OOC, Roleplay, and You(r view)

[squakhawk 14038]

hi meows :3c

 

I want to talk pretty seriously about a problem I've noticed for quite some time, been involved with myself, and the dangers I foresee it has on the server. I'm holding this thread as a mature and serious discussion over the concern there is for OOC domineering over roleplay. Please, before you go to the comments, stew on your thoughts and consider what this post not only means, but means to you. First, let's look at the changes themselves.

 

Roleplay Leaders and their Expectations

As the backbone of our shared narrative, roleplay leaders are afforded a non-trivial level of influence. When we exercise this power with wisdom, then we grant our community delightful, cooperative fun. Good for our ourselves; wonderful for others. Without composure, we drive egoistic, divisive hedonism. Harmful for ourselves; harmful for others. It is in our interest to define which is what and aim to act mindfully.

Let’s quickly define some terms I want to use going ahead.

 

Metaplay. The play-beyond-play. Coercing, pressuring or ostracizing players to influence in-character outcomes. Out-of-character, backdoor driven narratives, events, or outcomes; fabricated or canned roleplay that serves an OOC motivation. IC activity that opposes the creative and spontaneous spirit of roleplay.

• Metaplay is the degeneration of roleplay. It may occur with or without metagaming & powergaming—but it does not include the facilitating or gathering of RP.

 

Who is a Roleplay Leader?

• If your character governs, leads, or mentors others you are a Roleplay Leader! This may be as the head of a nation, a member of it’s council, or the head of a household—a roleplay leader has some level of authority over others. And, to the degree of people influenced by this authority, that much responsibility you must also wield.

 

What rules/behavior are expected of a Roleplay Leader? Here is what is outlined in our new Roleplay Leadership Guidelines - designed to endorse the cooperative narrative we're trying to work towards.

1. Protect the continuity and purity of roleplay; cherish and nurture the whimsical, spontaneous nature of roleplay.
2. Do not conduct, or aid in conducting, metaplay.
3. Discourage and report metaplay to Moderation.
   1. Knowing about and waiting for a convenient time—or knowing and choosing not to report, also violates this guideline.

 

https://www.lordofthecraft.net/roleplay-leadership/

OOC and Roleplay - A Bleed

An issue that has existed since the earliest days of this server has never seemed so prevalent now. While it is not wholly uncommon to see in reports, heard through friends, or even invited to experience it yourself - OOC has never been more integrated with roleplay than the modern LOTC. While this benefits in niche parts, there is a very large connotation that it eliminates roleplay, but more importantly, dominates the server to a fest of OOC plots and relationships rather than a shared narrative.

I began this project with a few ideas in mind, as I believe that all good change on the server comes from the top down. Role modeling in my experience has been a very strong indicator on cultural shifts within the community, and so alongside a realms system update in progress, I decided to contact seventeen different current/former realm leaders (I would have contacted all 22, but over the course of a few weeks five were just unreachable to me/hogobojo). The list goes as below.

 

 

I got some very insightful feedback from these interviews, and found that surprisingly, most of the realm leaders agree with one another and even improved upon insights I had not previously considered. They gave me ideas and improved on my own suggestions immensely. Feedback for that will be in the next section.

However, a common thing I kept hearing was that pressure from one's own playerbase was a very large indicator as to why some NLs felt pressure upon their role. Not necessarily a pressure to hold up a community's interests, but a more common one that players within some realms pushed an OOC-First narrative, and that the server was a game to be won, rather than a narrative to play. People pushing for OOC group chats, alliances, schemes, plots, even characters, things planned out in advance which remove any and all opportunity for organic roleplay that made for some of the most iconic moments on the server in prior maps.

