This is a series of threads what the persona known as "Drunk John" will be starting. Disregard it as the drunk ramblings of a bored Finn all you want, but I'm honestly curious... In the young years of the server (as in around Christmas of 2013), people were able to pull some ridiculous shit without anyone batting an eye, especially if it was done for the sake of comic-relief by less OOCly powerful people. My question: What happened to that? What caused this sudden shift into hardcore realism, that feels more like e strait-jacket to the Scifi-style of Starbound, with the goal of bringing more coherency to RP. Share your thoughts on the matter below. If someone is interested in more detailed examples, I will gladly share them after Staff's approval, as sharing them means making extremely early mistakes of RP public knowledge, which I won't do without their consent. Thank you for your time, Drunk Finn of Antares.
I built an entire underground bunker on a snow planet first day. A metropolis also sprang up. Someone bombed us with a nuke. There was a series of unfortunate events, and now staff has cracked down. You gotta do a lot just to get a colony page.
In a nutshell, what Tacc said. It got out of hand, and some people ruined it for everyone else. The 'realism' shift (Which I feel is a misnomer, because Antares is fairly lite compared to many RP communites) was before my time as staff though, so I say that as an outsider looking in; take it with a grain of salt.
This seems skewed right from the get go. To title your post "Realism vs Fun" only goes to paint those players on the server who do actually engage in roleplay with some sense of logic to it, as anti-fun. Just because the views of one group do not necessarily coincide with your own does not mean they are against fun. A more appropriate title might be "Realism vs Fantasy," as that is what this is truly about. While I understand some folk might enjoy fantasy heavy roleplay, that casts aside logic and reason, I can't for the life of me puzzle out why a fantasy-inclined player would feel stifled on Antares. If we were to take a moment to be honest with ourselves, this server is DOMINATED by those who engage in roleplay while happily eschewing consequences, rhyme, and reason. While those who lean towards a more realistic experience are heavily in the minority. In brief, I see where you are coming from, but you don't actually have anything to gripe about.
I like the realism to a degree. I like to think that colony build times and medical recovery come from advancements in technology. So there's some play in how long things should take, but there is a kinda... ... it's a suspension of disbelief. If it's reasonable, you could probably get away with it. [DOUBLEPOST=1443394023][/DOUBLEPOST] Nobody's griping. He's just asked us to discuss. He's not particularly attacking anyone, he just wants to give examples. Personally, I think a mix of goofy fantasy and gritty realism are both acceptable as long as everyone involved is having fun.
I think the first sentence clears it for you as the ramblings of a drunk person who has been around since 2013, back when Avalon was a hub-world. Additionally, I could elaborate on the specifics of Scifi-usage if the Staff gives me the go for it, as it could portray people from that time negatively. (they have since learned and scrapped too "unrealistic" characters, or retconned them to fit the current lore. To clarify for the Staff watching this, I will start with my personal ones before releasing the buggery of other people). - Drunk Finn of Antares
Literally ANYONE how has consumed alcohol should know that's impossible. Or at least a matter I am not even attempting in this condition.
I think its also because back then people would RP less for intense character bulding storyness and more for plain old fun. It didn't matter then whether you nuked someone with a hacked robot from outerspace, as long as everyone had fun. Now, everyone is so uptight about what people can and can't do to their chars that they forget that its a video game and the main goal is just to have fun. Now I'm not saying bring back nuke-wielding power-armor-wearing super-soldier characters, but maybe tone down the seriousness that some people play with. :\ But to each his own. I'm much better at thinking my replies than actually wording them, if ya get that.
As I know it, a few players abused the more laissez-faire attitude we had to give themselves unfair advantages rather than simply for making things more fun. As a result the staff cracked down on it, which made things less fun for everyone, unfortunately. We are slowly trying to find a good middle ground between the two though, as it was fun. I personally enjoyed the shenanigans we used to get up to,
Realism is what it is real. Fun is what we try to get to because we all hate reality. Smoke a doobie 420 blaze it forizzle my nizzles.
*Leans forwards in chair, frayed chair creaks as mushroom spores from the millions of years or dormancy on the server/forums fly off in to the air as I move* Okay, so, I'm gonna whip my two cents in where nobody asked me to. I personally had the most fun with my characters in the times of Avalon and Tallest Tree. As you said Cole, RP was more just for fun, but character building did come as a pleasant surprise, as I found out for myself. With how the colonies had looser rules on assault and combat in general, and how everyone could survive being slapped in the face with a Fat Man, those who were particularly strong or armoured coming out with only a scuff mark or two, it made physical comedy more of a possibility, which in turn seemed to just promote comedy in general. Along with that, everyone was way over the top, in personality, appearance, everything, which seemed to make people take it less seriously, or at least allow themselves to just have fun more often than recently, and those who did take it seriously, well... 25%-30% seemed to be Edge Masters of the Dark Blade Storm, and the rest had their characters actually going through drama. It seemed to be a place where both serious and "filthy casual" Role-players could have fun alike, and god damn it if it wasn't just that. At least until the staff had to crack down on it, in which case I feel they may have cracked down on it a little too hard... It seemed to be some time after Avalon and Tallest Tree got wiped that things started to go downhill. Definitely for me, since I started RPing only with a select group (and foolishly choose to take out the stress of my real life drama on them, which fucked everything up for everyone), but even then, when I did go to the hubs, things seemed to be a lot less silly in a game that is inherently silly. A couple months or so later, and then RP was more work than it was play for me, being concerned about missing big serious events happening at random and whatnot, having to put every neuron possibly into making sure I didn't piss anyone off, I stayed within the rules, etc etc, and with little to no fun in it, with how low the amount of silliness in it was. That was part of the reason why I reacted so dramatically about the forced death of Broken-Mind; I was looking for an escape to something that I originally came to for an escape. While the RP group I'm in now is by no means perfect, the lack of such restricting rulings that Antares developed made it a lot easier to be creative with my characters and actually have fun, along with the smaller size making it all much more contained and easier to keep track of, not making me constantly worry about missing something important, but that's just a side note. That's all I have to say about it; In other news, I'd love to buld some characters with you some time Cole. We should totally mark a character bulding session on our calendars. We could get a lot of good character bulding done. Yes, I'm a twat. I know. And that's all he wrote.
Then you think too hard. Have you seen my gosh diddly darn characters? They are dumb and laughable I don't make characters I can't laugh at. RP is what you make it and if you think that since the staff starts cracking down on some stuff means you can't have any fun then you're not having the right kind of fun. MY FUN CAN NEVER BE STOPPED!!
I remember dropping in on one of Johns fights back in the day. Back in the Big Tree. Watching him freeze up in battle and get taken down by a Floran. The battle arena was so fun. But we don't do that any more for no real reason. I remember attacking a military base as a one man army. Had to fight off bounty hunters for months after that. But it was always good. Always fun. And everyone was okay with me being a cackling maniac. It got tiresome eventually, but so do most things. I think if I ever feel like getting back into the server, I am going to play classic mode. Dust off an old character and really go berserk. I'd be totally down to see a battle arena again though. Spoiler Coming some time next never.
Drunk-John has returned! And with elaborations on the topic. Essentially what my main gripe about the shift in tone (which happened ages ago), there is just no way to have combat RP without the boring as fuck outcome of "Spend a week in hospital because of combat-injuries, you spaz". Realistic? Yes. Fun? No. Does lying in a hospital bed for an IRL week for it make the experience better for everyone? No. Thoughts on this appreciated! Edit: Censoring swearwords is a pussy thing to do automatically.