Oli!

Party chat or tells, even in the middle of the Quicksand, have been used for private RP since there was RP in the game. If people wanna RP in /say and get pissy when people enter their range and reply, they should have considered it beforehand. Right now, I don't think we're dealing with individual reactions to intrusion; these can range anywhere from being angry, to not caring at all, so they don't really have that much gravity except for in specific circumstances; the argument is more geared to whether or not people are allowed to have private conversations in /say, which they are, because there's no way to actually stop them from doing so.

Yes, they're being rude. We agree. But it's still their right to be rude, which is what is being argued. The point about them being not in public means that the scene that they had planned will continue along the same lines as it would have if no one saw it; as a result, regardless of where they would have played it out, it would have stayed the same, blurring the lines of Public and Private from their standpoint and rendering them unnecessary. Yes, they might be "fair game" in the mind of those interacting with them, but as far as actual interaction goes, they're not fair game, because nothing can be done to them. Therein lies the disconnect between what people's opinions of what should be fair game are, and what actually is fair game in practice. Those players may write those people off, but unless this is something that the two players find undesirable, that doesn't actually make it a consequence. It's entirely possible that those two players won't care, or otherwise find it rude that everyone else is intruding; as a result, they might also desire to write the rest of those watching off as well. A Consequence, when referred to in the negative light, is squarely within the confines of subjectivity. Again, just because someone is Being Rude by not interacting with someone, does not mean that they are not within their Rights to do whatever it is that they're doing. Personal Opinions are not Law; sometimes the two can intersect, or work in tandem with one another, but they are not the same. Again, I would rather that people be available to interact with all the time in public, but that's not something that is always true, or something that I can enforce. I also personally believe that it's not worth writing people off because they decided that they want to do something on their own. As an aside, it's important to note that the people in your scenario did not state that they were having a private scene when others attempted to intervene. Although it is a bit of a tangent from the actual argument, if they were to have stated something along the lines of, "sorry, this RP is off-limits, we're doing something on our own," then that could put the entire scenario in a very different light, even if everything else proceeds in the same way.

This is not the main rebuttal. The main rebuttal is that you can't make them acknowledge you. And you can't. There's nothing that anyone can do to make an RP public unless the other party is willing to play along. All RP is about playing along. Again, I agree that if you're in public, you should be in public. But when it's down to the line, you're only in public if you decide to acknowledge other people coming up to you. If you don't, then you might as well not be. In the real world, you can ignore people that come up to you and offer their piece. It's the same thing in RP, where it is in fact even easier to ignore someone. Someone can punch you in meatspace, but in RP, that punch isn't happening unless you want it to. If a party doesn't acknowledge anything happening around them, then functionally, they're not public at all, and there's no way to force them to be public either.

I reject the idea that RP is inherently private property at all times. RP in public is public; you are making it clear by your presence in public and your RP there that you are, indeed, an RPer, that your character exists, and that they're in this location. You have a right not to RP with someone, certainly, but you do not have the right to preemptively declare that the conversation you're having in the middle of the Quicksand (to use an example) is private and that no one else can overhear it or interact with you. That's bad form, and it interferes with another central tenet of RP, which is that anyone can play if they're willing to make an effort. Don't we hold ourselves out as an open, welcoming group of people? Don't we try to engage others? It is, to me, extremely bad form for an RPer to engage in RP in a public location, then OOCly tell a person "You can't participate" or to simply ignore them outright. I'm not saying you must RP with them to any great extent. What I am saying is that you, as an RPer, owe them as a matter of proper decorum the recognition of their existence ICly. If you don't want them there, you can make that extremely clear ICly. This is a perfect example of ICA = ICC, actually. The IC action is talking in public. The IC reaction can be someone reacting to that. That reaction itself can get a reaction, and so it goes. The problem is when, instead of there being an IC reaction, the first party throws a tell at them (going OOC) to say, "Sorry, private scene, get lost." I think the difference we have is that I consider the very presence of a character in a public location to be an automatic consent to social interaction. The IC action is being somewhere; a reasonable IC consequence is people interacting with you. If you don't want to give that automatic consent, the world is full of places where you can go where it's unlikely anyone will run into you and it's generally understood that the scene defaults to private. I suppose, then, we'll have to agree to disagree, since we appear to have different conceptions of auto-consent and ICA = ICC. (As a side note, your example of being shot by a sniper is actually an issue of consent and escalation of consent, and part of that is that you can't do something to someone's character that's greater than what they've agreed to. Taking someone out because they were sitting on a park bench with no other story elements involved is a blatant violation of any plausible concept of consent.) The thing though is that opinions on what is or is not good form is not the same thing as what is or is not another player's Right. There are several things in my own argument that I disagree with in terms of personal philosophy, but I argue them because they're the way that things are. I actually agree that it's Bad Form, but that doesn't mean that it's not a Right that someone has. It's within my Rights not to clean my apartment before I have friends over, but it's still Bad Form, simultaneously. Is it my civil right not to bathe for a whole year if I don't want to? Yes. Is it Bad Form not to bathe for a whole year? Also yes. There is nothing stopping a person from walking into the Quicksand, sitting down, and then having an RP that people are excluded from through ignoring their surroundings. There is no way to force them to acknowledge you, or force them to leave. Those are not options that are available or enforceable to us, therefore making their choice something that cannot be outlawed or otherwise made illegal by any given party, therefore a Right. We may not like it. I, in fact, do not like it. However, I, or anyone else, cannot stop them from doing such, and it is not prohibited by The Game. It is therefore something that other people are allowed to do if they wish, regardless of our individual stances on the matter.