With a laxing of requirements for realm application and submission, from many perspectives playerbases now aimed and looked for any and all excuse to divide from one another where previously there was harmony simply because the option was available for opportunity elsewhere now. This further divided players on an OOC level and caused an animosity as community members and leaders found themselves often picking between groups and camps. Further than this, with an unanticipatedly weak gating to war participation, many community leaders now feared how easily it was for groups to join into one another, and experienced first hand something like this. War would be suspected or declared, and OOC groups would flock to one side or the other upon the basis that one of the war participants was their OOC enemy, or friend. As I spoke to the NLs, nearly every single war on this map had huge turnout influence from OOC animosity one group held toward one another. Little roleplay was actually being done (Or had been done), with the bulk being organized discord meets, secret chats, schemes, and plots. There was a lot of opinion that there had been devaluation on the importance of cohesion, but as well roleplay and good faith based on the lack of enforcement of schemes, plots, ooc feuds, and so forth.

Some say that a sort of genie has been let out of a bottle when this behavior became most prominently utilized sometime back on Almaris, and is something that has steadily spread and become a part of the undertone of normal that is completely unacceptable. While there have certainly (and are certainly) some counter-culture NLs who deny anything OOC and interact strictly with roleplay, from what I found and discussed it's not a majority as it should be, at least, not yet.

Let me be clear here- Metaplay is not what the server is meant for, nor has it done this to this extent in the past. Frankly, it's unacceptable that Metaplay, has such a chokehold influence on some parts of the server, particularly in larger playerbases. But let's go further- why is it there, what can we do about it? More importantly, what are we going to do about it, as a community?

The Plight of The Nation Leader (NL)

Many of the NLs provided insightful feedback I really hadn't considered beforehand. While some lamented on individual grievances or specific circumstances, I found it really strange that so many of them - if not all of them - brought up common concerns and saw completely eye to eye with me on my proposed solutions, which were far less ambitious beforehand. In fact, most NLs not only endorsed The Spirit of Roleplay, but encouraged it go further than that to be a proper, enforceable guideline rather than an honorbound contract. It was the community that helped bring up these Roleplay Leadership Guidelines, and I think that speaks to the fact it's something the community needs. 

Many spoke of issues that often due to mounting pressures from internal councilship, or even nobility within their nation, had forced a sort of OOC-domination in some aspects of roleplay. That more times than not, the NL attempts to lead activities through roleplay, but is encouraged not to and some 'middle management' of nations are highly averse to doing things through roleplay avenues, such as diplomacy. Some go as far as sending birds with discord tags attached to organized treaties through such, others have (as seen in some reports, and further) organize family storylines, dramas, and characters through a complete OOC orchestration rather than individualized roleplay. 

Many spoke of issues with war participation, and the extremely lax nature of how one's 'activity' within a realm is determined. From a flooding of players on other servers to some nations, to mercenaries no longer taking payments and fighting on a sort of ego-stroke basis on one side or another, to OOC organization of wars, alliances, betrayals, and so on, that war was simply too much of a risk whereas they would be highly anticipating partaking in so. One nation leader stated; "It is as if any time, a forty-man rally can appear on the enemy side out of nowhere, and we just have to deal with that.". The Veletz war, Vikela war, Ravenswood war, even the Nevaehlen war at the beginning of the map were all individually cited as wars which were inflated and instigated by OOC motivation and disagreements between players, not characters. 

There was a strange common agreeance that most nations figure they could be a part of other nations, were the nation rules not so loose and vassal rules nonexistent. While most stated they would, could, or have, thrive(d) as a vassal under a nation, they feared the common player would simply lose interest due to the OOC potency of the title of "Nation Leader", and would instead just flock to the capital instead. There was as well cited concerns of nations who were in the past vassals, and how hot and cold some Nation Leaders were in pushing them OOCly at their whim rather than through character driven decisions or roleplay. Most critically, these decisions were often a sort of egoistic punishment upon vassals when a nation leader felt they may need to accomplish an internal conflict, rather than something organic or naturally lead. Nations who released their vassals did so behind the curtain, not wanting to lose that sort of pride that they had dominated another playerbase. 

