[When do you speak OOC?]

[Bamko]

not to repeatmyself, but...

"Explain it to them patiently, answer their questions, help them out, and explain OOC and IC and tabs... then, if they still do it, they are a N00B and not a newb.

At that point, a petition, poking a gm, or even just refusing to help them with anything and ignore them, is fine by me."

If they are on the RP server (frag) and refuse to follow the RP covenant... why not boot em off the RP server?

Maybe add a lil something to the tutorial, if it is not there, as per Bguy above... and then explain it to them once... then report them... then GM can explain it to them once.. and then if reported again, they can escalate it.  I really don't see the need to coddle them.  It is not like PS has not bent over backwards, with the ezpc server, and such. 

BTW, that was the reasoning behind my 'proposal' for having the new server be RP server.. an 'elite' server by invitation only, (someone who has the link forwards it to you.. nothing super specially hidden...) that people would strive for.  The Noobs would never find it, and RP-ers could troll the Noob server trolling for RPers...

oh wells, Just explaining why I thought that would of worked, Not like it is changing, and if you think that is what I am trying for, you are missing my point.

[Rennaj]

 Frankly I am amazed you are laying this at the newbie door, shame on you, In the 18 months I was a GM I was privy to watching RP in game, with the cloak of invisibility on, AND old players are just as bad, soon as it does not go your way out come the brackets, so clean up your own act before blaming it on the new only.

[Kangold D]

[zanzibar]

Frankly I am amazed you are laying this at the newbie door, shame on you, In the 18 months I was a GM I was privy to watching RP in game, with the cloak of invisibility on...

Creepy.

But Rennaj is right, it's not a newbie problem.  Older players do it too.

Anyway, I don't think the solution is to make the tutorial harder.  The tutorial isn't roleplay, and we had lots of roleplay before the tutorial was introduced.

I think you'll have to track down people who have stopped playing and ask them 1. why they left and 2. what would make them come back.  Limiting the arcade and grind elements of the game might help as well, but it might also make PlaneShift too different from other games.

[enderandrew]

There is a quandry in trying to redesign a game to cater to the players who left.

Maybe they left for a good reason and you should improve the game.  Or in the case of Star Wars: Galaxies, the redesign just alienates the few fans the game had, and never brought back the old players.

I think one should constantly try to improve and refine PS, but I don't think one should go away from what the core premise of the game is.  My only two questions would be:

1 - Would any potential change make the game more fun to play?
2 - Does this change fit within the theme and concept of PS?

As far as grind, I think Eve Online gets it right to an extent.  Each skill and attribute takes time to train, period.  If it says 3 hours or 3 days, that is precisely how long it takes whether you grind or log off.  So you just spend your time playing how you want to play, enjoy the game, and your character develops at a balanced pace.

[zanzibar]

For sure, I don't think people should be able to control the development of the game by leaving it.  But there might be valuable information.

[Akkaido Kivikar]

In my opinion, OOC chat in brackets is fine.

Look at it this way.

How many people want it cracked down on (and are sinless stone-throwers) compared to how many decent RPers (newbs not included) actually chat OOC in brackets? Then re-ask the question on whether it needs cracking down on.

Also, note that often the person saying something OOC isn't in a group, or the person it is directed at isn't in their guild. Now you say "use /tell", but what about a joke the majority of players nearby will find funny?

Remember, the purpose of a GAME is to be FUN for as many people as possible, within it's rules and guidelines. If the rules and guidelines get to a point where the FUN is taken out, then what is the point of a game??

You really should turn the policing elsewhere, like the amount of guilds that are blatantly purposeless or OOC. (for instance, Twilight Tangible, a group of fenkis who have claimed a corner of the plaza as belonging to them, and really have no purpose as a guild for anything but socialisation, and encouragement of a blurred line between IC and OOC)

At least with brackets, there is a way to distinguish when the person is OOC (OOC is not some demon remember), unlike the actions of OOC guilds who encourage lack of RP, all in the name of having girly fun.

