KlGrAn

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Personally, I think you should look more into RP. It's not easy. You think of COH RP as campy Batman series god moding like I expect many people do.

Which it is not.

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The opinion expressed there is even more misguided than my initial take on GG.

Generally put: Roleplaying can be involving and complex story lines offering rich opportunity for intercharacter development, tension, excitement and mutual entertainment with a bewildering undercurrent of bizarre subplots, personal development, angst, subturfuge and anything else you can throw in the mix or it can be campy over-the-top singularly focused "Save the World while looking good" powertrips. And anything in between.

The preferences of me and my group are not catered to at GG in general, although some of the individuals who might also enjoy GG have been nice to RP with on an on/off basis.

I have found that it sometimes is fun to simply take a few of the more boring "Arrest X members of Y faction in any location" missions and doing them in a zone where only a few of the mobs are really threatening. And doing it in a flamboyant style in-character with lots of monologuing, silly banter, and general good humour. More often than not I have met a roleplayer (or more than one) this way and elaborated from there.

If you do this though, don't go totally overboard in background story unless you keep it intentionally broad and openminded. That's at least what works best in my experience.

Concerning spies or other excuses to destroy other people's enjoyment and fun:

There are muppets and idiots in every game.

In my experience there is a surprisingly low percentage in City of Heroes/Villains, especially compared to the approximately 60-75 percent I encountered in my time on WoW, but they are there.

I find that Global Chat really helps in the continued fight against unwanted individuals, simply add the offender to your global ignore list and if particularly offensive, give a friendly (OOC) warning on your Coalition channel stating the offender's global handle. It might sound petty but in the long run I think it is a viable solution as long as people are trustworthy in their assessment of others.

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Your own comments suggest this isn't a good idea. It would be much better (IMHO) to provide a list of known, experienced GMs and suggest that people go to them for advice. It's amazing how many people don't consider the setting when building plots and having someone go over it for plot holes can save trouble later.

We don't have such a system at GG, maybe we should.

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In my experience the background setting is one of those elements that people treat VERY selectively. Personally I like using the established as much and as completely at possible. I feel it gives everybody the same point of reference and ensures at least some form of consistency.

Others do not like an adherence to an established background story or world description, instead focusing on elements they would like to bring to this MMO (treating the MMO as a canvas that has to be painted instead of a painting already partly done, which you can add the unique and defining touches to). A typical player from the second group would for instance create vampires based on the White Wolf game or Drow Elves in a non-D&D based fantasy game.

My take on this is that the second group can have fantastic roleplaying moments and storylines but they are very hard to make more encompassing than the (relatively) few original members. The first group are more easy to integrate into, but they require an initial effort from each player and there is a constant threat of being scoffed at for not knowing something presented in the background story. A good example of this could be in World of Warcraft where certain fanatics (and I mean that literally) would flame and harass anyone not owning the entire library of Warcraft based books, naming them Holy Canon.

I think the best course to pursue lies somewhere in the middle and even though GG is not my personal cup of tea, I have come to realize that they are in fact onto something of value: A common denominator that requires little knowledge and little effort initially. Interest and an open mind is usually enough. As people are further integrated in various stories, the complexity intensifies into elaborate stories and dramas.

I don't think referees or advocates will bring anything positive to the roleplaying community on City of Heroes/Villains.

Hello all.

I have now lurked quite a few nights around Galaxy Girl as various characters, sometimes instigating conversation, sometimes just standing by or reacting.

There have been slow nights (not surprising) and very good nights (eye opener for me).

I would therefore like to extend an apology to the Galaxy Girl community as I without a doubt stands corrected.

My very best wishes to you all and happy seasonal greetings (a bit early, but I'll be very on/off until January, so if I don't have the option later I would like to post it while I can).

Kind regards Klaus Green-Andersen

I'm held up at the moment for a long time work assignment. My apologies for not making anything happen yet. It is not an abandoned project though, but will have to be considered a delayed one.

Regarding clique I used that word since its most precise translation into Danish means circle of friends but as with any English word (as Wonka so beautifully stated) there might (or most likely will) be alternate interpretations.

My disclaimer was merely an attempt not to relight another flame.

Hope to be back at my gaming computer no later than 2nd of December.

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I can assure you that whatever the general consensus may believe, this is not the case when it comes to the moderation of these boards.

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I did not include the moderators into the "general consensus" bit (at least in my mind, might not have been as obvious in my writing).

The consensus mentioned simply referred to the clique represented by Ravenswing, Wordmaker, and a few others. Clique not meant in a derogatory way, replace with Band, Society, Circle, Coven, Batch, Cult, Union, Club, or any other word at your leasure.

