The Gods Must Be Angry-DEBATE

[Cairn]

All excellent suggestions and very well thought out!

And Illysia, I just do want you to know your suggestions and input do not go unheeded, at least with me. I'm always open to constructive criticism and ways to improve my RP, which you've offered. Your lessons will be taken and heeded, and hopefully PS will improve as a whole because of them.

The same goes with yours, Aiwendil! I appreciate the suggestions on how to help others enjoy this game, as that's what it's all about. Common sense and dignity are always appreciated.

[Illysia]

Thank you Cairn, that is far more than I would even ask considering past experience. But it is a pleasant difference.

[tman]

Within the first 5 minutes of ME3, a child is implied to be murdered

The key word here is implied.  It implies that the child is killed.  In Assassins Creed 2, Ezios little brother is implied to be hanged.  There are dozens of examples of scenes like this.  But it is never shown.  The dead body of the dead child is never displayed or described.  And this is in games that are rated M (17+).

The one exception I can think of is in CoD Modern Warfare 3, there is a scene in which a young girl is walking with her parents and a car bomb goes off right next to them.  The explosion is too quick for you to see anything graphic, but in all of the video games I've played in my life (a lot) this is the closest thing to showing a child's death that I've ever seen.  What's interesting is that immediately before this scene, a warning appears on the screen saying that the following content is highly disturbing, and it gives the player the option to skip it.  In a game that's already rated M, they put a warning before scenes like this.  That should tell you something.

Now personally, I've played too many video games to be disturbed by anything I've seen or heard in PS.  But for a game in which the content is supposed to be PG-13, violence against children is just too far to be done publicly.  If this were done in a guild hall, or a sparsely populated area, that's fine.  But on the streets of the capital city is another thing entirely.

[Cairn]

Well, I'll be derned if it ain't stirring things up.

[Eonwind]

Camp banished... the reason for RP standards: it does little good to rely only on the engine to determine what you can and can't do. That's the point of RP.

Camp banished is a PVP area and so killing there is perfectly legit (from the game point of view). if a players wants to avoid being attacked should not go there (we have very few pvp areas it's not a big constrain). Also attacking or not someone in camp banished is an IC action and so it is RP. Asking before attacking OOC is courtesy but is not really needed in PVP areas.

There should be enough spoofs, quotes, ect poking at how uncommon common sense is... especially on the internet. So I won't bother going into how necessary it is to state common sense stuff. This forum should be a cautionary tale about such things in it's own right. And I'm just curious, what is actually wrong with agreeing to do those things? Where is it a great limit on freedom to say we have these boundaries? It's only a problem if you intend to break them.

If there's no point in breaking a rule so there's no point in having that rule at all.
Illysia while I agree with many of the rp "rules" you stated it's far too common in my opinion and experience to find moral authorities ready to tell you what is 'good' RP or what is not good RP, most of the time they are at least partly wrong. I would really like to avoid such cliché, and avoid the need to have rules set in stone which are by no means necessary. Live and let live someone would say.
While it's true "common sense" is personal, it's also true that the willingness to find an agreement and respect the other players is the best way to find a common ground and solves the issue. No rule can fully address the above in every case and in every circumstances. This is why I don't feel like it's truly needed to have RP rules.

[Illysia]

Camp banished... the reason for RP standards: it does little good to rely only on the engine to determine what you can and can't do. That's the point of RP.

Camp banished is a PVP area and so killing there is perfectly legit (from the game point of view). if a players wants to avoid being attacked should not go there (we have very few pvp areas it's not a big constrain). Also attacking or not someone in camp banished is an IC action and so it is RP. Asking before attacking OOC is courtesy but is not really needed in PVP areas.

Considering that not every player necessarily knows that that area is open PvP, where even the arena isn't, I'd disagree. It is needed because it is still a courtesy and still could be abused. This is kinda one of those breaks between mechanics and RP. And no, not every action within an RPG is the same as RPing simply because it was done in game. This is actually another reason for standards. I guarantee you that most people in all MMORPGs are doing actions that are allowed by the engine; however, most do not consider themselves role playing and several would actually be offended if you implied that they were. This proves my point about needing standards.

There should be enough spoofs, quotes, ect poking at how uncommon common sense is... especially on the internet. So I won't bother going into how necessary it is to state common sense stuff. This forum should be a cautionary tale about such things in it's own right. And I'm just curious, what is actually wrong with agreeing to do those things? Where is it a great limit on freedom to say we have these boundaries? It's only a problem if you intend to break them.

If there's no point in breaking a rule so there's no point in having that rule at all.
Illysia while I agree with many of the rp "rules" you stated it's far too common in my opinion and experience to find moral authorities ready to tell you what is 'good' RP or what is not good RP, most of the time they are at least partly wrong. I would really like to avoid such cliché, and avoid the need to have rules set in stone which are by no means necessary. Live and let live someone would say.
While it's true "common sense" is personal, it's also true that the willingness to find an agreement and respect the other players is the best way to find a common ground and solves the issue. No rule can fully address the above in every case and in every circumstances. This is why I don't feel like it's truly needed to have RP rules.

