Player input on handling Special RP characters

[Dieter Schprokets]

Its exactly as I said, New ID next version or permission to act that way till next version, I have no problem with admin approved, I do have a problem with I wrote it, so I can do it.

The QCP made a hell of a lot of sense. But they were an example of a square peg being fit into a round hole. In the absense of a Privateer ID, they made do with something else, and got (wrongly IMHO) flamed for it.

Look, the simple fact is that a really good RP reason to do something, can and should trump the rules. Also the game/mod itself cannot bend to all situations. The lack of a merc tag, and privateer id, being cases in point.

I just had a brainwave. What about a separate subforum for OORP ship combinations discussion? Person who wants to make such a ship (or faction, like QCP) posts there, and community evaluates, much like a faction evaluation request. If evaluation is approved, character/faction goes on the approved OORP list.

(Note : "approved OORP list" is a lousy term for it, but too tired to think of an alternative.)

This could complement the OORP warning notice placed in the hold. The notice could point the player to that subforum, and require them to post.

If action is deemed needed, I prefer the above to complement the proposed rule enforcement, though I would rather see no changes at all to the existing process.

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[sovereign]

Anyone under the impression that post count is a measure of wisdom is wrong. An early estimate perhaps, but seriously,

For those who actually can RP and do it, those who put an effort into it, this whole thing ain't making it fair,
and that decision made there ain't fun since as I see it it'll punish those who're having to invest a great
amount of time in their character's story and roleplay to make it a unique and entertaining experience
in the first place even more,
while those who'd actually need some sort of punishment won't get much, if not any, more of it than they're getting already.
The generalization of everything by making such a decision in the first place doesn't strike me as wise a move
when taking into account what roleplay itself is.
You roleplay a character, and each and every one of those characters is unique in itself.
It is the different ways people roleplay, the different characters, the different stories, the different things
one gets to see and experience that provide us with a large portion of the entertainment value we all get
as the members of this community.

If one's prime focus is the roleplay in itself, then all the other benefits of one's characters roleplay
are a bonus, but not necessarily the definition of the character as it is in the overwhelming
amount of cases.
However, As Unit-sk855 said in his earlier post:
"The ships a character flies is part of the character."

The game we are playing here is Freelancer. It provides us with ample opportunities for all kinds of roleplay,
however the customization options in-game for our characters, and with that I mean the people, are limited.
Instead of our in-game avatars being, for example, a Half-Orc Barbarian wearing a kilt and swinging two cleavers,
it might be that Eagle with those Skyblast Bs we fly.

As such, in the end the ship and equipment aspects are one part of a character's roleplay.
And they are important ones.
As I've said, each and every character is unique.
This can be represented by:
The story and background, if applicable, found on the forums.
The conversations and general player-to-player interaction in the game.
The ship the character flies and the equipment he or she uses.

The story and background give you, usually, a good couple minutes or even hours of entertainment
outside of the game, and they give you an idea of how the character acts, beheaves,
what ship the character flies, where he or she lives, acts and operates.
However, the written work is, just one part of the entire roleplay itself,
and it is not as interactive as the in-game parts are.
The conversations and interactions with other characters are the major interactive parts of the roleplay.
It is in-game where the story and background are put to test, where the story may continue, where the story
gets influenced by other character's actions, where a character acts as depicted in story and background and
where a character uses the tools given to him by the game itself and the written work on the forums, if there is any.

A person can write ten pages of an excellent story that would explain every little bit of a character's
personality, a character's way of acting, a character's ship and equipment and how he or she got ahold of it,
but only in-game do others get to experience him or her firsthand.

Now, how do we differentiate our characters, and in some cases, their entire personality, from eachother in-game?
For one, by flying different ships, customized by using different equipment to suit the character's,
and maybe in some cases our, liking.
Then there is our actions. Imagining a situation where a naval officer encountered an enemy
who was clearly outgunned and / or outclassed, what possible further options are there?
For example, were he a cold-blooded and ruthless person, he would most likely engage the enemy without
as much as a second thought.
Were he however not wanting to shed any unneccessary blood due to his own background and personality,
he could try to arrest the enemy, or try to convince him to retreat maybe.
What if he sympathized with the enemy's goals and views, maybe he could switch sides?

