Kahnopy

Welcome back to this comfy place! May it be for the immediate future or a more long-term project, I'd like to bring my support to this idea of yours in any way that's available, and would love to somehow take part into it. Love pushing characters in situations that force them out of their comfort zone. So here's that.

Hi.

Lt. Od'hilkas, reporting in! He will be part of this. As for the time, I'm sure you have a fair idea about how flexible my scheduling is.

That does it, with the latest addition for the beautiful bomb-kitty, I can no longer resist... could you please add me to the list for a painted portrait? D:

A touching scene telling of the fall of an emotionless shell, and the rise of a man.

Indeed. :3 All in good fun, my dears. Actual stalking is bad though. Remember that kids. Aye, that was worded quite badly, I realized afterwards. Also... MYLENE, I TRUSTED YOU. D:

[video=youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxS4JjVV4l8 With peace in mind.

So despite the fact that I lent my aid to Askier to have this event integrate people as smoothly ICly as possible, I have been awfully quiet on those forums. Until now. Let me preface this by saying that Good storytelling, Gathering RPers and Fun are, no matter what is said and or believed, the primary objectives of this large scale event. This has been a conscious effort initiated by Askier right there to bring the community together and to give anyone who could have been a little hesitant to jump into RP a chance to join in the fun, and focus on a common goal, thus creating opportunities for all people involved to make lasting connections. This is exactly what occured during his first event, and discussing about it later we came to agree that this was without a doubt the most positive of aspects that could be taken away from the event. And the good man Askier, as the crazy creative mind that he is, and encouraged by people who heard about his first event and wanted more, wished to revisit the deed. Who can blame him? The first of points I want to address is the format. I will begin this with a simple statement: we did not see the width of the attendence coming in the slightest. Comparing to the first series of events, there are easily 2 to 4 times more players interested into playing this out, and this is not even counting all the people outside who, not willing to participate in the main events, enjoy hearing about the whole plot but in a more private setting. To be honest, this is what we wanted the plot to be about. The big events were there to give directions for people to move, but the big of it was to be played in smaller groups, outside of any scheduled large scale meeting, people basically acting/rolling with the plot in their own way, and their own understanding of it. Why so? Because even in the first events, we could easily see what could be improved, and what had to disappear from events to improve the quality of the storytelling. And also because you know... it's easier to play your character and have an impact on things when you're not RPing away with 20+ people around doing just the same. Yet those scheduled events had to have some big impact to be relevant and to make the plot advance. Second, the organization. We were very few. Very very few. Essentially, Askier is the mastermind, who knows exactly what are the ins and outs of the plot, knows pretty accurately what direction to take for the plot to end in a good way, and moves ICly as Jin'li to do just that. Melkire and I, as two people who are regularly playing with Askier, accepted to lend a hand into the organization without a simple question. No reasons to say no, we had quite some success with this way of working for the first event, and we had no reasons that things could go awry for the second. Thus we began, about a month ago, to RP the pre-event, where essentially Jin'li who was a mere pawn on the boards of his masters, came to be this completely and insanely overpowered threat that needs to be dealt with. And before anyone says anything, yes, he is overpowered, and I believe that is suitable for the character. He is most certainly to die at the end of this whole plot, and the fact that he is so powerful encourages people to gather against him. At least that is how I view this. Then the collars happened. It was a way to bring Osric down and slight the threat he was posing to Jin'li, and even to use his momentum against the very city he gave his life for. The night it happened was certainly strong with feels, bleed-through and what not, but this was certainly a strong moment. Back on point. That collar was designed to be somewhat of a crippling mechanism, yet one that was interesting to play with, for people actually asked if their character could be bound with such an item, moving completely outside of our expectations. And here it is another time: every one of the players whose characters are currently collared have given the permission to Jin'li to do so. I can see myself having wanted to have one for my own character, just so I could interact with the mechanism for some time. But we needed to have people for both sides to try and organize things, and bringing people in, and so I agreed on my character being essentially untouchable, for the need of the plot. While some might argue that such a thing is overpowered, I will answer you that with this few people involved into the makings, we kind of had to take a conveniance agreement. Some people, which to avoid any kind of repercussion thrown their way, I will not identify, did chime in to bring help and increase the numbers of participants, and all the better to them, because that, personnally, was a nasty splinter taken out of my hands. And I am only saying this because of the sheer amount of people that wanted to meet my character Kahn'a as a gateway into the plot for the Heroes side, because each interaction I had to achieve that goal was interesting, and I had fun, but like I just said, the number of those was dazzling. Third, the first event in itself. Due to Askier's