Post by Thade on Jul 8, 2008 23:15:25 GMT
I had a conversation with a Gamemaster earlier, heres a screenshot of the conversation:
Not to readable I know =)
And here is roughly what I sent to Funcom, with some tweaks =)
Greetings!
I am Thade from the RPPvP server Aquilonia, if that even matters. I has a chat with a Gamemaster named Ammat earlier today which told me to send my concerns here.
First of I'll start with the pure facts, as it is now, the Role playing servers are just as any other PvP or PvE server at least after what I have seen on Aquilonia. There could be some simple reasons for this, for example the fact that several people with OOC names and that generally just act out of character all over are not even aware that it is an RP server, as it is now on the server list we are stated as: "Aquilonia - PVP" Then a small tag of "RP" is bellow it, barley noticeable even after what I've seen and heard. Also as I just noticed myself, Funcom has yet to release actual RP server rules, which I bet I am not alone about when I say we are a bit neglected, to find the server rules I had to do a search for the news post that I knew the name off and found the same old thread with: "These are the rules we are considering for the Role playing-tagged servers for Age of Conan. " And not even that post is linked to the Role playing server under "Server Types" on the community site.
Now that the out of game stuff is all said and out in the air my concern goes to the in-game state of AoC on role playing servers.
Most of the role playing community, at least on Aquilonia feel that Funcom is not doing their part to uphold the server rules that they have issued, there are a lot of OOCers running around and not only chatting OOC but also just generally ruining the immersion of the server. We have also noticed that some people, even though reported, are still walking around with the same OOC name and it seems to be the same way with guilds that have names that do not fit in an RP realm. Now as it is usual in MMORPGs, hardcore PvE'ers and PvP'ers roll on RP servers because they want to be the best guild progress vise, or the best PvP player on the server, some of course do this just to ruin for us RPers as well, this happens on RP servers because we spend more time role playing then PvPing or making PvE progress, and of course you cannot close a server for such people, but it would at least seem fitting that those that come to our servers only to cause trouble should get some form of punishment.
As my second question to this Gamemaster, I was wondering what, if anything Funcom does to Non-Rpers generally ruining the immersion and talking OOC in IC channels, and as I told the GM, I cannot at any point imagine a Funcom employ asking someone: "Did you talk OOC and ruin the immersion for fellow players at that time?" So I cannot see how it would even be helpful for us to report such a player, because as it is common in MMORPG's there will be no backfire to wards this person, said person can act in any way as long as its not an exploit and will never face a ban which I find terrible, especially in a game that is just made to role play in.
What also put a deep concern in me is that the GM's on role playing realms most often have OOC names, like "Slayer", "Unstoppable" and such, which just really makes you lose confidence that they will purge the OOCer for having a name like: "Konan."
Those are the main issues at hand as it is now at least and I really hope to see some improvements.
Suggestions:
I had a conversation with my guild earlier about just this topic and we agreed on some points that should be mentioned, firstly, make it clear for the player that he/she is joining a role playing server, this can be done simply by adding a warning box which just contains the general rules of role playing servers that can simply just be "Ok'ed" or "X'ed" out so people know that they are not joining a PvP server. I would not want any sort of punishments to be mentioned here though, we are after all a role playing community and we would never want to scare away people that are unsure or just new to role playing.
Also for the sake of everything we role players love with Age of Conan, finish the role playing rules and make them clear and visible for all to see.
I hope this mail will have some effect on how Funcom will handle OOC'ers in Age of Conan and also a great enforcing and improvement when it comes to all the role playing realms, not trying to make role playing servers for Hardcore Role Players only, but more trying to limit the amount of OOCers we get running around, since they really do spread like rats, where there is one there is always more and unless you set out some rat poison they will just continue spreading until you might just as well change the server to PvP since we'll have 5% Role players and 95% OOC'ers.
All us role players get that there are more important issues at hand like making the game more playable, but that does not mean that we should be neglected, GM's should be more then ready to handle such issues in an effective manner once the rules and punishments are out there.
