Keeping it IC

ekaryekary Member Posts: 85 ✭✭✭
I'm not gonna call names and point fingers, but there's been a serious case of OOC in strictly IC places the last couple days. I know there are a lot of people not used to IRE's type of environments, and some maybe not even used to an RP environment, but here is a good rule of thumb...if you are posting, creating helps, talking, anything in a place that is accessible to general public (be that the entire game, or people from your organization) don't be OOC. This is a big deal even though to some it may not seem that way, the general player base of IRE's MUDs maintain an RP enforced environment, so let's all try to keep it that way please. So a few examples of where to NOT talk about OOC things: News board, faction helps, says when you are in a public place, etc. 
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Comments

  • RkansasRkansas Member Posts: 136 ✭✭
    I know on the first day I caught myself going OOC a few times, but if I look back I think it was 90% on the newbie channel. Though I can't say for certain and I know a few times it was not and I am very glad when someone pointed that out to me. 

    While I am not really used to IRE Muds, I have played a few for like a month and understand it and have grown to like RP and staying IC. So if ever anyone sees me going OOC, please mention it to me so I can better myself. I have no qualms with someone calling out my insanity.

    However, I am hoping that as time moves forward that this becomes less of an issue. Even now it seems to have dissipated since day 1 of the launch and I hope it continues on the decline till it's removed all together.

    I think as long as everyone works together and points it out to those going OOC that it will help a lot. I will try to do my part, as I hope others can do theirs by pointing out to myself and others that starts talking OOC. I am Hurbacious IG in case anyone was curious. 
    (Scatterhome): Cal says, "We're called Scatterhome after what everybody does at the end of the night when it's time for someone to pay the bar tab."
    (Scatterhome): You say, "Which by my calculations, it's your turn to pay."
    (Scatterhome): Brantar says, "That's what my calculations have come to."
    (Scatterhome): Paavo says, "My math adds up to that, yeah."
    (Scatterhome): Cal says, "Bastards."

  • ekaryekary Member Posts: 85 ✭✭✭
    Newbie is a pseudo OOC forum. Since it is there to help new players, OOC discussion that has to do with the game is perfectly fine. I mean dont talk about the latest game of thrones episode, but asking the syntax to check what armour pieces you have is exactly what the newbie channel is for.
  • YalauYalau Member Posts: 68 ✭✭
    I've found it's gotten better over time.  Have hope!
  • WoodroWoodro Member Posts: 29 ✭✭
    What are you calling OOC? Cause with Starmourn alot of things that were considered OOC in other muds are not OOC here. The biggest problem I am seeing is people taking information from discords and applying that to game knowledge.
  • RkansasRkansas Member Posts: 136 ✭✭
    While some stuff are no longer OOC like other IRE games, but it also depends on how one presents such things. Like, earth is no longer around and only some long forgotten knowledge exists. While us humans will have our own knowledge handed down to us and from knowledge we have picked up over time, other races wouldn't know anything about it. Though I am planning adding some of that to my RP, but completely wrong knowledge like somehow it was changed from being told again and again.
    (Scatterhome): Cal says, "We're called Scatterhome after what everybody does at the end of the night when it's time for someone to pay the bar tab."
    (Scatterhome): You say, "Which by my calculations, it's your turn to pay."
    (Scatterhome): Brantar says, "That's what my calculations have come to."
    (Scatterhome): Paavo says, "My math adds up to that, yeah."
    (Scatterhome): Cal says, "Bastards."

  • ekaryekary Member Posts: 85 ✭✭✭
    Woodro said:
    What are you calling OOC? Cause with Starmourn alot of things that were considered OOC in other muds are not OOC here. The biggest problem I am seeing is people taking information from discords and applying that to game knowledge.
    For sure, but there are some things that are very specific that would be considered very OOC, such as advertising a Discord server on a public board or something.
  • WoodroWoodro Member Posts: 29 ✭✭
    ekary said:
    Woodro said:
    What are you calling OOC? Cause with Starmourn alot of things that were considered OOC in other muds are not OOC here. The biggest problem I am seeing is people taking information from discords and applying that to game knowledge.
    For sure, but there are some things that are very specific that would be considered very OOC, such as advertising a Discord server on a public board or something.
    I agree with that. There are back channels for that. Anything that would reference "right now" happening in your RL should be kept out of the public forums of the game. Discord died long before our life in Starmourn. I am pretty sure it is just a speck of a blip on the Starmourn world. What I hate is when people take info learned on Discord into the game. Example- I called someone out in Discord and the confronted me about it in Starmourn. Tried to even come up with a elaborate plan to get me ousted. He got made to look stupid and I laughed but, still people should not crosse the line of bringing OOC into a IC environment

