Cabbages and Kings.

[Under the moon]

Listen folks. Due to recent events, an issue has come up that I think needs to be addressed.

Character/guild ownership of things.

I am not talking about the actual ownership of items and the newly sold guildhouses. What I speak of is the ‘RP’ed ownership of places, houses, and even kingdoms.

Some people work -very- hard on their roleplaying, and have been RPing the ownership of certain houses for years. Through months and months of RP, they have built their character’s lives around these houses. Is it right for the Devs to take these places away without even considering who might have been playing the ownership of them. Does the Settings have any right to force people out of their homes? The answer is simple, from an RP standpoint.

Hell yes!

You own nothing, have nothing, and ARE nothing until the settings gives it to you. Did anyone who ever claimed to own a house ever stop to consider the Devs already had a plan for that house? Do you think it is right that YOU took ownership away from THEM? What gave you the right to even claim a house over another guild of players? Nothing, in truth. I could have walked up to any of ‘your’ houses with my Sheeples, and stated grandly “THIS, my fellows, is our new home. Do not mind the rabble that claims this house as theirs. They mean nothing, It is ours now.”

That is exactly what you did to the Devs, and I am shocked at the level of complaining I have seen from some people (not everyone, as many of you were quite calm and pleasant). You tried to steal of piece of the Settings, and threw a fit when the bluff was called.

I will now go into an area that I am sure will set some folks off. Before I begin, let me say that some of the folks I am about to talk of are good people, and I like them and their roleplaying a great deal…except for what I am about to denounce.

Kings and Queens, Emperors and Empresses, Warlords from other lands, and Dictators of your far away realms…please take off your crowns. Just as those who are claiming the buildings are doing, you are proclaiming yourselves rulers of things that are not rightly yours, and in fact do not even exist. You are not visitors from a far away kingdom. You are not rulers of that land just out of sight. You are not the leaders of a shadow government. You are taking things that do not belong to you. What are those things, you may ask? Well, for starters, you are robbing the rights of the Settings team and other Devs to say “This is how things are.” How will you react in a year or two if the Devs suddenly proclaim that none of your ‘kingdoms’ exist because they are outside of the settings?

“But…. we have been rulers for two years now! You can’t just say that none of that existed!”

Sorry folks, but yes they can, and very well should. If it was up to me, anyone who tried to proclaim themselves rulers of anything besides their own guilds would be snapped up and tossed in the deepest, darkest part of the non-existent prison. Why? Because it is realistic. Creating an imaginary kingdom is not.

The moral to this post is this: RP what you want, but know that it may be taken away by the Settings at any time. Because, in truth, it was never yours in the first place.

Disclaimer: I am not a Dev, and I am not defending any of their actions. The above is my opinion as a consummate roleplayer.

[Draklar]

True.

[Waylander]

God, I hate agreeing with you, utm.  Why must you make me do it

Very good point but, before you guys go crazy (meaning those who disagree)  I'd like to just quote something utm said, so as to bring attention to it.

The moral to this post is this: RP what you want, but know that it may be taken away by the Settings at any time. Because, in truth, it was never yours in the first place.

Just before people start yelling at utm for "ruining all the RPs"

[Siteri Kidachi]

As much as I would prefer that the GMs acknowledge what fans have long RPed, I'd say I have to agree. Just as any other fictional setting with a lot of fan-created content, fans of PlaneShift can sometimes get Jossed. The game's not finished yet, so what we think of the world may be contradicted by later additions. Don't whine about it, retcon yourself. I mean, I've had to do it.

[Duraza]

Ouch...a very harsh statement, but all the same I think it very true. As it is now we can use what we have to rp anything we want to. However as the game progresses and the devs changes something or decide to use something that had not been used before then we must alter our rps accodingly, not the other way around. I'm sure I've heard this before, having had a couple players say it to me before..., so I'm surprised so many were pissed off from the whole house thing.

Still I think we all should remember something else at the moment, though many people are probably mad about whats been going on. As long as you have your rps now why not continue to enjoy them, when they are gone you will know you squeezed as much fun as you could out of them and will be ready to do something different 

[Nikodemus]

Like a half a year ago or so, i been writing about almost the same issue and then people yelled at me. I can't remember i single person who didn't and agreed with me. Maybe it was the form, hah.