As far as we know, yes, this is the case. LoneWizard and I are talking about something different now, as far as I can tell.

I'm not saying you can't. I'm saying you shouldn't. When a person does their private RP in a public location, they're continuing the general perception of cliques in the RP community, they're ignoring IC consequences for IC actions, and they're essentially establishing that the other players there are merely an audience for their RP (particularly if they're RPing in /say and /em and telling people they can't get involved). So, yes, while anyone can certainly do whatever they want, doing private RP in public spaces is, in my mind, inappropriate. When you RP in a clearly public place, you accept the IC consequence of someone else interacting with you. If you don't want that, go somewhere else. The reason I say "clearly public" is because there's areas that are in public but aren't clearly so. Let's consider Camp Dragonhead. There's the rooms on the walls. If you want a private scene, you can head up there and go into /party. Now, since you're out of the way of where people normally go, you're not in a clearly public location, and at that point I'd say someone stumbling across you should assume that the scene is private until noted otherwise. Yes, there's a judgment call involved here, but I think most people are sensible enough to be able to tell the difference between a place where people should expect potential walk-ups and places where they shouldn't. Near an Aetheryte? At the Bismarck? In a tavern in a town? Those are public. Hermit's Hovel? A cliff out in the field? A side room in Camp Dragonhead? Those aren't (though private RP should be in /party to make it clear). Note that in all of this, I'm referring to the sort of private RP where those involved ignore others who show up or tell them to go away OOCly -- particularly if they're using /say for their RP. There's nothing wrong with responding to a person showing up and asking them to leave ICly. ICA = ICC, after all, and an IC consequence to trying to strike up a conversation with someone can be being told to buzz off. Anyway, to get back on topic, to the OP: based on your subsequent posts, the person who went on the tirade in tells is wrong, IMO. It's entirely lore compliant for Ishgardians to look down their noses at outsiders, and from your emote, there's no establishment of any of the things they complained about. I still can't really see this as valid. People are free to do what they want in a public location. Additionally, one of the central unspoken tenets of any RP community is the idea that you don't have to RP with anyone that you don't want to. This would be in violation of that tenet. If you were to walk up to a group of friends playing Monopoly in the park, ask if you can play, and then get denied, you can't say, "well this park is a clearly public location, and you must therefore let me play Monopoly with you." Similarly, if someone has their Ferrari parked in a street, you can't say "you have to let me drive your car, because you parked it in a public location." They're using private property in an open spot. Having someone play Monopoly with you, or driving your car when you don't want them to isn't a consequence of being where you are. Yes, you might be able to avoid these unwanted advances if you parked your Ferrari in a garage, or played Monopoly in your living room, but you also don't have to accept these advances just because you're in a public place. Just because something is out in the open doesn't mean that you are automatically allowed to partake in it. In the context of this game, the Public Area is The Game, and the Private Property is Your Roleplay. Just as I am free to play Monopoly in the park with my friends and exclude people if I wish, other people are free to Roleplay in public with their friends and exclude people if they want to. It is even possible to turn the Consequences theme on its head, and say that if you decide to try and get involved in things that other people are doing, then you have to accept them excluding you as a consequence for your actions. I also don't think that the concept of IC Consequence Avoidance applies here anyway, because they are not asking for anything; if I were to sit out in a bench in Ul'dah ICly, and someone Roleplays sniping my character and killing them without my approval, with their reasoning being "well, that's the consequence of sitting on a park bench in an area without security," I think that everyone here would be willing to agree that that would be at least slightly unreasonable. It's the same thing with Private Roleplay; if some people just sit out in the middle of a place talking about something, and someone comes over and tries to join, then I don't think it could be seen as Consequence Avoidance for them to say, "actually this is just between us, sorry." It would be different if the scenario was such that they did ask for it, such as making it public and then making it private later, or giving someone permission to overhear them and deciding against it later, but those are both instances in which the Roleplay is no longer private, and therefore does not apply to the circumstances that we're discussing. As far as turning people into an audience goes, I don't think that this is so at all. No one is forcing anyone else to do nothing but watch, and you are entirely within your rights to leave, roleplay around them, pretend they're there anyway, pretend they're not there, use them as barstools, or whatever else you may fancy.

