Now that books can be made, how "free" will be the press?

[Parallo]

Your assuming that they have something they don't want you to hear. You already know the nature of the government better than the settings team so why do you ask when you can answer your own question? Take down the 'The Truth Is Out There' poster, drop the Orwell book and go play in the sun or some other non-paranoid activity. Its good fun and who cares if they're watching.

[bilbous]

I suggested the diary format because it wasn't specifically about how to do quests although that information could be gleaned from it. Very briefly: "I woke up this morning and wandered around town for a bit, I stopped to talk to Harnquist and he asked me to get him a couple steel ore. I headed out of town to where I knew of an iron mine and a coal mine. Just as I left the city gates I was waylaid by a member of the filthy MadHatters guild and spent a good half hour sparring with him until I finally dispatched him to the DR. ...." And so it goes on incidentally including the steps to take to complete the quest.
I think that to have this type of in-game material available would be preferable to blatant cheat guides on the guild forums. Others might not agree.

[Raleigh]

Your assuming that they have something they don't want you to hear. You already know the nature of the government better than the settings team so why do you ask when you can answer your own question? Take down the 'The Truth Is Out There' poster, drop the Orwell book and go play in the sun or some other non-paranoid activity. Its good fun and who cares if they're watching.

You are assuming that the government is perfect. Take down Thomas Moore's "Utopia", go away from the "tea time lobby" and try to understand that perfection IC = boredom OOC. This game can be more than a IRC Room with roleplay flavor in a completely peaceful land of pretty flowers and harmony... In fact I was giving an hypothetical example about someone having something written that isn't very pleasant, so just pay attention next time before making another reductio ad absurdum. I shouldn't have fed this, but anyway, I don't understand why to suddenly make this so close to personal. Hopefully the post quoted here will be the last logical fallacy, possibly answered by other one. I see what this previous post is...

- There is book control in dystopian novels and conspiracy theories thrillers

- So it doesn't match with any other type of literature or fictional universe, if it isn't dystopian, book censorship isn't believable.

- Government is either completely perfect or evil, there is no in-between.

Pretty simplistic and pretentious views loaded with sarcastic "you're paranoid" comments.

[zanzibar]

Controlling such things is an extremely high priority for this game's devs.

I would be careful of such statements. The only "control" we are most likely to exert is moderate for OOC abuse.

I take care when making such statements.

And about the last statement, I don't think so, it is a ridiculous waste of time to work and develop a game just to control others.

Talad isn't involved in enforcing the rules of the game, and he isn't the only dev with decision-making powers.  The obvious conclusion is that my statement did not refer to Talad.

[Kieve]

*sigh*
 
As if this hasn't been stated enough, it's a game. The goal is to have fun and enjoy yourself. If you glean amusement or fun from writing in-game, go for it. Odds are good, whatever you write will be acceptable, unless you're either 1) deliberately being offensive, or 2) insist on writing some [really] horrific/grotesque/insert-appropriate-adjective-here. I freely admit that I don't have a lot of time or experience swimming with the PlaneShift community as a whole, but from what I've surmised, devs don't have the time [or] inclination (generally speaking) to step in and play the Fahrenheit-451 game. Now if something blatantly obscene is brought specifically to someone's attention, that's a different matter and I'm guessing it would be judged on a case-by-case basis, with the majority of responses being "It's fine, quit whining."

In other words, play the game, have fun, and on the rare occasion censorship [does] swing your way, just take it in stride.

Sheesh.

[Parallo]

You are assuming that the government is perfect. Take down Thomas Moore's "Utopia", go away from the "tea time lobby" and try to understand that perfection IC = boredom OOC. This game can be more than a IRC Room with roleplay flavor in a completely peaceful land of pretty flowers and harmony... In fact I was giving an hypothetical example about someone having something written that isn't very pleasant, so just pay attention next time before making another reductio ad absurdum. I shouldn't have fed this, but anyway, I don't understand why to suddenly make this so close to personal. Hopefully the post quoted here will be the last logical fallacy, possibly answered by other one. I see what this previous post is...

- There is book control in dystopian novels and conspiracy theories thrillers

- So it doesn't match with any other type of literature or fictional universe, if it isn't dystopian, book censorship isn't believable.

