*Would flip a table* Alright... I'm going to state this out in the open. I feel like there's a certain bias floating around the roleplay community out of character wise. And I'm going to include the forums in this because, as I've seen it, some people would rather not leave this open to discussion, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be discussed.... I want you all to keep in mind that as a public roleplay community, we should be open to discussion, planning, and CRITIQUE of our roleplay plotlines and style. Now to begin I'd like to point out that there are people on the server with more influence than others in the overall workings of the galaxy. Notably colony leaders who run major areas for roleplay have a lot more influence than your fresh-on-the-server roleplayer. I appreciate the time these individuals put into roleplay, however there's been a readily apparent dynamic that's been occurring. I'll sum it up like this: New person joins server --> New person joins colony --> New person follows colony leader (And develops a sense of ooc friendliness from the entire community) This wouldn't be bad, that is, if there wasn't a clique mentality that develops alongside it. Most people when they join the server are desperate to find a place to meet others. Everyone recruits for their own colony and starts building a populace, but along with that populace, people start to associate themselves out of character with the community, and could see other colonies as not up to par as their own specialized group. This ooc bond helps people in enjoying the roleplay. But it's also created a shift in metagaming and how people interact with others oocly. I'm going to directly bring Avalon and Tallest Trees into this (Not exclude other colonies, but I've had firsthand experience with trouble coming from these two, and Avalon and Tallest Tree are intertwined in OOC and RP interactions.) So we have Avalon, a bustling metropolis, and Tallest Trees, a tribal Floran village/capital. Provided for the server are two fantastic environments for roleplay, each with a decently sized community of people. Yet with these two colonies there are major flaws. Avalon, with all of it's metropolis glory, seems to have most of it's roleplay largely in the bar... that, and the government only comprises of a Hyotyl woman that everyone in Avalon tends to follow. No matter the roleplay reasons for this, ooc wise there have been hostility when people criticize the group in Avalon. Everyone follows Aiko, and if there is someone who is against her, suddenly the entirety of Avalon is against them. This includes ooc. The major flaw here is that not only is Avalon a place for new people to start out in the server, it has a biased community because everyone tries to be in good favor with Aiko. You'd think there'd be a better sense of a metropolis with a form of government that does not include one lady who stays in the bar most of the time getting drunk (As is her reputation IC), only to order people off the colony because she dislikes them. Now, just saying that, I bet a most of the community of Avalon would counter that with another argument point. Valid or not in countering for Avalon, people need to see that despite that, they themselves have possibly joined the clique with Aiko's band of bar customers. IS there any room for change? Would someone in the community rise up and possibly take over Aiko's spot as the colony leader? For all we know, Aiko could easily be assassinated by some mad man in the bar later down the story.... BUT nobody roleplaying as a resident in Avalon would think of that possibility with the OOC assumption that Aiko rules all of Avalon, no matter how she carries out her roleplay, and whoever doesn't like it can 'leave'. Keep that in mind, I'll move onto Tallest Tree. Tallest Tree, with it's reputation has had waves in these past couple of weeks. That chief sure is strong right? Wrong! Not saying he isn't powerful as the head of a colony... and that his flaws aren't acceptable (Such as hiring mercenaries and glitch to do his dirty work, favoring women characters, being in a relationship with Aiko and possibly other races of women he's encountered, whilst boasting on the radio about how strong he is), yet the capacity of OOC unfairness is staggering. As a colony leader, and a tribal leader, Firedrinker