How to run a new player off.

[cdmoreland]

Conversation to get a new player to quit:

(20:58:28) >Philer Gorer greets everyone.
(20:58:46) Kelaice sighs and looks back at Philer "What is it?"
(20:58:51) Philer says: evenin' m'lady
(20:59:35) Philer says: good night for a walk about town
(20:59:42) Kelaice nods, looking at Philer with a blank face "It is. Now is that all you had to say?"
(21:00:04) Philer says: sorry to be a bother.

This was his first contact with anyone in-game.

[Cirerey]

That is just depressing.

[Chessire]

It doesn't look that horrible to me if you think they are both roleplaying. The  new player spoke to someone who is not playing a nice person and that's noone's fault, it may just be bad rp on the side of the person who replied. You shouldn't be always like "top of the day to you sir", its always useful however to engage into rp whether your character is nice or not.
Playing an evil, rude or grumpy charachter is no reason to take the easy way out, be rude and just stop there, without offering any handles for the others to keep playing with you.

[Mariana Xiechai]

Conversation to get a new player to quit:

(20:58:28) >Philer Gorer greets everyone.
(20:58:46) Kelaice sighs and looks back at Philer "What is it?"
(20:58:51) Philer says: evenin' m'lady
(20:59:35) Philer says: good night for a walk about town
(20:59:42) Kelaice nods, looking at Philer with a blank face "It is. Now is that all you had to say?"
(21:00:04) Philer says: sorry to be a bother.

This was his first contact with anyone in-game.

And this is completely unfair of you to judge.

I happen to know that individual out of character. Wonderful person really, friendly, engaging, and the like. The character happens to be abrasive. So what? That is in character. Is everyone you meet in reality happy and friendly all the time? Good bloody God I hope not. How horrifically boring would that be. We aren't all limited to being friendly and outgoing. Why would our characters be? How do you know that was the player's first interaction in game at all? It's possible they were talking in tells. It's possible they've Role Played before. And if they have, they'll realize the distinct difference between in character and out of character.

I'm very tired of people beating this over the head. Character actions are character actions, and they won't be curbed just to make sure everybody's happy all the time. People that don't understand out of character versus in character probably won't enjoy the game all that much anyway. You do not try to make people who choose to create such a character feel ashamed. By doing so, you rob the game of potential fun, and friction, and dynamic. There is nothing wrong with what that player did.

You're making a rapid judgment on something you probably don't have the facts on and tried to flame someone in a forum post. And you, in turn, run the risk of discouraging that person from Role Playing further, becoming the very thing you're claiming to be against. Shame on you, sir. Shame.

[novacadian]

In the Keda a few weeks ago my character greeted an elf. They abrasively said, "Can't you see that I am reading!" My character replied, "Can't you see this is not the library?" The elf responded OOC "[My character is rude do not mean to offend ooc]". My responce was, "[I kinda got that ]"

It was a good idea of the other player to make that clear OOC in my opinion. Of course it was clear to me from the beginning; yet you know....

Today after dieing a horrible death in an RP last night with a Master of the Dark Way my character was wearily walking her way up the stairs in front of the Stonehead, having recently returned from the DR, when a new player approached asking where he could find some armour. Sighing and limping my character returned to storage and got them a set of leathers and 2000 tria for some recommended healing potions she then excused herself. He probably did not read the desc that she had bleeding claw marks across her face.
 
Helping new players trumps RP at this stage folks or there will soon be no RP. Of course done without going totally OOC with your character.

- Nova

P.S. The new character introduced themselves as, "Hi, I am a graphic artist from Indonesia." Did not want to scare that one away! He left happier than a clam and my RP pretty much intact.

[Pierre]

If there were /tells going on underneath this, sounds ok to me....if not, then this "friendly, engaging" player might want to learn to be more community minded, just to let new players know they are welcome, that we've got (and need) all types of characters here, and not to be put off by character actions.

And there is no need to shame people here, Mariana.  Misunderstandings happen, no need to try to make people feel bad about it.