There was too a discussion about how meaningless it is to be a Nation Leader, and more often than not, it is a reflection of one's OOC self rather than their persona. Whereas many famous and infamous kings and leaders of the past are still recalled by their first in-character name by this day both OOC and IRP, nowadays most people both cannot name many nation leaders, and recognize them by OOC status first.

While the advent of Discord has certainly made this easier, it is difficult to attribute the dilution of roleplay singlehandedly to discord, as some older players may claim. Recalling Atlas, Arcas, even parts of Almaris, NLs who had been around for such maps recall the very same that things were not wholly to this extent before. While the server as a whole has vastly improved since in nearly all aspects, it seems this part - ooc domination over roleplay - has been a sort of insidious cancer thats crept up to be the sort of leadership metagame. 

Is this confirmation bias? Or maybe just a symptom of an older, working playerbase? Is this due to relaxation of rules, or even just the very culture of the server becoming one more hostile and player-persona driven rather than character driven? It's really hard to attribute it to one, or even say where all of these play out in their respective ratios. But one thing is clear - It has to change, and can't become even further the norm. 

 

What are we changing first?

After speaking with the community leaders with the feedback above, we're going to be implementing a lot of changes to the server as things evolve over time. The more we push and the more results we get, I want to get a server that enables and encourages fun and cooperation rather than tribal attitudes. It may take a while, but we've got to start somewhere. Changes to Realms and Moderation will be coming first and foremost, listed below.

For Realms, we are going to address the broken system that is the current idea of realm creation and upkeep. While it has serviced well as a low maintenance no-barrier-to-entry system, it has dissolved in the eyes of many the meaning of a community and to be leadership of a community. Not to mention with the multitudes of nations, the complete division of roleplay and the furthering of the "Island" effect that is separating groups from the server entirely. I've worked with implementation in the last few weeks on drafting a few changes that we can implement with the 1.20 update in the next month or so. These changes are proposing how to limit both the lower and upper limit on realms, limit their creation without destroying smaller groups, and making more protections for communities within realms so that there is no OOC-absolutism for how an NL may mechanically game their vassals to keep them on game-y lockdown. A new realm system will ensure a both self sustaining and self limiting concept that nations have both a minimum and a maximum size that scales with what a playerbase may naturally support, rather than artificially. I know this is a lot of political nothingburger words, but I don't want to announce a system that's still a set of what-we-want-to-do rather than perfectly defined words. I have goals that I've defined, and a general idea of how I want to do it that so far I've gotten universal agreement upon by NLs and Implementation alike, but I don't want to take that as a sign it's a flawless perfect, or even good, system. These changes are finished in draft and are awaiting further announcement once finalized and ready in the next month or two. 

 

For Moderation, we were suggested many times that not only are NLs heavily reliant, but outright dependent, on both the Implementation team and Moderation team for their tasks. Switching over locks is a pain as this is something that isn't tracked by anyone, and isn't so easy as running a single command. Buying, coring tiles taking up to weeks to complete, setting up LC regions and vassal regions and always having to wait. While the wait often is not long for moderation tasks, these are ones easily automated- and ones we limit ourselves by making so frustrating to run things by. Even now, systems that NLs are advertised as to how to setup like with Carts are inaccurate, and have not functioned since their inclusion into the realm rules. To improve this, moderation is going to be looking internally as to how to streamline their systems while Tech works on making mechanical function that removes the necessity of moderation for some of these tasks. We will as well be striving to complete a better War Participation system which looks into the justification of joining a war upon one side or another beyond the start of a conflict, and ensuring there is genuine roleplay done rather than simply hours on a persona in an area of the map.  

Closing Thoughts

Ultimately, this is rounding up what I think can be attributed to a cultural issue on the server. Oftentimes a title given to things just deemed entirely unfixable by even the most determined of staff. This isn't even a particularly widespread or dominating one on the server- it's just an issue that exists, with certainty, that I have noticed growing for some time. After consideration, ultimately the community forms culture around the environment they are within. While there are many who venture forward with a roleplay-first attitude, it's something that has sort of gently decayed away from the server I, and others, once knew. This isn't a problem that can be fixed by a blanket ban on the concept, or a change of rules, or even the millionth restructuring of one system or another. But rather, a lot of different things which, even without this problem, could be better on their own. Things we should be doing, should have been doing, shouldn't be doing. 

