The Most Important Tip to New Players

Trileobe

I've always wondered is newbie channel ooc? cause could of sworn saw someone over that way yesterday asking to compare Aetolia and Achaea

Tharvis

from help channel :

Newbie channel is for questions and answers about how to play the game: no
chatting please. Due to its nature, it is entirely possible that some questions
may be entirely OOC in scope. We recommend turning this channel off if you do
not wish to be exposed to OOC communications from new players "learning the
ropes."

so yes, newbie can be OOC, but most OOC questions asked on newbie will end up being handled in tells

Trileobe

@Tharvis‌ Ahhh i always just assumed OOC for newbie channel was handled by sending tell to Juliet/Romeo

Kresslack

Trileobe said:

@Antonius‌ forums is half the fun, well until they suck you in and you forget Achaea is a game and not just a bunch of forums people come to rage and talk nonsense

and @Tesha‌ I'd happily have Tea with everyone but Ashtanis never want to come over for tea i even offer to meet in Cyrene since that is neutral grounds maybe possibly

The forums are like the Matrix. You've already been awoken to them and now there's no going back. That being said, you, me and a couple cups of tea. And by tea I mean I'll be having rum, naturally, all the while lauding how great Mhaldor is and pointing out why you should leave Neo-Shallam Targossas and join Team Evil.

Iocun

I always found it super weird when people were reprimanded for going OOC on the newbie channel.

I mean, actually imagining the channel to be an IC institution would be a fairly large stretch to me. "Newbie" itself is a pretty OOC concept, then there's the fact that mentors from all factions help newbies from all factions without prejudice, then there's the ridiculous names "Romeo and Juliet", and last but not least, the important questions newbies will generally have are mostly OOC in nature.

Trying to be IC on newbie usually only results in trying to say OOC things without using blatantly OOC words.

Sarapis

They should never be reprimanded for being OOC on the newbie channel. That's what it's there for.

Perhaps an OOCTell is in order, with the option to allow people to turn it off so that they can't receive them if they don't want to get OOC tells.

For myself, I've never found it difficult to just use tells for both IC and OOC and never had a problem telling the difference (just like with messages), but I can see where an OOCTell option would keep things clear for people. I will say that as far as I'm concerned though, if we put it in and you use OOCtell to harass someone or insult someone, I'd have no issue with treating it exactly like an IC tell and it resulting in PK.

Severina

Sarapis said:

...

 I will say that as far as I'm concerned though, if we put it in and you use OOCtell to harass someone or insult someone, I'd have no issue with treating it exactly like an IC tell and it resulting in PK.

Please make it okay to apply the above to OOC clans.

Nim

Being harassed OOCly sounds more like grounds for IGNORE or ISSUEing than PKing, to me... unless you're implying actual murder, which I advise against because RL pk rules might be open-ended on the divine level, but player orgs make Cyrene (PKing) and Targossas (hunting) both look overly lenient.

Sarapis

I've been very tempted to, Severina.

Personally, as a God, I don't care where you say something. If it says, "Severina says" then that's good enough for me - Severina said it. Makes no difference to me that it's in a clan considered OOC. Likewise, if you send me a nasty message prefaced with OOC, it makes not a whit of difference to me that you're sending it OOCly. I will ICly zap you or <fill in the blank punishment meted out by Sarapis>.

Iocun

One problem about this is where to draw the line between serious harassment/insults and lighthearted smack talk.

When I roleplay my character, I tend to choose my words with greater care than when fooling around on OOC channels. When you make a "your mom" joke to a Mhaldorian IC, you should expect it to be treated as an actual insult, whereas the same joke on an OOC channel is generally harmless and certainly doesn't warrant it being brought IC and result in a PK.

And when harassment on OOC channels becomes truly serious, it's going to be beyond the scope of PKing the offender anyways and should be dealt with through OOC means (e.g. issuing). Allowing people to deal with OOC insults through PK would also unfairly favour those who can PK.

The whole point of an OOCTell mechanic is to make IC/OOC separation clearer and reduce the number of times when people get into arguments and soon have no idea of which aspects were IC and which were OOC.

Mathonwy

In re: OOC tells:

The people who rage in says after dying aren't gonna stop raging in says because there's an OOC method they should be using. Similarly, the people who rage at people in tells aren't going to not rage at them because their OOCTells are off; they'll just use regular tells.

