World of Warcraft®

We had a bit of confusion, lack of communication and some downright childish whining last night at a community function. The generalized situation was that an individual who was under a guild tag with an ic guild rank was approached by myself and I was accused of meta-gaming because the fact he was in that guild was a secret. Oooookay first things first, regardless of any other factor, if you are under a guild tag, get used to the idea of people taking that at face value. This applies more if public knowledge is that that guild has a non member or ooc rank and you are not under it. The other option is using RP addons to communicate quickly and clearly the details or what people should, or should not be able to observe about your character.

Frankly, this type of incident isn't isolated and situations like this arise frequently in one form or another. There are resources and content modifiers in place and available to those who are willing to break the status quo and start crap canning what has in many respects become the elitist and self righteous role-player stereotype we all hate.

Now, I make this clear that in no way shape or form do I speak for every person or every guild around. I have control over my people and my guild alone. That said I am enacting immediate measures to ensure my guild members are not caught in a crossfire somewhere in the future. I chose trp3 as a standard because it is a current mod and allows interface with mrp as well as networking.

First off,
DV roleplayers WILL have TRP3 downloaded and running if they are interested in any interaction.
DV Roleplayers will have basic notes in the bullets describing general appearance and approach-ability.
and finally DV Roleplayers WILL note any specific character interaction details (not ic a guild member, etc) in the first or second bullet of TRP3 if it applies.

Second,
We have a community ventrilo, it is free to anyone in the server group to use for any purpose. If there is a question about RP, you want to talk something out in private, time restraints prohibit typing everything out, or just generally want to kick back and relax. ccsoe.typefrag.com port 8095 is yet another resource available. Once more, this is a community resource with free private sections available to all guilds at no charge, it is a 100 slot server so there is room to spare.

Third and most importantly.
This is a community. If you fancy yourself as a roleplayer then act like it. When interacting in public throwing a fit and putting people on ignore should be the last resort in any circumstance, that is a response normally applied to deliberate griefing. If you are unwilling to openly roleplay then I recommend you stay in your garrison and invite people there, regardless of your opinions there is a correlation to real life in that YOU or I or ANYONE will never at any time live by a script. RP is supposed to be enjoyable interaction with others, if you are incapable of being a member of a community and not always getting your way then consider moving to closed and scripted rp. Unless there is a damn good reason to break character then stay there, overall people will have more respect for someone who can think on their feet and respond IC versus ooc whining and pouting that you didn't get your way.

Names and details withheld because they are irrelevant. I don't put this post to shame anyone, but to handle an issue at hand so hopefully we can learn by it and better our community environment as a whole.

The other option is using RP addons to communicate quickly and clearly the details or what people should, or should not be able to observe about your character.

I've always thought the default is that you shouldn't assume anything that someone's description doesn't tell you.

Just like you shouldn't assume you know a character's name, you shouldn't know their guild just because it hovers over them.

If you should know their guild, their description would tell you that via a physical tabard or emblem or stating that it's general knowledge in their background.

I don't think it's ever a player's burden to tell you what you shouldn't know, but only what you should.

That said, it's something simple to correct and I don't think that in itself warrants an ignore, but I have no knowledge of anything else that happened which could have warranted one. Getting put on ignore can be very painful, from personal experience, and I don't think it should be used lightly, especially for another RPer. It's very frustrating to try and interact with someone, waiting on their responses for an extended period of time just to find they have you on ignore simply because they don't like you for whatever reason. Full disclosure- this happened to me and it brought me to tears...

On your third point, being open to RP doesn't mean accepting whatever another player throws at you. Being open to RP also means respecting other players boundaries.

Lets apply common sense here, if someone brings in a new character, by all means they are ic an unknown. It can and should be generally understood that names and affiliations would be known within a given community concerning long standing members. there is also the matter of association, if someone often sits with and interacts within a guilded group, it can be fairly assumed that their affiliation is no longer secret by any strech of the imagination.

I spent many years listening to how much elitists and the elitist attitudes were so despised by this community. Unknowingly those attitudes have taken deep roots in that someone new to rp shouldn't need a damn book to start interacting. The bitter and cold responses by players who want everything to go by their script are what has bled out this servers community of many roleplayers and players in general. Going on about how no one should know a name is petty and stupid. I would challenge ANYONE who considers themselves a roleplayer to develop a character depth and personality which makes nuances like that irrelevant.

04/23/2015 09:21 AMPosted by Discocis

and start crap canning what has in many respects become the

...crap canning... ?
I'm not being snarky. I sincerely don't understand what's being said here, though in full context I think I understand...but just for the sake of it, could you clarify this sentence for me? :)

04/23/2015 10:28 AMPosted by Zaranae

I've always thought the default is that you shouldn't assume anything that someone's description doesn't tell you.

I concur with you on all points Z. It is terribly frustrating to be put on ignore, especially if you're sincerely just trying to work the matter out in a mature fashion. It's like having a door slammed in your face mid conversation. Then a bucket of water dumped on your head. Then discovering that it wasn't water. And now your shoes are flooded and your socks are soaked with it. Just a bad day all around.

I was taught the same, that you never assume anything about any character. I'm even wary of details put into MRP profiles. Sometimes things are included in "description" that make me wonder if I should truly be aware of them while other times nothing is displayed so I'm unsure of where to go with it. I generally ignore their "history" unless I'm oocly curious, but it remains ooc info unless it's explicitly stated *Generally Known*...or the like.

That said, I also understand where you're coming from Discosis. That is an irritating situation made the more sour by being accused of something right out of hand when that was the furthest from your intentions. It's unfortunate that we all can't be on the same general 'page of understanding' when it comes to open rp. Then to have it exacerbated when you're denied the chance to possibly clarify your position and attempt to clear up any misunderstandings.

Thank you for posting this Disc. It's important to clear the air and open the general matter up to public discussion so that we all may learn of it...understanding that there are always two sides to every issue.

As a community we do need to establish on a basic level the understood facets. Way back I can recall lots of drama because of knowing names. Lets face it, if you reside in a small community, whether you realize it or not you learn the names of neighbors and common acquaintances even if you never speak to them. As a baseline name and affiliation (unless designated by a guild non member or ooc rank) should be considered open public knowledge. Making even the most basic facets of RP into a complicated ( crap bucket as forum bans result from profanity here) mess does nothing but turn people away from RP and discourage new players from joining the community.

At some level everyone needs to get it in their heads that as a community, we need to make RP open and interactive not just between seasoned CC players with years of knowledge, but also to players who may never have considered rp before and are curious. Assuming that everyone can follow tiny details that are only written down deep in a forum thread is what has killed off a large portion of this server.

04/23/2015 11:37 AMPosted by Discocis

( crap bucket as forum bans result from profanity here)

Ahhh-hah. That clarifies my last confusion. I follow ya now. :)
Thank you for that.