English

A misunderstanding, you say.

So you couldn't ask OOC on the spot*, you couldn't send an in-game e-mail, you couldn't open a thread in a section Zhoi can access (and where former players from that server could answer too). Instead you both write long letters to each other in public, in an RP manner, as opposed to actively trying to sort out the differences and teach each other what you didn't know about your previous servers.

What can I say, you're both doing a great service to roleplay, and making it lively and interesting for everyone watching. Really, Eruv is dying to learn more**, and I bet a lot more shy homins also follow with great interest. Please drag this dispute forward for some more weeks.


* I'm sure you both have some really good reasons for this behaviour, maybe you really love acting like a bureaucrat, or feigning ignorance/slowness of mind in order to exasperate your opponent.

** http://app.ryzom.com/app_forum/index.php?page=post/view/114614

*Bittty offers Salyn a box of a dozen matched pairs of [sarcasm] [/sarcasm] brackets. They are made of the finest ploderos skin for maximum protection factor.*

((OOC, I use similar ones all the time. :D ))

*snip**snatches the brackets from Bittty and puts them to use*
[sarcasm] Why, thank you very much for critizising my longwinded writing as a player. I love being picked on OOC so very much. And I just love to be forced to spend long long hours a day revising and cutting my long posts into nice short ones for those who are too lazy to read or even allegedly feel "put off" by "having to" read longer writings. I especially love hearing/reading Feylins player critizing this who speaks and writes sooo much shorter sermons than I do.[/sarcasm]

Now let me say this clearly:

I have been trying to explain the most important OOC-reasons all the time already - yes, in an "RP-manner", but for good reasons:

* first of all it's because I love roleplaying. I am ingame whenever there is an Assembly or Event to roleplay there in the around-chat and I also use the forums for roleplay. This is my way of supporting RP.

I would like to roleplay more in the Universe-chat, but I was called a spammer and got flamed in "tells" because of that on good old Leanon back in those days, and I also read criticism about RP that was called "spam" again in the Universe-Channel after the server-merge as well. You might not believe it but I'm a considerate person; so I do not want to bug others. I still roleplay now and then in the German Uni-Chat though where I'm allowed to by other players, more lightly and with self-ironic humor involved.

You might not like long IC- Forum-threads, which I can understand. Lots of German roleplayers don't like roleplaying via Forum either. But nobody forces you to read all this. I certainly do and will not force you to read or take part in RP-threads if you do not like doing that kind of RP.

Still I think that especially "protocols" (or rather "reports"/"minutes") of Assemblies should describe what has happened in as much detail as needed so that players playing political representatives who missed Assemblies and also players who will take up political roleplay in the future can inform themselves about all the political events up until then. It's not my fault that the English thread of reports about Assemblies has been abused by others who did not want to open up their own threads :(

* secondly I want to keep discussions IC because I cannot stand having fights OOC. Having to take being picked on OOC like it has happened in this very thread here too often would or maybe will quickly drive me out of political roleplay - and perhaps even out of the game Ryzom soon afterwards. Because I rarely play Ryzom for anything else than for RP at Events and Assemblies. As everyone else I am paying to play this game to have fun, not to have my gaming fun ruined.

It is nearly unbearable for me to read that Feylins player does not want to tolerate/integrate roleplaying-specifics of other servers (specifics that allow more players to take part in RP-politics as is desperately needed), to read him/her bend my words (like about "votings") and ask me to "explain in detail" what s/he as a player already knows very well (because of having heared what Zhoi suggested at Assemblies for the benefit of the Theocracy and her work for Taki Zorai; even though she certainly has done even more services for the Nation of the Zorai in the past as well during two RL-years as should be expected).

It was also nearly unbearable to hear Icus' player mocking me OOC during a Tryker-Assembly. OOC I cannot even stand the fact that Icus' player told Nyenors player (who has left the game a while ago by the way...) not to describe a Leanon-specific event in the Forum: while he himself pointed out many times since then that Matis had broken the treaty of the four people and other things that happened only on Aniro afterwards. Even after he was asked by a bunch of players to show more consideration for players histories from other servers (I do not know how the war-event went on Arispotle; maybe the Matis never broke any treaties on Ari?).

If it's "only" an RP-conflict though, then I can take it just fine; since I do not suspect players of being unfair easily and I do not have to take rude IC-words at heart if just mentioned during a dialogue between fictive characters. Yes, I love playing a "bureaucrat". You got that exactly right. And of course every character has a certain personality with their own weaknesses. I enjoy this a lot.

That's why I think it is highly unfair to make me want to change my way of roleplaying. Why do people have to pick on that? Why do people try to force my character to speak differently IC, write in a different/shorter way IC, change my character's view of the world (imposing another "past" on her like a war that she has never experienced), try to make her adapt a certain interpretation of the lore other than her own way of thinking, try to change her status (forcing her to become a "real" Initiate, opposing her Honorary Initiate title that she has worked hard for and still does), rudely ignore Zhois logical IC-reasons and experiences? Not merely IC as an interesting discussion, but OOC coming from other players?!