[Mariana Xiechai]

And there is no need to shame people here, Mariana.  Misunderstandings happen, no need to try to make people feel bad about it.

I disagree, as the purpose of this entire forum post seems to be to shame the individual who replied. As said individual is a good friend, I will stick up for them.  If Waesed wanted to make a statement about player cordiality, he would have started a thread about that, or blurred out the names for anonymity. As it is, this reads as an attack, and one that is wholly undeserved. As for your quotations, the individual has been a member for quite a number of years, and is known by numerous people for their cordiality. There is nothing wrong with, as I stated, being an abrasive character for purposes of RP. If you would like to state they should say that they are being in character, that is fine. But to post a single thread of a single event to make the statement that someone is "driving characters out of the game" is rude, and uncalled for.

[Taya]

And there is no need to shame people here, Mariana.  Misunderstandings happen, no need to try to make people feel bad about it.

I disagree, as the purpose of this entire forum post seems to be to shame the individual who replied.

I'm with Mari on this really. It looks like the purpose of the thread was to try and shame a player. In the absolute least the names should have been edited out of the original post, but they weren't - they were left there, providing what is quite possibly a very biased and one-sided view of events that may now colour other people against that individual. And my experience with such 'bad guy' type RPers is that I almost always receive some kind of OOC tell from them to check things are okay, and that is never visible to people outside the conversation so may very well have happened here.

Even if the original poster checked up on whether there was or wasn't a /tell conversation in the background, this still doesn't seem like an appropriate way to handle it. A better approach would have been to speak to the player and alert them to the fact that maybe they should go easier on new players, because running to the forum to try and make them look bad in a place where they might never see the post and get the chance to defend themself seems quite low to me. If you find it to be such a huge concern, an even more appropriate response is probably /report and let the GMs be the judges of it. 

[Illysia]

I don't think cdmoreland's post was the most constructive way to handle the matter but I think it is a bit much to call it a shaming as there is no long tirade against what happened or personal attacks against the player aside from commenting on the incident, which doesn't violate the forum conduct rules. Remember, you are quite free to form your own opinion about this snippet, but so is he.

That being said, I agree with Nova, in a case where your character is not nice be sure to use OOC to cover your rear in these kinds of situations, especially with new players. People have to learn to tell between OOC and IC, and well they should since it is fundamental to RP and there is no way around it; however, we do need to give people a chance to learn. Remember, there is very little reason for them to have exposure to the IC/OOC boundary outside of PS. Help them out a little.

That player might be lost and they might not, we don't know, but I would say just use this as a learning moment and remember to give new players a heads up since many of them don't seem to even know what IC is. But remember that all around everyone has something to learn whether they are old or new experienced or not, so give everyone a chance to catch up if there is some way that you think they are lacking/failing/not understanding/doing it wrong. (including Kelaice )

[Taya]

Public accusation that someone made a player quit along with public naming of the accused player would seem to be more than merely having an opinion to me. There is also no invite to discussion - it's just a blank statement that looks very much like something that might upset the player concerned when, for all we know, there was an OOC conversation behind it and they did nothing deserving of this.

Most sites I have been a member of would term this as some form of defaming or attack and regardless of what PS rules are or are not, I don't like to see a player being accused of such things with no real evidence. Honestly feels like a thing that should have been raised with the GMs or left alone.

[Illysia]

It's on a public forum in an unlocked thread, I would assume discussion is expected. Like I said, it isn't the greatest way to handle it, but if that is all it takes to get feelings badly hurt, it is a good thing the playerbase is as small as it is because it wouldn't survive getting bigger. Your average MMO player is a lot more ill mannered and bad tempered when something they don't like happens, and the bigger a community gets the less open, calm dialogue there is between the majority of players. So, players end up not even caring if they are behaving badly.

It's not that I am advocating a lack of civility, but understand, if this is all it takes to send players to their respective corners mad and glaring at each other then the "community" doesn't stand a chance. Just like better tolerance and patience is needed, a certain amount of thick skin is needed as well. This isn't the Carebear fellowship; people should be able to start dialogues without engraved invitations, but at the same time they should be mature enough to be able to defend without attacking.

