Karyuu.
No, I am not looking down upon Seytra in any way,
Instead, I am pointing to where to find the RP that I know about, and inviting him to help me as I RP my little furry butt off.
You can call Tell a whisper all you want to, but it is functionally equivalent to a multiline cellphone, and is pretty universally used as such...
Stfrn:
All channels of communication are about the same level of IC to OOC, because that is what players do, it matters little which channel it is, they are speaking to one another.
Tells tend, if anything, to be more RP than any other chat, because if something is important, or private, and you are too distant to group, or your target is already grouped, you use tell to say it, and that will come up more often with RP than otherwise. Most of the OOC chat is found either in group, or if it is a small guild, in Guild chat.
The most common tell, next to \"Crap, the lag got me killed again. I\'m gonna go train.\" is probably, \"Hi, I\'m back. What news?\" or \"Hi, welcome back, this is the news\".
As to how RP was almost destroyed by the wipe:
Players at the third extreme that I mentioned before, who do both PL and RP at the same time, are the ones who lead, who perform, who define the RP. They are the storytellers.
The social positions that help define those characters, who are the leaders of the playing community, almost always involves having extreme leveling, which commands respect, and attracts attention.
When you busted everyone down to zero, all of these were forced to make a mad dash for recovery. They have to have a substantial lead on the crowd, in order to exist as characters, and continue their ongoing RP stories.
There is a balance point, an equilibrium, where an average player will give up on leveling, and go look for something else to do.
Almost all of those who are leaders and storytellers have no choice whatsoever. They have to be past that point, to be unusual, to attract attention, to be respected and to have authority.
It is no accident, but hard-driven effort, that placed almost every one of the most deadly weapons in the hands of these leaders. Other players instinctively respect those who worked so hard to obtain them.
So all of these storytellers, who are the source of the RP in PS, put their stories on hold and stopped doing almost any RP. For over a month after the wipe, they became fanatical, sleepless, cranky super-PLers and beat themselves bloody with heartbreaking determination against the limits of endurance and what it was possible to achieve in the framework of the mechanics.
Almost all of them considered quitting. They told me so. Some of them did quit.
That point of equilibrium, where the average player started looking for something else besides leveling to do, was not reached for a very long time. Now that it finally has been, the RP is beginning to resume.
\"But what about the Guilds?\" You asked.
Guilds are built by RP, not the other way around. They do not create it, the storytellers do.
The friendships, fights and love affairs, relationships and explorations that continue, even outside the framework of the guilds; the stories that players create for themselves or join to be a part of, are what have value emotionally, and are why RP players play.
RP is at the individual character level. By definition.
The wipe destroyed my guild, The Twin Blades of Arete, which once had numbered almost thirty.
Most members were Mac users, and as such, doomed to be weeks and months behind those present at the starting line. They can\'t pick up where they left off, no matter what they do. To the best of my knowledge, only three still play. The rest have abandoned PS altogether.
World balance is very different from play balance.
Sincerely,
The Dark Lady
Verrliit.
