@LigHBut on a second thought: Why starting PlaneShift to talk about movies?! It's like slicing bread with an axe.
Honestly, I have no idea why some people do that. And I guess I'm not in a position to judge them.
But I know someone who can hardly answer during an event, and most roleplaying often waits for her return to the topic (char based gender).
That's where the misunderstanding starts, IMHO. To participate in
events one must either be a RPer already, or be very sure of his/her own ability to learn RPing realtime, on the spot, in Main, with the risk of ruining it for other players if it all goes wrong. There's more than just me not fitting into any of these two slots.
I've spent over 3 months facing only game mechanics and tells, without even
witnessing much RP on Laanx, let alone participating in it. I'm sure from the other point of view it all looks different and much better. I wish I could get another POV, cast a spell on myself and get my RP skill boosted... but it doesn't work like that.
Your request to "tax" tells just to limit its use sounds rather selfish in the first moments. There may be other ways to "educate" some of the more "ruthless" players -- without "punishing" all those who never talked to you and don't mind being contacted telepathically as much as you do.
Let's not "tax" them, tria is not the main point anyway (I still don't get what's the problem with spending a bit, but that's not so important either
). Let's make Whisper distance configurable. Let's split tools. Let's find these "other ways", mechanical or not, to make the overall atmosphere more immersive and more educating to those
new to RP, when it comes to Whisper/Tells. Any good idea born in the discussion may prove to be useful to the team and be implemented someday, some way or other, even if it won't include groffels or taxes.
Another part of the problem, as I see it, is that some of the most experienced players who could help to find a viable solution, don't see it as a problem at all because it doesn't bother
them. And those like me, only learning some RP basics, are mostly too shy to speak, especially on the forums. I only decided to speak it out loud when I realized that it's not my personal petty problem, that
some other players face it too and that someone has to speak about it.
@RigwynRigwyn, in addition to what I already said to LigH (see above), please note that you're viewing the situation from the POV of the experienced player again.
And many thanks for your friendly attitude, I really appreciate that.I'm not even an ounce of a RPer yet, I only try to become one. I try really hard and my progress is very slow. And I feel it's somehow wrong to get most of my immature immersion from long freeform conversations with quest NPCs (these are indeed very helpful in building it up) and get it all ruined again just by trying to communicate with people in Whisper/Tell, over and over and over again.
Sure there's always an option to turn any private communication down... and to be left alone. The matter is, it doesn't really help to learn some real RP either. And I personally don't feel any right to wear that 'holier-than-thou' attitude when people try to communicate with me, even if they aren't RPers, or are bad RPers or whatever. Most of them are nice people anyway. I'm not talking about real "annoyances" here, these are dealt with quite easily and don't present any serious problem, IMO.
@ MordraugionRemove /tell from your Main tab, turn off flashy tabs and set /away to say I don't accept tells. Simples job done
I don't have /tell in my Main tab. And the simple job to get oneself out of player-to-player communication can be made even more simple by... not playing PlaneShift. Sorry and no pun intended, Mordraugion, I don't see it as a viable solution to the problem I'm facing at the moment, even if I fail to state it properly so that it wouldn't be confused with "aaaaah! bad guys are bothering me!" problem I
don't have ingame.
Running alone, grinding levels, doing quests and collecting goodies? Yes, it can be done without interacting with others, one doesn't need Whisper for that. Roleplaying cannot be learned this way. I tried that when I first started playing and I've seen some other newbies doing the same. Some of them still don't participate in any real RP, some have already left, feeling themselves "not fit" and some are happy grinders now, gaining levels, joining (and hopping) PLer guilds and not caring much about roleplaying.
On Laanx.@Syenna
There's a useful roleplay addon for a-certain-game-I've-gotten-flak-for-mentioning-here-before (at least, in a similar context to this one), which not only allows for descriptions in said game, but also allows you to flag yourself as "Casual", "Fulltime", or "Beginner" (as well as an option to flag yourself as "looking for contact" or not). Perhaps something like this in PS would help people find others looking for similar levels of immersion?
I may be in the wrong here, but the configurable Whisper distance seems to be more of an easy way. We have Main judging the distance already, so part of the mechanics are already in place. That tool you speak of would help a lot too, making it more "legal" for someone like me to refuse
non-RP related OOC without turning any nice people down just because their ingame goals are somehow different. It just seems to be more technically complicated, but anyway it's up to the Devs to judge.
And please note the emphasis, if it's not too much trouble. I'm not speaking about "any" OOC, only about the "bad" kind of it.
@AkkaidoIf you're getting that many tells from odd random players saying those sorts of things Mickra, I do wonder what crowd of players you associate with the most...
The answer is quite simple: most of them are
grinders. And most of them quite happy with it, or so it seems. What is really odd is that they seem to be the most communicative, helpful and responsive breed of a Laanx player. Always ready to greet and help a noob like me (or, to be correct, the kind of a noob I've been when I started playing in 2009). That's another reason I don't see just telling them off as a right solution to the problem. Without some of them I probably would have left the game long ago without even getting to that point when one wants to stop grinding and become a RPer.
In fact, I hope every one of them will come to that point eventually, it's just not my "role" to force my current RP conditions on them... or on anyone else, for that matter.
