In Character vs Out of Character.

[Trick]

This thread is mainly created for the purpose of stopping OOC animosity and hatred. A lot of players here have a strong opinion of other players, so much in fact, that it often leads to IG witch hunts and prejudice towards characters they believe to be played by a certain player - whether this is true or not.

I speak to quite a few players on AIM and I often receive remarks such as:

Yo, PLAYER A is such a piece of ****. He always plays trashy characters and does this.

OR.

Hey man, don't give equipment to CHARACTER X. **** him, he ganged me earlier.

RP, although around, is not identified in everything we do. PK = RP. RP does not always precede PK nor does it always follow after. But the act of PK itself is RP and we are losing sight of this.

Also, emphasis on "ganging" and "tagging" is becoming ridiculous as well. I receive messages like this;

Man, CHARACTER Y attacked me RIGHT after I fought CHARACTER Z and killed me. What a piece of ****!

Guess what? This is allowed. This is not a fair game. The term honor is thrown around so often that it's over used. Saying someone doesn't have honor is pointless if that character is a Syndicate, Nexus, or whatever. Unless their cabal is specifically designed for these codes and morals, then why would they care about it?

I see shout outs a lot of people talking about 1vs1vs1etc. PKs and how they are " the most fun I have had in weeks!". Why is this so? Because its so hectic and fast paced? Yes. That's what everyone refers to when they say " The Old Days" or " The Glory Days ". PK that was less about EQ and more about the adrenaline rush and fun of going at it. Now, once you die, you log off.

I remember once I was bitching hardcore to Virigoth and Crypticant about dying to Poplin on like my second character. Know what they told me? If you can't kill him, get another person. You two die? Get another person. And so and so on. Is it cheap? HELL YES IT IS! But guess what? We needed to do it. We couldn't do it solo dolo so we amped up our forces and finally took him down and full looted his ***. Did it matter? Not really, he wiped me out shortly after and had all his crap back. This was all coordinated IG and not OOC.

PK is PK. It's fun. Exciting. And continuous. But ONLY if we want it do be. If you fight ANYONE without them being full health and prepared, you are trash. If you catch someone off guard, you are trash. And this is not always the case.

Also, if you die, RP it. There are many of us, myself included, that lack this. We often return to our corpse and smirk or laugh. You just died. RP it. I've seen some awesome people do it. Coming in covered in blood, breathing heavy, and rearming. Picking up their sword and pointing it at the victor and saying something like, " Until...next..time.. ". That is RP. Smirking and laughing is not. You did not KNOW you would come back. You assumed you would and therefore you laugh at them. Now, you can RP laughing in RELIEF that you're still alive. That is different.

Thoughts..?

[Elrozin]

Yes, I have thoughts.

Stop using AIM.

[The-Nameless]

The other day I thought someone was getting yelled at for a "tag" so I sent up a prayer to see if my opinion (that they where doing something perfectly legit) would matter at all. They where not getting yelled at. But I can remember some WICKED fun PK sessions.

One of my favorites was when me (krondrin) and Kyzarius(Lorfaine) where waiting to get into Nexus, and we just decided to lead Despair into a war VS trib. That was an amazing amount of fun.

[Celerity]

I think all of this should be taken with the caveat that you should take care to maintain your reputation. If we didn't have social obligations, you could just roll up trash chars to do trashy stuff, but keep your 'main' clean...this is unacceptable, and people are only accountable because people are able to link char A and B...so in a way, this discourages bad behavior.

[Trick]

Yes, I have thoughts.

Stop using AIM.

AIM is nice because I enjoy the company of many of the players.

I think all of this should be taken with the caveat that you should take care to maintain your reputation. If we didn't have social obligations' date=' you could just roll up trash chars to do trashy stuff, but keep your 'main' clean...this is unacceptable, and people are only accountable because people are able to link char A and B...so in a way, this discourages bad behavior.[/quote']

So, your Out-Of-Character reputation has a direct impact to your In-Character reputation? You're using your dislike for a player to affect your in game decisions for a character. That's OOC, and I thought, was wrong.

[f0xx]

Speaking of immense amounts of fun, I remember how we ganged (we literally did) MF's healing (Lotho).