scheduling, there were concerns that he might have not been able to make it in time for the event, in which case we would have had to roll with some unexpected developpements. I say this to show that we tried to have a lot of unexpected situations/curved balls covered to ensure the plot would go in the right direction. Guess what? We were not prepared enough, yes yes we goofed. But people seemed to have had their share of fun, which was satisfying enough for us to be relieved that it did not turn out into a disaster. Some of the complaint I heard/read about was the lack of interactions with the Villains squad that walked around poisoning wells. If people insist that defensive patrols should have been organized to keep the waters safe, then I guess I am to blame for more or less purposely screwing that up. During my round of RPing new characters into the plot, several times Kahn'a has been suggested that water poisoning could be a thing, to the point where he sort of became convinced that it would happen sooner or later. However, let us take a stop right there and think about the greater scheme of this plot. How impactful would have Jin'li's attack on the city been if he got completely blocked while poisoning the wells? Would he have been able to get out alive with a strong organization on the look for him? Probably not. Or at least not without some kind of powerplay, which always leaves a sour taste in the mouth of those who got tricked. Also let us discuss about what did happen. A bomb exploded at the Gates of Nald, massing a crowd towards the gates to see what was happening. Expected. Goodies see baddies who made the explosive set off, and defend themselves against the assault? Expected. A little squad of Villains go around the town, fooling whoever asked them about the barrels they were carrying, and that in order to dump the poison into the water source mostly undetected? Expected. Some NPCs gathered around the curious scene of supposed alcohol being dumped into the water and tried to get some for themselves? Expected. But that certainly does not mean that this was a large scale massacre. If anything, the poison ran into the water undetected for a bell more or less. That leaves time for your thristy average john to go grab his fresh drink of poisoned water, and die from it, but not enough to provoke a complete drop in Ul'dah demography. Results? Hundreds of victims, yes, much like the spread of an uncurable disease, but not something that wiped Ul'dah off the map. We also tried to ICly give people some direction to handle the rising crisis as quickly as possible, and that with the clear intent to have it sorted ASAP, to avoid interferences with people who just were not interested/unaware of the plot. We certainly did not want any sort of awkwardness happening for those people just because they did not attend. So in short, poison is detected, orders are given to ship water and cut the access to the main fountains/water places in town until they are drained away, and filled again with unsullied water. Tadaaaaa. Everything's clean. Does that mean the attack would have had too little of an impact? Certainly not. It created some panic, shook the shaky organization of the heroes - shakiness that, again, I am mostly responsible for - and gives Jin'li more space to act in the future, knowing that he has moved people enough so that they might direct their attention onto the poison and the dead more than on what's coming... We'll have to see where that goes, though. My final point will be directed at all this talk about consequences. Again, I will refer to the first event Askier wrote. So he had his character make a pretty nasty attempt on the city of Ul'dah, one that would have affected people much like it happened with the poisoning. And yet... if you were to meet him ICly those days, you'd find a much different person, and most importantly, one that's free. Why is that? Well, because this is the result of some long-term RP plans that involved only a handful characters. So yes, it is very understandable that there is confusion regardless Askier IC status, but that's something that was RP'd out, my character knew what was at stake, he dove to take someone out of a nasty fate, and succeeded. That's all there is to be known about this. I do bring this up because people seem very keen to suggest consequences should be faced by other players' characters. From an IC point, I do understand it completely, however remember that you as a player can only have so much impact on another player's character. Everyone is free to play the consequences the way they want to, for their own character, including completely dodging the bullet. It's their choice, not ours, and that's an occasion for some real IC struggle, should they choose to face such consequences. That does not give anyone the right to shun them if they simply don't want to deal with it extensively. Again, the reason behind this plot was to give some interesting story for people to get sucked in, and bring them together towards a common goal, either good or bad, for them to make connections. Certainly not for the RP to be cleaved towards a chase against the bad guy who got used, that might eventually just devolve into tensions from the people who are not willing to have their character endlessly chased and those who, for IC reasons, won't just let go. This post was certainly very sloppy and rambling-like, but I find it is an accurate description of how all this passionate conversation seems to be, to me. A big mess. And one that has the potential to grow nasty thorns. So please let's just step back for a second, take a big breather to make sure we can get back into the game with better spirits, and overall less frustration. This is already pretty disheartening to see that people are looking more in the direction of flaws and what is headache-inducing rather than focus on what fun can be had from this. I guess we could have handled it better too. But again, there is so much a tiny group of persons can do. Especially with tight schedules.

