Ok, here's my wall of text for now. I do not ever foresee the RPC telling a guild how to operate in their own setting. That would end up causing more drama instead of lessening it. If a guild wants to put in a 1-"linkshell" rule, that's not for anyone else to say otherwise. If they want to say it's okay to RP being an alien or royal heir, that's again their choice. That being said, we have to take into consideration that many of us are going to be interacting with guilds other than our own on some level or another. And how do we do that if cultures clash so wildly? Some of us are very strict in our ways while others are very loose and open to just about anything. Neither is right or wrong.
I think we're all pretty united in getting us all on the same server. That's why we're all here after all. However, I don't think it's as simple as just tossing us there and just going our own ways. Maybe another MMO or two could do that. Most of us are coming from FFXI though, and we all know how the RP community was there. It was small, competitive, and dramatic. We have a different mentality as a result when it comes to the RP atmosphere. A lot of the communities trickling in now had the luxury of being the dominant RP group on their server forever. Sure, a shell may have died out and got replaced by another. But there was still always a dominant shell at all times. Some servers did not have this luxury. Sylph, for instance, had a total of about 15 RP linkshells over a span of 6 years. At one point, we had about 4 powerful groups clashing at the same time. Suffice to say, it got really ugly really fast. Drama leaked out onto our forums and even onto other sites like Alla. I think Asura may have had some experience in this kind of atmosphere too. I'm not too sure about other RP groups and their history, so maybe they can chime in there. The fact is, we can't just throw ourselves onto a server and think everything will take care of itself. Sylph may have benefited in having an official RPC to set us straight long ago.
Overall, I think our primary focus should be on events and that kind of stuff. But I just feel we may need a bit of structure in order to avoid future conflict. Ultimately, it'll be up to you guys though on what kind of system we adopt.
Again, I don't see us having "authority" over individual groups. It's more about authority in a cross-group setting. I think Kes and Tsumi made a lot of good points about this. If we do set universal RP standards, they wouldn’t be meant to be restrictive. For instance, let’s say we’re having a tavern night with 2-3 RP groups all attending. At some point, Castiel and Dogberry get drunk and get into a fist brawl. Now, let’s say Dogberry’s guild uses a /random type system for RP combat. That is, each player /randoms to see whether a punch connects or not. But there’s a problem. Let’s say Castiel’s group doesn’t use that system. Instead, they say whoever has the highest level/skills will be victorious in the fight. Having nothing to fall back on, you can see that there’s gonna be problems. It wouldn’t take long before people started getting accused of godmoding and tempers start flaring. That’s what I envision the RPC to exist for. We’d fall back on the rules of combat as set by the majority of Rpers. These universal standards, if adopted, would generally be broad I imagine in the sense that it wouldn't limit someone entirely. To follow Kes's example, if someone had wyvern wings, they may have to keep them "hidden" at cross-guild events but not necessarily get rid of them entirely.
In regards to resolving disputes: Yeah, I agree. I don’t think that’s very feasible. I was mostly referring to guilds who caused problems for the entire community. Let me give another Sylph example and see if it helps. At one point, we had 3 RP shells: Crystalline, Legacy, and Rescue. Another one was formed which shall remain nameless. This shell was led by a couple individuals who caused quite an uproar in every other RP shell on Sylph at some point or another (they transferred servers several times so some of you may have seen them too >.>). So they made their own shell after various disagreements. Okay, no problem we thought. We’d all just have to deal with the split community and try to persevere. So one day, this new shell makes a recruitment post on Alla. Okay, no big deal, right? Well, there was just one tiny problem. They decided in their recruitment thread to put a catchphrase: “Sylph’s last hope for Rping.†Now think about that for a moment. That statement indirectly states that that group is superior to all other RP groups on Sylph. Now there’s nothing wrong with pride in one’s shell, but that went well beyond pride. It was a direct attack against the other RP groups. Imagine for a moment someone on your server creating a new RP guild and using that same phrase, only substituting your server name for Sylph. It would likely offend quite a few people in the other RP group/groups. Suffice to say, a huge drama fest happened on Alla as a result (which could have been handled much better). They refused to remove that phrase or apologize for the message it sent. And there was nothing anyone could do about it. Now if this were to happen in Eorzea, I think the RPC should have the right to basically isolate the group (or at least the leaders of said group). No event invites, no advertisement on the coalition site, and basically no recognition by the coalition as a valid RP group. Would people still join that group? Yeah, probably. But they’d struggle and probably wouldn’t make it long after the members realized how isolated the group was in comparison to the rest of the community. People are definately loyal, but they're not masochists either.