Myself (Drow shaman), Dryson and some badass duergar BLM were guarding his standard, he enters to retrieve and we all jump on him. He retrieves and recalls at big nasty where Triathix was waiting in ambush at his pit. Killed and full looted, we four threw a party with his gear.

Boy he whooped our asses when we were alone

That being said, the people who bring their OOC grudges are the worse kind of players. Please grow up, be mature, ACT mature. It's a game after all.

Lastly, this is dedicated to the players who like to act bada$$. They roll a character, they act arrogant and then they wander why everyone treats them like a piece of trash. When they are told the reason for that, they say, "But that's my RP!". Right, why do you think that just because acting arrogant is your RP, you are immune to being treated the way you deserve? What I mean is, if you RP an a$$hole, don't be surprised when people treat you like one

[Elrozin]

AIM is nice because I enjoy the company of many of the players.

AIM is a double edged sword and everyone here knows that quite well, as you yourself have cited in beginning this thread. The forums are a nice place to enjoy the company of other players, as a safe alternative to AIM. You can have your cake, but you know it is a lie.

[Twinblades713]

I never enjoyed FL more than when I stopped using AIM. I don't know most anyone from FL on facebook either, if I can help it.

[Hepheus]

Hrmm, I'm not sure I could pk very well if I took of autoAIM. Having to type out whole names, really? You guys who don't use autoAIM get my props, well done! You too Elrozin!

[Celerity]

So, your Out-Of-Character reputation has a direct impact to your In-Character reputation? You're using your dislike for a player to affect your in game decisions for a character. That's OOC, and I thought, was wrong.

Actually, you've got it backwards. Your IC actions have an impact on your OOC reputation. If you play a certain way, you can expect the community (both players and staff) to respond accordingly. Again, if this weren't there, there'd be nothing stopping someone from rolling up a neutral thief/ninja they pull out every few months to mess around (and smart griefers have done this, I'm looking at a couple certain players here...)

If you are constantly trashing the cabal you are in, you can expect people to hold it OOCly against you in the years to come. Reputation is really everything in a close-knit game like this. That is why you see the same players getting new forum IDs and attempting to re-invent themselves, hating the baggage that they have. The baggage is there for a reason..

As to whether or not this should affect your player-to-player interaction is not so clear. Frankly, you shouldn't really know (definitively) who plays who, unless they've outed it on the forum or you are using OOC connections yourself.

People talking crap OOCly about an IC character is not an IC action, unless they are doing so in game. If they are doing it out of game, the problem really is IC being taken OOC, not the reverse. I think a lot of people don't understand this.

[Cephirus]

Hrmm' date=' I'm not sure I could pk very well if I took of autoAIM. Having to type out whole names, really? You guys who don't use autoAIM get my props, well done! You too Elrozin![/quote']

Yeah, Function key macros certainly made it easier, but autoAIM certainly helps now that we have it. Gosh, I do not know I could play another mud that did not have it.

[L-A]

I see shout outs a lot of people talking about 1vs1vs1etc. PKs and how they are " the most fun I have had in weeks!". Why is this so? Because its so hectic and fast paced? Yes. That's what everyone refers to when they say " The Old Days" or " The Glory Days ". PK that was less about EQ and more about the adrenaline rush and fun of going at it. Now, once you die, you log off.

UC (Unknown Criminal) once said that the most fun were hours of PK battles in 1.0 where no one really looted. Maybe a piece or two the first or second time... He said he'd experienced 2 - 4 hours of this mutliple times, sometimes you killed them, sometimes they killed you. However, he also said that sometimes you'd come back (even after these sessions) and you were full looted.

The the condeath attempt would begin and it was time to log off.

IMHO -unfortunately, somewhere along the line 'we' (the playerbase) fell into the habit of attempting to con-death everyone we killed. Personally, I think this is simply the evolution of players learning to PK - and there were a lot of us back at the start of 2.0 that cut out teeth. Many of us now realise that isn't needed (though old habits still die hard) - but don't appreciate it when the 'next generation' do it to us. In some respects its time for 'us' (the 'so-called' more experienced PK'rs) to harden up - we can always repay such 'kindness' later if we truly are the PK'rs most of us claim to be.

There is always the Heralds PK Retirement Home for those who skills have atrophied and don't with to undergo any retraining

L-A

PS - strikethrough not working? Seeing just doesn't give the same effect...