My roleplaying has never hurt anyone. I'm trying my best to be as considerate as I can and as is still logical, even during fights; OOC and also IC. Why do they have to try and ruin the fun that I find in playing Ryzom by critizising every little thing about my roleplaying they can find, even though it does not offend them in any way? It makes me deeply frustrated.

(timeout got me, this is the second time I wrote this post)

Thank you, Bitttymacod, without your considerate help, I wouldn't have understand Salyn's sarcasms as such. Truly. I may feel ashamed, but I am not sarcastic myself writing this. So you spare us all another misunderstanding (in a ton of them).

I apology to have let this thread go too far. Initially, reading Daomei's comment after Zhoi's IC answer I was wondering if there was an OOC resentment about the IC course of things. But early, Daomei's player explained it was just personal thoughts, expressed in OOC manner, about IC facts. We should have kept the discussions on this.

Zhoi, I think you underestimate the ability that peoples have, to only listen (actually read) to what they want. I don't know if I did it, or if you didn't understand me, but I don't think I know what I asked for. My question is about : how did the honorary initiate title appeared, and how was this appearance played, on Leanon.
Although I expressed myself with vehemence, my purpose was not to force everyone to adopt my point of view about citizenship (I hope so still :p) but to explain my view in order to let you know what pose problem to me. And in return, I expected to learn from you all those things I ignore, so that we can find a way to adapt to the situation.

To summarize :
- honorary Initiate !
- Error 404, file not found. More data required.

I share the will to keep discussions IC, but I think that at this point, it betrayed us. We couldn't discuss IC on the same basis, simply because we had not this common basis OOC.

Somehow, I slowly learned these answers, but I am not sure to know everything yet, and each time I learned something knew, it was another step to IC incoherence : how to explain that a well-known past event for someone isn't for someone else ?

Final note : I felt this message too nice, so : Zhoi, you really should consider writing shorter. :p

Thanks Bittty: I figured the sarcasm would be obvious from the tone .. seems not. Personally I would rather take tags with more damage and less lasting durability, as that's not intended.

Zhoi, Feylin: I don't want to impose a play style on you, this way or the other. As you already noted, this is a valid role and whoever wants to RP something more dynamic or in a different way, is free to do it. Completely agreed.

However, it's clear from the start (to me, at least) that you can't talk about servers IC, about community traditions IC and about differing cultures. "Leanon" is a meaningless word within the single Atys we have now, so are "Aniro" or "Arispotle". Working together to bridge the gaps and discrepancies within the former Lore will require stepping out of character for a while, until everyone is on the same page in the fictional universe.

I wish you can find the necessary creativity to work towards that without breaking character much, while at the same time not dragging this on for some more months :)

(And on a side-note, if this small differend brings so many problems, I shudder to think what agreeing on Dexton's final fate will take, or the other major lore differences. Some community will have to eventually contend with having their history erased, or only preserved in a memorial page.)

When has this whole topic ever been just about one "small difference" like a title only?

Do you believe if just that one question about the title is solved, then all the other things that happened before this and on top of this will be solved too, be forgiven, forgotten and made undone? Not for me. Is Feylin the only person of interest or even existent for you, are his/her feelings the only thing that matters?

That is - still is! - the main problem for all of us, and will stay that way for a long time to come. Wars that happened or happened not, treaties broken by one side or the other or not at all. Kings exiled, emperors dying in bed - Kings who never went away and emperors who fell in war. Personal stories of keeping peace or going to battle, of enemies and friends, of a life lived (often for a long time, even since before the temple wars). This is the situation which separates us all, which makes Atys a modern Babel - much more than the language. References to the past will fail, always fail. Yet to rewrite the past will kill our toons, will kill us. We have to find a way to avoid these references, without making the past undone. The biggest, much deadly problem to the National Assemblies - and moreso if they once take over from the regional ones completely - is the reference to the past, which will always split the three servers immediately. We have to take our positions for granted without questioning them, and mainly without referring to them, for those in politics - in politics for a long time - must have known each other before, mustn't they? If we don't manage to ship around that reef, we'll burst on its shelves in three pieces, and all go down unceremonially.

I apologize for entering this discussion, being out of the game, but i think there is a solution to the problem of different pasts, coming pre-merge.

Of course this solution must be agreed by the event team and the whole community:

---

Given there a re a lot of homins referring to different past history, a big question arises from all the nations: What really happened during second swarm? Something saounds missed or confused....

After some thinking and some nationwide conference, homins of all nations agreed to ask to the high powers to tell them the truth, because it's obvious that somethign strange happened.

A council with both kami and karavan ambassadors woulòd take place at one point, and they promised us to tell us the truth and explain what happened.

