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Cliques and RP Etiquette


sforze

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the quicksand is a good place for newbies for the same reasons people dump on it tbh. anyone entering a RP community needs to see the server's worst as much as they need to see the server's best, and people from both extremes (but usually the former) frequent the quicksand. it's been the same deal for every rp hub in every mmo ever - the blue recluse in wow, that dumb bar in the ossan quarter in gw2, the horned god in tsw, club caprice in that dead mmo we don't talk about anymore i may or may not have been permanently banned from

 

it's all the same thing, there's nothing inherently wrong with these places, they're just places for everyone and everyone includes shit people 8-)

 

despite generally being a huge asshole to everyone i can safely say that i almost never ignore people who RP at me, no matter how terrible these people may seem. if they're newbies, they're probably going to get better with time and might even become good pals in the future. if they've been around ages and are set in their shitty ways, they're still likely to be fun to dick around with. the best way to deal with bad rp experiences is to laugh it off (at someone's expense).

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I'm not new to the game, nor am I new to RPing -- but I think Graeham hit it on the head that it's been some culture shock coming from the RP that I'm used to to a server of this size with this many pre-established groups and all that. I think Presidio also makes a good point in that I've seen a lot of people taking a dump on the Quicksand in the same hand that it's also trotted out as being one of the most active places to get RP for newbies. Just some food for thought.

 

The reason I dump on it isn't because it sucks or anything, but rather because of the chatbox's limitations and its auto-scroll if you're trying to catch-up. If they fix that I have zero problems with the Quicksand.

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Walk-up RP can be tricky, and I think making it feel natural takes a certain level of social skills that some people generally lack. And that's okay. That's why it never hurts for there to be OOC communication.

 

THIS. I'll be the first person to admit that unless I'm on my bard, I am the most awkward penguin alive when it comes to trying to initiate a casual walk-up with someone. ;___; 3 out of 4 of my characters are just not the types to randomly approach people without a reason, so it's really tough. I have to invent hooks for myself and they don't always really work out too well without feeling awkward from a social-sense. Chatting with folks OOC always kind of helps me sort myself out - just to help myself feel less awkward and not to script out an entire interaction.

 

As for the Quicksand - for me there's a mix of reasons why I don't typically go there.

 

1) None of my characters except Leilani would really go to a bustling tavern for drinks. It would be pretty out of character for them unless they were invited by someone to share a drink or eat there. While they're not really loners, they're also not the personality type to go to a bar or they have backstory reasons why going to a tavern in Ul'dah specifically wouldn't be a great idea for them. (which is why it kinda bums me out that the Bismark or The Drowning Wench don't get used as often.)

 

2)

 

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As I mentioned before, I am a huge shy dork. :V If I'm not on a character that is naturally outgoing and inquisitive, I feel UNIMAGINABLY awkward trying to plug myself into people's conversations or just walk up to others without coming off like a social cripple. I know that not a lot of people have had success with events, but I suppose I like them mainly because it really helps me when I have some built in context for why my character is around some people. I can springboard off of it and immediately engage folks.

 

3) Maybe it's not happening anymore, but was a period of time when people soliciting others for ERP got really, really, REALLY bad in the Quicksand. I don't mock Quicksand RP, because I have friends who enjoy going there to fish up random roleplay, but I'm kind of skittish of heading back. There were a ton of times where myself or others I know have gone there, gotten propositioned for ERP minutes into a conversation with a person. Some of my roe-lady friends have gotten asked repeatedly if they're secretly futas. (Wat.) It's also particularly bad if you're playing a miqo'te because lots of ERPers (who often wind up being miqo'te themselves) just kind of assume 99% of all people playing cats want to get their freak on. This has happened even when folks were blatantly playing characters who are basically still children.

 

I kept visiting here and there on various characters hoping for some random RP - but eventually it honestly felt like if you were in the Quicksand and you weren't looking for a hook-up, no one really wanted to have anything to do with you. It got to the point where at one time, I was really tempted to start a new thread on these forums advocating for a second RP hub in Limsa for people who just want to share a drink/chat with people and not have to worry that someone's going to try and get into someone's pants.

 

I understand that the there are plenty of people who go to the Quicksand not wanting ERP and that the ERP brigade is not there every single day at every single hour. However, when the majority of your experience is initiating an RP conversation with someone, getting excited that you've managed to strike up a decent conversation, only for it to suddenly veer towards cocks 5 minutes in -- it gets really, really discouraging.

 

Add the whole cripplingly-shy thing along with the not-really-IC-for-my-character thing and it was actually pretty distressing and uncomfortable for me to be there, more so when I was playing a female character instead of a male.

