OOC talk in game

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Drake
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OOC talk in game

#1 Post by Drake » Wed Apr 12, 2006 9:26 am

For some time now I, and other wizards have noticed an increasing amount of OOC chat within the game environment.

Whilst OOC talk is not discouraged, and some commands have even been coded with the ability to disable viewing of such discussion, I would like to suggest that each and every one of us make an attempt to cut down on the excessive use of OOC chat.

Within the game environment, excessive usage only intrudes upon the atmosphere, and the RP environment we are all here to build and enjoy.

If you do have something lengthy to discuss, I'll remind you of the OOC area, where such things should be taken.
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#2 Post by Drake » Tue May 02, 2006 9:44 am

Ok, it has now been three weeks since my initial post regarding this matter.

As yet, no one has responded, and, it seems from recent observations within the game, that no one has listened to the suggestion either.

I have, in the intervening weeks had players comment to me that they have even had IC attempts to role-play totally ignored by those present in favour of whichever @chat discussion happens to be occurring at any given moment.

I really do not believe I should have to point out just how intolerable that is.

This is a role-play mud, people come here to role-play, if you wish to simply blather about whatever mundane day to day matters have occurred each day, then simply go elsewhere to do it, it is not, and I repeat NOT welcome within the game environment of Geas.

There are many devoted role-players who come here seeking to sink themselves into the fantasy world of Geas, a fantasy world they do not need, or want interrupted by walking past people discussing the weather, their ailments, the colour of the grass, or whatever other irrelevant nonsense is often being discussed where anyone and everyone can walk into it.

Whilst we do not wish to discourage anyone from forming friendships with other players, the discussion, and day to day chatter such friendships often entail is not something we wish to have disturbing any of our players experience in the world of the game. For such things, the OOC area is available, and should be used.

Yes, it is easy to lose track of time, lose track of how a few idle comments suddenly turns into half an hour of non-stop OOC chatter, but each and every one of us as players need to promote the fantasy world we come to play in, and as such, we all need to take part in ensuring unnecessary distractions such OOC chatter, is not taking part in the game world, so either have the decency to not expose other players to it and take it to the OOC area yourself, or if you come across other players ignoring such pleasantries, politely ask them to move to the OOC area and stop disturbing your experience of the fantasy world of Geas.

Since the OOC chatter has not been reduced since the initial warning post, wizards are considering ways and means to discourage, or perhaps eliminate altogether, unnecessary chatter.

Of course, utilizing the OOC area as intended would remove the need to hard code measures to restrict OOC talk.
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chara
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#3 Post by chara » Tue May 02, 2006 4:32 pm

Please also let us know if you have suggestions for ways to limit @chat, @say, and @whisper in the game areas. You might like your solutions better than the ones we wizards come up with.

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#4 Post by Kortha » Wed May 03, 2006 10:18 am

Well, one thing that'd help is if we make sure that when we're saying brb or something else important, we use @say so someone can have @chat turned off without missing it. I used to do it this way, but then it got to where only like 2 players had @chat turned off so it seemed pointless to use @say when I knew everyone in the room could see the @chat.

A good portion of the ooc babble that goes on is because there's like 2 or 3 of us sitting around bored and not in the mood to go kill something, so we ooc chat while waiting for someone to show up and give us an idea of what to do. Going to the ooc area in cases like that would just defeat the purpose, since if someone fun *does* show up we'd miss each other.

As for ignoring rp attempts, all I can really suggest is for everyone to make sure the ooc stuff and the ic stuff are displayed in different colors so you can tell at a glance and either join the rp or pop ooc or whatever. Usually when the ooc stuff gets too much for me, I'll suggest going back ic or make a pointed comment about not being able to remember what we were doing ic.

There was an incident the other day where someone came in wanting to rp in the middle of a big ooc blabfest and I kept on with the ooc stuff because my char didn't want to talk about that subject. Should I have said that oocly so that person didn't think I hadn't noticed it at all, or something?
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#5 Post by genesis » Wed May 03, 2006 2:05 pm

I am myself one of those to be blamed of the extensive OOC chattering.

I would like to disable @chat in the most popular rooms; this meaning the crossroads.
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#6 Post by Kiyvali » Wed May 03, 2006 2:51 pm

For a code solution, make OOC akin to a hidden 'skill'. OOC_value. If OOC_value can range from 0 to 100, let OOC_value represent the number of tenths of seconds it takes for the OOC statement to be processed. Additionally, apply OOC_value as a percentage chance that the OOC statement gets lost entirely.