If you're not comfortable with random people showing up and getting involved with your RP, do not do it in public. The IC consequence of RPing in public is that people might respond to it, just as the IC consequence of responding to that RP might be being told to shove off ICly. No one should ever feel that they have to ask for permission to get involved in RP taking place in a clearly public location. I don't really know if this is valid. While yes, not doing it in public is the easiest solution at first glance, the problem arises of where to have it in the first place. Not everyone has a private location such as a house readily available, and it's entirely possible that the RP that you just want to have with yourself and two friends might call for a specific location. Sometimes people respond to presence, even if all dialogue is in Party, or a linkshell. There's also the fact that public spaces can be used for whatever the public wants; this includes Private RP.

I've begun reaching out to people in this thread that have expressed interest in specific things, and will continue to do so. If you haven't gotten a message from me, it's coming. If it still doesn't come after a while, feel free to poke me about it instead just in case I forgot. In other news, the next thing to figure out in terms of overall stuff is whether or not there will be a combat system, and if so, what will it be. If people want to speak up about what they're comfortable with, they're free to do that so I have as many factors as possible to take into consideration. Stay tuned I suppose!

I feel like if it was implied at some point (or anywhere) that the OP owned the building in their RP, then that would be the main point of contention for the other person, not so much the glare. The reason for this is that claiming to own locations in-game that aren't actually own-able by the player population (like personal and guild housing) is generally looked upon pretty badly. If that's what happened, it was probably the reason why the person was upset over the stink-eye, and not so much the stink-eye itself. It could have been that they saw that action as code for "get out, I own this," when they had the right to use the building for what they want as much as anyone else does. If that wasn't implied anywhere, though, then I'm not sure. It's possible that they made the jump-connection on their own, but I sort-of doubt it.

WoW has 5.2 million people paying to use their service. XIV has 5 million people signed up to use their service. No word on how many people are actively paying. To my knowledge, Square Enix has not released those statistics, so we won't have a comparison of any sort until they do. To drive the point home, here are some way lower numbers. But we're off-topic again.

EDIT: Because I forgot to address it, there are many reasons why someone might choose to have a single-player experience in an MMO. Maybe they like the game's mechanics or visuals, but don't want to talk to anyone. Maybe they want to be a Lone Wanderer and talk about all the things that they managed to achieve on their own. Maybe they like the story or the world, and don't care much for multiplayer aspects like dungeons and PvP. Maybe they just enjoy making and dressing a character and running around. Maybe they're just there to play with their two or three friends and no one else. Some people purchased WoW because they wanted to see Warcraft continue its story. Some people played City of Heroes because they wanted Superheroes, not specifically a Superhero MMO. Lots of people bought ESO because the Elder Scrolls universe is crazy and they love it, and not because they wanted an MMO out of it (this was actually a big point of contention surrounding the game ever since its launch). In this very game, in fact, there are people that are only here because they like Final Fantasy, a series of single-player games, and want more of the storytelling, visual aesthetic, and themes that that series provides. Not because they want to socialize in an MMO. People play video-games for fun. What is fun is subjective, and therefore one person's fun is no more Right or Wrong than someone else's fun. If someone who only played Arena shooters sat down and watched you play the campaign of Halo or Goldeneye or something, and asked, "why are you playing a shooter if you're not gonna play multiplayer? That's what it's for," it's going to sound a bit like an odd question. There are many reasons to enjoy shooters outside of multiplayer, just as there are many reasons to enjoy MMOs outside of interacting with people. -----Original Post----- I would actually argue that any such bond isn't universal at all. This thread, in fact, is part of the proof. The extent of my connection to the gated content was "well I guess it was okay, but I really only did it so that I could do the Cool Stuff I actually wanted to do, like Roleplay and explore the new zones." If you asked me for a Titan HM war story, my best would be along the lines of "well we got knocked off the platform a lot, and it was honestly just kind of annoying, and the tank and healer had to solo the last 25% for an hour because we were all dead." It's not quite as romantic for me and many others as it might be for another fraction of the playerbase. We're already much more splintered than it might seem, though in this case, it's not because we chose to play the game differently (because we're all supposed to do the same content to advance) but instead of the way that we think about the content. Just as people came away from the 2.5 ending going "wow, that was deep," there were people that came away saying "meh, predictable bullshit." Just as there are those that think, "I love the housing system, it feels more meaningful because there are a limited amount," there are those that think, "this is stupid, I want a house, my friends want a house, just instance them so we can all have houses." Just as there are people that think, "I love this game's story, and I'd play it over and over if I could," there are those that are thinking, "I guess it was okay. I dunno. I'd rather not play it twice. Whatever." The only bond is that we all have the same experience, and even that isn't very strong, as I have stated. It splinters further when we talk about what we think of it. If there really was a bond as tight as you think it would be, we'd all either be dancing about how happy we are that gated content is ending, or collectively up in arms over the fact that our precious game is being edited. We're both.