 

That said, I might head there with my bard in the future once my real life schedule is less of a clusterfuck to sort of dip my toe in the pool and see if things are a little better now.

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Walk-up RP can be tricky, and I think making it feel natural takes a certain level of social skills that some people generally lack. And that's okay. That's why it never hurts for there to be OOC communication.

3) Maybe it's not happening anymore, but was a period of time when people soliciting others for ERP got really, really, REALLY bad in the Quicksand.  I don't mock Quicksand RP, because I have friends who enjoy going there to fish up random roleplay, but I'm kind of skittish of heading back. There were a ton of times where myself or others I know have gone there, gotten propositioned for ERP minutes into a conversation with a person.  Some of my roe-lady friends have gotten asked repeatedly if they're secretly futas.  (Wat.)  It's also particularly bad if you're playing a miqo'te because lots of ERPers (who often wind up being miqo'te themselves) just kind of assume 99% of all people playing cats want to get their freak on.  This has happened even when folks were blatantly playing characters who are basically still children.

erpers are just part of the tavern rp ecosystem. where there are rpers, there will always be people who are only interested in textfucking. ive personally dealt with some huge creeps (NOT NAMING ANY NAMES YOU PROB. DON'T KNOW THEM) in this game, but they're nothing compared to shit i've seen in other games. the creeps in this game seem to at least grant the courtesy of chatting with you first before they ruin your day and make you feel ill.

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It seems generally agreed that the Quicksand is the main RP hub and that's a problem, so why not do it elsewhere? The Golden Saucer seems like the perfect place to RP given that it's going to be a social/casual mecca anyway.

 

Why don't we all plan to RP more publicly and do it there? It's supposed to be a very large space that's diverse and inclusive. I think that will solve this problem mostly.

 

The whole "I avoid low skill RPers" thing is a problem though. That's an attitude that will steer you away from new RPers and poor RPers alike. It will create an insular community. If too many people adhere to that it creates the very problem that this whole post is about.

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I'm gonna reiterate what I've said before.

 

Possibilities for why people may not answer you when there is no visible fast chat scrolling:

Some people are so inundated with very chatty Linkshells that though you may not have seen the chat as fast-scrolling, theirs may be filled with text. They might be dealing with /tells or linkshells or fc chats. Try to contact them through a /tell because the default notification for /tells are purple text with a sound notification.

 

Another factor may just be tunnel visioning. Sometimes it's very easy to pay attention to the current group or persons that one is interacting with that they don't pay attention to other people emoting or directing conversation at them. They may be only checking what people they know may be saying etc. They're mostly just scanning for the text from the active known group. Again, sending a /tell just to ask "Hey I wanted to try and initiate some walk-up RP. Are you up for it? Did you miss it?" wouldn't hurt.

 

Alt+tabbing is very real so unless they already have an idea that you may have said something to them (tunnel visioning) they may not notice it either.

 

I have never had someone outright ignore a /tell unless they ended up being afk sooner or later. As someone who dual-screens and can only impart my own experience, it's very easy to miss something when they're not focused directly on the chat 100%

 

edit: It's really the same as for some social situations. If I'm in a crowded place like a convention floor or in a market, though it -is- public I don't actively scan the area around me for their conversations. So it's not easy to notice until they get your attention. In this game, emoting -to- someone is not as direct as getting up in someone's face and waving and saying hello versus sending them a /tell. Granted, you -could- get your character right up on someone else's and start waving and they might notice but they may see that more towards trolling until they see the accompanying text of your character's actions.

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It seems generally agreed that the Quicksand is the main RP hub and that's a problem, so why not do it elsewhere?

 

The Golden Saucer seems like the perfect place to RP given that it's going to be a social/casual mecca anyway.

 

Why don't we all plan to RP more publicly and do it there? It's supposed to be a very large space that's diverse and inclusive.

 

I think that will solve this problem.

it won't

 

if a new hub is declared, the people who made the quicksand a "problem" will simply move there. it's not like the place itself is responsible for its bad rep. there is nothing that can be done to stop people looking down upon main rp hubs, and it's not worth fussing over. people hate popular things. its cool to hate popular things. rp wherever you want to, but please don't delude yourself into thinking moving hubs will save rp or something. it won't. and that's perfectly fine.

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The Quicksand is NOT a problem.  I have spent more hours there than most people and there are moments of awkwardness and periodically someone propositions you, but these are relatively rare.  It is one of the finest and most pleasant rp hubs I have encountered in any mmo.

