Just so you guys know, all of this will eventually be made up into an official draft to be voted on and then placed on the main site. Before that though, this discussion will remain active for as long as necessary. Plus, there’s still more to probably hammer out regarding who we are.
To sum up, this seems to be where we are right now on this issue:
Neutrality and Authority
The majority so far seems to favor the RPC remaining a neutral body and staying out of conflicts unless it affects the entire RP community. The question is, how far should we take this neutrality? When -do- we step in? Obviously, any kind of conflict on these particular forums will be dealt with accordingly by myself and/or the moderation team. But what about outside of here? Let’s do a couple examples just to get it out there.
Let’s say there’s a particular individual who’s causing problems for other Rpers. Now if this individual is causing disruptions just for one guild, that’s probably going to be their issue to deal with. But what if this troublemaker is wreaking havoc on more than one guild? They could be sabotaging events in an OOC manner, harassing lots of people, and just outright being a pain in the arse for everyone. Do we just tell everyone to suck it up and /blist the person or does the RPC make a formal complaint to the troublemaker’s guild leaders? And if the guild does nothing to help resolve the issue, does that mean the RPC then reserves the right to “tell†them to boot the troublemaker or be booted from RPC? Depending on the nature of the troublemaker, I suppose several GM calls could simply be made. But what if it’s something a GM can’t do anything about? Such as smear campaigns against various guilds on other sites like Zam, etc? How far do we go with neutrality?
Another example that focuses on a guild rather than an individual member: Let’s go with the example I made earlier about the linkshell who made the comment “Sylph’s last hope for Rping†on a recruitment post on Alla. Let’s assume we all end up voting on our server and end up on the Cid server (no idea how the naming scheme will be so this is just an example). We’re all doing our own thing with our own guilds when suddenly a new one crops up and puts a recruitment post on Alla claming they’re “Cid’s last hope for RP.†Whether they believe that or not is irrelevant. It still remains horrible etiquette and is rather offensive to the rest of us. How far do we take neutrality there?
RPC standards
RPC standards for cross-guild happenings are generally going to be broad and accepted by the general community. For instance, I’m sure we’ll all end up agreeing that someone should mark OOC comments with parenthesis or some other marker when at cross-guild events. But other standards may end up being more controversial. Following my example with the tavern brawl earlier, some people may despise the battle system implemented by the RPC. Do we just tell them to suck it up while at the event? I suppose if they hated a particular standard, they could simply avoid getting into a situation like a cross-guild IC brawl or whatever.
Another question to consider is -when- do the RPC standards kick in? Let’s face it. Some guilds will have better IC and OOC relationships than others. TheShiningKnights guild may actually have a great OOC relationship with the ShaggyThieves and thus end up inviting them to a lot of events. In those situations, I would imagine the guilds simply following the rules of the event organizer instead of the RPC rules. But what about when the events are open to the entire public? Is that when it’s time to defer to RPC standards? It should be mentioned that when public events are posted, the non-RP community (and freelance Rpers) of our server will very likely be invited as well.
Also, if you're remotely curious about the kind of "standards" that we'll end up discussing, take a peak at the "Etiquette" section on the main site. Those are just a few examples of things we may or may not end up discussing.
The public
If anyone has been following some of the updates I posted on other big community sites, you’ll notice that some people have made comments about how closed off FFXI’s RP community seemed. Personally, I think we kind of had to be closed off due to the environment. I assume we all want to be more open and out there this time around. The question is, what would be the RPC’s role in trying to achieve this?
Events
This kind of goes hand-in-hand with the RP standards part. As I see it, there are 3 different types of events the RP community will have. One is a guild event specifically for the guild organizing it. Another is a cross-guild event with maybe 1-2 other guilds invited to the event. The third type is a public event which would generally be open to all guilds, freelance Rpers, and the general public. How is the RPC going to handle each one differently?
Going off on that, what happens when more than one guild crosses paths unintentionally. Using a FFXI example, let’s say TheShiningKnights are doing a promy-mea run. All of a sudden, you find out the FanaticalMercs are doing a promy-mea run too at the same time. Obviously, the guilds have a choice to either go on and climb the tower by themselves or ally up to help each other. If they do decide to ally up, do they defer to RPC standards from that point onward for the remainder of the event? Both groups may have different rules and since both organized the event unintentionally at the same time, there’s no clear organizer to set the rules.