[f0xx]

Reputation is really everything in a close-knit game like this. That is why you see the same players getting new forum IDs and attempting to re-invent themselves' date=' hating the baggage that they have. The baggage is there for a reason..[/quote']

Hah, that paragraph made me smile

While I agree that reputation is important, I believe that it shouldn't affect your IC decisions, although that's a very hard thing to achieve if you know who plays who. The real problem here is, that people who have bad reputation are usually those with bad RP as well and their real life identity is very clearly visible in their characters.

What I believe *should* matter when it comes to reputation is Q-thing decisions. A repeat offender, someone who is well know for going OOC, doing OOC things, cheating and so on, especially people who have bans on multiple forum handles shouldn't be able to easily get a Q-thing, if at all.

[Celerity]

While I agree that reputation is important, I believe that it shouldn't affect your IC decisions, although that's a very hard thing to achieve if you know who plays who.

Agree completely!

[Tantangel]

I haven't used AIM in over a year probably now, and if we go by actively using it I haven't used it since probably 2007. I find it a much happier place to be by not using it. Occasionally I hear from people through PM and such and it's great being able to talk back and forth for a little bit. I find it much easier to have a level head of things without it though and sure I wonder what's going on with some of the people I used to talk to from time to time but ultimately no one knows who I play anymore really (not sure if that's good or bad) except for perhaps the Imms.

I can generally speculate who plays who based off of forum posts and am always curious to know if the person I just killed was someone I used to be AIM buddies with. Generally if I've been killed though I know it's Mindflayer, Anume, Nomak or F0xx because I'm pretty sure I could outrun everyone else mostly.

Now I'm fine with just the game as it is. I get to enjoy it as it was mostly meant to be that way and I'm perfectly okay with that.

[Spark215]

Wait what the hell is autoAIM?

[Elrozin]

help auto

I only say type help auto because I am assuming you are unaware of the other auto functions.

[mya]

F0xx is in the top 4 chasers?

Anume PK's?

Dam, I need to play a dedicated PK character to have some fun.

Wait what the hell is autoAIM?

Help auto.

It's the feature that allows you to type K b and kill the beast.

If it's off you need to type the full name.

You have auto mob, auto items and auto PC's.

[f0xx]

F0xx is in the top 4 chasers?

I am not, but the flattery certainly felt good.

As for Anume, she'll destroy you. But I won't let her, my love.

[jibber]

I've killed Anume a few times..

(count, 8 or 9 times).

I think she's killed me the same amount.

[f0xx]

I've killed Anume a few times..

(count, 8 or 9 times).

I think she's killed me the same amount.

Who cares...

[jibber]

Who cares...

[tassinvegeta]

As Elrozin stated. Aim is a double-edged sword. Simple solution for me is to do the same thing you would do in real life to others you don't enjoy. Simply not associate yourself with them. Ignore them, delete, or block. This way you can still have fun experiencing the atmosphere of being around other like-minded gamers.

@LA Weren't rewards also given out much quicker back then? This may have led to such a frenzied environment back then. But I gotta say increased number of rares and the cabal outfit was a huge step in getting things like that again.

[L-A]

As Elrozin stated. Aim is a double-edged sword. Simple solution for me is to do the same thing you would do in real life to others you don't enjoy. Simply not associate yourself with them. Ignore them, delete, or block. This way you can still have fun experiencing the atmosphere of being around other like-minded gamers.

@LA Weren't rewards also given out much quicker back then? This may have led to such a frenzied environment back then. But I gotta say increased number of rares and the cabal outfit was a huge step in getting things like that again.

Yes and no. Somtimes it happened really quickly, sometimes slowly. Its hard for me to give an objective opinion because I didn't have as much interaction in the lvl 50 cabal scence in 1.0.

Equipment wasn't such a big deal - suiting up in tainted/mithril was usually enough to stay competitive after a loot. Clearing the Factions was a BIG thing - we never went with less than 4 or 5 of us, one HAD to be a cleric/shaman. Gear, Dischord and Desolation were known but no one had ever gotten through. They were scary places :eek:

It's different today - in the high 30s and low 40s I see people with some really nice equipment. They actively seek it - and it drives the seeking of equipment as you have to have it to remain competitive sometimes.

L-A

[Trick]

Would making these locations harder be better or worse?