Anyway, UtM is right to the pain.
The problem is players don't know setting enough. They don't know how to make their guilds fit in it and then even if it looks like their guilds fit, they can't be sure it is going to be part of the setting (in fact i'm not even sure if it is possible at all (but i have little more faith now, than before), because if not, all guilds are doomed on oocness).
To make our guild IC, in setting, we would need  to constantly change our believs and past as we accomodate to the new settings elements, which are developed. This means that you eighter won't RP 90% of what you should (you are boring) or later as you learn new thing about setting, you have to claim what you did before, never happened.
I can see no other way than setting working with guild heads, to provide the background they need. The only problem is, how do they decide, which goes out and which goes in. Otherwise, the settings gets messed up with incosistent material. Nontheles it has to be done, avoiding that problem.

[Zan]

I couldn't agree more with this.

Practically every decent roleplayer is guilty of claiming something that wasn't backed up by the settings or game mechanics .. I know I have done so repeatedly. Even now I'm a part of more than one guild who has 'property' somewhere on Yliakum. But the moment the devs come to me and say "This is no longer yours!" I'll accept it, RP my way around it and move on. I've never been deluded by anyone into thinking I could simply claim something and keep it. Sure I have claimed some things to enrich my roleplays but I've always known it would only be temporary.

This game is still growing, as are it's settings ... my characters grow as well, usually faster than the game itself because I only have to work on a few characters, not an entire world ... and the risk that I'm growing into a different direction than the settings themselves is very real. So I have to be aware that my growth will sometimes have to be cancelled or transformed so that it doesn't conflict with this game's settings. We can't expect that the Devs take everyone's roleplay into account when creating this world. And we definitely can't expect that they reward some roleplayers while ignoring others. That'd be favoritism and somewhere someone will always feel wronged. Let them develop the world and it'll be up to us all to grow with the world instead of against it.

[eldoth_terevan]

The roleplays must change as the settings change.

The moon was shining sulkily,
Because she thought the sun
Had got no business to be there
After the day was done--
"It's very rude of him," she said,
"To come and spoil the fun!"

http://www.jabberwocky.com/carroll/walrus.html

[Nikodemus]

Let them develop the world and it'll be up to us all to grow with the world instead of against it.

But you can never ever do it.
The setting will never be finished, just like the game.

[Zan]

So what? That just means we're never finished developing our characters either. I'd say that is a good thing.

[Nikodemus]

But very inconsistent and thats very important for RP.

means we're never finished developing our characters

This means we will be doing that from the start each time. It will be valid with the setting only for the moment. The next moment the development you did won't be anymore and so on.
So in the end, it's not the development people expect from hearing this word.

[eldoth_terevan]

A priority should be to review the settings information in game, either from the books or from NPC dialogue. While the RPs must change, I don't see why they could not be recorded in book form within the game. That way you can preserve some of it, and it might help ease the transitions because you can refer to them as literature within the game world. I probably didn't say that well, its early for me...

[Durwyn]

A priority should be to review the settings information in game, either from the books or from NPC dialogue. While the RPs must change, I don't see why they could not be recorded in book form within the game. That way you can preserve some of it, and it might help ease the transitions because you can refer to them as literature within the game world. I probably didn't say that well, its early for me...

that remembers me that we often use citations of great writers like Dickens (Britan?), Charles Beaudelaire (French..)
so yes it would really help the player to begin to roleplay i think 

[bilbous]

I think a project to gather the settings information into one place in game is a very good idea. The main problem I see with it is that books are still minimally functional. I am not saying that to be critical, they are much much better than no user books at all, I am just saying it is early in their development cycle.

[Under the moon]

Bonus moon points to eldoth for getting the 'Cabbages and Kings' reference first. The line is taken from the nonsense poem 'The Walrus and The Carpenter' in the book Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland) by Lewis Carroll.

As you might know, the story is about a girl who finds her life so dreadful and boring, she creates a 'new' life in her mind and dreams that has little to do with 'reality'.

And yes, a 'fiction' section in the library has been talked about were some of your stories could go. Until then, though, we have the good old: http://hydlaa.com/smf/index.php?board=15.0 and the newer http://hydlaa.com/smf/index.php?board=43.0

You want your stories remembered? Write them down. That is not the job of the Devs. If they see it fit to incorporate some of  them in the 'true' history of the game, that is their prerogative. If you actually want to directly affect the history and setting, the only way to do so is to contribute directly to the team, or apply.

Anyways, always remember to try and have a little fun on the journey.