 

While I could harp and virtue signal on the place roleplay has on this server, I'd encourage you take the time to read our Community Guidelines and Roleplay Quality Standards. Having existed for years, these posts do hold up fairly well in the modern day of really what good faith roleplay looks like, and what has a place on the server. Roleplay comes first, and exists for the purpose of enjoyment and fun. If neither three are present, what's the point?

 

It is with certainty that one way or another, I and The Administration, are going to tackle this issue however we can. It isn't with a few words things will change, but the actions of an entire community that will change it. I hope you'll join me.

 

See you around,

Squak

[HogoBojo 4725]

Good job Squak for all your hard work & thanks to all the realm leaders who we got to talk to! :)

[Spoopy_Duck 3217]

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(**** you Hogo for sniping first comment)

 

[wowj 9747]

lector

As a NL [ of NATION_GRUB-BUCKET ] I have some about this, I am allowed to metagame, because I am an NL, my minions tell me everything through discord PMs.

[trinn 5128]

i hate squakhawk

[P4ER4L 11]

im about to

[Jihnyny 5233]

reading, interesting

IMO, you should make a nation leader's job alot easier. Nation Leaders are roleplay models, as you say, but a majority of LotC players are not. They don't do anything outside roleplay, wether it be grinding, or pay taxes- all they do is hop on lotc and roleplay.

and is that bad?

I mean, nations should not take so much time and effort to uphold- the system should be easy, you shouldn't have to worry about paying your tile, activity checks, or why the admins hate you (R.I.P Orc homies), as an NL you should be able to simply support the nation as its guide, as its roleplay leader.

I'm a very active player, too active even, and i love supporting communities and reviving them. However, despite all my time on LotC i've never accepted the request of me to become an NL because of all the shit you got to deal with outside of roleplaying and OOC explanations.

I don't want to sit in my chair and mine bec our resources are low- or grind mina because for some reason community monks are greedy as **** and steal your mina from the bank all the time. I want to roleplay getting money, losing it through means of roleplay not mechanical intervention.

I just want roleplay to be roleplay

 

Spoiler

>remove aviary cooldown and let us send more than one message every 5 minutes (that takes over 5 to send)
>remove this shit tile node system
>remove tile upkeep (mina bloat does not exist)
>encourage ST to **** over nations and vassals
(hot take here- limit alliances.)

 

[Pancho 4197]

As an NL that was interviewed, thank you for writing this out and making it known. I'm glad the wider community can now comment on this and speak about it. Hopefully this doesn't degrade into a hate fest, but will have inciteful comments.

[ichigomaster98 966]

Many words.
Being NL was the second-worst thing to happen to me, I'm still tired.

[Spoopy_Duck 3217]

Can't believe squak took down the server just so people would read this post

[Coronate 5519]

 

YOU ARE MAKING ME LOOK BAD!!! I REACHED OUT WE JUST NEVER DID IT!!!!

@squakhawk

 

Spoiler

Yap session:

 

Firstly, me and Squak have had this conversation many times in discord just not “officially” I guess, and I couldn’t agree more.

When I joined LOTC less than a year ago all I did was role play. I barely was in discord and it was only to contact people for rp or to talk with friends.

 

I was a magic RPer before doing anything nation related. When I finally did I had no prior relationship with the leadership or anyone in the community aside from my friend ATN who asked if I wanted to play his son.

 

It was incredibly enjoyable for me doing that role play and even though I joined amidst the coalition war I still had fun and did fleeper rp and posts; I had no clue how deep the ooc rabbit hole was and made music and just did fun stuff.

 

This was abruptly cutoff when I was transferred PRO to do a rebellion I organized in character in order to give my character a good ending as he was a loyal soldier of the Midlands.