Being hit with increasing delays and occasional 'misses' from attempts to speak OOC serves a handy way of dissuading the behavior without eliminating it entirely when need presents itself.

Alternatively, find those troublespots that cause people to opt for OOC speech and work out a way to eliminate them if reasonable to the game. Taking Kortha's example, perhaps find ways for a group of bored people to occupy themselves IC for an undetermined amount of time.

(Socializing is great and I'm not knocking it at all, but I have to wonder... do people really stand around in one place for ingame hours and days doing nothing? The players may be socializing OOC, but that means the PCs are not socializing IC--or doing much of anything else at all during that time.)

Or possibly, incorporate a separate OOC system via IRC or such? That way, players can meet and talk OOC -outside the context of the game- while their characters are doing whatever vague and sundry activities, related or unrelated as they might be. I'm sure there's a lot of people here I'd enjoy talking to OOC, people I might otherwise never know or know only from the opposite side of a conflict. OOC communication is great for building community.

I don't mean and I'd rather not see anything like a global OOC channel, but I'm talking a separate chat function in a wholly separate window, one managed/recommended/whatever by Geas-approved moderators--so as to prevent flames, IC information being brought OOC, so on. Or if an area akin to the OOC area of the game could be run on a mini-MUD concurrently, we could then login to it when we login to Geas. I can see definite cons with this approach, but it would then eliminate OOC text from the game wholly, aside from the occasional need to use @say to instruct newbies. That mini-mud wouldn't need to store objects, since there'd be none. We'd have avatars with descriptions, emotes, say, and that would really be about it. The idea would be to keep it limited, so that it would be used only for OOC communication. As well, keep down resource use.

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#7 Post by tarlon » Thu May 04, 2006 2:43 am

I don´t like the ooc skill idea because the ooc command is sometimes very important. I used to have long talks ooc with guildwizards due to bugs.
None could warn you that he has a bug and can´t flee at the moment. And you kill him just because his ooc message was lost due to a freaking skill.
Resrtricting it would be impossible because @say is a very important command.
The wizards gave the option of @chat even though i forget to use it from time to time due to the reason it is a fairly new command. Just remind players to use it. noone is forced to have @chat on
And if you want to remind players about their OOC talks implement an index.
So if you type stats It would say You talk ooc seldem, alot.... . But this could even encourage people to get high levels. ;-)
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chara
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#8 Post by chara » Thu May 04, 2006 4:12 am

Sitting around passively chatting OOC while waiting for someone else to come around and provide the fun is exactly the behavior we want to staunch. I've seen people "bored" chatting OOC when newbies came into the game, and ignored them. I've seen people who wanted to roleplay being ignored because the OOC was more interesting. This is intolerable.

If you are bored, get off your butt and make something happen IC. If there are enough people around to chat, there are enough to make some fun. And if you aren't in the mood to do that, take it to the OOC area.

OOC chat was supposed to allow people who wanted immersive roleplay to ignore all OOC stuff, even the "afk, brb" type. It was not meant to let people who wanted to spend long stretches of time chatting to do it in game.

If everyone is just sitting around waiting for someone else to make the game fun for them, then we might as well make Geas a chat line and forget the rest.

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#9 Post by jezz » Thu May 04, 2006 7:20 am

I agree with Chara in the point that I don't understand how people can get bored in a game, or in MSN for example.

If you are bored, why the hell are you playing or chatting? God, go to the street and feed the birds, but don't tell people that you aren't having fun, because noone is here to amuse you specifically.

So yes, I dislike the OOC chat and thus I tend to avoid crossroads or crowded places for example, because you can hardly try to convert someone while there are other 3 people with a conversation ooc. The worst part is that sometimes, that conversation is about what you are doing IC... and that sucks, plain and simple: sucks ;)

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#10 Post by Abharsair » Thu May 04, 2006 8:17 am

I'd like to add that I don't dislike OOC conversations on a general basis. After all, we want to have the feel of a community. However, I agree that extensive OOC blabber can harm the fun of other people and demotivates those who like to stay IC and try to do serious roleplay. The crossroad is a place to meet, yes, but it's not a chat room, and if you want to discuss OOC relationships, cats, work, whatever, then please be considerate enough to go to the OOC area and don't spoil the atmosphere of the game. Drake already tried to tell you that three weeks ago by appealing to your common sense, but he was blatantly ignored, and that's why we're now thinking about restricting the trivial chatting without making it harder to broadcast important OOC messages.

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