 

Not that I expect or would want everyone to like it :)

Thinking its a problem though just seems like a most mistaken reading of the posts in this thread.

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The Quicksand is NOT a problem.  I have spent more hours there than most people and there are moments of awkwardness and periodically someone propositions you, but these are relatively rare.  It is one of the finest and most pleasant rp hubs I have encountered in any mmo.

 

I think it depends on who you are, and the day. There have been times when I've gone to the Quicksand and emoted for hours to get nothing--especially if I'm on my alt. Val tends to get noticed or interacted with because people know him and he's a catboy.

 

My Midlanders? I even emoted one bumping into someone else, or spilling his drink on someone, or asking someone else questions--all different days--all ignored.

 

I don't necessarily think the Quicksand is a problem, as I know a bunch of people that go there and do get interaction. But I do think that it can be disheartening and incredibly annoying to try multiple days of the week and get nothing in return.

 

I will say I dislike how people seem to gravitate toward the Quicksand. It's so hard to find RP outside of it, and I wish there were. I'm hoping the Gold Saucer changes that, but it's also going to be a ridiculously huge lagfest with a ton of non-RPers unless they manage to instance it off like housing.

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Results will vary Val!  Sort of what is being discussed in this thread.  Honestly I vastly prefer the QS with all its foibles over housing, which seems to be where so much rp takes place these days.  I have friends I used to rp with all the time just vanish when they got their housing,  taking their rp fully to the private sphere, and that's the trend that an active hotspot like the QS helps to alleviate.  Would it be better if there were similar hotspots at the Canopy and the Wench? (or the Missing Member!) Yes, definitely.  Does that leave me regretting the QS in all its hodgepodge glory?  Not at all :)

 

I'm not trying to suggest that it's the best place ever, that it's never rough, that every character or every RPer should like it, or want to spend time there: it's an RP hub and comes with all of the problems of one.  But I think in the grand scheme of things it is a very good one, and we should be thankful for it. I could not disagree more with the suggested conclusion that the QS is a problem to be solved.

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Besides, it's days are probably limited with the release of the Saucer and Heavansward - those wishing it would go away will probably get eat the want!  A little change and variety should be good!  I just wonder how many people will look back upon this golden age of RP fondly! :-D

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I think it depends on who you are, and the day. There have been times when I've gone to the Quicksand and emoted for hours to get nothing--especially if I'm on my alt. Val tends to get noticed or interacted with because people know him and he's a catboy.

 

My Midlanders? I even emoted one bumping into someone else, or spilling his drink on someone, or asking someone else questions--all different days--all ignored.

Honestly, like I said before, it's very very easy to miss someone emoting at you or to you. Did you send them a /tell?

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This thread is mostly telling the people who have been neglected what they should do to fix the problem. In suggesting moving to a different hub, I'm just trying to think of suggestions/changes we can make that don't amount to putting all of the onus on the people who feel excluded.

 

That seems like a good way to turn off a lot of potential RPers and shrink the community.

 

((Made an edit here to put things a bit clearer and hopefully less offensive. I didn't mean to hurt anyone's feelings or insinuate that anyone had less than good motives.))

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This thread is mostly telling the people who have been neglected what they've done to deserve it (whether that's intentional or not, if you read the first page it's kind of disturbing). In suggesting moving to a different hub, I'm just trying to think of suggestions/changes we can make that don't amount to putting all of the blame on the people who feel excluded.

 

That seems like a good way to turn off a lot of potential RPers and shrink the community.

Because telling people how these types of things may happen, not out of maliciousness but because of carelessness on the other RPers' fault or their not noticing, is putting blame on someone.

 

Right.

 

No one said they were at fault or that they deserved it. They're suggestions of your-mileage-may-vary but these may be reasons why and how can we -all- take steps to avoid it.

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You say "we can all take steps to avoid it" but the steps being suggested are put entirely on the excluded person. That's what I'm getting at. Someone shows up and says "I have a problem" and a thousand people offer "well have you tried this?"

 

If the community was as inclusive as it sees itself then it wouldn't be "have you tried this" and would instead be "okay here's how we're going to all help solve this problem."

 

Instead it's been "this is what you should do" followed by pages of people explaining why the person might've been ignored from their perspective.

 

None of this helps the person much, it just puts the onus on them to help themself.

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That's a really unfair and uncharitable interpretation!

