I hope I did not cause offence, but its true to say that a newbie getting dropped into all of this might be deterred, hell I dont know any of you, dont know what any of this is about (as its not my concern) but the first thing I thought when I looked in at this thread was "uhuh, looks like the spectre of rp politics has reared its ugly head again..shame"..All to often in rp games we tend to let minior issues grow into titanic proportions,when really the the only problem tends to be one of mis-communication.
Its a game, we're here to have fun and play/rp not judge each other 
Good point DavidG. Guys, let's all just play nice and agree that each has their own views as to RP. Anyone new to RP, feel free to visit GG and any other places for RPing, then make your own minds up as to what you prefer...
@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
The one thing you might try is RP'ing in a group. I know anyone who plays with Mr. Normal is subject to his 'interpretatiions'
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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.
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I can assure you that you're wrong. I'm quite sure Bridger can assure you that you're wrong.
And I'm not going to pass the slightest comment on the rest of your post.
Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.
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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.
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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.
I do my best to give everyone a little slack, as I appreciate how much this game means to many of us (myself included). However, I do not apply the rules preferentially to some and not to others.
If you or anyone else feels that I am displaying some form of bias in my moderation, please PM me and we can discuss the matter. There is always more to learn, and I try my best to do so as often as I can.
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1: Do you think characters talking about mundane things like their daily lives is "light" or not "immersive"?
2: What do your characters talk about when they're not in a mission or otherwise trying to help people?
3: What do your characters do in their "off time"? Do you actually play that sort of thing out?
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.
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I'm going to jump in on this one, and probably shouldn't as it conflicts with the GG crowd, however it explains why I've never really got stuck in there.
The points you raised are the reason I don't tend to get on with a lot of MMOG roleplayers - the subject matter is mundane. I'm playing a character who has super-powers, lives in a place where crime is everywhere, where excitement is just around the corner, where you have 3 dimensions to run, jump and prowl around and yet you choose to do the majority of organised, group roleplay standing around talking about precious little.
This medium is not limited in the ways IRC are, or limited in the ways P&P roleplay is - you have a full environment to play with! Use your imagination and roleplay contacts to do something action oriented - it doesn't have to be violent, but the "sitting around talking about the mundane" style of roleplay doesn't do it for me one jot.
What does Doctor Ego do when he's not being (anti)heroic? He sleeps (logs off), researches his next quarry (logs off), spends time assisting the authorities (logs off) and so on. When I am inhabiting the good Doctor he is all action all the time. He gets plenty of time to sit around doing nothing when I'm not around.
Admittedly I have only attended a dozen or so GG evenings, however on every occasion nothing happened.
Given the choice between standing around waiting for my turn to talk or jumping up and down in the fountain in from of Atlas for 20 minutes I'd choose the later as it would be more fun - and far less dry (the pun is deliberate).
Don't get me wrong, everyone is free to roleplay in their own fashion and what works for the majority is absolutely fine by me, but talking is less preferable. After all, you wouldn't do a P&P D&D campaign which resolved solely around sitting in a tavern griping about the price of mead... or would you?
Not trying to say anyone is wrong or that I am right per se, however personally I find the GG style of MMOG roleplay extraordinarily dull.
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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.
I do my best to give everyone a little slack, as I appreciate how much this game means to many of us (myself included). However, I do not apply the rules preferentially to some and not to others.
If you or anyone else feels that I am displaying some form of bias in my moderation, please PM me and we can discuss the matter. There is always more to learn, and I try my best to do so as often as I can.
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Interesting to see you saying that, Bridger, since I did, and did not have the pleasure of receiving an answer to what I believed to be a very fair point.
Don't make promises you can't keep, it's considered hypocritical.
Doctor_Ego:
Any suggestions you could do to make it less 'dull' for some people? The problem I see, and with RP in missions too, is the lack of a DM client to handle events.
I've 'DM'ed' several missions now, and I can honestly say it's an uphill struggle. Could try and do it with the in-game fare of missions, but to be honest I find it a bit pointless. Nothing ever changes. The Justifier is still in need of rescue how many times you do it, Clockwork roam the streets even if you arrest the King, you can't stop a shop, bank or home being robbed, or stop people loading stolen goods onto the ships. Just my oppinon and view on the matter. I can't do anything to affect the world as a whole, especially in a way such as an open RP enviroment, so I do the only thing I can and affect my characters lives instead. Some may find it dull, some may not. The way GG works at the moment means you don't have to read through a backlog of history to interact. There are advantages and disadvantages to that, but in a game lacking RP'er friendly features, I, for sure, make do and improvise what I can.
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I'm going to jump in on this one, and probably shouldn't as it conflicts with the GG crowd, however it explains why I've never really got stuck in there....
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Responding to pretty much everything you said here, so bear with me.
That's fine, you prefer to play the "mask" side to superheroes. I think a lot of the GG crowd enjoy the dual-identity element of trying to balance out a normal life with their other activities. I know I do. It's my favourite thing about the superhero genre, trying to find a balance between incredible encounters with criminals and monsters with a normal life, pursuing a normal person's desires and goals, while at the same time trying to help others.
But that's my preference. I like to play out as many aspects of my character's life as I can, really get a full feel for the storyline.
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This medium is not limited in the ways IRC are, or limited in the ways P&P roleplay is - you have a full environment to play with!