That's all well and good, but what was being discussed was the experience of a new player booting up the game for the first time, and what their interaction with the game would be like, so whether or not people are going back to WoW, or whether or not it is gaining new subs, isn't exactly relevant to the discussion at hand either. As an aside, it seems a little hyperbolic to suggest that no one new at all is trying WoW. This is also shown to be false in Liadan's post. Additionally, I too know a few people that are planning to / already trying WoW in preparation for Legion. Regarding WoW being a solo game: Only if you want it to be. That's part of the magnificence of player choice. If you want to, you can level up traditionally, do all the dungeons, do whatever. Or you can stick specifically to world-quests. Or you can PvP your way to the top. Or you can roll with a group of buds and explore. Or you can do nothing but slay hard to kill monsters. Or you can jump around the content and level where you want, when you want. Part of the reason why people were somewhat fascinated and / or got a good laugh out of the person that stayed in Pandaria and picked flowers all the way to the level cap is because the idea that you could do that in the first place never even crossed their minds; that's part of the miracle of player choice. It lets you experience a game in a myriad of ways, and perhaps make people think of whether they would like to experience the game that way, too. My own experience was a mixture of dungeons, PvP, and buddy-questing. It was never solitary for me, and I in fact feel much more "alone" in XIV because of its story content, even with a group of friends to talk to. It seems like a lot of concern here is coming from the idea that "new players won't know the content." To be honest, this situation is no different than no one knowing the content when a new expansion launches. A bunch of people sitting in a boss room on Day 1 aren't going to know what that boss is going to do. Chances are most of the playerbase won't even know what they're supposed to do until at least a month into the expansion, because they're still getting there, and explanations will therefore be necessary. Additionally, if you really feel that that would impact your gameplay experience that much, then coach people through dungeons and tell them to do the same to other people that don't know, or point them to guides and ask them to read. Or, only run with people that have done all the content before you. Personally, I don't think it takes much more time to say "If you're marked with a meteor, run away from everyone" than it does "you know that thing in bossfight? Yeah do that." The additional effort required is minimal. I took a break between 2.1 and 3.0, or something like that. I haven't done Turns or Crystal Tower, since those have come up previously in this discussion. If a bossfight called for past mechanics, even though I'm an "old" player, I wouldn't know what to do. That doesn't mean I couldn't learn, and it also doesn't mean that I shouldn't be "playing" the game. As someone else even mentioned, those were intended to be optional pieces of content from the start; would we tell new players to go back to content that is not only old, but also optional in order to ensure that they were on a level that we deemed acceptable? Forcing a preferred gameplay experience on a person solely for the betterment of your own experience seems somewhat questionable to me.

I believe I once managed that because our entire DPS team was single-target. It was actually kind of hilarious.

This is a contradiction to an earlier stated point. If a "new game" is "always new" to a new player, then the age of the game is irrelevant, because they have not played the content. Yet, here it is stated that World of Warcraft's usage in the argument is irrelevant because of the game's age. I'm not really sure what that has to do with the context of the argument anyway, but it's in direct contrast with what was stated before. We must therefore decide whether a new game is Always New to a new player, or whether the age of the game somehow makes notable impact in the experience of someone who has never played something before.

Yes, but the argument presented is "gates or no gates." The scenario we're discussing is one in which there are gates everywhere, but they are optional. So where gates should and should not be is not exactly relevant to the current context, and is in fact an argument all on its own, because the gates are both everywhere and nowhere depending on individual preference.

