TreeSmoothie 4896 Share Posted July 9, 2022 The Four Horsemen of 'Immersive' Roleplay Hello gamers, it's TreeSmoothie and welcome to another Youtube debate post. Ah, immersion. You download shaders that wreck your PC for it and handcraft emotes of looking at people that make it seem like you've studied the ways of the Thesaurus for years. I believe LOTC players take immersion way too seriously sometimes, and other times, not seriously enough. All of the examples written in bright green are things I've personally encountered and seen happen. Logging Off You're in an event that bridges two playerbases that tend to hate eachother -- druids and dark mages -- together to fight after some massive planning has taken place OOC to make sure everyone's cool about it. Surprisingly, it's going very smoothly! Of course, it's late and the host has to pause it for a moment to grab some dinner; probably for 10, 20 minutes. A message pops up in LOOC. "No. You're not logging off." ... Are they speaking to the ST hosting this like that? "You're not logging off. I want my event!" Apparently, the player was so angry in VC their group decided to kick them out. Well, maybe now everyone's chill! While fighting, you accidentally deal a killing blow to a player, and they say they wish to PK. Oh, shoot - you need to make the death memorable, at least. As you put some more time into the emote and post it, you realize it's 3 AM on a school night and after you and the player finish with the scene, you emote grabbing the body to burry it later and say you've got to log off, when another player begins raging in LOOC. Oh god. Not again. "My character is trying to save her. Don't log." Their character was 24 blocks away, and the dead body & your character were engulfed in Deadbreath; they couldn't see either of you at all. "I don't really care if she's already dead, if you log I'm calling mods." On the verge of sleep, you shrug, shut your computer and go to sleep while they continue berating the others in your party. They did indeed try to get you banned. Often roleplay will drag on for hours, usually very late or before someone has to go do something. If someone's begun combat with you, nine times out of ten they'll not let you go. I do understand this because people also do use it as an excuse if they're losing, but threatening said-player, berating them, et Cetera will do nothing if they do intend on logging regardless. In the end, this is a game of pixels and Moderators cannot put you in jail IRL. Probably?😼 I'm not entirely sure what could fix this large of an issue, but rules and regulations for it would benefit a lot. Even something as small as, "If a party has to log off for more than x minutes, both sides of the fight have to agree to either allow both to have memory of it, or neither will and the situation is voided" to cut down on the risk of metagaming (a player tries to fight you for being a criminal/etc, they take off your mask in the fight but suddenly have to go. Suddenly you see your character's namemc face on a shoddy forum Wanted post). Havoc You've just survived the utter destruction of a city by feral demons. All the trees have been scorched, no buildings have been left standing, dozens of corpses litter the ground, blood soaks into the earth, the crops are dead, you're an orphan now or whatever. You go, "Man. I hope Elvenesse will be alright after this!" and leave after your character helps someone mend a wound. You visit again a day later, and ... The city's been completely reconstructed in that timespan. Those dead people are alive again. There's also a second new city built. "Oh. Magic, I guess." After something is destroyed in your town/city/etc, it's only reasonable you want it repaired. But many times, especially in the example, catastrophic events can be completely ignored and their seriousness erased because you can just rebuild or repaste. Did your entire city just burn down after you killed a demon lord? Oh well, immediately fixed. It erases roleplay that could be done and the consequences of peoples' actions not attempting to do xyz to prevent things -- much like map changes and other events, because 'Well, I'll just respawn/make another character'. Fear & Trolling You're an Orc ransacking ... An unnamed city. Their banners have turned to ash, blood pools at your feet and you bask in the glory of a victorious battle. Everyone has fled. On the forums, you write a post about the won warclaim and in the replies, the inhabitants of the city write things like, "Elfname chortles slyly as they sip tea. 'Those brutes didn't do anything'." "Childname roars as they rip the head clean off of an unnamed orc. They wipe orc from their blade. They eat an orc. This child has killed orcs in this war and you should see that." "Humanname shrugs. 'Free toilet paper! This letter is trash and I wish to proclaim that! Did you know this letter sucks?', as they throw it in the fireplace." This one is definitely beating a dead horse, as it's been brought up many times, yet it hasn't changed. Of course you can't force people to roleplay a certain way, but there can be barriers to prevent low quality emotes like these. And actually, there are! Among some of the rules for the forums, two include not writing one-sentence emotes that add nothing to the topic, and another is to put memes/ooc chat in spoilers. Yet if you click on any of the recent war topics, these are almost all of the replies. That, and 'R' and 'Reserved' comments that are never edited (I've been guilty of this before, too). Moderators seem to pick and choose while handling these rules. When I did it, I was given two different warnings without expiration dates that're still on my profile about 2 years later. But then, when you check about just any topic, you can see moderators and other staff doing the same exact thing. Ghost Raiding This is a classic one; during times of war, you assemble a 20-man rally to either raid during 3 AM est, or to raid an entirely dead and empty city. After getting the single player that was likely just afking there, they kill them and write a forum post of killing 'a hundred men' and that 'their guardforce/army/etc' have failed them. I can't write much about this topic unfortunately because I've no personal experience in doing this/being killed in one, but it genuinely has the same energy the people in the example of Fear & Trolling. If you wish to write posts like these, engage in actual combat and create roleplay between your playerbases. Encourage healthy, immersive conflict rather than plundering a random vassal. 1 Person ≠ 100, or even 1,000, People Killing 1 Person at a time the server is dead at because you know you won't meet resistance is not a Win. It's just embarrassing. not gonna lie I just wrote this because I was bored of seeing all these new war posts that do exactly as the stuff described in Ghost Raiding, or people emoting stuff like the example in Fear & Trolling. I hardly log on anymore so the forums is how I spectate LOTC, and it's frankly annoying to see this type of stuff over and over again clogging up the recent posts. 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burnsider 4542 Share Posted July 10, 2022 I hate this font. 7 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luxury 603 Share Posted July 10, 2022 15 minutes ago, Burnsider said: I hate this font. Yes. You're in charge of your own immersion while gameplay is active. At times the segues between rp sessions can seem jarring or unnatural but that comes with the platform. People can't be on all day every day, etc. As futile as it may be, you should try to eliminate as much as you can beside what's going on in that window where minecraft is running. No forums, no discord, no wiki. It's idealist and perhaps not entirely possible for some, but the reward is in the effort. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rukio 8910 Share Posted July 10, 2022 I am so tired of people telling me what my character should and shouldn't be scared of. There's only so many times you can ooga booga agunga me and I bash your undead noggin in before it becomes a joke to my character. Like a vet who euthanizes pets. You get callused to stuff as you get older and more experienced. 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
argonian 12837 Share Posted July 10, 2022 14 hours ago, TreeSmoothie said: Well, maybe now everyone's chill! While fighting, you accidentally deal a killing blow to a player, and they say they wish to PK. Oh, shoot - you need to make the death memorable, at least. As you put some more time into the emote and post it, you realize it's 3 AM on a school night and after you and the player finish with the scene, you emote grabbing the body to burry it later and say you've got to log off, when another player begins raging in LOOC. Oh god. Not again. "My character is trying to save her. Don't log." Their character was 24 blocks away, and the dead body & your character were engulfed in Deadbreath; they couldn't see either of you at all. "I don't really care if she's already dead, if you log I'm calling mods." this sounds mildly wildly psychotic 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TreeSmoothie 4896 Author Share Posted July 12, 2022 what the hell I put this in comic sans why is it in script On 7/9/2022 at 8:43 PM, Burnsider said: I hate this font. same😭 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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