' Wrote:A post on the subject of immersion whilst we wait for Bluespawn to finish the slideshow presentation on my failings and n00bl3t to post his zing.
The subject on my noggin is skype.
Skype is, in my humble opinion, not the greatest favor discovery has ever done itself. Skype is a grand tool for organization, passing information and voice communication across the globe. It's been more or less touted as an essential tool for factions.
Though I wonder if the communication spam across channels might not be detracting from the communication we might see on the forum or in game. If I witnessed, for example, 1/100th of the jabber which took place in the old XA chat in the message dump, let alone in the bar thread, let alone in character development our forum would be exploding with storytelling and information passing.
Right now forum participation is virtually considered a chore by many. I understand that I am not a shining star in this regard, chiefly due to an understanding that my writing skills are somewhere between that of a disadvantaged penguin and a boy who has served a near lethal blow to the head by a wiffle ball bat.
I don't have a group to lead around by the nose right now. But if I did I would try to test this theory to the best of my ability. Kill skype for anything other than the most basic emergency communication and do all other communication, to the point of simple questions, on the forum and see what comes of it.
This idea could use a revisit, though I feel very satisfied with the Lane Hacker Comm Frequency on Skype. Sometimes I wish to publish parts of it, but it always contains private content (for the faction and its plans) that it would be contraproductive. This is not a thread about the Hackers, but I feel like our chat helps the immersion, not the other way around.
' Wrote:This idea could use a revisit, though I feel very satisfied with the Lane Hacker Comm Frequency on Skype. Sometimes I wish to publish parts of it, but it always contains private content (for the faction and its plans) that it would be contraproductive. This is not a thread about the Hackers, but I feel like our chat helps the immersion, not the other way around.
The Lane Hacker chat was the first thing that came to mind when I read Dusty's post. It maintains a sort of casual balance between OOC notices and role-play. Things are often said in in-universe terms, even though we don't exactly roleplay. It makes the entire experience more immersive and enjoyable.
Skype is a useful tool when used properly- to settle disputes, go "ZOMG HALP WE'RE GETTING PWNED", and to do sensitive planning/brainstorming. But I agree, the forums and ingame are far more effective- and can be even more effective than we usually have them be. Compare your average comm channel thread to the Rheinland government's invitation to the GMG guildmasters a few months ago. Then again, there's still a problem with that- it's people giving presentations back and forth. It's a dialogue, but it can be a bit awkward sometimes, and Skype is more natural for some talks. Then again, make sure you always know if a skype chat is in or out of roleplay... (I'm looking at you, Divine).
We have a lot of tools at our disposal to make things more immersive. Since you've pointed it out, I think my next communique will be more along the lines of this rather than the usual "incoming transmission". Mm, now I want to write more stories...
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