As said above, our stories, our backgrounds, our words, our actions and to an extent our ships,
they are all parts that allow us to differentiate our characters from each other,
and they let us form the whole big picture that is roleplay.

In the naval officer example above, what if the man chose the last option, but then got used and betrayed by his
new friends after a period of time? What if those goals he sympathized with turned out to be wrong?
Should he go on fighting alongside them just because of his ship, his ID, his IFF?

Should a Xeno not let himself be convinced by a Liberty Navy officer that his doing was wrong just because of his ID and IFF?
Should a Wilde pilot just stick to being the Wilde pilot he is for all eternity just because of his ID and IFF?
Should a Corsair be denied a romance with a Hessian woman just because of the same reason?
Should I stick to the, for the lack of a better word, stereotypes that are expected when someone sees
my characters' IDs and IFFs?
No.

However, I sense one problem to be overlooked, but it isn't necessarily the focus of this thread.
Regardless, I'll mention it, since for me, it goes hand-in-hand.
From what I've seen here in this thread, and in general on Discovery before,
is that "off-the-norm" roleplay in-game has been generally accepted, provided there existed a written explanation
on the forums which should, for the lack of better words, "make sense".

Not everyone who writes a "good" story might aswell roleplay "good" in the game,
Likewise not everyone who roleplays "good" might write a "good" story.
Or to put it in a different way, there is a lot of in-game roleplaying actions of "great" and simply
"outstanding" quality, and frankly not everything is, nor can, be documented at all times.
However it is possible that many of those actions are what continues the development of a character,
make him or her change views on things, influence his or her personality or psyche, and thus the decisions
made and acts commited by the character in the future.

And simply put, not everyone who wants to play here may want to write a five page long story,
just to explain some action of his or her character which was roleplayed out in-game.
Not everyone might posess the writing prowess to deliver a "good" story that would be approved
by the majority of the community. This brings me to the fact that not everyone might aswell posess even the time to do so.
For some writing may go easy, but what takes one person five minutes to write up might have taken someone else an hour.
Some people just want to roleplay in-game and have their fun there instead of spending countless hours with explaining themselves.
I do understand that for certain things an in-depth explanation is necessary, and I consider that fair.
In such situations however it would be preferable were as many factors taken into account as possible,
and were the situation seen from, ideally, all different perspectives.
(I put "good", "great" and "outstanding" in quotation marks here, since what is good in the eyes of one
may obviously not be as good in the eyes of another.
It's all a matter of perception, and I only speak for myself here based on what I have seen, heard and experienced.)
Well, that's it. I felt like I could maybe add something useful to this discussion, so yeah.
No more posts of mine here, good day chaps, it's 0617 AM and I din't sleep, coffee time.

NICE. Welcome to Discovery, and join the Volksfront.





And I very strongly second Dieter's motion. Admins can't be everywhere, if things are done openly it is a lot easier to detect PvP-whores from the prevailing attitude. Such a forum should also handle terrorist ID ideas... which reminds me to A) finish the hybridization stuff in the Nomad document, and B) write up the start stuff for Hekate's massive saga.

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[chovynz]

Good post Blighter.

Basically what I have been trying to say is this. There needs to be room for:
1. Static character roleplay - for those who want to play in a static role day in day out. This is actually an ok way to RP.
2. Dynamic character roleplay - for those who want to grow and expand their characters.
3. Static faction roleplay, for those who want to play without expanding their faction RP
4. Dynamic faction RP - for those who want to grow their faction ideas and methods and not stay in the gridlock of Vanilla Freelancer faction relationships.
5. Casual roleplay - on a case by case basis, day to day... from 1 hour to 4 hours. No forum involvment necessary.
6. Story intensive driven roleplay. - this may take months of work to produce. This kind of RP can't be rushed otherwise you end up with more often than not - a flop.

There needs to be room on Discovery Roleplay Server for ALL of these styles of roleplay - and variations or combinations of them.
If a ruling is put into place stating that "no OORP" ship is allowed - without defining OORP - then it severely restricts RPs 2,4,5,6.
This ruling and this kind of thinking only supports static roleplay.

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Seek fun and you shall find it. Seek stuff to Q_Q about and you'll find that, too. I choose to have fun.