[Kangold D]

In my opinion, OOC chat in brackets is fine.

Look at it this way.

How many people want it cracked down on (and are sinless stone-throwers) compared to how many decent RPers (newbs not included) actually chat OOC in brackets? Then re-ask the question on whether it needs cracking down on.

Also, note that often the person saying something OOC isn't in a group, or the person it is directed at isn't in their guild. Now you say "use /tell", but what about a joke the majority of players nearby will find funny?

Remember, the purpose of a GAME is to be FUN for as many people as possible, within it's rules and guidelines. If the rules and guidelines get to a point where the FUN is taken out, then what is the point of a game??

You really should turn the policing elsewhere, like the amount of guilds that are blatantly purposeless or OOC. (for instance, Twilight Tangible, a group of fenkis who have claimed a corner of the plaza as belonging to them, and really have no purpose as a guild for anything but socialisation, and encouragement of a blurred line between IC and OOC)

At least with brackets, there is a way to distinguish when the person is OOC (OOC is not some demon remember), unlike the actions of OOC guilds who encourage lack of RP, all in the name of having girly fun.

No. Been there, done that, and bought the tshirt.

Bracketed OOC text cannot be ignored by most human beings without special government black ops training and mind-altering drugs. The rest of us see bracketed text in the chat window and our limited brains immediately read the messages it contains. If you don't believe me let's do a quick experiment. When you look down to find the next line of text in this post I want you to ignore anything that appears before it. Go!



Alrighty then, how'd you do? Did you manage to ignore the happy elephant, hmm?

See, it is disruptive, not a happy medium. I still don't know how to fix this problem but I see black-robed figures in my crystal ball. This must be a sign.

Also, I did not know about Twilight Tangible. But, what a great idea, a social guild! I can't see a thing wrong with that "purpose".

[zanzibar]

I think ultimately, the solution will be a separate chat window for OOC public chat.

[Timmothy Perriwinkle]

Ultimately I think the solution is a prison ship of sorts. They get the wonderful boot of Laanx and head over to ezpc o/

[Akkaido Kivikar]

I think Zanzibar's right. It's a solution.

However: No speech bubbles would be a must.

And I think my point is that it is each person who decides if it is disruptive. I have no problem with OOC text

I don't see how [OOC] text disrupts everything, if you read it and leave it be. Dwelling on things like that just lead to you being a grumpy player. For instance, I saw your happy elephant and thought "well he's having fun, and his intention isn't to be disruptive and blatantly OOC all over my channel". Isn't that a nicer, happier way to do things in the absence of an OOC chat tab??

Also, the leaf for OOC chat shouldn't flash unless the players name (or three consecutive letters, ie Aka for me) is typed in.

PS: yes, I misspelt my name on the forums.

And TT isn't a socialisng guild IC, its all OOC from what I've seen.

And Tim, it's a very minor crime your suggesting a boot for. Be realistic. There are far worse problems requiring us tackling them.

[zanzibar]

Ultimately I think the solution is a prison ship of sorts. They get the wonderful boot of Laanx and head over to ezpc o/

There's already a prison that the GMs can send us to.   You can't even escape it by dieing, when you use the /die command you just respawn in the room.

[Akkaido Kivikar]

So why don't they use it more often??

I'm sure Calak would LOOVE that next time he swordfights in the tavern, hehe

[Kangold D]

...And I think my point is that it is each person who decides if it is disruptive. I have no problem with OOC text...

Several persons in this thread have said clearly that they find OOC chat to be disruptive. If no one did then there wouldn't be interest in the subject and no one would be contributing to this thread. We get that you don't find OOC text splattered like vomit all over IC chat to be a problem. Others do, however, hence the discussion. 

[Akkaido Kivikar]

Yes, but which is more important, the majority of players who do it, or the two or three players who have posted their disdain for it?

One word: Extremism.

If you look at mmos as religion, with WoW being monotonic old atheism, and PS being a religion like Islam or Christianity, you'll find there are different grades of rules within the community itself.