So far I have had no issue with the moderation on these boards, although I'm generally against removing threads from a public board instead of merely locking them. That's a personal preference and has nothing to do with how these boards are moderated as I have no influence on the board moderation rules.

Edit: Fixed the quote

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Edit: A long post that made little or no sense. I don't dare leave this here for Wordmaker to nitpick over.

Will return tomorrow. Hopefully then the spelling police will have refound some dignity.

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Actually, I thought it was a very good post. Probably in the wrong place since it'll get lost in the thread and the only ones who'll see it are those already involved in the conversation, instead of new roleplayers. You would have been better posting it in Roleplaying or Union.

Incidentally, I apologised for commenting on your grammar. I don't take kindly to the sort of comment you just made there.

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Okay, being the partner of Ravenswing I have something to say about this. Having also read through the entire post, I have the following to say, Kigran;

I am Dutch, I speak, as stated Dutch, French and English rather fluently and German on a conversational level. Nobody's perfect, we all make mistakes, the main thing is that we learn from the ones we make, rather then jumping to a defensive position. Sorry, mate, but what it comes down to in my eyes, is that you are using your native tongue/country as an excuse rather then a means to learn.

Also, the way you rant on about GG, and the un-edited post you sent in previously would suggest a rather unadulterated opinion that you do not wish to change. My suggestion to you, is to stop posting in such an offensive manner. To the others I'd like to say; If it looks like a troll, smells like a troll and sounds like a troll, it most likely is a troll and it's best not to feed them.

If you like to prove me wrong on this, Kigran, come back when you are open to contructive criticism and able to give that yourself rather then try flaming. :-)

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I know. Ravenswing even sent me a Private Message about as did a lot of the friends/associates of Wordmaker.

I also got a lot of PMs regarding the closed topic where Bridger posted.

The general consensus seems to be that if you have a high post count or is generally well known you are exempted from certain behavioural rules that apply to others.

I also received two PMs expressing wonder why I kept going up against the "nerds", as it was clearly futile. Quite frankly I was just as annoyed by those posts, roleplaying is as valid a hobby as any other.

I have had a good nights sleep and have reread my posts. My adolescent remarks concerning spelling was unwarranted and very bad form. For those I apologize.

I still remain adamant in my original oppinion: Galaxy Girl meetings are not enough for me, they are a disappointment. That's subjective so nothing could really be made of the discussion yesterday, it was in a word, pointless.

The gem of yesterday's discussion was that an alternative is needed, a roleplay environment with a tighter ruleset or guidelines for conduct if you wish. Very close to that stated by the RP Guide but with a few points open for discussion. This should not be a dictatorship, it should be inclusive but with a common base for all to adhere to.

I have no time today to set this up, but I will look into making an effort starting this coming weekend. I will of course make a new topic/thread then, or if people would rather not have their names open, they can PM me.

I wish you all a pleasant Thursday.

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Edit: A long post that made little or no sense. I don't dare leave this here for Wordmaker to nitpick over.

Will return tomorrow. Hopefully then the spelling police will have refound some dignity.

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Actually, I thought it was a very good post. Probably in the wrong place since it'll get lost in the thread and the only ones who'll see it are those already involved in the conversation, instead of new roleplayers. You would have been better posting it in Roleplaying or Union.

Incidentally, I apologised for commenting on your grammar. I don't take kindly to the sort of comment you just made there.

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I'm sorry, that was very bad form. I'll remove it instantly. Like I hinted, I'm tired, I have been debugging all day and waiting for various tests to run. I may be a bit weird here at half past five.

Post deleted by KlGrAn

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As long as it is characters meeting it is fine but the moment there is an undercurrent of players meeting everything falls apart.


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The end of that sentence is a mess of bad grammar, so I'm hoping it was meant to go along the lines of "players meet and everything falls apart".

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Now who is being immature?

I'm Danish, you're Irish (or at least your location says you're in Ireland). Let me see you do better in my native language. Until that moment I would be a bit more humble about correcting grammar or spelling mistakes.

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Okay, I -have- to ask specific questions, since you're clearly not willing to come up with examples of the kind of thing you've seen at GG.

1: Do you think characters talking about mundane things like their daily lives is "light" or not "immersive"?

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No. OOC is Out Of Character, hence my gripe is not with any IC conversations. As long as it is characters meeting it is fine but the moment there is an undercurrent of players meeting everything falls apart.

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2: What do your characters talk about when they're not in a mission or otherwise trying to help people?