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This is the only part where I feel the need to disagree. I think a computer game is always going to be more limited than IRC or pen and paper roleplaying. The only limit to IRC or PnP is imagination, and you can literally do whatever you want. Sure, CoH's chat system allows us to do that, but people will always place a great emphasis on the visual representations on-screen, not to mention the fact that we can't actually effect the game world.
I think this is teetering extremely close to one of those "my way's better than yours" debates.
How about we sum it up like so: RP happens on all the servers. RP is most associated with Union. RP on Union is most associated with the nightly meet at Galaxy Girl. Not everyone will like this particular type of RP. You are not forced to go to GG at gun point. Attempting to change GG is like trying to soak up the oceans with one sheet of already soggy toilet paper. If you don't like it, don't go. And above all, no matter what, it's only a game. There are more important things in life to get wound up about.
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I think this is teetering extremely close to one of those "my way's better than yours" debates.
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Actually it teetered and fell off the cliff around the time we got told we were a dictatorship.
Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.
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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
So don't say "clique". We happen to be a group of friends, and we respect each others' opinions, as any group of friends would.
Allow me to shed some light... There's a core of players, who actually started the whole meet off. Only three of the original players are left; Wordmaker, Ravenswing and Zortel.
Through time, others have joined, and anyone can join, it's free for all to join, it isn't restricted. The only rule going, is to respect one another and not to place judgement based on someone else's roleplay. If you don't like it, simply don't play with those you don't wish to play with.
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Clique not meant in a derogatory way, replace with Band, Society, Circle, Coven, Batch, Cult, Union, Club, or any other word at your leasure.
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I know English is not your native tongue and this is in no way a criticism of your grammar or any form of attack whatsoever, but I just feel I should point out that although you don't mean clique to be derogatory, the word itself implies a negative attitude to those being described as such. That's just one of those things with this amazing mongrel language known as English, words have meaning beyond what they mean.
Erp! That sounded slightly existential... 
Anyway, how about we just stop and agree to disagree on the points that we aren't agreeing about? Like I said above, RP is only a game. There are much more important things to get het up about. Like why when a cat does the toilet inside the house, it only smells after you find it?
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RP is only a game
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Is that why they look at me so funny in ASDA? 
Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.
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RP is only a game
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Is that why they look at me so funny in ASDA?
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Nah, they do that to everybody.
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RP is only a game
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Is that why they look at me so funny in ASDA?
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No, no, in Asgard 
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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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That's fine, you prefer to play the "mask" side to superheroes. I think a lot of the GG crowd enjoy the dual-identity element of trying to balance out a normal life with their other activities. I know I do. It's my favourite thing about the superhero genre, trying to find a balance between incredible encounters with criminals and monsters with a normal life, pursuing a normal person's desires and goals, while at the same time trying to help others.
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What about the characters who are physically challenged to do so? Just asking out of curiosity as I'm on Defiant and have 2 out of 4 chars who share a background with the standard science-background and in their case physical deformities making it impossible to alter-ego to a 'normal' person. One advantage is that it makes costume changes real easy on me because there isn't too much that can change anyway. (How would I explain my chitinous skin can change colour every 30 secs if I did change it?)
Those chars would stand out pretty hard in the crowd at GG I guess. And I have seen other heroes with horns or other traits that just are impossible to hide.
Disclaimer: Once again, no flaming/criticism intended as I obviously never attended any event on Union (not that I think my message conveys those in any way).
My Miss Ellie character does fine, not that her hero identity is much of secret seeing as she's both part cat, and Kheldian, and glows all the time!
She manages a (not so) private life in conjunction with her life as the hero Tiger White reasonably well, though the two get muddied together fairly often! 
@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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(How would I explain my chitinous skin can change colour every 30 secs if I did change it?)
[/ QUOTE ] You could write it up in your description, or do some creative use of SG Mode colour changes.
And even if your character has such physical characteristics, there are others at GG who do. Demonic looking monsters, mutants with odd skin colours, giant lobster in a hat, beastmen.
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Those chars would stand out pretty hard in the crowd at GG I guess. And I have seen other heroes with horns or other traits that just are impossible to hide.
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Less then you think. It's the 'personal identity' that ussually visits the GG statue, but a lot of them do so in costume.
My own character has green skin, and introduces herself as 'Grav' to strangers, instead of Jessica. She can hide her green skin, but she chooses not to.
We also have some demon looking regulars (well.. one has been 'cured'). And they fit in quite nicely... some other new commers might look strangely upon them at first, but that's to be expected...
@ShadowGhost & @Ghostie
The Grav Mistress, Mistress of Gravity
If you have nothing useful to say, you have two choices: Say something useless or stay quiet.
Well, unfortunately, there seems to be little obvious backstory to explain how Paragon deals with the whole "secret identity" issue. The comics, and Dev comments about requests for a Secret Identity Mode on characters, would suggest that when a person registers as a hero, they do so revealing who they really are. Being a hero becomes their job, as it were.
At GG we get a mix of players whose characters keep their true identity a secret, whose true names are known to the public, and those who don't really make an effort to hide who they are, but don't exactly broadcast it, either.
When I mentioned that I enjoyed playing the persoanl life of my character, I didn't mean that GG is where we go playing our secret identities. Many people, including myself, do in fact do this, but we also arrive as our heroes in full costume, if our characters are the type to socialise like that.
There tends to be a focus on getting to know characters in terms of their daily lives, beyond fighting crime and other heroic deeds.
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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.