holds himself in a very very dangerous position in the roleplay. He spends time in his tribe, but he's also joined the bandwagon clique with Aiko. Firedrinker is very vulnerable while he's in Avalon. Out of his element, and with all the threats on his life, you'd think he'd be snugged out by now. However because of the community in Avalon, since Aiko enjoy's Firedrinker and Floran company, so does everyone else (To a certain extent). I've made a previous post in the discussion analyzing and criticizing this dynamic. The only people who posted to discuss more was someone who was staying in Tallest Tree at the time, and also a moderator. Soon after, that thread was closed... [ http://community.playstarboundrp.com/threads/the-tallest-trees-issue.527/ ] In another thread, I posted something on the ooc humor that was going on regarding Tallest Trees. Getting a rough response from people shortly after, the thread was closed, as seen by Firedrinker that it was "going anywhere else but a bad place." [http://community.playstarboundrp.com/threads/tallest-tree-welcomes-you.1248/#post-11631] SO... People might be responding soon that If I don't appreciate or like roleplaying in these colonies, or around such a community, then I shouldn't play with them at all. And to this I say NO. NO. This is a public roleplay server. I've had a character that's progressed through the story, who has ultimately been affected by Avalon and Tallest Tree directly. My character was killed because of the course of events that went down. While acceptable as this is, my quarrel is that Avalon and Tallest Tree won't regard future actions of my character's counterpart to hold water. The chief could easily void the possibility of being, say, kidnapped, or murdered. Even with that, he could just come back, brand new, as a clone. Avalon could keep going on the way it has been, with a bias only for Aiko's tastes. Since this is a public server, we should manage things better and we should also understand the difference between IC and OOC. Think, if the colony leaders of Avalon and Tallest Tree got off their OOC high horses, and planned out the roleplay more openly with everyone else, then the story could benefit greatly, and new people to the server won't have to walk into the game of 'Welcome to highschool, pick a clique and stick with it!' I'm not perfect. I'm not some godsend moderator or roleplay master. But I'd love to see more felxibility with the colonies. You've got to watch out for the occasional individual godmodder who wants to destroy places without hard work rp wise, but you can't deny changes if they're planned out, worked up, and agreed with OOC wise. So, tell me what you all think! Don't feel afraid to post what your opinions are, all I suggest is that you keep a good mild mannered sense about you before calling people out negatively. If anything, criticize productively and know that we're all here on the server to enjoy the roleplay. [Edit* There's a lot more I haven't covered, which is why I'm leaving this up to discussion as well] [Edit* Please note that this is largely a rant. Some of what I say might be true, or could be skewed just from a perception of what's going on in the server. Don't take this into account against the colonies mentioned and feel free to just discuss your opinions or ideas, critical or not, to further the conversation. Thank you]
Public roleplay is a community effort. We all have to work together. I'll not mandate anything on anyone else unless absolutely neccesary, but you've got a few good points. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if anything can be done about it. Every place I've ever roleplayed (primarily in Neverwinter Nights) was always in two states: A) Highly populated with social 'cliques', or B) Mostly deserted, with a bit of decent RP from time to time. I think the issue arises with how large our community is. The same thing happens in real life. Kids pick on other kids when their friends do, to be accepted. Teens go partying because it's the 'cool' thing to do. Adults laugh when their boss laughs, hoping for a promotion. If we want to get psychiatric about it, I think it's just a part of human nature. We can try and deal with it, but there's always going to be a little bit of it there. Roleplay doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be fun.