[jpo]

I jusy dont even know anymore, I hear so many people say so many things...

For example a unioner flying to rochester even though at rochester one of the snipets directly says that pirates from all factions come there becasue they are welcome.

Flying a cruiser in front of NB, my faction is supposed to be there. They complain that its "a warship" the description cklearly says its a recon vessel made for doing what im doing with it.

as an indy pirate complaints of having a pirate ID with a cosairs gunboat. As if wayne, as if.

I pretty much just decided to follow the following rules:

If a ship is green on the master ship list I buy it.

If a ship is yellow on the master ship list I buy It after I've made an RP post about it.

I dont even ask about red.

If weapons are available on a base that will sell them to me with propper ID I buy them.

If weapons are available from other players that are not from factions that are red to my faction I b uy them.

If a system contains an ally or enemy from my IFF list I have business there.

I noticed some people dont really understand the faction system. Look at your IFF. It lists your friends and your enemies. Enemies are red. Friends are green. Everyone else is white. You cant buy powerful weapons from someone that is white or red but you can buy commodities or ships from them (i still follow the master ship list even tho it doesent even come close to matching the IFF lists).

I think the admins have a good system but are suffering from "give an inch take a mile syndrome". They don't want to say its ok for an outcast to have one tizona del cid because then someone will have 6. Thats probably not the best example for this server but imagine vanilla.

and finally I notice this:

a handful of people read the RP threads, and I see hundreds of people in game daily. the bottom line is you should CYOA first and foremost. If you dont know ask an admin and wait till they answer.

The new mod will obviously be bigger, not smaller, and we all need to play in the sandbox nicely.

[sovereign]

Minor issue, the base selling points are lolwhut- Buffalo sells Corsair guns, Malta sells Liberty and Kusari guns, Planet Kurile (Samura) sells the Anubis Order VHF alongside Liberty and Kusari guns, plus the IMG GB. Don't base equipment on that, it ends badly.

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[Orin]

Deiter's subforum idea is great.

As for Blighter's post. I believe Akuma's words would be...

"Whah Whah"

:rolleyes:

[chovynz]

I think the admins have a good system but are suffering from "give an inch take a mile syndrome".
They don't want to say its ok for an outcast to have one tizona del cid because then someone will have 6.
Thats probably not the best example for this server but imagine vanilla.

The problem with "imagining Vanilla" is that Microsoft made many illogical mistakes that Discovery is
attempting to fix into making more sense. There's just so much to fix that Disco is overwhelmed with the
amount of things to do. Adding more things (in my humble opinion) is not good because we end up not fixing
the things that need fixing. And we end up compounding the related problems and issues that we need to also fix.

Little by little Discovery is becoming what the Freelancer should have been. Ask the infocard writers how much
information is missing. Ask the wiki editors how much stuff in one ship/base/info box doesnt make much
sense. Ask Kuraine how many bases, planets and factions are missing critical information.

Discovery is based upon the principles of Freelancer Vanilla, but it is NOT Vanilla. We have the opportunity to roleplay
in the Freelancer universe and help it become alive. I would hate to see Discovery, getting the shovel, because we can't
have "OORP" ships or equipment. What does that "OORP" ruling extend to? Where will the "OORP" labeling end.
"I'm sorry, you can't become neutral with your enemies - even though you have had 6 months of background
INGAME roleplay with them. You are OORP." "No I'm sorry, you can't play as a Newark cleaning drone - because
Newark doesnt have cleaning drones - you are OORP."

Seriously. Where does calling someone elses roleplay "OORP" end? Because that IS biased depending on your point of view.

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Seek fun and you shall find it. Seek stuff to Q_Q about and you'll find that, too. I choose to have fun.

[Vero]

Many excellent points from various sides of this have been made.
Yes, I have read it all up to this point.
More discussion will happen among the Admin team on this issue. I can assure you of that.

[Orin]

Many excellent points from various sides of this have been made.
Yes, I have read it all up to this point.
More discussion will happen among the Admin team on this issue. I can assure you of that.

Thanks for taking an interest in what we think, Vero.

P.S. And good job reading it all.:laugh:

[stewcool]

PPS How did you possibly read all that...I still cant keep up haha. Good job none the less.

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