Little intrusion into the thread to address that matter directly. There are loads, and by loads I want to include you, of people that are overthinking the aftermaths of what's been happening with the plot we tried to organize in Ul'dah. Facts: A bomb exploded outside of the city, city-wells have been poisoned, said poison has been discovered less than an hour afterwards, and cooperation has been organized to ship fresh and unsullied water from outside, including the immediate surroundings streams, while the sullied water is being drained away and cleansed. And we've handled the poisoning this very way because of the possible leak poisoned wells would have brought to other people RPs, which is certainly not something we want. But to state that this plot is now creating a gap in IC continuation is a statement that can only be done with a lack of information and that has everything of a calumny. I mean the first goal of this event is to bring people together, not to enforce some kind of restraining facts that you, as a player outside of the plot, has to accept to order to stay coherant regarding the current events. I am not disregarding that we, as organizers, have goofed on several areas that the plot was covering, but I want to remind people that most of those who helped to bring this wild idea of a plot alive have crazy schedules, and only want to do this for fun. Anyway, I am overstaying my welcome, and only wanted you, as a player and keeper of this place, to have a clearer understanding of what the intentions are with this plot, and to avoid having false words spread, for it gives everyone involved a bad stain.

I suspect that the fact the Hotbar command has a separate syntax from the Cross Hotbar is that each bar is movable. So yes, you make a correct assumption in saying that: /hotbar display n will show/hide n hotbar on your screen, depending on its current status. I have number 2 triggered because it's the one I use for my two little ARC icons: Bloodletter and Misery's End. But you can choose any. And even be more precise: /hotbar display 2 off /hotbar display 3 on will force Hotbar 2 to hide, and Hotbar 3 to show up! That means you can with one macro have some elements hidden, and some showing up - for example if you want your PVE bars to go away and your emote bar to show up. Also do note that I made this macro for my own setup, I'm very aware that elements like the compass or gils are missing from the lines, but that's something one can easily add. And for those who are worried about not getting the elements name to be able to make them disappear, please go to the HUD menu and you'll see the exact name you need to input. Fiddling is king in this field!

I blame you Crisiet, for your passively teaching us the way of beautiful and creepy stalking ; ;. A tribute to you, welcome back. o/

After some little incident coming from a certain Miqo'te named Jin'li, Kahn'a's making sure that the only other Garlean kit he knows about stays... very kind.

I actually got reminded of Uboa from Yume Nikki, seeing that naked dude with the warpaint. Gods that's not an experience I wish to repeat. >_>

You my good friend win the awesome prize of awesome! Since I got involved with the community in terms of RP, I wanted to craft as immersive an experience as I could... while helping my computer running the game a little better. The nameplate change came to me as a great ball was organized. I could already imagine the headache to see all those floating names without being able to look at the character properly! So... I just did it. And what a change that was! Kahn'a is on the more sneaky side of characters - he tries to anyway - and making this change was certainly the most immersive I've made... even though the people you do prey on are generally aware you're there, you said it yourself, heh. A good suggestion I'll make is to make use of the command /hud. I've experimented with it recently, and it's a really good compromise! With it, you can hide/show HUDs elements without having to prompt a menu window to activate it. That means you can hide your entire HUD at the press of a macro... and that is what I did. The following macro is called "RP Time!" because it litterally hides everything expect for the chat. And to add, though it's a manual process, I stretch my chat bar to the maximum width. Pictures are better than speeches, especially in this case, so there you go! HUD On... It's already pretty bare because of the peaceful environnment, but you know for a fact it'll clutter up as soon as you get into dungeons with parties and all that good jazz. And after "RP Time!" Here the macro that achieves this: /hud "Server Info" /hud tbar /hud "Duty List" /hud "Party List" /hotbar display 2 /hud "Status Effects" /hud "Cross Hotbar" /hud "Parameter Bar" Another interesting thing to play with is the /e channel. The echo channel. I recently learnt about it as well, it's essentially a little notepad that will note everything you tell it do, to a channel that only you can see. I see you plan on reactivating your parameter bars, but still like the uncluttered feel of not having them around. Well, consider this: /e HP: | MP: | TP: Essentially what that does is a little "health check" at the press of a button. Nothing as clear as casting a glance to the bars, but it's still something. And that's only a rough idea, I am sure there are tons and tons of application to the /e channel, especially for those who would rather play with a clear setup. Anyway, there are areas that can be fiddled with, and I'm certain dedicated people have come up with really smart macros, allowing for more free space on the screen. I started clearing the HUD as a way to be able to see more clearly, and it ends up being something I do for immersion, it works wonder at that! Your post has given me quite some ideas and shown points I didn't consider, so I think I'll go have my little fun fiddling about, heheheh.

That Merri angle. D'ly looks like she's about to do baaaad things to get the cost of such a view. x_x

[video=youtube] Since some people seemed to like this :3...

So Kahn'a -OOCly- ran into THAT guy as he was walking down the street... . . . Welcome back, Captain Erik!

Little update to notify that the form is up and ready for people to use, check the top post!

[video=youtube]

THIS IS JUST PERFECT. Also, I'm liking the Askier stubble . But more importantly... get on fixing Askier up quickly so that Kahn'a doesn't have to stare awkwardly at where his arm used to be! (context: random gathering of mostly divested people, Rudy Road Exchange, Ul'dah) K: "C'mon Zha'to, let me seeee~!" S: "NO!"

Refreshing track! Oh my, I need to see if there's an OSU! file for this. You nearly drove me crazy as I was sure I heard this somewhere... [video=youtube]

Challenge accepted!

There's been quite a lot happening, in fact so much that I don't think a single person can decently sum it all up, and we can do this ICly or not, you'll take your pick when we get the chance to have you in game.

Oh my days, welcome home Erik ; ; ! I'm glad to hear you're fine and on the recovery, and I can tell you LOADS of people are looking forward to your return! Don't expect anything else but a warm greeting.