What happened?

during the second swarm, a karavan scientist discovered an anomaly in the continuum (unfortunately, karavan are never clear on their scientific knowledge, so homins must take this as it is).
He did an experiment to understand what was the origin of that anomaly and discvered an incredible truth:

The world Atys, apparently a single normal world, was in reality created by the intersection of 3 different worlds, each in the same space but in different dimensions.

The scientist, given the extraordinary discovery, decided to call a kami adept, to discuss with him the discovery.
The kami, despite with cryptic words, confirmed the anomaly, giving the reason of that as a will of Ma-Duk.
Of course the karavan scientist decided that it happened because of the will of Jena...

At the end of their dispute on the origin of the anomaly, they decided to hide the discovery to all the homins that survived the second swarm, to avoid disputes about the origin of the world.

But now the truth is revealed: Atys is a world born from 3 interdimensional worlds, each called: Aniro, Leanon and Arispotle.

---

this is the idea, and you can refine and tune it better, to fit all the RP needs.

Peace and long life to homins.

I always thought it might be a lot easier if each of our characters considered what happened before the Second Great Swarming to our own characters and also that of others (like the stories they tell about wars between Matis and Fyros and the like) as "long, long time ago", just to make it have less impact on the RP of today.

Generally I can only recommend to just avoid mentioning specific dates and perhaps also names IC as much as possible. We all know the major server-differences and we know that we can avoid fighting if we just don't talk about specific topics IC. I have never experienced an English-speaking player from former Arispotle nor a German-speaking player from Leanon mentioning IC ingame details about the "end" of Karan Yrkanis and Sharükos Dexton or the war between the Matis and Fyros under the rule of Yrkanis & Dexton that has never happened on Leanon.

However in other cases you can easily merge server-histories and such enrichen the lore by new details that you can learn - as we found out by talking about Muang Hoi-Gi / Marung Horongi. We just have to get used to the idea that some Homins have told different names of themselves to others or have changed names in the past, and that there are still Homins using more than one name. Just like I have been renaming my guild after the server-merge from the German version to English and like the Sages of the Zorai who have 4 names each.

Because of that Zhoi once told Fey-Lin Liang that it doesn't seem unusual for Zorai to change names or use more than one name. I was irritated even OOC (and IC alike) when the Awakened answered in a categorical decisive way that it is NOT common; because I still think it's not a problem to get used to hearing different names for the NPCs we have gotten to know in our character's past and Lore...

Muang/Marung is one of these examples, indeed. I did an interview with Nung Horongi before he died, as you might remember, and had started to publish his biography. However, there he spoke quite a bit about Muang as a Zorai student, and about himself as Muang's teacher at the university sensing his sleeping power. No family ties at all, but more a case of "mediocrity knows nothing higher but itself, but talent instantly recognises genius". So it's like that interview never happened, and there's danger that all I learned about him since Wyler was shot and Stevano abducted was fundamentally wrong - including, I'm afraid, everything connected to the amber cubes.

Sometimes in RP conversations I use phrasings like "from our part of the world" or so when telling about probably contradictory things in our past.

Somehow I like the idea of Gilgameesh which would need a bit elaboration though. One could assume that the powers awakened either by the swarming or the activation of the powerful rainbow gates evacuating hominkind towards the exile caused a friction in the structure of space and time which brought the different realities together in a new common string of space-time.

I want to stress that parallel word theory, more exactly MWI (multiple worlds interpretation), is a valid interpretation of quantum theory and a premise for a theory of universal wavefunction. So this is not just babbling.

Would be a chance to reconcile the contradictions, to listen and learn from one another without having to re-write history or impose one string onto the others.

What about sayin' Arispotle, aniro, leanon were 3 differents planets of the ryzom project, and elias decided to send teleporters to the 3 planets to 1 new planet "to see what it will be, because it will be fun, LOL"
Or it is the Great Dragon who though there wasn't enough homins on his planet, and decided to teleport some others from differents planets to his one.

I considered Gilga's idea. The problem I see with that is that we have partly the same people in three different "dimensions", and partly not at all. It's worth to think this through, but one should not rush and think it the grail yet. But then, I probably worry too much ...

I strongly believe that this post is a perfect illustration of how a slight misunderstanding can become a full ranged argument -with insulting statements and such stuff that gets the temper high, and people who will suggest I'm an idiot for thinking it's simple when they make such efforts to make it complex.

Why don't you guys make the "Honorary Initiate" status a topic for next assembly, now that you see it's a problem? And why not give a thought at me going to vote for next German chancelor's election, just to figure out the why behind Fey's point of view there? It's a fantasy world, but if you wanna make a political rule that defies real world's logic, maybe the three segments of this community should agree on it, don't you think? Besides, the political situation AND the political rules aren't likely to be identical after the swarm, so that may need some looking into.

But, hey, if you don't feel like it, there's still some room for breaking dishes on the walls. After all, making a point of defining "what is a Honorary Initiate" then discussing this topic in the assemblies of each community before deciding if the position is still politically valid... way more complicated than arguing on a forum... or is it?