How to run a new player off.

[Taya]

@Taya: As I tell you in every thread, it's not a personal attack. I'm not being overly negative, you are getting more sensitive. I mean you no harm, you can calm down. But even cdmoreland deserves a little defense since he's a decent guy as well.

Sadly, despite myself I feel the need to reply to this.

I am not 'getting more sensitive.' I personally couldn't care less who says what about me so long as I have a voice to reply with. What I do have is an awareness that others can be sensitive toward such things and this is a very different thing, so please don't put meaning to my posts that isn't there. I also don't feel like you are making a personal attack against me and there is no point in this conversation that I have felt anything but calm. If I am going to be completely truthful, I've felt bored because it goes round in circles pointlessly. So, please stop making assumptions about my stance. I disagreed with the first post. That's all there is to it and nothing more complicated than that.

[Illysia]

Either way, please back off a little. I am not and have not jumped down anyone's throat. You were so quick to defend his right to an opinion so maybe you should consider being less negative against myself and others having one as well, especially since you agreed immediately that the path he took was not the best one.

Ok, so then I completely misunderstood this post.

[cdmoreland]

Forgive me if anyone thought I was trying to shame someone, as that wasn't my intention. It tool me a long time to talk the person into trying PS. Had I been online with them I could have explained.

I can see that "Kelaice" was just playing their character. I don't fault them, just wanted to point it out.

PS has a lot to like and I really enjoy playing.

[Rigwyn]

Forgive me if anyone thought I was trying to shame someone, as that wasn't my intention. It tool me a long time to talk the person into trying PS. Had I been online with them I could have explained.

I can see that "Kelaice" was just playing their character. I don't fault them, just wanted to point it out.

PS has a lot to like and I really enjoy playing.

The title of the subject was "How to run a new player off. "
Pfft. Who are you kidding?

[Illysia]

Well at least everyone's official statement is in. The matter can be put to rest, and if any one sees Philer they can explain what happened. The matter can be closed unless Philer decides to pop up.

[Eonwind]

I do not really want to take any side in this discussion but I fell like it's presenting an actual problem: which are the boundaries between staying true to the character and being friendly towards other players?
I'm not here to point to a specific course of action, but I just want to remember that there's no RP if there are no players around. If a new player doesn't feel like welcomed in a community chances are he won't stay.
I'm sure most of you are mature enough to draw their own course of actions, I will only add that cooperation (giving/loosing/risking something trusting the other side to do the same) is the only way two sides can both benefit from any situation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory

[verden]

New players get run off, old players sometimes hang around. It is just so much fun in this game. Bash those players more, because obviously there must be something wrong with them to not want to jump into this bundle of fun and excitement. What always impresses me is how attractive this community is to outsiders.

[Candy]

There have been points in PS's cycle of roleplayers coming and going where even I, having been around a while at the time, felt unwelcome in roleplays if I wasn't on a certain character that everyone knew. This was when people were leaving in droves, and guess why - and some of the very same people that complained about "the elitist pricks driving everyone away" were the ones that rejected my alts if they didn't know it was me or asked me to log my better-known character instead if they did know who was at the keyboard.*

We are not at one of those points. Right now, we're low in numbers and we know it. We can't afford to be snobs. I concur with those that say don't break character, but add an OOC "[My character is just like this; it's nothing personal!]".

 
*Not that I'm opposed to being asked to log a different character, if you want me to get someone on I'll probably do it unless I'm already in an intense RP or have like three clients up already - it's just that, at the time, everyone demanded the same character and I wanted to explore some different personalities. I'm quite grateful for people putting up with my making up for the lost time with my kajillion alts nowadays. 

[Cirerey]

All right then. Can we agree that a new player left because they were treated rudely, but without malice on the part of the player? And that this was mentioned with what was intended as constructive criticism? Maybe then we can get to lessons learned and stop focusing on hurt feelings. The suggestion on adding a [bracketed] line at the top of the main desc was useful, and was accepted by the player who inadvertently caused the noob to leave. But the core issue seems to be just how IC do we need to be when dealing with noobs. Can we extend ourselves OOC to encourage and train them into good PS RPers and how much OOC is too much? I suspect this will continue to be a contentious discussion but I believe it to be one worth having.

[Eonwind]

But the core issue seems to be just how IC do we need to be when dealing with noobs. Can we extend ourselves OOC to encourage and train them into good PS RPers and how much OOC is too much? I suspect this will continue to be a contentious discussion but I believe it to be one worth having.

Since the no-RP server (Ezpcusa) and the RP server were merged the RP and no RP communities are in the same server now: so the official guidelines are to encourage IC as much as possible while OOC can be used as much as necessary (no limits but common sense). Using brackets for OOC in the Main chat is strongly encouraged.
No limits to OOC in the others tabs, including /tell.

When dealing to new players my personal opinion about what "common sense" means is: I'd use OOC as much as necessary to make sure we understand each other and if possible introduce them in the way we use IC/OOC dialogs in a nice way.
Also introducing new players to the game offering/giving them the informations they miss or need is very appreciated.

[Illysia]

But the core issue seems to be just how IC do we need to be when dealing with noobs. Can we extend ourselves OOC to encourage and train them into good PS RPers and how much OOC is too much? I suspect this will continue to be a contentious discussion but I believe it to be one worth having.

I would say go ahead and make a fresh thread if you want to have a new discussion. Starting clean would probably help cut down on contention. But I would say the underlying problem is that now newbies outnumber the people who know how to RP and that causes a strain on the remaining experienced RPers because they can easily spend way more time teaching than actually engaging in RP they want to do. Teaching takes time and not everyone finds it fun or something they want to spend a lot of time on.

[Bonifarzia]

Issues with new players? Has a long tradition 
That being pointed at, I don't really see a big problem here.

[Eonwind]

I would say go ahead and make a fresh thread if you want to have a new discussion. Starting clean would probably help cut down on contention. But I would say the underlying problem is that now newbies outnumber the people who know how to RP and that causes a strain on the remaining experienced RPers because they can easily spend way more time teaching than actually engaging in RP they want to do. Teaching takes time and not everyone finds it fun or something they want to spend a lot of time on.

I would say Cirerey post is perfectly on topic and I can't see this flock of newbies dramatically causing a strain to established roleplayers. Even if they were outnumbered no one must feels compelled to train/endorse anyone RP. A help and a friendly attitude will do more than one expects and giving a good example can lead new players to follow it over time and with fewer efforts.

[novacadian]

Issues with new players? Has a long tradition 

That was biggiest laugh of the day. Thanks Boni!

[Rigwyn]

All right then. Can we agree that a new player left because they were treated rudely, but without malice on the part of the player?

No, the player was not treated rudely.

Their character gave a cheery hello to another character who was not all nice and cheery. His character didn't even know her and yet he was trying to get her to go take a stroll with him. A cold or dismissive response would be perfectly normal even for a good aligned character in that situation.

This is a case of a player who had no clue that other character in the game might not be the stereotypical cheery RPG adventurer.

Looking at the original post, then all went down in about 6 or so lines. Come on, Zalya didn't even have a chance to talk to the guy. He's lucky he didn't run into one of my characters...