I truly hope this did not come out as random Babel and was understandable.
Thank you for your attention, thats it for me.
Not to readable I know =)
And here is roughly what I sent to Funcom, with some tweaks =)
Greetings!
I am Thade from the RPPvP server Aquilonia, if that even matters. I has a chat with a Gamemaster named Ammat earlier today which told me to send my concerns here.
First of I'll start with the pure facts, as it is now, the Role playing servers are just as any other PvP or PvE server at least after what I have seen on Aquilonia. There could be some simple reasons for this, for example the fact that several people with OOC names and that generally just act out of character all over are not even aware that it is an RP server, as it is now on the server list we are stated as: "Aquilonia - PVP" Then a small tag of "RP" is bellow it, barley noticeable even after what I've seen and heard. Also as I just noticed myself, Funcom has yet to release actual RP server rules, which I bet I am not alone about when I say we are a bit neglected, to find the server rules I had to do a search for the news post that I knew the name off and found the same old thread with: "These are the rules we are considering for the Role playing-tagged servers for Age of Conan. " And not even that post is linked to the Role playing server under "Server Types" on the community site.
Now that the out of game stuff is all said and out in the air my concern goes to the in-game state of AoC on role playing servers.
Most of the role playing community, at least on Aquilonia feel that Funcom is not doing their part to uphold the server rules that they have issued, there are a lot of OOCers running around and not only chatting OOC but also just generally ruining the immersion of the server. We have also noticed that some people, even though reported, are still walking around with the same OOC name and it seems to be the same way with guilds that have names that do not fit in an RP realm. Now as it is usual in MMORPGs, hardcore PvE'ers and PvP'ers roll on RP servers because they want to be the best guild progress vise, or the best PvP player on the server, some of course do this just to ruin for us RPers as well, this happens on RP servers because we spend more time role playing then PvPing or making PvE progress, and of course you cannot close a server for such people, but it would at least seem fitting that those that come to our servers only to cause trouble should get some form of punishment.
As my second question to this Gamemaster, I was wondering what, if anything Funcom does to Non-Rpers generally ruining the immersion and talking OOC in IC channels, and as I told the GM, I cannot at any point imagine a Funcom employ asking someone: "Did you talk OOC and ruin the immersion for fellow players at that time?" So I cannot see how it would even be helpful for us to report such a player, because as it is common in MMORPG's there will be no backfire to wards this person, said person can act in any way as long as its not an exploit and will never face a ban which I find terrible, especially in a game that is just made to role play in.
What also put a deep concern in me is that the GM's on role playing realms most often have OOC names, like "Slayer", "Unstoppable" and such, which just really makes you lose confidence that they will purge the OOCer for having a name like: "Konan."
Those are the main issues at hand as it is now at least and I really hope to see some improvements.
Suggestions:
I had a conversation with my guild earlier about just this topic and we agreed on some points that should be mentioned, firstly, make it clear for the player that he/she is joining a role playing server, this can be done simply by adding a warning box which just contains the general rules of role playing servers that can simply just be "Ok'ed" or "X'ed" out so people know that they are not joining a PvP server. I would not want any sort of punishments to be mentioned here though, we are after all a role playing community and we would never want to scare away people that are unsure or just new to role playing.
Also for the sake of everything we role players love with Age of Conan, finish the role playing rules and make them clear and visible for all to see.
I hope this mail will have some effect on how Funcom will handle OOC'ers in Age of Conan and also a great enforcing and improvement when it comes to all the role playing realms, not trying to make role playing servers for Hardcore Role Players only, but more trying to limit the amount of OOCers we get running around, since they really do spread like rats, where there is one there is always more and unless you set out some rat poison they will just continue spreading until you might just as well change the server to PvP since we'll have 5% Role players and 95% OOC'ers.
All us role players get that there are more important issues at hand like making the game more playable, but that does not mean that we should be neglected, GM's should be more then ready to handle such issues in an effective manner once the rules and punishments are out there.
I truly hope this did not come out as random Babel and was understandable.
Thank you for your attention, thats it for me.