Structure
How should we actually structure ourselves? Do we want each guild to provide 1-2 representatives to keep the RPC updated every so often on the “state of the guild?†And would these reps have any other tasks aside from that?
To sum up, this seems to be where we are right now on this issue:
Neutrality and Authority
The majority so far seems to favor the RPC remaining a neutral body and staying out of conflicts unless it affects the entire RP community. The question is, how far should we take this neutrality? When -do- we step in? Obviously, any kind of conflict on these particular forums will be dealt with accordingly by myself and/or the moderation team. But what about outside of here? Let’s do a couple examples just to get it out there.
Let’s say there’s a particular individual who’s causing problems for other Rpers. Now if this individual is causing disruptions just for one guild, that’s probably going to be their issue to deal with. But what if this troublemaker is wreaking havoc on more than one guild? They could be sabotaging events in an OOC manner, harassing lots of people, and just outright being a pain in the arse for everyone. Do we just tell everyone to suck it up and /blist the person or does the RPC make a formal complaint to the troublemaker’s guild leaders? And if the guild does nothing to help resolve the issue, does that mean the RPC then reserves the right to “tell†them to boot the troublemaker or be booted from RPC? Depending on the nature of the troublemaker, I suppose several GM calls could simply be made. But what if it’s something a GM can’t do anything about? Such as smear campaigns against various guilds on other sites like Zam, etc? How far do we go with neutrality?
Another example that focuses on a guild rather than an individual member: Let’s go with the example I made earlier about the linkshell who made the comment “Sylph’s last hope for Rping†on a recruitment post on Alla. Let’s assume we all end up voting on our server and end up on the Cid server (no idea how the naming scheme will be so this is just an example). We’re all doing our own thing with our own guilds when suddenly a new one crops up and puts a recruitment post on Alla claming they’re “Cid’s last hope for RP.†Whether they believe that or not is irrelevant. It still remains horrible etiquette and is rather offensive to the rest of us. How far do we take neutrality there?
RPC standards
RPC standards for cross-guild happenings are generally going to be broad and accepted by the general community. For instance, I’m sure we’ll all end up agreeing that someone should mark OOC comments with parenthesis or some other marker when at cross-guild events. But other standards may end up being more controversial. Following my example with the tavern brawl earlier, some people may despise the battle system implemented by the RPC. Do we just tell them to suck it up while at the event? I suppose if they hated a particular standard, they could simply avoid getting into a situation like a cross-guild IC brawl or whatever.
Another question to consider is -when- do the RPC standards kick in? Let’s face it. Some guilds will have better IC and OOC relationships than others. TheShiningKnights guild may actually have a great OOC relationship with the ShaggyThieves and thus end up inviting them to a lot of events. In those situations, I would imagine the guilds simply following the rules of the event organizer instead of the RPC rules. But what about when the events are open to the entire public? Is that when it’s time to defer to RPC standards? It should be mentioned that when public events are posted, the non-RP community (and freelance Rpers) of our server will very likely be invited as well.
Also, if you're remotely curious about the kind of "standards" that we'll end up discussing, take a peak at the "Etiquette" section on the main site. Those are just a few examples of things we may or may not end up discussing.
The public
If anyone has been following some of the updates I posted on other big community sites, you’ll notice that some people have made comments about how closed off FFXI’s RP community seemed. Personally, I think we kind of had to be closed off due to the environment. I assume we all want to be more open and out there this time around. The question is, what would be the RPC’s role in trying to achieve this?
Events
This kind of goes hand-in-hand with the RP standards part. As I see it, there are 3 different types of events the RP community will have. One is a guild event specifically for the guild organizing it. Another is a cross-guild event with maybe 1-2 other guilds invited to the event. The third type is a public event which would generally be open to all guilds, freelance Rpers, and the general public. How is the RPC going to handle each one differently?
Going off on that, what happens when more than one guild crosses paths unintentionally. Using a FFXI example, let’s say TheShiningKnights are doing a promy-mea run. All of a sudden, you find out the FanaticalMercs are doing a promy-mea run too at the same time. Obviously, the guilds have a choice to either go on and climb the tower by themselves or ally up to help each other. If they do decide to ally up, do they defer to RPC standards from that point onward for the remainder of the event? Both groups may have different rules and since both organized the event unintentionally at the same time, there’s no clear organizer to set the rules.
Structure
How should we actually structure ourselves? Do we want each guild to provide 1-2 representatives to keep the RPC updated every so often on the “state of the guild?†And would these reps have any other tasks aside from that?