  • MarunaMaruna Member Posts: 371 ✭✭✭
    People using info from discord/forums/whatever in game is nothing new... Not saying you should do it, but it's happened plenty in the past and likely will continue to happen because the admin doesn't really police metagaming much at all.
    The amount of times, for instance, that people have randomly asked to duel me out of the blue despite our characters never having interacted I've kind of lost count of. All because of something said over Discord or something. It gets real old, real fast.
  • CragCrag Member Posts: 21
    When I first started in Scatterhome on launch day FT was so crazy I couldnt tell if I was rping or not. What's up Scatterbitches and hoes! 
    After I switched to Celestine a week later I've been trying to reel it all the way in. Not sure how Scatterhome has been since but Celestine was way more tame right away.

  • ekaryekary Member Posts: 85 ✭✭✭
    Maruna said:
    People using info from discord/forums/whatever in game is nothing new... Not saying you should do it, but it's happened plenty in the past and likely will continue to happen because the admin doesn't really police metagaming much at all.
    The amount of times, for instance, that people have randomly asked to duel me out of the blue despite our characters never having interacted I've kind of lost count of. All because of something said over Discord or something. It gets real old, real fast.
     I don't know about your particular cases, but I ask random people to duel all the time just because I really enjoy fighting in my previous MUD. 
  • MarunaMaruna Member Posts: 371 ✭✭✭
    ekary said:
    Maruna said:
    People using info from discord/forums/whatever in game is nothing new... Not saying you should do it, but it's happened plenty in the past and likely will continue to happen because the admin doesn't really police metagaming much at all.
    The amount of times, for instance, that people have randomly asked to duel me out of the blue despite our characters never having interacted I've kind of lost count of. All because of something said over Discord or something. It gets real old, real fast.
     I don't know about your particular cases, but I ask random people to duel all the time just because I really enjoy fighting in my previous MUD. 
    Sure that's valid. The people who've asked me out of the blue, are generally the ones that were being spoken about on those mediums... Then they get angry when you just don't respond to them.
  • RheaGhekRheaGhek Member Posts: 50 ✭✭
    @ekary
    You are someone who I literally  only see posting things like this.

    You see content you disapprove of and complain about it both ICly and OOCly.

    I have not seen you either RP, or even communicate much at all outside of these complaints on FT. In fact the sum total of your attempts to RP, have been to call a group together last night, to say fuck Song. You may RP plenty in private, however, I have not seen you voice an opinion in-character, about anything other than a complaint about others IC behavior. Whether that be poems. Which are IC. Political News Posts, which are IC. You even asked if it was okay to kill people within the game for posts you didn't approve of on news boards. Or now this complaint about the first insane post on faction news in about 6 days.

    Scatterhome FT has been weird, we have been attempting to reign it in slowly over time, cutting out the most insane people, so that the sane may stay. Staying in character outside of certain places, in my opinion is great. But there is a need for OOC expression and such. I have problems with this and I admit it. I like to chatterbox as I play. It's who I am. In that regard, early on in the game, when it was going insane every 5 minutes(I contributed not gonna lie, I have a tendency to follow crowds and do what's 'funny'.) To that end we made a discord. This discord had a news post, at the time this worked very well. We got about 40 people in 5 hours of opening it. I don't have many problems with FT anymore, as it is most of the time talking IG politics or drama, or policy.

    However I do personally have massive problems with the amount of discussion of mechanics pseudo-ICly that goes on in FT. As seeing people asking questions about weapon power, or how exactly abilities function from a mechanical standpoint, or how level influences monsters, from a mechanical standpoint irks me. These kinds of questions irk me. But rather than complaining and making it a personal problem.

    I try and change the dialogue active. And if that fails, I try and direct the conversations elsewhere.

    As an example of that; Today I made a deliberate OOC post in an attempt to quell that. As there had been a two hour long discussion of mechanics in FT. I asked in the mod chat of our discord, to a more experienced player, if I should post the discord address on faction news. 