I think we're all pretty united in getting us all on the same server. That's why we're all here after all. However, I don't think it's as simple as just tossing us there and just going our own ways. Maybe another MMO or two could do that. Most of us are coming from FFXI though, and we all know how the RP community was there. It was small, competitive, and dramatic. We have a different mentality as a result when it comes to the RP atmosphere. A lot of the communities trickling in now had the luxury of being the dominant RP group on their server forever. Sure, a shell may have died out and got replaced by another. But there was still always a dominant shell at all times. Some servers did not have this luxury. Sylph, for instance, had a total of about 15 RP linkshells over a span of 6 years. At one point, we had about 4 powerful groups clashing at the same time. Suffice to say, it got really ugly really fast. Drama leaked out onto our forums and even onto other sites like Alla. I think Asura may have had some experience in this kind of atmosphere too. I'm not too sure about other RP groups and their history, so maybe they can chime in there. The fact is, we can't just throw ourselves onto a server and think everything will take care of itself. Sylph may have benefited in having an official RPC to set us straight long ago.
Overall, I think our primary focus should be on events and that kind of stuff. But I just feel we may need a bit of structure in order to avoid future conflict. Ultimately, it'll be up to you guys though on what kind of system we adopt.
Again, I don't see us having "authority" over individual groups. It's more about authority in a cross-group setting. I think Kes and Tsumi made a lot of good points about this. If we do set universal RP standards, they wouldn’t be meant to be restrictive. For instance, let’s say we’re having a tavern night with 2-3 RP groups all attending. At some point, Castiel and Dogberry get drunk and get into a fist brawl. Now, let’s say Dogberry’s guild uses a /random type system for RP combat. That is, each player /randoms to see whether a punch connects or not. But there’s a problem. Let’s say Castiel’s group doesn’t use that system. Instead, they say whoever has the highest level/skills will be victorious in the fight. Having nothing to fall back on, you can see that there’s gonna be problems. It wouldn’t take long before people started getting accused of godmoding and tempers start flaring. That’s what I envision the RPC to exist for. We’d fall back on the rules of combat as set by the majority of Rpers. These universal standards, if adopted, would generally be broad I imagine in the sense that it wouldn't limit someone entirely. To follow Kes's example, if someone had wyvern wings, they may have to keep them "hidden" at cross-guild events but not necessarily get rid of them entirely.
In regards to resolving disputes: Yeah, I agree. I don’t think that’s very feasible. I was mostly referring to guilds who caused problems for the entire community. Let me give another Sylph example and see if it helps. At one point, we had 3 RP shells: Crystalline, Legacy, and Rescue. Another one was formed which shall remain nameless. This shell was led by a couple individuals who caused quite an uproar in every other RP shell on Sylph at some point or another (they transferred servers several times so some of you may have seen them too >.>). So they made their own shell after various disagreements. Okay, no problem we thought. We’d all just have to deal with the split community and try to persevere. So one day, this new shell makes a recruitment post on Alla. Okay, no big deal, right? Well, there was just one tiny problem. They decided in their recruitment thread to put a catchphrase: “Sylph’s last hope for Rping.†Now think about that for a moment. That statement indirectly states that that group is superior to all other RP groups on Sylph. Now there’s nothing wrong with pride in one’s shell, but that went well beyond pride. It was a direct attack against the other RP groups. Imagine for a moment someone on your server creating a new RP guild and using that same phrase, only substituting your server name for Sylph. It would likely offend quite a few people in the other RP group/groups. Suffice to say, a huge drama fest happened on Alla as a result (which could have been handled much better). They refused to remove that phrase or apologize for the message it sent. And there was nothing anyone could do about it. Now if this were to happen in Eorzea, I think the RPC should have the right to basically isolate the group (or at least the leaders of said group). No event invites, no advertisement on the coalition site, and basically no recognition by the coalition as a valid RP group. Would people still join that group? Yeah, probably. But they’d struggle and probably wouldn’t make it long after the members realized how isolated the group was in comparison to the rest of the community. People are definately loyal, but they're not masochists either.