 

Again I knew none of the nation leaders and most of the players, the only nation leader I had been in remote contact with was Hugh who was my nation leader and roleplayed with me pretty frequently.

 

For an entire two week period I was cast as some bad faith evil pvper who hated roleplay and wanted to kill nations. It was so bad even friends I had in coalition nations (literally where I started when I joined) were coming to me and asking why I was “ruining their role play.” I was called rude names in character (or veiled as in character, really targeted as me as a player.)

 

I say all this because it goes both ways and it’s a crazy ooc psyop.

 

Important figures in nations regularly cast down their enemies as evil ooc when they’re just normal players. And at the end of the day we’re all just normal players.

 

There needs to be more dialogue and conversation on the server. More role play and less out of character warring.

 

People who were friends with me with a fleeper mindset thought of me as an idiot or gullible for speaking with leadership that was on the opposing side in a previous war like @indiana105@ferdaboy and many others.

 

This is not to say this idea is prevalent only on one side of this spectrum. I distinctly remember Ferda calling me a “veletzian” and many of my friends calling him a “Haenser”.

 

These out of character battles span not just wars but nations- anywhere people go and regardless of what character they’ll fight each other. Squak mentions here random PvP rallies appearing and talks about the last conflict with Vikela:

don’t think I wasnt upset with a variety of things both mechanically but also rply with that war. I routinely heard I was running a “ferryman nation” because I paid Orlanth items amounting to 6k for him to help out with shotcalling. I did the RP for it. At our max rally the day Ubuntu was canceled at around 52-6 we had 10 people from the ferrymen WHICH INCLUDES PEOPLE LIKE MYSELF, ELI, ATN, SAM, MILEN, AND LARRY WHO ALL ROLEPLAYED IN LURAK OR ILUMRIN (THE ELVES I DID AROUND 10 HOURS OF ROLEPLAY AND OFFERS TO RECRUIT MY TO FIGHT WITH ME.) People I had absolutely no connection to OOCly who came because they wanted fun rp and some PvP with the majority of the rally not knowing how to PvP if their life depended on it. Yes there certainly were people there who were only there for PvP but it was an incredibly small minority and I often had conversations with many people about how I hated the idea of randoms who had no reason to be there other than to beat up on a community I had no clue about ooc and only detested them icly.

 

As a nation leader I feel it, as a RACIAL HUB NL I feel it. People view my characters entire race as fart smelling idiots and while in the past there certainly was truth to this; I’ve put in so much effort to the project and community, writing, slaving grinding, role playing, working with old members and new. 
 

All this work for an ooc spat spanning years that I have no involvement in to label me as a goon.

 

It’s all so goofy. And now that I’m a nation leader things will never look the same for me as when I was an innocent fleeper squire wanting to be a knight.

 

Is it that I miss those days? Did I change or did my environment? I’m not sure. 
 

I talk way more in discords now and do stuff in discord I would have done in role play when I joined. It kind of sucks. And I understand the importance of having discord for organization but I wish more things were handled in role play. The server would be much more fun and better off that way.

 

Again this is coming from a player who has only been around for LESS THAN a year (I signed up in December 2022 but only played finally in November 23.) So I understand it’s a limited perspective but considering I’ve done Nation RP, Magic RP, Staff Work, Nation Leading, War, etc I think I have at least enough experience to talk on the matter.

 

I do genuinely really like LOTC it’s just been in a direction I don’t really find all that fun or interesting because of this platform we use for organization turned into borderline cheating the system.

 

if you read this far ur a goat

 

[FadedMoonlight 450]

I haven't read anything but the title but I agree!!!

[𝕾𝖙𝖆𝖗𝖌𝖚𝖘𝖍 2451]

Reddit

[FlemishSupremacy 6115]

Insightful and thoughtful. I'm curious to see which changes come from this.

 

[Metamancy 1759]

i just wanna roleplay man.