- Government is either completely perfect or evil, there is no in-between.

Pretty simplistic and pretentious views loaded with sarcastic "you're paranoid" comments.

I never claimed to know the nature of the government, you did. Let the settings team decide rather than assuming that the default is terrible. Most of the time I'd agree with you but the way you put things makes it difficult to express that. Actually I rather like you but you jump to the conclusion that I don't and that I'd rather be playing Habbo Hotel. Just chill out and stop being so cynical.

[Kiern]

What's everyone getting so defensive about?  Its a legitimate question. (though, in my opinion a fairly obvious answer)

Really, I don't think he cares that some of you do not.

[Kieve]

It's the "obvious answer" one I was aiming for, Kiern. Although I did gloss over the discussion of OOC content - but I think the answer to that was stated previously as well.

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

The matter is still in discussion among devs.

As is evident elsewhere the Octarchy is not always friendly.

[Under the moon]

I would say that this falls into the common sense category. If you or your character has to ask yourself, "Should I be writing this?" or "I wonder how much trouble this will get me into." or "I hope this slips by without a GM noticing." then the answer is likely "No."

There is no system of law -coded- right now, but that does not mean you assume there are no laws, or you are above them. I was just told yesterday by someone with maxed stats that they can do anything they want because they could defeat any guard sent to arrest them. Foolishness and idiocy. If one guard was defeated, ten more would come. Defeat them, and the rest of the army comes. One way or the other, you go down. The same goes for writing. Just because no one -will- come to arrest you right now, it does not mean they would not.

Good RPing means playing to bounds coded in the game, as well as those that are not.

As for 'freedom of speech', don't count on it. One of my characters, who is a law abiding and upstanding citizen, was killed by an Octarch's guard for questioning the Octarch's motives in putting citizens in danger for his own benefit.

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

Utm's post is a clear representation imo of roleplaying with reasonable boundaries. As devs we will do everything in our power to place some kind of system of checks in place to make sure book content falls within reasonable boundaries. If anyone has ideas on how to make this work we would surely be open to the discussion at least. The dev team has some ideas on how to do this but as the debate is not settled my NDA prevents me from sharing with players atm. Raliegh raises legitimate concerns here, and as usual, the dev team also shares those concerns.

The Octarchal Decree will be a changing document as new laws are needed; fortunately for the settings team history has not officially begun, so these edits should be seen as ex post facto in application. Players who wish to roleplay well should bear these laws in mind as they govern themselves. I mean that for the lawless and the lawful. The best way for a player to play a role in planeshift is to be well rooted in the settings. In fact it is darn near impossible to play a role that is effective without this knowledge.

Settings has done all it can to elicit player feedback to aid its efforts to produce a fuller and richer rp experience for the "players" (i still think of you all as testers) and player written books may well add to this richness. Greatest additions will come from those with the best education on the PS settings imo.

Great books may also give me a clue to who to include in the team or at least who to court

Happy gaming.

[zanzibar]

One of my characters, who is a law abiding and upstanding citizen, was killed by an Octarch's guard for questioning the Octarch's motives in putting citizens in danger for his own benefit.

Utm's post is a clear representation imo of roleplaying with reasonable boundaries.

Except that the death penalty is only used for extreme crimes according to the settings.  Nothing in the settings suggests that the government is fascist.

[Quq Leque]

I'll just stick to writing love poems to my wife. Can hardly go wrong there ...I hope 

[Zan]

Except that the death penalty is only used for extreme crimes according to the settings.  Nothing in the settings suggests that the government is fascist.

There is a difference between permanent death and normal 'go to Death Realm, do not pass start' death. 

[Under the moon]

Exactly. Zan is right (it is all in a book somewhere). I do not at all like the 'new' take on death as a common side trip in life, but that is the bandage that was used to try to tape gameplay to Settings. Permanently 'executing' a character is do-able, but rare, and only for certain things. Temp kills for random things or insults are not, sadly.

I would do two things to books as it is, however. One, add a 'bad word' filter to it. Two, add some sort of player 'rating' to books that GMs can see in a list. Then, 'bad' books can be weeded out faster.

By the way, can GMs find and delete a book easily the way the system works now?