I think we're all missing a very important question, here: Why does it have to be either gated or open? Why can't it be both? What is uncomfortable about having both options? What do we lose from having content that isn't gated? Is anything stopping people from playing through the gates that they want to play through? It seems at this point that we're just arguing for the sake of displaying opinions, and not because there's actually anything to argue over. The option to play through the gates will still be there. The option to not play through the gates is being introduced for people that don't want to do it. "Yeah but they should do it my way" isn't really a reason to argue anything, because it can be countered with the exact same argument from the other side; if you accept your own as reasonable, then you have to accept the other side's as being reasonable because they're the exact same argument; if you don't accept the other side, then you can't accept your own without being hypocritical or otherwise contradictory. And that's why we're not getting anywhere. There's nothing to argue about. This entire thing is a Non-Argument.

That may be the case, but part of the point that's been raised previously is that this is less for people like you and others that have finished the content already, and more for people that are only just starting to play the game. If you go and buy 4.0's xpac so you can play with your friends in the shiny new zones, it's going to seem like a bit of a waste of time to sit through two or three years worth of content that you have no interest in to get here. It takes a lot of time, and it may not make for the most enjoyable experience either. Personally I don't see any harm in giving people the option to skip to the things that they want to do, so it's sort of a non-issue for me.

Hi! I would also be happy to help with this. If it's not too much trouble, could you talk a bit about your character, so that others would know what would be a good fit for you?

And the players can chose NOT to fund a game who's designers don't cater to their every whim. Why is this such a hard concept to accept? If you hate gated content, go play a game without it. I chose to stop giving Blizzard my money when they began bowing down to the player base demands. I will do the same when Square follows suit. We can choose not to, yes. In this case, they're catering to what I want. I will therefore give them my money. It's what they're doing. No one here on an individual level can change it, regardless of personal opinion on the matter. Personally, I'm happy with it. Some people might not be, but those people are, like you said yourself, able to not fund the game, and instead go buy something with gated content. It's the way things are, I suppose.

If I end up doing this and you really do want to help, I will definitely touch base! This also goes to anyone else who thinks that they may want to help, as well.

Oliwat has the most terrifying fight theme. No other can compare. BIVJhNm2T3g Here's an alternate on a good day: 0q97e4RE6P0

Wrong. Wind Waker. Also, for me, The Game was Jak and Daxter.

I don't do any of that, because roleplay is just for fun and I don't take it as a serious writing exercise. I might be in the minority for that.

So, I know a lot of people here enjoy their IC fighting tournaments and stuff. I also happen to know that quite a few of us enjoy fighting games as well. I forgot the exact particulars of how the concept arose, but somehow I got the idea in my head that it might be cool to do an IC fighting tournament, spaced out over the course of a few months or so, with fights in different locales around the world, and a plot straight out of Street Fighter. Before I went all the way with this, however, I wanted to see if anyone would actually be interested in this in the first place. Without spoiling what I have for a plot so far, here's a few basic points that I would want to lay down for the sake of this (potential) event: -- There will be no winner. The "final fight," should the plotline result in one, would be against the Big Bad of the setup. -- There would be investigative elements, and fights are not set in stone. Players can bribe, throw, or otherwise disrupt the proceedings (as long as it's cleared with me first) in attempts to skew the plotline in one direction or another. Digging into background details and following up on leads is encouraged. -- Since this would most likely be a large event divided into smaller scenes between individual people, there probably wouldn't be a 'master signup.' Instead, individual scenes would be coordinated between those involved for the sake of keeping things as confusion-free as possible. -- A fighting system, if any, has not been decided upon at this time. -- Alignments of all shades are welcome; those that enter to take advantage of whatever situations present themselves are just as welcome as the hero types that want to stop what's happening. -- If you want to get involved in the plotline, but missed the "signup" portion of the tournament, it's entirely possible to get into things 'unofficially.' If people would be interested in this sort of thing, I'll take further steps towards getting this in motion, which may involve reaching out to certain parties to see if they would be willing to take on certain roles. Those that serve a shadier side would most certainly be welcome / needed / appreciated, perhaps above all other roles, at this time. So, I'm just putting this out there for now. If there's a reaction large enough to make this work, I'll make it happen.

If someone questions you on it, just say they're lying. If you're really, seriously worried about it, just include hints that they're lying in their emotes, or write something like "unless someone knew better, she seemed quite convincing" into the narrative.