    They said yes, so I did make that post about an hour later. I made sure to indicate that it was a very clear OOC post, I made sure to instruct people not to discuss it on IC channels. I made sure to explain the reasoning that I posted it. Not a minute or two later I got a tell from you. I thanked you for the info, and said something akin to that if you wanted to maintain IC/OOC disparity, you should try out the discord that was in the post. Moments after that, I got told on discord that the news post was the wrong thing to do, and then a faction help was made for it by the person who did that.

    Upon the deletion of the news post by Tecton, the FHELP was also deleted by someone else. On the grounds of Slippery slope and insanity. I can understand this, and empathize with it. However, I find that. A tell sent from a random stranger is personal.

    Imagine you are sitting around doing what is fun, and you are gossiping on FT about characters and making frequent reference to the players previous characters. You've been doing this for the past hour, and suddenly you get a tell.

    "//FT is IC, see help 91.6 1 , please go elsewhere with this kind of talk, here's a discord link tuned for it."

    Respectful, short and to the point.

    Problem is, I've tried that with people in past games. And gotten, "//Ya well we've been talking in FT for the past hour about this stuff so go away."

    Because the moment it's a tell, it's private, and it's personal. And that person has no context on if I've also told their other friends. It's just, "Who's this bitch, and why're they policing my speech."

    That's why I prefer a public news post, or FHELP, that I can point too. And say publicly, HEY here's where you can all go go for that kinda talk.

    Hell as an example, I felt a bit personally attacked when you sent your message to me. I responded as respectfully as I could, but it was like, "We did this before, I asked for permission from more knowledgeable players. Why am I getting shit on for it?" 

    Finally, finally, finally,

    Regarding your not naming names. You invalidate doing so when you mention specific events that involve that person.

    My question for you is this, do you have a problem with me personally? Because you have expressed irritation at my every public act, both IC and OOC, and I would ask, how it would be possible to resolve this situation so that it doesn't spill over like this again?
    Dyslexic(Symbolic Dyslexia and Subtracting-Substitution Dyslexia according to a doctor I had at one point.) and have lost my glasses and lack the ability to pay for a new set.
    Thank you for understanding.
  • TextWenchTextWench Member Posts: 52 ✭✭✭
    First, on the subject of faction helps. 

    IRE has had a long history of needing OOC-oriented org help files. 

    Literally how we managed to get people PK and anti-theft prepped in a lot of cases (because we needed some way to break down mechanics in an OOC place that wasn't as jarring). 

    We should have that here. Relegating all potentially OOC information to clans creates an inherent wall of useful information between established and new players and is bullshit. 

    Second, we are still in beta, we have a LOT of non-IRE/new-to-MUDs people. Be generous, be calm, it will settle. 


    - Your Friendly Neighborhood Text Wench (who prefers to keep her immersion unbroken but realizes humans are behind characters and sometimes grace is required) 
  • KixKix Member Posts: 25 ✭✭
    I'm all for OOC help files related to the game.

    I do not, however, believe that there should be FHELP files made specifically for Discord servers.
  • TyeTye Member Posts: 127 ✭✭✭
    OOC news posts are my pet peeve.
  • XiruXiru Member Posts: 501 ✭✭✭✭
    I've been more relaxed about OOC game mechanics questions on my faction channel because the game is new, but I think this is a good post seeing as how not everyone's coming from an IRE/RP background. For some reason an alert of OOC: in faction tells or news posts always strikes me as worse cause rather than just being insane you're telling me you know you're being insane. 

    Tells are far less jarring. 
    Vote for Starmourn! Don't hurt Poffy.
  • ekaryekary Member Posts: 85 ✭✭✭
    edited December 2018
    @RheaGhek outside of telling you what idiocy that OOC post of yours was. Please, tell me how OOC I have been.

    And if people asking questions about a new game and getting answered is what bugs you? You REALLY need to reconsider your entire outlook.
  • RheaGhekRheaGhek Member Posts: 50 ✭✭
    edited December 2018
    ekary said:
    @RheaGhek outside of telling you what idiocy that OOC post of yours was. Please, tell me how OOC I have been.

    And if people asking questions about a new game and getting answered is what bugs you? You REALLY need to reconsider your entire outlook.
    Reread my post and address my points rather than attacking myself and a single point that was a feeling of myself, and not the main point of the post.