1). Have you even asked these colony leaders about planned roleplay? 2). Firedrinker's character has come within an inch of death and has sparked some rather large consequences because of his actions that he acknowledges both IC and OOC, so your accusations against him are completely baseless. 3). If you're not happy about the existing colonies, set up your own or join another. You can't force people to change their roleplay because of your whims. If a group of players are not willing to cooperate and refuse to change their position, avoid them. 4). avalon sux
I get the concern, I do. I'd like to clear up that I honestly don't EVER remember snuffing people out of Avalon. I rarely exclude ANYONE. I try my best to talk and have a good time with all the people who visit, but that's pretty much impossible. The only people I boot out IC are people running around with guns trying to kill each other and murderers. Not sure if I really got what you were saying there, but thats how I interpreted it. I need to vent here, how bloody hard it is trying to remember, manage, and deal with all the stuff that goes on in a colony like Avalon. People are constantly coming up with "Im a badass and Im going to shoot this guy and then hate on Avalon for not stopping me" RP. Its exhausting, and I've tried establishing a defence force to deal with it IC but yada yada yada that clearly failed. People follow Aiko IC because shes just suppose to be a generally positive, loveable and a fun-loving person. Obviously I never intended to be the head of a metropolis like that but hey, shit happens! I don't even know what I'm doing! I'm trying to gather a few more hands to help govern Avalon anyway. What a train wreck ;D I'm happy to accept concerns and take them into consideration so I can try to fix things~ Also sorry if I blabbed, made no sense, and didn't even understand what you were saying. Im at work and a little distracted :c
The only reason people chill in the bar is because it is where us newer RPers can make connections. I only tend towards Avalon because I don't have to go through a huge wait to get in like Mattis or have to worry about being killed like on Tall Tree. For use newer members if you can get the Coords Avalon it is a much friendlier environment to start from. If someone could propose a proper solution to having only one place to start safely and quickly from then please tell me. I figured that an "Immigration Hub" may help (note I say help) eliminate the biased caused by a panic to fit in. That and it would add an entirely new area and more roleplay and story depth for new characters. To be honest I am just a new person to the servers so you can ignore me if you want but I just wanted to get my thoughts out here.
Ahaha, I intended Avalon to be a nice, peaceful, fun place where new people could meet people and start off. .. But that crashed and burned like 5000 planes stuffed to the brim with C4 crashing into each other over an ocean of gasoline
I would really suggest an Immigration Hub on the start planet so that we can have an environment for new players to form groups, meet new people, find jobs, ect. Kind of like Avalon with less of the mass shootings, and murder. Maybe that is a pipe dream but oh well..
Unless you're Corvus. He can't drink with his meds. Yeah, but I don't know, perhaps a bit of in-between overpopulation and ghost-town stuff would be good. I think we need to just make sure that more people know about the other places.
Talons Reach is just starting up. I specifically made the coords so easy to remember that they can be shared quickly. It's also Alpha Sector. So I had starting players in mind since I hated waiting too. It once took me 2 hours to finally get coords to a place. With mine, I can remember it on the fly. Also, about the hub... Chuckle Fish confirmed that they plan to make teleporters between worlds in the future. So you could easily have a hub that links up to every single colony. It's probably months away from happening, but starting early wouldn't be a horrible thing.
A hub/started world has been suggested before. Problem is, you gotta find a person or group of people willing to run that mess (any and all lackluster RPers and griefers will start there) and that could turn off actual good candidates. I personally would not want to run that mess of a hub, as it would have to be rebuilt daily, with old structures being taken down. There is OOC and IC bias when you go to Fort Mattis. I won't say there isn't. Its a faction colony. IC bias has to happen, and OOC bias will happen no matter what you do. People will befriend the people they RP with as opposed to any other group. We try our best to alleviate it but that's the way it is. Myself and Aiko have been working tirelessly to remove all the hate, and we've made great strides. But really there isn't much you can do about it. We talked about how nothing big ever happens. It's true, it's almost impossible to coordinate anything large scale because the playerbase rotates every week. Anyone here last week is rarely here this week. Most colony leaders have been here from the start and can attest to that. I myself have been trying to at least make events for my faction/colony. I even built (with the help of ardub, hawke and bloodrazer, as well as eleven) The Mawl to act as a public event area for server wide roleplays to happen. It's young, and not much has happened (yet) but I try to allude to it as much as possible. Tl;DR stick around, be patient. Your first impression may be a negative one, but give the server time to settle. Addendum: Also, you may want yo rephrase the title and whatnot. It comes across as passive aggressive. At least, it did to me. I'm pretty sure you're just joking though.