Like it seems like it would be implemented because of some edge cases (that could be handled now via issues), but those edge cases would continue to exist in spite of the mechanic (and would anyway because Achaea's cultural mores look down on issuing, even if it's legitimate).

Iocun

Mathonwy said:

In re: OOC tells:

The people who rage in says after dying aren't gonna stop raging in says because there's an OOC method they should be using. Similarly, the people who rage at people in tells aren't going to not rage at them because their OOCTells are off; they'll just use regular tells.

Like it seems like it would be implemented because of some edge cases (that could be handled now via issues), but those edge cases would continue to exist in spite of the mechanic (and would anyway because Achaea's cultural mores look down on issuing, even if it's legitimate).

Well, I don't see OOCTells as a means to enforce better IC/OOC separation, but more as an "educative tool".

Sure, some people already separate IC and OOC very clearly, while others will never get the distinction, no matter what mechanics you add, but to many who lie somewhere between those extremes, the mere existence of two separate forms of tell may well help to engrain the concept of separating your IC persona from your real self, even more so when newbies are being guided to using both for their intended purpose from the get-go.

Jules

OOCTells as the main (perhaps in many cases only) way to have OOC chatter seems like it will result in tears.  If something like this is going to happen, I really do think everyone will be happiest with some sort of totally OOC org channel/org channels.  That way when someone pisses them off they can vent to their fellow org members rather than rashly sending some PK God tells that will result in further ass whoopings - of course, that means we actually have to be understanding and let them vent most of the time.  Also, if you guys start allowing people to treat OOCTells as something they can PK for, ooooo boy.  It seems to really fly in the face of how you've historically handled IC vs. OOC when it comes to PK.  There will be many tears, and some of them will probably be Lathis'.  It's your game though!  

Severina

Nim said:

Being harassed OOCly sounds more like grounds for IGNORE or ISSUEing than PKing, to me... unless you're implying actual murder, which I advise against because RL pk rules might be open-ended on the divine level, but player orgs make Cyrene (PKing) and Targossas (hunting) both look overly lenient.

While I understand their purpose and for the most part agree with their existence, IGNORE and ISSUE both ultimately serve to artificially limit interaction and the ability to check someone's (anti)social behaviour via typical means.

Given that the methods available in-game and any one person's power or skill in their use (both 'physical' and social) are pretty artificial as well (I doubt there's much parity between the capabilities of a player and the character they play), I don't really mind the artificial mechanisms of IGNORE/ISSUE being in place.

Still, sometimes it would be nice to be able to just throw an elbow when clan chatter (or other OOC communication) turns into xbawks shit-talking just for the sake of holding someone accountable in a self-regulating social atmosphere.

The status quo is fine, I just feel it may be more interesting to have a softer line between 'this is all acceptable, deal with it' and 'seeya, leafy'.

Kresslack

Sarapis said:

I've been very tempted to, Severina.

Personally, as a God, I don't care where you say something. If it says, "Severina says" then that's good enough for me - Severina said it. Makes no difference to me that it's in a clan considered OOC. Likewise, if you send me a nasty message prefaced with OOC, it makes not a whit of difference to me that you're sending it OOCly. I will ICly zap you or <fill in the blank punishment meted out by Sarapis>.

I have an issue with this when it comes to certain methods of communication, such as HT, HNT, CT, and says. If it's in a party, tell, message, or clan, I don't concern myself with it much. I generally use Parties while sailing as a means of OOC communication so it's not just a bunch of people sitting on a ship in awkward silence (which is rarely an issue if you're sailing with @Herenicus, but still).

When it comes to tells and messages still, I tend to indicate an OOC nature by prefixing it with '//'.

And if people just rage and/or attempt to harass me for whatever reason, I'll disregard them and mark them down as someone not to interact with. If they keep going, I'll eventually utilize the IGNORE feature. It's worked liked a charm for the only person I had to ignore: Dajio.

Kayeil

I think you'd be doing yourself a disfavour by sticking to one mentor. My character has had a handful over the course of her lifetime for varying reasons and lengths of time. Though I've pretty much reached all my goals at this point, next to being my very close friend I also still consider @Seragorn‌ to be my ongoing mentor and I am not sure if that'll ever change. He still always has much to teach, and I enjoy learning from him.