    Which was literally to state in case you don't want to read a bunch of feefees, and what you would probably call, "idiocy", the game is new, people are new. OOC is to be expected. Your constant bitching will only scare them away.  And that I am trying to direct them to places where they can express these questions without disturbing most others.

    Also, I never said you were ooc,

    I said you complained, IC and OOC, and that that was about all I had seen you do, I heard about one instance of you trying to RP when I brought it up on a discord after this thread came out, but before I posted. But barring that... I have heard nothing of you RPing, beyond a couple news posts, complaining about IC poetry. Which you also did OOCly.

    Now please, again, address my actual points rather than attempting to inflame tensions. Because if all you have are complaints,

     ekary said:
     You REALLY need to reconsider your entire outlook.

    Dyslexic(Symbolic Dyslexia and Subtracting-Substitution Dyslexia according to a doctor I had at one point.) and have lost my glasses and lack the ability to pay for a new set.
    Thank you for understanding.
  • ekaryekary Member Posts: 85 ✭✭✭
    Yeah...anyways, I agree @Syaja we all need to be a little more lax on mechanical questions since it is a new game and there is a cooldown on using the newbie channel so getting dialogue is a little hard there. 

    @TextWench I totally see your point as well, and for that kind of stuff, we need to be lax there as well. I'm not sure how all factions in all the other IRE games did it, but in my last faction we just had a clan that all noobs were required to join where we had CLHELPs to explain all of that and stuff like anti-theft we directed them to speak with knowledgeable people that could put them in a party and explain the technical stuff. I know not EVERYONE cares that much, hell, even I don't. There are some people though that would feel their experience lessened by seeing OOC content in a guild help or city help. 

    That being said, I agree that we don't have those luxuries in SM yet, so we definitely need to be more accepting of mechanical questions on FT and the like. Making posts directing people to a discord channel....no.
  • TextWenchTextWench Member Posts: 52 ✭✭✭
    Well! Edit ate my comment. Bleh. My 't' key is currently borked (it's a laptop and yes I know USB but it's a PITA so no moar advice, plzthx) so bear with any weirdness. 

    W/regard to clans:

    Newbie/lowbie information should not be behind a clan. I know that this is common practice. It shouldn't be. As someone who alts a lot, frequently at off-peak hours, the functional result is that new players go without vital information because it bothers someone to 'see too many help files'. 

    I'm always anti-anything that reduces or restricts info for new players. We want new blood to have easy, straightforward access to information and community so they stick around. Most of us have been kicking around IRE for a long time. New blood = new ideas. 

    W/regard to FHELP links:

    I am the sort of MUD player that enjoys RPIs. Starmourn is RP-encouraged. So let's do a quick cost/benefit. 

    Cost:
    - Link in HELP damages immersion, possibly. (Bearing in mind we -already have help files with links and email addresses in them). Non-point, really.
    - Potential abuse w/blurring IC/OOC lines. (Bearing in mind this will always happen to some degree regardless and with less transparency) Non-point, ultimately. 
    - Potential explosion of drama. ...but have you seen FT lately?

    Benefit:
    - An easier delivery system for the distribution of essential and complex mechanical information, like the econ system. 
    - A way to ask and receive answers to mechanics questions without breaking immersion or having to awkwardly sort of 'IC-esque' ways to ask these things. 
    - Access to the broader faction community for questions even if they aren't currently logged on their characters, super useful for players who have weird hours when there are less knowledgeable bodies necessary logged in at the time. Because they can ask and have an answer available eventually. 
    - Potential -reduction- of drama (double-edged, this one), because it allows the faction to get to see one another as humans. Sometimes, this can help alleviate some of the bitterness of characters being characters when the players behind them can see the wall separating character and player. 