I'm not sure what you mean since every rule is broken at some point whether there is a need to break it or not. Common sense is not common was the point I was getting at. You can't count on people to always use common sense because it's supposed to be common. That's just basic human nature....

And here is my usual complaint within these arguments. Stop worrying so much that someone will tell you that your RP is bad. I doubt most people would bother to jump on you even if they did think it. And to be fair, I can tell you from experience that it is not the end of the world. It's this paranoia that "I will be shunned for 'BAD RP!' " *dun dun duuuuun* that generally drives the resistance against this idea. Further, no one advocated a "moral authority" it was only an off handed, qualifying comment made by Indygo while he said he was not doing that. Also, nothing is set in stone so that is another comment I'm not sure where it is coming from. I'm sorry but most of these arguments against a standard have little to do with what I had actually proposed.

There have never ever.... EVER been RP rules in this game... EVER. What I am actually talking is a common understanding among players like there used to be among most RPers in this game. I guarantee you, you will never find that bulleted list I gave anywhere in the forum, on the official site, on any guild site, or anywhere in game. But I also guarantee you that a lot of older players from at least 2005-2008 will still recognize it. I have say that if people who resist the idea stop inventing nightmares of the RP secret police carrying them off in the night, they would feel much better about the idea.

[Aiwendil]

Oh, camp banish again...just let it be, it was discussed countless times already before (And of course half of the posts in those discussions were deleted but who is still really surprised by this on these forums). All players who had a problem with it just left the game..no point anymore to question how a limited PvP area can be IC by any means. You talk with people here that think quests are IC.

And don't get in the rules discussion Illysia..always the same. Someone suggests some general RP hints, others mistake it as a restriction of their freedom and fight it with an irrational furry only to suggest it themselves two years later. But why do I tell you..you know how it works.

[Illysia]

Yeah, I know how these arguments usually go. But I don't think the people arguing here mean any harm or are just being a pain, so I bother to explain.

[Cairn]

Theory's all it is, really. Eon is right and Illy and Aiw are right, too. It's just rationalization of said theory and application, so the only recommendation worth giving is to be genuinely respectful of it all.

[Illysia]

Actually both theories are tested and the results from both are not equal. There is being nice and then there is ignoring outcomes. However, this is not important enough to try and push.

[Cairn]

"Both not equal" is opinion. I agree, but perhaps not equalists?

To help: Aiwendil mentioned irrational fury, and is correct. Most people may take it as a restriction of the absolute freedom that an RP game can offer. Because a '2nd' world does offer that, but without legal limitations: one can kill, steal, commit criminal acts without repercussion to their actual physical self. People can commit sexual acts, deviance, or other things that the morality of society would object to, but in an RP game are repercussionless save to a few pixels. That being said, there will always be players that champion absolute freedom to RP.

BUT!

I don't condone it. I do, in a sense, I suppose, because once you start sanctioning a 2nd world through OOC rules, it becomes less and less of a realistic world. But in reality, we also have to be mindful, as mentioned by Illysia and Aiwendil, of the consequences to the other pixels and to the players behind them. It's delicacy at its finest, because we risk alienation or in more drastic cases ridding ourselves of the players we offend. Also, and do note; we're still bound by society, OOCly. We're better served as Illysia states, 'being nice', rather than ignoring the outcome. Of course

a.) Ignoring the outcome (as you coined) = RP freedom,
but -
b.) Being nice (more wordily I shall assume we both mean the respect of others preferences and the working towards less criminal tendencies as a whole, as a way to improve PS's settingsphere to create a more 'norm' society as it should be reflected.) preserves sanity, prevents anarchy, and gives a solid ground for variety of RP.

Doubtless, we shall be inundated with interpretations. But as a whole, I'm glad for these threads, even if they pop up at least once a year, because 7 years ago I stumbled across one, and reading the great opinions and realizations of players such as ourselves provided a solid foundation for me, I would like to believe.

[Illysia]

What? Being respectful doesn't mean always agreeing or ignoring difference.

Edit: Thank you for completely changing your post Cairn and making this one completely not go to anything now.

[Cairn]

Of course, see my edit 

[Aiwendil]

*sighs*

But in reality, we also have to be mindful, as mentioned by Illysia and Aiwendil, of the consequences to the other pixels and to the players behind them.

I know i might sounded a bit like this but this isn't really my main concern. Keep plots that might offend other players OOCly away from them but still feel free to do them with player that don't mind.

...People can commit sexual acts...

No you can't, it's forbidden in PS.

...and the working towards less criminal tendencies as a whole,...

I really hope that's not Illysia's intention.



My main concern is and was always that the amount of murder/torture plots turned Yliakum into a parody of a RP world. And it doesn't matter anymore if a plot is well or poorly done...every new such plot just makes the whole situtation worse.

[Cairn]

No you can't, it's forbidden in PS.
Of course - just different post context, not a PS reference per se.

" into a parody of a RP world. etc. "

Point of my post