 Like many people in this thread I was just trying to offer advice that we found helpful trying to overcome the same thing you are.  Beleive it or not must of us have been through the same thing!  That's not casting blame, it's trying to be helpful.  If that's not what you want then I can't really offer anything! ^^

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I am guilty of ignoring emotes directed at me... But only ICly. Sometimes I'll be spending time around other RPers but not be IC myself. I have my search info set to say "please send a tell for RP" specifically because currently there are a lot of places where I may end up that Kino would not be ICly. I've been approached in this way before and am good about typically sending a tell and explaining that and attempting to arrange something else.

 

That's all just me though. I can't say I've had such bad luck with being ignored so I can't offer much help on how to fix it. D:

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If youre having trouble climbing a mountain we could offer advice on equipment to use and technique.  Have you tried pitons? What sort of ice pick are you using?   Have you tried the south slope?  We can't offer to help lower the mountain, and accusing us of being mean for not doing so isn't exactly reasonable.

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You say "we can all take steps to avoid it" but the steps being suggested are put entirely on the excluded person. That's what I'm getting at. Someone shows up and says "I have a problem" and a thousand people offer "well have you tried this?"

 

If the community was as inclusive as it sees itself then it wouldn't be "have you tried this" and would instead be "okay here's how we're going to all help solve this problem."

 

Instead it's been "this is what you should do" followed by pages of people explaining why the person might've been ignored through justifying explanations.

 

Here's my question: Look at what I've described. The situations I've described, and can you tell me how people should "fix" those issues?

 

The fact is, those are things that come from human nature of how they play this game. I know a variety of people who play this game, who RP, while reading stories, reading webcomics, look at the news, watch Netflix (etc). I can't tell them that they need to PLAY ONLY THIS GAME AND ONLY PAY ATTENTION TO IT!!1111.

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Sorry Aya. I did some editing to hopefully make it less objectionable. I know you have good intent, and you're also very welcoming to new people and you frequent the Quicksand a lot. I know if you're offended by that, what I said needs some refinement. You are definitely not part of the problem, you're part of the solution. I wish more people were like you.

 

What I am trying to explain is that this thread is really disheartening to read from the perspective of someone who is trying to fit in and get involved. Knowing why you were ignored when you tried to RP doesn't mean you weren't ignored and having heaps of advice put on you just makes you feel even more responsible for seeing to it that you are included. Let's say the advice given to that person still doesn't work... What then? They will probably quit. And it won't work if any of this phenomenon is caused by the structure of the community (which is something that people don't seem to want to address).

 

An inclusive community takes steps to include people, it does not educate people on how to best be included first.

 

I don't think the veterans here realize how hard it is to get established in FFXIV RP. For example, people suggested joining open RP... Open RP has a waitlist. It will be days before you're even invited.

 

People have mentioned that they see these kinds of threads a lot. That means there is a consistent problem here. I want to be part of its solution. I want to have a discussion about how we can make a more inclusive community. And that includes changing my own bad habits if I need to (and I'm sure there are some things I do that aren't very noob friendly).

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I think part of the point that's being made is that the mountain, so to speak, in this case isn't an unreachable third-party or inanimate object...it's a community made up of everyone here. So it's not just that the person climbing could be doing something better (and they probably could~), but the 'mountain' is made up of actual people who can reflect on themselves and the ways they shape the community.

 

If I'm not the only one who's felt this way (and by many indications, I'm not), isn't it possible and even kind of likely that the static 'mountain' in this case is the common thread between those having issues? Certainly not everyone has to or will care about this kind of thing and that's fine - but if you're someone who thinks of yourself and/or your community as 'inclusive', then it's worth considering the problem from multiple angles. That's why I'm pleading that in as much as I'm going to try to be more direct with people through /tell, tunnel-vision and all that can be addressed from the top down, as well.

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But if a simple /tell would fix that getting someone's attention... what then?

 

Like I said, emoting someone in this game is not as simple an attention getter as we'd all like to think it is. Emoting that I waved a hand at someone's face is not the same thing as actually getting up in someone's face. The most direct way for someone to not overlook something is sending a /tell that would -usually- do so.

 

But I would gladly invite people to address said issues. If you have good suggestions about that, please share.

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I think it depends on who you are, and the day. There have been times when I've gone to the Quicksand and emoted for hours to get nothing--especially if I'm on my alt. Val tends to get noticed or interacted with because people know him and he's a catboy.

 

My Midlanders? I even emoted one bumping into someone else, or spilling his drink on someone, or asking someone else questions--all different days--all ignored.

 

Honestly, like I said before, it's very very easy to miss someone emoting at you or to you. Did you send them a /tell?

 

I have, actually! Sometimes they respond, sometimes it continues to be ignored. As Aya said, results may vary. It really just depends on luck and time of day/person.

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