    Ultimately, this is a game and we should collectively want it to be accessible and fun to play. Discord happens to be a useful tool for organized groups within games (almost like they built it that way :o



    tl;dr

    Clan-walls for info for newb is stupid and we should not, screw precedence. 
    Useful links in FHELP is good and Discord can be a useful tool for ooc elements of factions. 
  • XiruXiru Member Posts: 501 ✭✭✭✭
    I would throw any ooc links in FHELP INSANITY as in... while we’re talking about being insane, here’s a link or two. Full warning that this file will probably explain what being ooc is then does all the ooc stuff for you. All done.
    Vote for Starmourn! Don't hurt Poffy.
  • MontemMontem Member Posts: 89 ✭✭
    @TextWench I very much like your reasoning here and I think this is how it should be implemented.  Going through help files, regardless of where they lie is going to come with a bit of OOC information anyway.  It seems like a good place to me.
    Download Montem System for Nexus Client - https://pastebin.com/MBEn7S0u
  • MinionMinion Member Posts: 162 ✭✭✭
    edited December 2018
    I don't recommend using discord to gate communication for your org. Some people may not be able to utilize it. Keep information in game whether through an ooc clan or help files. Otherwise you are locking out a portion of the population by adding another app that they have to pay attention to.

    EDIT: That said, I don't mind ooc references in help files to a certain extent. There are always ways to word things so that it doesn't break immersion particularly considering computers and code are a thing here.
  • PoetPoet Member Posts: 122 ✭✭✭
    I personally would really like to see FT not used for mechanics discussions. I'm ok with a discord link in FHELP as long as it is slightly obfuscated.  Not just "join the discord server here", but "Would you like some real time help? Tell your Mindsim to access the following-" or some such.
    [Cassandra]: Poet will be unsurprised to learn that she has unread news.
  • MinionMinion Member Posts: 162 ✭✭✭
    edited December 2018
    To me, telling someone to join the discord is no different than telling them to join an ooc clan.
  • ArcherArcher Member Posts: 80 ✭✭✭
    I could not agree more with @ekary. Bottom line is OOC should not exist in all public areas except for newbiechat.  Want a place to set up combat, anti-theft, and other OOC items to a group? Create a clan.j

    @RheaGhek You need to cool your plasmajets and consider accepting that people don't want to see OOC posts, period. Even ones that are trying to stop OOC.
  • SethysiaSethysia Member Posts: 14
    edited December 2018
    In my opinion, I feel like having an org-only discord server to interact with your faction members can eventually sully your IC/OOC boundaries, and corrupt the decisions you make. When you have a discord server for your organisation, there is a high tendency for someone who has the power to affect the direction of the organisation to react and make decisions based off what the OOC court is complaining about, in a bid to please or to appease the vocal playerbase, instead of evaluating based off what is good for the organisation as a whole.
    Furthermore, in an org-based discord, you'll be able to chat with the people behind the characters that you normally wouldn't interact with. When you get comfortable with people behind their characters, you tend to know what buttons to push or how to act and get away with things. For example: PersonX doesn't like a particular policy governing the faction's actions in space, because he was doing it before it was implemented, and he's now getting into trouble because he insists on continuing it. Luckily, PersonX is chill with CoolDude, since they converse quite a bit on discord chat, having found out they both share common topics of interest. Casually, PersonX brings it up to CoolDude, who happens to be a leadership position in Faction A. Since they're friends, CoolDude says don't worry about it, I see your point, I'll fight for you about it so at least you don't get into that much trouble.
    Tl;dr. In summary, this is not to say that you can't chat and know each other people outside of the game; you can, but people tend to discuss in-game stuff on org-only discords, and that's a downhill slope to get upon, and you'll know when you've hit rock bottom when the management of your organisation is a public matter that discord server members get to give their input on.


  • MinionMinion Member Posts: 162 ✭✭✭
    That slippery slope eventually leads to isolating those who choose not to participate with the ooc chats which inevitably isolates them from that group. Often a ruling elite forms which cant easily be broken into. If that develops ICly, so be it but when it happens oocly, good people get screwed over.

    Happens just as much with ooc clans as with other types of ooc communication.
  • RydanRydan Member Posts: 2
    I don't really care too much where people communicate OOC, as long as they stay IC in faction channels. Gets pretty off putting sometimes.
  • MarunaMaruna Member Posts: 371 ✭✭✭
    Caliah said:
    I personally would really like to see FT not used for mechanics discussions. I'm ok with a discord link in FHELP as long as it is slightly obfuscated.  Not just "join the discord server here", but "Would you like some real time help? Tell your Mindsim to access the following-" or some such.
    God no. That's almost as awful as the people who say, "my soul needs rest" in Achaea.
    "Sorry I'm late, my soul was busy."

    "Sorry for being late." Is enough. You don't need the rest of the borderline-OOC comment. Please stop.
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