Barbie? As some of you might know, back before my hiatus that came gratis with college, I would, with relative infrequency, post up "Community Opinion" polls, trying to gauge community opinion (woooah) on different topics that seemed pertinent to the environment at the time. Now, I've been on hiatus for a while, but have returned in recent times (except this last week, finals). So I want to start aiming to get more opinions again. Now. Usually the format is something like: "The issue" "My Opinion" "Counterarguement" "Your Opinion Below Please", but Bar Sitting is something that vexes me on a different planar field than previous topics. I find it odd mostly because in the server that I first played in (Unbound Travels), things went pretty free of Bar RP for a good while before it hit us like a hammer to character development. Here it seems to be just as instilled and long-lived. But the question is, why bar RP? Almost no one likes it, and yet it remains the most common form of RP. I know its not persistent, a lot of people do get up and go about. But much of the time, especially for newcomers, their first experiences will be within a bar. So, instead of trying to give my opinion/counter-opinions on this matter, I'm going to ask something else. Do you like Bar RP? If not, what can we, as a community, do to free ourselves from its stagnant shackles.
Bar RP is not a bad thing. It is simply that any form of roleplay involving conflict has been utterly ruined on this server, which leaves... bar RP.
I suppose the issue is anything that becomes totalitarian in its domination of the market. Bar RP currently rests at the top with a bigger crown than it should have. I'd say it probably has something to do with it being the easiest, most convenient, and often most readily available form. It self-perpetuates.
Bar RP is the equivalent to City RP, Camp RP, <Insert-Commonly-Traveled-Area-Here> RP, of other roleplaying mediums and communities. Clumping together for RP is actually typical.
Hm. The difference here, as Sen stated, is that Bar RP has been allowed to drown out other types of RP by any number of means. Namely the huge lack of conflict RP. Until recently, conflict RP was often met with voiding, moderator intervention, OOC fighting and the always wonderful "Magicking away". For instance: The recent advertisement of healing potions on the Starnet. Though voided, rightfully, the core ideal behind their inception is what bothers me. "I am tired of seeing people affected by conflict." While that is a good ideology it is not a good Meta-behavior. Conflict should happen in the world. I can be pushed down the stairs tomorrow, or get hit by a car, or step wrong and break my ankle. These things can happen. In Antares, multiply that 10 fold for the fact that it is a frontier in space and then divide by 2 for general lack of population. Point is: Conflict should not be avoided. The alienation of conflict is the issue here. Rather than avoiding conflict, people should make use of it. They should take advantage of it and put it toward character development and interest. That's the point of a large RP community like this, variables. Half the time there's no point planning ahead, because that plan's going to be made null. Fighting that is a bad behavior to get in the habit of.
I think the other issue is that most players on this server are completely incapable of comprehending conflict RP beyond violence. Not only does that mean that conflict roleplay of a non-violent form is rare; when there is such roleplay, often one party quickly resorts to violence as the go-to solution. Just look at Skarti's character - a character that presents a form of non-violent conflict, and is almost always met with "GET OUR OR I KIL U" from players who simply do not know how to formulate a civil response and would much rather play out their violent power fantasies.
Violence in RP, from what I've seen, is almost unavoidable, especially in a frontier setting where there are no major powers to enforce any sort of law outside of the local peace keepers for each colony. That being said, I very much dislike combat RP of any kind. It doesn't appeal to me and it's hard to keep fair without rolling a die for each action (which requires an impartial third party) or relying on the honor system (which is not always trustworthy). But, even so, I get the feeling that people resort to violence as a response to conflict either because they don't know how else to react, or they assume that's what's expected of them. It feels like it's mainly due to the fact that it's pretty much just the norm on this server. It's what people are used to, whether it's what they want or not. If people want to get away from the violence and RP conflict in more ways than just "He insulted me, he must die", they need to start doing it. Things won't change unless you make them change. Alright, now, bar RP (because I don't wanna be completely off-topic with this post). I can't say I care much for it, again, it doesn't appeal to me. I do feel like it takes away from the server's potential just a little bit, when everyone hangs out in a bar showing off how badass they are. But, I won't blame people for this, I feel like it's been this way ever since the almost-constant colony wipes we had a few months back. That seemed to be the point in time when server events seemed to just stop, now most events are private. So, of course, this leaves us with a bunch of people that are mostly unassociated with any factions, so they flock to the one place where people almost always seem to be; Bars.
Here's how it works: > First person on planet beams down. > Since nobody is around, maybe they hang out at the most commonly-used area (Usually the bar) and see if anyone shows up. > Another person beams down. > They look around, but nobody is anywhere but in the bar, so they go to the bar. > Another person beams down. > Nobody is anywhere but in the bar, so they go to the bar. > Repat for all eternity.