This complaint is much better than the "just go and die" and "ur an <expletive> retard" 'complaints' that I'm used to seeing from players in other MMOs, and like it or not that is the way most larger MMO playerbases are. If nothing else, the internet has a tendency to breed less than admirable social skills. Thicker skin is going to be needed if there is ever an influx of players, especially if they come from other MMOs.

[Taya]

I wasn't really talking about 'other MMOs' though, not that the distinction is important as 'that's how it is' is never a good enough reason to excuse things. The reasons you outlined are generally why these things are frowned on in most places though. You can say people should be more thick skinned as often as you like (I tend to agree), but some aren't and that's also just how it is. It's not about anyone glaring madly from corners or any expectations of engraved invitations in order to discuss an issue and I just don't see where you get ideas of carebear fellowships from. Just not seeing need to dramatise the issue with such things.

Anyway, I don't really want to turn this into a debate that blunders further and further off the main topic though because the thread isn't worthy of one and shouldn't exist to begin with as far as I'm concerned. Threads like this are pretty damaging to the community, so it should just die - or better yet if someone just deletes it.

[Zalya]

Hold on! I play this character and I stated EXPLICITLY in my char's  OOC description that she was a jerk sometimes. I totally understand how a new char might have found this a little unnerving at first, and I totally understand that the OOC tab is easy to miss sometimes.  The way the character is played is in no way a reflection of me or the game. In fact the entire point of that char being rude was to spark conflict to lead to further RP. I admit, I was a little slow to the draw in responding to the message at first, as I was a little distracted, but after Philer left I tried to send a /tell that said [I didn't mean to scare you away ]

That being said I definitely understand how a rude char can sort of be a little jarring, especially if she is the first person that you meet. If your up for it, I would love to continue the RP, or perhaps RP with my other much nicer Char. I had no intent to make you feel unwelcome at all! I had in fact been trying to start a little bit of a fun argument If you see Kelaice or Zalya in game at all, send me a /tell I'll be happy to talk. Again, sorry for the rudeness but I assure you it was all just RP. Next time stick around a little longer or talk to me OOCly. I don't bite. Kelaice might though

[Illysia]

Anyway, I don't really want to turn this into a debate that blunders further and further off the main topic though because the thread isn't worthy of one and shouldn't exist to begin with as far as I'm concerned. Threads like this are pretty damaging to the community, so it should just die - or better yet if someone just deletes it.

This is what I would consider dramatization. This thread is not the end of the world. In fact, it is a perfect opportunity to start a dialogue about how to head off offending behavior at the pass. For instance, did you consider that maybe cdmoreland posted this because he didn't realize that someone else might take what he said so badly? Now how will he or anyone else get a sense of that or learn if the thread is just deleted without so much as an explanation or discussion.

This is why I say carebear fellowship. It gets to the point where people get so sensitive about less than positive things that you can't talk about them and the only allowed conversation becomes good feelings and telling everyone how awesome they are. How can you address issues and teach those that don't know how to properly handle them that way? Ignoring the realities of behavior doesn't change anything. Better to use patience and calm discussion because if deletion and silence worked, censoring would be the end all solution. Like I said earlier, one has to be able to defend without going on the attack.



@Zalya: Well, that proves it. No harm meant.

Trying putting it in brackets at the top of the normal description, I've kinda found that the important stuff you put in OOC tab rarely gets read. I didn't start getting fewer tells correcting my use of he with Danao or people telling me how confused they were until I made some tweaks to the first line of the description. However, despite being a little immersion breaking, you can try instead just using [I'm just being IC mean ] or some such thing in main or tells to help make it clear. even just making a side comment commenting on how mean your character is or something that proves that you the player don't feel that way works, not to mention people feel better when they see smileys.

[Zalya]

I should do that. Or at least try. I feel really bad now :/ I just wish they hadn't logged off so fast and got my message.