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Whatever fits their personality, the time of day and the company he/she is in. Of course, if something drastic has happened in the common history between him/her and another character that will propably be discussed unless there is some psychological barrier preventing this.

At other times simple conversational topics such as the weather, a (made up) article in a newspaper or anything else comes up.



[/ QUOTE ]3: What do your characters do in their "off time"? Do you actually play that sort of thing out?

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No, I do not play that sort of thing out with all characters. I have a very cerebral character who plays chess. I assume he is doing this in his off-screen time but use it in conversation. I have another who is very good at folding origami, which I type out in-game as if she is doing it right then and there.

I have another who is a rapid columnist, always writing about stuff in the newspaper. I send those pieces of text to my friends via in-game Email (if they want them) so they can comment on them, and quite a few write replies.

Two of my characters are politically active, one is boring and very conservative while the other is enthusiastic and idealistic to the point where it gets enervating.

4: Do your characters become emotionally involved in any way with other characters? We've had character fall in love, get married, lose their faith in humanity, be arrested, even die.
You can't roleplay without emotional connection between characters. I have a character that is married and another who is a widow (since the player got sent to Afghanistan on military duty). We roleplayed the death of her character and it was very emotional. Perhaps because we knew that she would leave IRL as well. Ah well, that's not too immersive, but it worked wonders for the mood!

Having now answered your simple questions let me state again: If GG is not what they seek, other venues are open to the wanting roleplayer.

You're right. This is silly. If what I have wrote makes you curious, send me a Private Message instead. I'll get back to you as soon as possible.

Union is your best bet for roleplayers.

Before this goes completely off track, you're all aware that I'm talking about RP at the GG location? I mean at/near/under/on the statue of the old girl. Not any derived roleplay that might happen following a meet at the statue (as I can't possibly say anything about that).

I just thought that was important as some posts have included what I see as references to other locations, sights, and expeditions. I'm just referring to the Galaxy Girl meetings at 9 PM.

If everybody got that I apologize for the redundant post.

I'm not saying the roleplaying that's going on at Galaxy Girl is rubbish, I'm saying it is not representative of the true variety available in CoH/CoV.

There really is a big difference. You might think it weird that I even point this out but having a wide circle of gaming friends means that I am sometimes asked about various games that I play. I convinced two of my friends to give CoH a try and they did. After reading up on the forum they went to Galaxy Girl one night and confronted me with the (in their and my view) low level of immersion and high rate of OOC the next day.

Some roleplayers are more into character development and an immersive environment. If you happen to belong to that camp you might think: "Holy cow, this game is NOT for me!" when coming to a GG meet.

That there are people (like the guy that wrote the guide) is important to point out. I'm sorry if I did it in my own tone and phrasing and people are offended, but you're really attacking me for having a different view on roleplaying. What I'm really doing is saying: "Don't worry, Galaxy Girl is not the be all and end all of roleplaying in CoH/CoV, so if you're as disappointed as I was, don't give up."

Like I wrote earlier, the percentage was clearly wrong, my mistake. Big mistake since everybody centered in on that single bit, leaving everything else basically untouched.

And don't get so annoyed with words like "better", "more", "higher" and so on. Everybody understands such terms are subjective to the person using them. Especially in written form. To me GG is not good enough.

I'll give the GG meet the benefit of the doubt and see if I'm really wrong. I'll drop by for 20-30 minutes two or three days every week until December. If the OOC is really gone then I stand corrected.

And before you ask: No, I'm not going to join in at all. I'm going to see if the atmosphere is really more than banter (OOC banter, IC banter is fine of course) and post the screenshots. I think it is silly documenting everything like this, but since substantiation is needed to air your view this is what it will become.

Please remember my point: Just because RP is light at GG doesn't mean RP isn't great elsewhere.

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You say this, and yet you slandered us for how we choose to roleplay.

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I was wrong. Actually I was so wrong that I'll gladly say it again. Sorry.

Immersive is for me:
Sit and look at the character selection screen. Deciding on the character to play by thinking about the various stories they are involved in and with what other people. All depending on how many others are online I normally decide to use the character where most of his/her friends/nemesises are online.

I always think about what happened last time I played, or I reread my notes (I keep character diaries for the important stuff, like what characters I know the names of, what characters I have met and when, basic oppinion about those characters to stay consistent and so on) to get into the mood for that character.

I log on and start moving about. Most of my characters are rather social beings (5 of 8) which means they are members of a Super Group. If I'm not too involved in a current story I'll propably drop by the base, if I am involved I'll venture into the city looking for friends (or people in trouble all depending on the character's outview on his/her role as a "hero").

