of priorities. I am not saying this is right, just making an observation.

use the profile page folks!
if ye wanna be a baddy write it down...

Respect is overrated.

lol