Alright! I'm liking this! It's just kind of mixed having only a perception of how the colonies work. I of course am not a colony leader (yet) so from that stand point I'm forgetting the work that goes into running a colony. I'm glad that despite my critique that you guys took it well. Well.. except for Sen... *Glares* .... just kidding, but yeah, maybe in the future something can be fleshed out to help spur roleplay on, again like it was mentioned, large events and some way to have some engaging roleplay rather than the occasional badass character that steps in to try to take the show... Maybe we could have some sort of rule of thumb as far as how people could join the server successfully without having a already successful or baseless tough badass character. Maybe people could always start with a pretty normal character and once they have the feel of the rp and community can devise more complex characters... Hmmm
Quality control is the toughest thing to enforce, because people can just say "you're stifling my creativity". I for one fully support quality control, and am pretty sure that lackluster RP is already a bannable offence.
It would depend how lackluster.... lackluster in daily life, sure.... but I've seen lackluster rp with guns and the possibility of death. In that case, anything involving injury or death, unless by some horribly non violent comedic method, can and should be considered a serious shift in the roleplay direction. People who pull out a gun and jokingly threaten others unless their character has the tenacity or stupidity to do so would, I think, change the scene of the roleplay. It possibly tends to happen in bars or public hangouts. The reaction to a gun might not always seem logical either, because some people might consider their characters badass enough to not respond like their life is on the line... and this would make crime rp hard to pull off without getting that one odd person laughing and ignoring the fact that a gun is being pointed at them.
^see every single time someone on this server has pulled a gun on someone. "Haha you're going to shoot me? I'll just clone" "Pfft a real badass would fight me" "I have lightning reflexes and will blow us up before your bullet connects" Next time someone pulls a gun on me before I can pull mine, I will act accordingly. "Don't shoot!"
Hell, if anyone feels like they've been run off of avalon it is probably because blood has run them out of his bar where we have acknowledged is where 90% of RP happens on avalon. I will gladly take the blame for that, Though this is avoidable by just following the rules he has set for his bar. On topic though, I stick by what I said in the second thread on TT you posted. If you have a problem with the way we do things talk to us in private. I know fire and aiko are generally good people IRL and would at least listen to what you had to say. If you do decide to go public with it however, the best way to get people to listen to your argument is to go neutral with it and be less confrontational. there is a style of essay known as the rogerian essay where the author tries to be as neutral as humanly possible, it works great for getting more people to read and accept your arguments. I can personally attest that it works wonders. EDIT: also, I apologize if anything I have said thus far has seemed off base or totally unfounded. once again though, If you wish to talk to my about my or bloods faults then PM me.
This is basically what I was going to say. I honestly feel that this was a very inappropriate way to handle a lot of things that essentially came down to personal problems you have with a couple of people. While, on one hand, I can understand some of the frustrations you're trying to get across, OP, publicly criticizing others isn't exactly conducive towards fostering better roleplay connections, either. It's also good, as Sen pointed out, to know what's going on before you post things like this. I've heard about a lot of things going on with Tallest Trees and Firedrinker lately. That may be because I run in a circle that's been involved, but if we, non-TT citizens, can get involved in a storyline with TT, I expect many others could as well. You have to be willing to put yourself out there and give. This isn't a game of 100% take, after all, and roleplay never should be.
We have tried to do this in the past, running an open tournament, the whole awfully built nuke thing with the USCM, contracting for mercenary help. All of this was done to bring people in and give everyone a better sense of who we are and what we do. Even just recently chief, yung, john, and I were trying to find ways to get tallest involved with the other colonies and get people to come.
I havent seen these issues in fort mattis. After leaving Opportunity Tarl joined the USN. He got involved with rp there rediculously easy. Only went to Abolgna once and while it was pretty it didnt fit the RP direction I was going for with Tarl. I kniw Ashe recruits like a fiend but player turnover is a bitch heh. Plus I know USCM gets bired. We love players calling for fuel/aid because we all hop on a ship and go yo em. Gibes us some rp outside the fort ((pologoes for grammar. Big finfers, tiny touchscreen))