All depending on who I meet I expand on a character/character relationship or extend the combined history of various groups/teams. OOC is totally avoided in public channels, but emotes are used a lot. We form various free-form teams depending on the need for outlines given to all in teamchat, or use tells if it is severely needed.

I hope that is a bit more detailed and explains my view of immersive roleplay a bit more.

Last note regarding morons ridiculing roleplayers: I have a bind that simply goes: /bind shift+i "tell $target, Roleplaying is not for everybody nor are your comments. I have therefore taken the liberty of ignoring you.$$ignore $target"
I know this does not make the problem go away for everybody, but those who are truly abusive are rarely possible to reason with in my experience.

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Since you seem to actually want to talk now and not simply troll (this wouldn't have something to do with me reporting three of your posts to the moderators?), I shall repeat my question.

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I have received no notification from the Moderators and after checking my inbox I can now safely say that I have received no notification at all. Yet.
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Which characters did you play? Who did you actually roleplay with? Or was it that you sat on the outside and watched, and never actually bothered trying?

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This shows that my current post is still not accurate enough. I have been by with various Characters, highest level was Divination and The Netherbeetle but that is beside the point: The atmosphere surrounding the GG meet is what is so off-putting. It is very obvious that this is real life persons meeting up, not vibrant Heroes of Paragon City meeting up at a fabulous statue of one of their famous own.

I hope I'm making myself a bit more clear now; the GG roleplay and atmosphere is on/off - it is not consistant and enduring. That's my point of contention.
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Arrogant? Yes, you come across as arrogant. You also come across as someone with a grudge.

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Can't contend with the arrogant bit, especially since I brought it up myself (and since I'm guilty of arrogance I must believe I'm right). I have no grudges though, although I have a very deep dislike for certain forms of forum behaviour.
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Pray, since an inactive account can be reactivated easily, why did you choose not to do so and started a new account? Where I an unkind person, I would assume you were banned and this is a second account you've created to get around the ban. However, I don't draw conclusions without evidence, unlike yourself.

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Not a bad theory. It is not correct, but how could you know? I have had serious problems with my account following the pre-ordering of City of Villains. Nothing seemed to work and after writing a very annoyed Email with my full references I got an answer back correcting the issue. It ended up with me having to give up my previous characters which I accepted on the grounds that I got three months free play and a free upgrade of CoV from standard to collector's edition. This was of little importance as most of my characters needed serious work anyway following I6, and I had several friends coming into CoH/CoV after we disbanded our WoW Guild for good. Like I said, how could you know?
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The number of times when GG falls into total OOC chatter can be counted on a couple of hands, and it's been running for a very long time. You spend a few days there and decide that your opinion is more important than that of all those who do attend? Arrogant indeed.

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I feel you're being overly defensive here. Roleplaying is a very varied activity and various schools or methods will naturally form in such a basically free-form activity.

I have outlined my preferred school in my edited post in this thread. What I find amusing is that I find I'm more in agreement with the RP Guide presented on the Player Guides forum (and linked from this forum) than I do with the on/off roleplaying going on daily at Galaxy Girl.

Roleplaying is the ultimate end-game to me. It allows me to create an alter ego with a personality completely unlike my own (or similar to my own, whatever I want) and if you let the game world envelop you for the hours you play, you have entertainment and amusement for many hours beyond the "boundary" set by the 50 levels of Experience.

The "few days" you describe are four or five weeks, three days a week. I can't normally play Mondays and Tuesdays nor weekends due to other commitments.

As my original post was completely out of line I have edited it.

EDIT: This post was way too harsh in its wording and not fair to anyone.

My apologies to those I offended.

My point with the post was that if the original poster is into immersive roleplaying with very little OOC content, the meetings at GG will likely be a huge disappointment.

I went to all meets at GG Wednesdays to Fridays last month (this is a new posting account as my old account was tied to an NC account that I have cancelled) and I found so much OOC (either marked as such or with double brackets) that I simply lost all feel for the world and immersion.

What my original post did not include was an explanation that I am into character driven roleplaying with a deep respect for the game world and background history. The ability to create and contribute to a continually developing story with colorful and/or complicated characters at its center is why I'm roleplaying. Both in Pen & Paper roleplaying and in City of Heroes.

To me the background history of City of Heroes offer a lot of possibilities and even though the environment at times are a bit of a challenge to make work in a good, continual and dramatic fashion, it is still quite doable.

I love roleplaying in City of Heroes but my standards are different. I want people to respect that and in my arrogance I forgot to respect the lighter tone of the Galaxy Girl meetings. I apologize most sincerely for this complete lack of understanding.