YOU CAN THANK THE STAFF FOR THIS. Good work on championing new policies that mandate that all factions, including factions backed by major social powers that have reasonable laws like "don't murder at random", must be on par with idiot chaotic evil could-never-exist-in-the-real-world violent factions.
I'm honestly not sure what can be done to weaken Bar RP and strengthen other forms of RP. Bars just happen to be the one place where everyone converges, and therefore the most interaction with others can occur, which leads to more likely character development. I don't particularly like it myself, but it's rather handy for this one character I'm playing right now who has no ship and (in theory) is the target of a lot of prejudice towards them, which I'm trying to make the center of their character. The main problem I have with unplanned Combat RP (and I stress the "unplanned" part, since that's where these issues tend to come from) is that they more often than not disintegrate into OOC arguments. Said arguments tend to be about, "Hey dude, that's not fair", "What do you mean? That is fair because of X", "This thing's OP" "PLUCK YOU I'M AWESOME" "NO I'M AWESOMER" etc. Yeah, yeah, you can always just try to ignore Billy Badasses, but I've even seen OOC arguing between two decent RPers when it comes to unplanned conflict. It just really seems to be something that doesn't work out well.
Sometimes I think that violent conflict RP should be done in another game where you are supposed to keep track of your bullets, your environment and is generally geared towards shooting things. Like Ghost Recon, or maybe Blacklight Retribution. I think that would help resolve violent RP more tha just emote and hope the other person goes along with it. Might not be the best idea but it does avoid the whole OOC rageclash matter. Unless the other person whines about dying.
There's also a bunch of games that support CQC battles, Spaceship dogfights, mech vs mech fighting (like hawken), or massive ground-to-ground, ground-to-air and air-to-air battles, like Planetside 2 or EVE 514. My point being, there is really a wide variety of ways to fix conflict RP and make it enjoyable while adding other elements to it. Of course the main RPing will still happen here on SB.
I think we should encourage people to take a different route in their RP, not exactly remove BaRP. Many people like BaRP, I honestly didn't mind till I saw this post. A lot of thing have been slowing down ingame, I find myself more and more often in the bar. It's a good place to make allies in the frontier... but for what purpose if there's no huge threats? I'm aware people are making terrorist threats to Antares, which is good. It'd be great to actually have a large event where the bar gets blown up. That'd help. :3 Jokes aside there's something we could do to at least give people another look at the way/type of RP they perform, how often, why, et cetera.
bar rp is fucking great you people dont know a shit bar rp is superior rp best rp for my edge rp suckers
Bar RP is popular because people like to gather together, for RP. Usually, you need an excuse to go somewhere. A bar is a place people can go to to get a drink, or rent a room, or just cool down. People are usually there, and RP may occur with them. It builds off itself. As for conflict RP...well...People are -way- to quick to jump to violence. Conflict and violence are not the same thing. The reason that it does usually advance to OOC-ness, voiding, or moderator intervention is because most of the time, the people who are very quick to jump to violence are the ones that think there character is billy bad-ass and can take on anyone. Most of the time. I've seen plenty of unplanned violence that resulted in all parties included just going with it, and it turned out great. There will always be arguments, because everyone sees things differently. A good RPer will win, AND LOSE, equally. Sad thing is, there are some people who dont realize or want to believe that.
Bar RP or also known as not a problem. Nothing stops you from introducing a different kind of RP to others, really.
If you feel it's a problem, try different ways to move players out of it. Events, galaxy communications (I have seen a few players trying it that way), even attack the opposite part of the colony, since everyone is t the bar, steal something, and beam away before they can even reach you. To avoid conflict? Partially. It's simply hard to move anyone when there's no needs for anything, except a few surprises where you can get involved yourself with other players by chances. Anyone can be able to create an event which forces to move players out of their stools, it takes a bit of presure and begin rolling the ball... in any possible form. The 'they don't want conflict' is an overused excuse which doesn't apply to every case. It's not a matter of being the most common rp. It's not a matter of avoiding conflict. It's a matter that, speaking generally, no one wants to roll the ball, always trying to devise grand plans from point zero, signing up to do something, but in the end no one sets the ball to roll. We spend an excessive amount of time planning, organizing, coordinating, and in the end no one does anything. Because it dies in first stage, or has very life in it. That's why I usually prefer smaller plans. Organize something at small scale, making sense of it, and let it grow. If it has a good base, it will be able to do so. I'm personally fed up of that attitude, and I don't blame bar rp of this situation. I blame the players.
BarRP is not a bad thing, infact, it's almost an integral part to any rp server. But when barRP is pretty much the only thing going on for extended periods of time? Ugh.
